Queensland is in a massive housing crisis. 

Rents have gone up by $330 a fortnight since 2021. Buying your first home has never been harder, with house prices continuing to skyrocket. And if you’ve managed to scrape together just enough to buy your own home, rising interest rates are making it harder and harder to meet your mortgage repayments.

But right now Labor and the LNP keep backing policies that make it harder and harder for everyday people to afford a home, and instead make it easier for banks and big property investors to get rich.

The Greens are the only party fighting to make renting and housing cheaper, and to truly end the housing crisis here in Queensland. We’ll freeze and cap rents, give renters real security by guaranteeing a right to a lease renewal, penalise property investors who leave properties empty without a good reason, and build tens of thousands of new public homes.

Freeze rents and guarantee lease renewals

Unlimited rent increases continue to keep homeownership out of reach for many while pushing thousands into financial stress and homelessness. The Greens are fighting to:

• Freeze rents for two years followed by a 1% cap on rent increases 
• Implement long-term rent caps. After the two year rent freeze finishes, rent increases will be capped at 1% per year. 
• Give renters a guaranteed right to a lease renewal. Agents and landlords will be required to renew all fixed term leases unless they have a good reason not to.
• Let renters make their house a home by increasing the notice period to refuse a lease renewal to 6 months. 

I’ve moved two private member’s Bills this term that would do just this – my rent freeze Bill here and my broader renters’ rights Bill here – but sadly Labor refused to support either of them.

Right now Labor is pushing new rental reforms through parliament – but in the middle of the worst housing crisis we’ve seen in our lifetime, Labor is only looking to do some basic changes to tenancy laws. They don’t limit the amount rents can increase by. They don’t stop renters from being refused a lease renewal for no real reason at the end of a lease.

Labor says this is as far as they will go for renters and the LNP won’t say if they support even these modest changes. So head here to sign my pledge and join thousands of other renters in telling Labor and the LNP: renters won't vote for a party that won't back renters.

A mass build of public housing

Since 2015 Labor has only added on average 230 homes each year to the total social housing stock in Queensland. When the current social housing waitlist now sits at over 43,000 Queenslanders, this just isn’t nearly enough.

The Greens took to the 2020 state election a plan to build 25,000 public homes a year over the next four years. The plan included:

• Establishing a Queensland Housing Trust that will finance the construction of 100,000 public homes over the next four years and 250,000 homes over 10 years, with a long term target of 20% of all housing stock as public housing
• Seed funding the Queensland Housing Trust with $11 billion over 10 years, raised via a levy on the big banks and higher royalties on mining corporations
• Allocating homes to those currently on Queensland’s social housing waiting list, then make available to every Queenslander regardless of income
• Setting rent at 25% of income or market rent, whichever is lower
• Introducing democratic housing and tenancy management models

I’ve been using every opportunity I have over the last four years to advocate for this and to call out the government for their inadequate public housing build plans. We’re currently working on our public housing build plan to take with us to the October state election.

Supporting rough sleepers

Skyrocketing rents are pushing people out of the private rental market and onto the ever-growing social housing waiting list. And decades of underfunding of public housing in Queensland by both Labor and the LNP has also left people with next-to-no safety net.

Our local housing support services do amazing work, but their job is incredibly hard when there just isn’t enough housing that is affordable and suitable. So lots of people have no other option than to sleep in a tent in our local parks. 

My team and I have been doing everything we can to support locals who are sleeping rough, as well as advocating for the Housing Minister to step in and come up with a solution to house them. Over the last year my office and some amazing local volunteers have delivered 2,000 free meals to people sleeping rough in Musgrave Park and Kurilpa Point.

Ahead of the Paniyiri Festival in Musgrave Park, we’ve used this opportunity to ramp up the pressure on the government to house the people sleeping in the park. At the time of writing, there’s only a handful of tents left in the park, down from about 60. You can read a quick recap on the campaign here. 

While I’m so grateful for this massive win for the folks who were sleeping in the park,  I’m mindful that it’s unlikely that this will be the end of people having to sleep in parks around our neighbourhoods. Until we stop skyrocketing rents, until we address the huge shortage of public housing, more and more people are going to find themselves without a roof over their head.

Empty homes levy

Rental vacancy rates are at record lows across Queensland. The situation is so dire that many families have no choice but to sleep in cars or tents. Meanwhile, 87,000 homes across Queensland are sitting empty.

That’s why the Greens are proposing an Empty Homes Levy on investors who deliberately leave residential properties empty. By making it costly to leave a property empty, the Levy will put tens of thousands of homes back on the rental market. 

The Greens are fighting for an Empty Homes Levy that would charge any property investor who leaves their residential property empty for six months or more in a year a 5% levy on the value of the property. We’d also apply this levy to vacant land that could reasonably be developed for housing to discourage developers and investors from land banking. 

I introduced a Bill that would do just this in 2022, but again Labor refused to support it. You can read more about our Empty Homes Levy here.