New data has revealed the
astonishing depth of Tasmania’s worsening housing crisis as Housing Minister
Michael Ferguson continues to focus on his own political future instead of putting
roofs over the heads of Tasmanians in desperate need.
Coinciding reports released by
Domain and CoreLogic this week show Hobart has a rental vacancy rate more than
three times worse than the national average at the same time rental prices soar
to unprecedented levels.
In the March 2022 quarter,
Hobart recorded a rental vacancy rate of just 0.3 per cent and that’s an
appalling state of affairs for the thousands of Tasmanians finding it near
impossible to secure housing.
At the same time the CoreLogic
Quarterly Rental Review shows Hobart rents rose nine per cent over the past
year, 2.4 per cent in the March quarter and 1.1 per cent in just the last month
while Knight Frank’s Global Residential Cities
Index places Hobart house price rises in the top five in the world.
It’s extraordinary that the
median Hobart rent is now $532 a week – the highest of any capital other than
Sydney – and in the past decade, Hobart rents have soared 56 per cent for both
houses and units, more than double the national average
Under Michael Ferguson, more
than 4,300 Tasmanian families remain languishing on the Liberals’ historically
high housing wait list and the government is going nowhere near even meeting
their own announcements.
According to their promises,
they should be delivering 83 houses each month and in the last month they
delivered just eight.
What’s just as extraordinary is that Tasmanians are stuck with a government that is in chaos and disarray and doing nothing to solve the crisis and a Housing Minister focused on factional infighting instead of building homes.
Ella Haddad MP
Shadow Housing Minister
