ACT Greens MLA Jo Clay was particularly scathing of the other parties voting down her bill. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
The ACT Greens have failed in their bid to freeze rents in the Territory for two years, and pass a raft of other measures they said were designed to help renters.
The Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill 2024 was first introduced to the Legislative Assembly by Jo Clay in February 2024 as part of a second push to increase renters’ rights in the ACT.
Previously, the government banned no-cause evictions and rent bidding by landlords and real estate agencies, and introduced minimum rental standards.
This bill took things a step further, not only wanting a rent freeze but capping rent increases to a flat 2 per cent, banning all forms of rent bidding (including from potential tenants), tying a lease to a property rather than the tenants, and removing the provision that allows for rent increases above the cap between residential tenancies.
ACT Labor and the Canberra Liberals weren’t buying the argument these changes would increase the rental vacancy rate and drive rent prices down.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr said while he understood the Greens had a national campaign for rent freezes, the party shouldn’t try to “shoehorn” the policy into Territory settings.
“Our rental market and regulations are not like those in [other capital cities],” he said.
“Poorly designed regulations, such as the rent freezes proposed in the bill, would have the effect of reducing the supply of rental properties, exacerbating challenges for lower-income households by re-directing existing stock to owner-occupiers.”
He pointed to research from the Grattan Institute and the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute that showed “rash interventions” into the market could put renters in a more vulnerable position and that the government needed to make sure “populist ideas” didn’t have adverse consequences.
“We’re not supportive of rent freezes or further rent caps as proposed in the legislation,” Mr Barr said.
“The flaws, in both policy terms and economic terms [in this proposed legislation] … are clear.”
Mr Barr said if rent freezes had been introduced when they were first proposed, people would have been locked into higher rents than currently exist.
ACT Labor’s policy is to increase housing supply alongside what he described as “sensible” regulation.
“I think we are on the right path, but of course, there is more to do, and that ‘more to do’ is more housing supply,” Mr Barr said.
Shadow Housing Minister Mark Parton also said the Canberra Liberals wouldn’t support the proposed legislation as he believed the research showed it would achieve the opposite of what the ACT Greens wanted to achieve.
He described it as an “electoral tool for the Greens” and warned it would decrease the vacancy rate and put off mum-and-dad investors.
Homelessness Minister Rebecca Vassarotti was one of several ACT Greens who tried to advocate for the legislation, stating that tax breaks had “rigged” the housing market to create wealth rather than provide safe places for people to live.
“The private housing market has failed,” she said.
The cost-of-living crisis has seen an uptick in people seeking homelessness and other support services, which Ms Vassarotti said was driven by a “cooked housing market” and a lack of public housing in the ACT.
“This bill stands up for the rights of renters. It stands up for the rights of people who are doing it tough,” she said.
“It has the potential to have a meaningful and a direct impact on the cost-of-living crisis.”
ACT Greens backbencher Jo Clay refuted the argument that all aspects of the bill would negatively affect the rental market.
She argued that the ACT already had a rent freeze, as ACT landlords can only put the rent up once every 12 months, and if it had come into place sooner, it wouldn’t have locked people into higher rents.
“A rent freeze is about the maximum you can charge … it doesn’t mean you have to charge the maximum,” Ms Clay said.
“This would give us emergency cost-of-living relief now.”
She expressed her disappointment that no agreement could be reached to pass at least some components of the bill.
“Neither party considered any of [our] measures on their merits and simply voted the whole package down,” Ms Clay said.
“It is clear that the old parties simply do not care about renters or, at the very least, have their head in the sand about just how hard it is for renters right now.
“In simply dismissing the bill, Labor and the Liberals have shown they are more interested in the bottom line of investor landlords than keeping a roof over renters’ heads.”
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