For many Sydneysiders, renting or trying to rent is a brutal reminder of their true powerlessness in a society that values homeownership as shelter and investment. Through no fault of their own, renters have been made to pay the spiralling costs for a roof over their heads while owners continue to receive all sorts of assistance to ease their burden.

Shut out: Would-be tenants wait to inspect a property in Chippendale.Credit: Ben Rushton

Little has been done to help tenants face the runaway train of paying rent in Sydney. But the realisation they may shape the future of politics in marginal seats has raised the possibility that renters possess powers never realised.

Two Millennial Liberal state MPs, Matt Cross and Chris Rath, are urging the party to borrow from founder Robert Menzies’ playbook and embrace renters as the new “forgotten people”, with Rath warning that failure to do so would make them unelectable for decades. The MPs told the Herald’s Max Maddison that the party should adopt policies aimed at supporting renters, including long-term rental agreements of three years or more, replacing bonds on rental properties with “simple insurance products” to protect landlords and allowing first homebuyers to access superannuation accounts.

For renters, Sydney’s longstanding affordability problem has mutated since the pandemic. Supply shortages, successive interest rate hikes and migration-fuelled demand have made it a leading cause of high inflation, cost-of-living pressures and homelessness.

According to the latest Domain Rent Report, asking rents for a typical Sydney house hit $750 a week after rising 13.6 per cent – or $90 a week – over the year to March. The median asking rent for units hit $700, a 12.9 per cent increase – or $80 a week – in the same period. In the last two years especially, rents have soared, exacerbating housing stress and carving into usually comfortable middle-class households. A poll by the nonpartisan charity Susan McKinnon Foundation of 3000 respondents in late 2023 found the cost of living was the most pressing issue for 80 per cent of Gen Zs and 78 per cent of renters.

Rental data reveals 10 of the state’s 20 marginal seats have among the highest concentrations of renters. Balmain, Winston Hills, Epping, Oatley, Drummoyne, Ryde, Holsworthy, East Hills, Riverstone and Terrigal are all above the NSW average of rental bonds per 100 households, so it is quite possible that Millennials and Gen Zs priced out of the housing market will make renting an issue that could be pivotal in determining the next elections.

The rental crisis represents a huge challenge to governments and oppositions. So far, they’ve fiddled around the edges, changing a bit here, a bit there, but the problem remains recalcitrant and continues to worsen.