The Greens are calling on the Federal government to freeze rent increases for two years, claiming that rental affordability is becoming an increasing issue for the nation.
Greens spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather said a nationwide freeze would allow incomes to catch up to the sky-rocketing prices, as per The Guardian.
“An emergency rent freeze will give wages and incomes time to catch up to rents, which over the last 12 months have grown seven times faster than wages in capital cities,” he said.
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“A rent freeze will help those communities rebuild, tackle the skills shortage and protect livelihoods.”
The Greens spokesperson also said that a rental freeze would prevent a ‘national tragedy’ from unfolding as families continue to suffer from growing inflation.
"Rents are out of control, millions of Australian renters are struggling to pay the rent, and unless the government wants to see more families sleeping in their cars they need to do their job and act now to stop this crisis boiling over into a national tragedy," he said.
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A recent report conducted by advocacy group Everybody’s Home revealed that unfulfilled jobs are due to the lack of homes available for workers, particularly in regional towns.
Economist Angela Jackson, and the author of the report, explained to The Australia: “The housing market is very important – people can’t move to jobs if they don’t have a house to move to.
“Adequate housing and affordable housing across Australia allows the labour market to work more effectively and efficiently, and improve labour mobility more broadly.”
The report also supports CoreLogics' quarterly rent review, which shows the national rental index increased by 0.9 per cent in the month to June and 2.9 per cent over the June quarter.
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It was revealed that over the past year, rent in capital cities has climbed to a 9.1 per cent increase and 10.8 per cent in regional areas.
CoreLogic research analyst Kaytlin Ezzy said: “This sustained period of strong rental growth has seen national dwellings record the highest annual growth in rental values since December 2008.”
However, Economist for the Grattan Institute, Brendan Coates told ABC News that freezing rental prices isn’t the best solution.
Labour should instead shift their focus to increasing rent assistance.
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"The priority really should be raising the rate of rent assistance by at least 40 per cent," he said.
"That would cost about $1.5 billion today each and every year and also the Commonwealth, the government should be pushing the states to reform land use planning rules that allow more housing to be built.
"Because we know that planning rules make it very difficult for developers and people to build more housing in the middle ring suburbs of their major cities."
Featured Image Credit: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy/Alamy. Andrii Lysenko/AlamyTopics: News, Australia, Politics