The Hobart Planning Committee’s recommended ban on new permits for entire homes to be used as short-stay accommodation is a damning indictment of the Gutwein government’s lack of action on Tasmania’s housing crisis.
Rental stress was already out of control across the state before the borders reopened in December – increasing the demand for tourist accommodation – and before the massive rise in petrol prices and other cost of living increases.
Meanwhile the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show property prices in Hobart grew more than anywhere else in the country in the 12 months to December, leaving more and more Tasmanians out in the cold and thousands on the housing waitlist.
For some time now, Labor has been calling for regulation of the short-stay accommodation sector to help ease the housing crisis, including a permanent pause on new ‘whole dwelling’ permits until the housing crisis eases, but the government has stubbornly ruled it out.
In fact, all it has done is promise thousands of housing properties whilst failing to deliver more than a few hundred – all while thousands of Tasmanians are sleeping rough, couch surfing, staying in shelters or even sleeping in their cars.
When council planning committees have to act themselves to try to provide relief, the housing policy vacuum from Peter Gutwein and his tired, out of touch government is clear for all to see.
The Gutwein government continues to claim that the economy is performing brilliantly, but we have to ask – who for? Certainly not for the thousands waiting for social housing or struggling to rent or buy in the private market.
Peter Gutwein can’t even get the basics right on our economy and it is the Tasmanian people who are suffering.
Ella Haddad MP
Shadow Housing Minister
