Housing for all!

Victorian Socialists stand for renters, and for all those struggling just to keep a roof over their heads. Secure, quality housing should be a right, not a money-making opportunity for the rich. 

Since coming to power in 2022 Labor has done nothing to address the inhuman irrationality of a housing system that funnels wealth from the least well off people in society to the wealthiest, and consigns increasing numbers to extreme housing insecurity or homelessness.

Even among those who can find a place to live, many are struggling. Rents are soaring and working-class home buyers are being crushed by high interest rates - while landlords and banks are enjoying a profit windfall. 

Every year, the gap between the housing ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ widens. If left unaddressed this deepening inequality will have repercussions across all aspects of society for many years to come. 

Reflecting our commitment to fighting for housing justice, we recently established a new party rule that no landlords will be eligible to run in elections as a Victorian Socialists candidate. Real change won’t come through the parliament of landlords that rules over us today.

What we think

1. Access to secure, quality housing is a fundamental social right.
2. Homelessness and housing insecurity is a result of a competitive, market driven society, organised around private ownership of residential property.
3. Housing should not be a means by which some people amass wealth at the expense of others.

We'll fight to

1. Tackle homelessness and the housing shortfall by provision of commonwealth funding for quality, carbon-neutral public housing, with the goal of building 1 million new public housing units over the next decade.
2. Establish a public builder to undertake the construction of these 1 million new homes.
3. Impose a five-year freeze on rent increases and cap subsequent increases at whichever is lower, at the time, out of the Consumer Price Index and the Wage Price Index.
4. Scrap negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount for all investment properties.
5. Establish a National Rental Inspectorate (NRI) tasked with developing and enforcing a set of legally binding minimum rental standards covering amenity, safety, energy efficiency, and thermal comfort.
6. Implement a new system of mandatory ‘rentworthy checks’, administered by the NRI, to be completed each time a property is advertised for rent and once every two years in between.
7. Conduct an annual housing audit to identify properties left vacant. Properties found to have been left empty for 12 months without a valid reason will be seized and allocated to people on the public housing waiting list.
8. Introduce a new national planning framework with mandatory ‘inclusionary zoning’ so that in all Australian states and territories developers will be compelled to include a percentage of truly affordable housing as part of all major developments.