Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather recently said the million unoccupied properties around the country could help address the housing crisis, but unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
Australia remains in the grip of a housing crisis, and renters are going to face steep rent increases for at least the next year.
A million vacant homes? It’s more complicated than that.Credit: Paul Rovere
The Greens want the federal government to cap rental increases, and in an interview on ABC’s Insiders on Sunday Chandler-Mather said demand wasn’t the main issue.
“What we know is that there were a million vacant properties on the night of the census in 2021, a million vacant properties,” he said when asked what role he believed migration played in the housing crisis.
“I just want to be very clear, we have enough homes for people to live in. We have enough construction materials to build the homes for the new people coming to this country.
Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“What we don’t have is the political will to take on a housing system [and] property developers who constrict supply to make money for themselves and treat housing as a huge speculative asset.”
Chandler-Mather isn’t the first person to question the appropriate use of all these homes.
When the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest Census data in 2022 showing there were 1,043,776 unoccupied homes on Census night, some media outlets and commentators were quick to say that housing could be put to immediate, better use amid the ongoing housing crisis.
No, Max, we don’t really have a million vacant houses
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19.02.2024
Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather recently said the million unoccupied properties around the country could help address the housing crisis, but unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
Australia remains in the grip of a housing crisis, and renters are going to face steep rent increases for at least the next year.
A million vacant homes? It’s more complicated than that.Credit: Paul........
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