Australia’s rental marketis at a crisis point. Vacancy rates remain at record lows around the country,while recent figures from property company CoreLogic showed asking rents across capital cities rose by a record 11.7 per cent over the past year.
Asked if the May 9 budget needed to include an increase to Commonwealth rent assistance,Collins said the federal government could not fix the system overnight.
“There is no silver bullet. What we’re doing is working as quickly as we can with states and territories to turn around what are very serious housing challenges in Australia,” she said on ABC’sRN Breakfast on Thursday.
The country’s housing ministers met on Wednesday for their first discussion about strengthening tenants’ rights around Australia. Rules around pet ownership,inspections and rent increases currently vary widely from state to state.
Chris Martin,a senior research fellow at UNSW’s City Futures Research Centre,said the first thing states and territories should do was end no-fault evictions.
“It’s the single-most important tenancy law reform that states and territories should be committing to,” he said.