Australia’s chronic shortage of affordable housing will be at the top of Mary’s mind when she casts her ballot for Australia’s national election on Saturday.
The 59-year-old former postal worker, along with her daughter and her dog, has been living in regional New South Wales for two years.
Mary can’t afford the median weekly rent on a home or apartment of 560 dollars (US $360), despite receiving a fortnightly old age pension of 1051.30 Australian dollars ($ $673) and seasonal hospitality and retail jobs.
Mary attempted to apply for social housing after being told the waiting list was “very, very long,” but instead she was given the option to use her first name.
According to Mary, “We landed here without any work because the money we had had later went on rent.”
“We must now pay for storage, or we’ll lose everything.” a circumstance in which I had no idea I would ever find myself.
Although she is not enthusiastic about any of the main parties, she intends to support Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor Party, which is in favor of winning the party’s return to power.
“I’ll likely vote for Labor even though neither party is doing enough. She referred to Peter Dutton’s liberal Liberal Party-National Party Coalition as the conservative candidate for president and said, “I never vote for Coalition.”
They are opaque, based on “flipping up” their own bank balances and those of their elite friends, at the expense of those who pay taxes, which so many politicians avoid,” I think.
In a race for the top spot in an election where concerns about the rising cost of living dominate, Australia’s property and rental prices are among the top issues.
Some of the highest house prices on earth are found in Australia, a nation obsessed with property.
According to the most recent Demographia International Housing Affordability survey, Sydney, the nation’s largest city, has a median price-to-income ratio of 13.8 out of 94 urban centers worldwide.
A household in Sydney must earn about 280, 000 Australian dollars annually (US $ 180,00) to afford the median house price of 1.4 million Australian dollars (US $ 0.9 million), according to research conducted by property consultancy PropTrack.
Campaigners claim neither party appears to be ready to address the problem’s root causes, despite the fact that both Labor and the Coalition have made a number of policy proposals to improve housing affordability.
The Liberals have promised to train more construction apprentices, invest in essential infrastructure, and let younger Australians withdraw their pensions early to pay for their housing deposit, while Labor has pledged to build 100 000 homes for first-time buyers and increase financial support.
Both parties have taken aim at foreigners and immigration, with Albanese announcing a two-year ban on non-citizens buying existing homes earlier this year.
The main cause of the housing crisis has been identified as a lack of supply, according to economists.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia’s housing stock per capita was the lowest among developed nations, with 400 houses per 1000, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Although housing supply has increased since that time, demand driven by record-breaking inward migration has pushed up the price.
Australia’s population increased by 2.1 percent in 2024, despite the nation’s birthrate reaching its lowest point in 17 years.
Particularly the construction of social housing has fallen behind.
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 169, 000 households were on a waiting list for public housing in 2023.
Many older women, in particular, find it harder to find housing because their male counterparts have lower pensions, according to Yumi Lee, CEO of Older Women’s Network NSW.
According to a report from KPMG for 2021, women between the ages of 60 and 64 had on average 57, 207 Australian dollars (US$ 36, 608) less in their pension pot than men.
It’s not a matter of luck, it’s a matter of neglect, Lee told Al Jazeera, but so many older women are having to choose between paying for rent, food, or medicine.
After being forced to sell her family home after her divorce, Kris, a 71-year-old pensioner in the Blue Mountains, near Sydney, claimed she nearly became homeless last year.
According to Kris, who requested the use of a pseudonym, “I hear story after story of this sort of happening.”
Experts claim that a number of factors, including lack of tradespeople and NIMBYism, have contributed to the housing shortage.
Housing advocates have pointed fingers at negative gearing, a type of tax relief that allows landlords to write off losses from their investment property, in a more contentious way.
After suffering two consecutive election defeats, Labor abandoned the proposals after promising to reduce negative gearing in the 2022 election.
Everybody’s Home’s national spokesperson, Maiy Azize, claimed neither of the major parties appeared interested in addressing the issue.
We need someone to step up and take the first steps, Azize told Al Jazeera, noting that this crisis took decades to create and will take decades to fix.
“They could make a big impact really quickly if a party was inclined to start a program to really boost social housing and implement that tax reform,” she said.
The federal and state governments should develop nationally uniform rental laws, according to Bernie Barrett, the acting CEO of Better Renting,  .
According to Barrett, whose organization has rated Labor as “slow” and the Liberals as “getting worse” for progress on rental policies, “our issues have largely been ignored by politicians and policymakers” despite the fact that about 30% of Australians rent their homes.
Andrea Leong, a 38-year-old renter and microbiologist who resides in Gryandler, New South Wales’ electorate, describes how neglected both major parties are.
“We have been given the notion that owning a home is the Australian dream,” says the Australian government. Leong remarked to Al Jazeera, “Renting your home is seen as an unfortunate or temporary situation.”
Source: Aljazeera
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