The Greens have their eyes firmly focused on winning over renters at the next election, with a new policy aimed at giving tenants more power in resolving disputes with their landlords.
The Greens have announced plans to establish a national renters protection authority which would only deal with tenancy disputes, including enforcing national minimum standards the party has put forward, covering ventilation, heating, cooling and insulation.
Costed at $200m a year by the parliamentary budget office, based on the Greens rental policies, the NRPA would have 1,000 staff across the nation “allowing them to investigate rental breaches as well as offering advocacy, advice and education to renters all around the country”.
The Greens say investigators with the proposed body would be able to issue fines of up to $18,780 to real estate agencies found to have breached the rules, as well as on-the-spot fines of up to $3,756. The fines would increase for “serial offenders”.
The agency would take the place of state and territory administrative tribunals, which are often overwhelmed with rental disputes, particularly over bond payments.
With polling showing that a hung parliament will be a likely outcome at the next election, the Greens are looking to hold the balance of power and see one of Australia’s forgotten demographics – its 7 million tenants – as one of the pathways.
The proposed agency would sit as the centrepiece of the Greens’ array of rental policies, which include a two-year rental freeze and ongoing caps of 2% for increases, measures the government is not entertaining as part of its own suite of housing policies.
The minor party also wants the right to guaranteed lease renewals and access to five-year leases, arguing that tenants deserve better security when it comes to their rental properties.
The government responded to growing anger from tenants earlier in the year by convening the state and territory leaders for a national cabinet to discuss rental reforms. The result was an agreement to work towards national minimal standards for properties, consistency on reasonable grounds for eviction and limiting rental increases to once a year.
But little has changed and, amid growing anger, the Greens see an electoral advantage.
The party’s leader, Adam Bandt, said both major parties had abandoned renters, treating them as “second-class citizens”.
“Unlimited rent increases should be illegal,” he said. “Unliveable rentals should be illegal. That’s what a national renters protection authority would achieve.
“Labor and the Liberals think they can tinker around the edges with a fundamentally broken housing system but renters will punish them at the ballot box.”
The party’s housing spokesperson, Max Chandler-Mather, said the nation needed an agency dedicated to renters.
“What’s the point of minimum standards for renters if there’s nobody to call when the landlord or real estate breaks the rules?” he said.
“There will be no more pleading with the landlord to send a plumber, fix the heater or send an electrician – it’s your right to have a livable rental home, and the Greens will make that a reality.”
The housing minister, Clare O’Neil, has said she is “intensely concerned” about Australia’s rental crisis and promised “profound and transformative” investment from the government to increase housing supply.
But the government has not changed its policy positions. Labor, after fierce negotiation with the Greens, which included more immediate funding for social and affordable housing, passed its housing future fund that is touted to build an additional 30,000 homes over five years.
Its shared equity plan, help to buy, and the development incentive build-to-rent remain stalled in the Senate, with Labor and the Greens locked in a negotiation impasse.
The Coalition has also withheld support, unless the government agrees to its super for housing policy, another measure Labor has previously ruled out.
On Sunday the Liberal senator Andrew Bragg raised the possibility of withholding GST from the states unless they accelerated domestic housebuilding, which has not previously been raised as one of the Coalition’s policies. Bragg said “everything was under consideration”.
• This article was amended on 2 September 2024. As part of its housing future fund, Labor has pledged to build 30,000 homes over five years, not annually as an earlier version said.
