Tenant education needs to be a focus, not calls for rent controls
Tuesday, 30 August 2022
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Tuesday, 30 August 2022
Tenant advocate groups, such as Renter's United, continue to apply pressure to improve tenant conditions, acting as a lobby group. They directed their focus on councils with local body elections taking place, which isn't a silly idea. Local councils have significant, often underutilised power, including the right to inspect properties, ensuring that they comply with relevant legislation. Paul Hunt, the Chief Human Rights Commissioner, made similar demands in a recent opinion piece in Stuff. Hunt believes that it's unfair to burden tenants with enforcing compliance and that Tenancy Services should do this.
The ideology of such demands isn't without logic. However, with an estimated 600,000 rental properties across the country, the cost, and logistics of creating such a task force, would be substantial. The one thing the public sector doesn't need is more bureaucrats. Our bloated public sector has grown significantly under this current government, and it's debatable whether this has improved renter conditions.
Hunt's article felt like another attack on landlords and property managers, basically accusing the sector of widespread discrimination. He also suggested that the government implement another ideological yet ill-thought-through claim for rent controls.
In March 2021, an article I wrote grabbed the attention of the national media. I predicted that we'd see the implementation of rent controls following the government's knee-jerk reaction to a housing crisis by nullifying the ability of landlords to offset interest against income. I argued that this would have a significant detrimental impact on the amount of tax that landlords would have to pay. Landlords would be forced to increase rent significantly to counter the added cost, and the government would look to enforce rent controls. Sure enough, many regions have witnessed previously unseen rent increases as many landlords vacated the market, leading to a lack of supply and more costs being burdened on landlords.
Hunt believes that there's a 'power imbalance' favouring landlords as tenants are too afraid to take landlords to task for fear that it will affect their chances of getting another rental.
Tenants have, in fact, never had as many rights as they now do. The last few years have seen the following changes introduced to protect the rights of tenants:
Tenant education requires improvement. In his article, Hunt references a case where a father was going to be made homeless through fear of retribution from a landlord who failed to repair a heater. If the Human Rights Commission had given this father the correct advice, he would have had nothing to fear, and the heater would have been repaired.
Rent controls don't work. Better education of tenants and their advocacy groups is the best and most affordable way of protecting tenant rights.
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