Page 1256 - Week 04 - Thursday, 5 May 2022

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(2) further notes that:

(a) the local hotel industry has been disproportionately impacted by the economic impacts of COVID-19; and

(b) over the last 10 years, platform-based short-term accommodation providers have competed with the local hotel industry creating excess capacity within licensed hotels;

(3) requests that the Standing Committee on Planning, Transport and City Services consider investigating the impact of platform-based short-term accommodation providers on rental affordability in the ACT;

(4) requests the Committee, should it decide to inquire into this matter, to investigate:

(a) the current regulatory and planning settings for managing platform-based short-term accommodation in other states in Australia;

(b) the current regulatory and planning settings for managing platform-based short-term accommodation in the ACT;

(d) whether additional regulatory and planning settings are required to manage the ACT’s platform-based short-term accommodation industry; and

(e) any other related matters; and

(5) requests the Committee, should it decide to inquire into this matter, determine a reporting date based on the Committee’s capacity.

We are in a nationwide rental affordability crisis. This motion requests the Standing Committee on Planning, Transport and City Services to undertake an inquiry into the impact of platform-based, short-term rentals, such as Airbnb, on rental affordability in our city.

Every year Anglicare Australia survey rental listings across Australia to see what it is like for people on low incomes to rent a home. They do this by taking a snapshot of the thousands of properties listed for rent on realestate.com.au. They then test whether each rental listing is affordable and suitable for people on low incomes. This year they have found the situation is worse than ever before. According to Anglicare’s rental affordability snapshot for 2022, across this country, if you are living on a minimum wage or are on income support, it is impossible to find an affordable place to rent.

Rental affordability is defined as rent being at, or less than, 30 per cent of your household income. For a single person living on JobSeeker, which we know is being kept under the Henderson poverty line, if you are lucky enough to pay only 30 per cent of your payment on rent, that means you found accommodation for $97 per week. Across Australia—that is, the whole of our country—for every rental listed at the time that this data was collected for Anglicare’s report, there were just seven properties that met this criteria. After rent, if you are one of the seven in one million, you would have $450 to spend on groceries, bus tickets, heating, electricity and clothes. Given that there are about a million people living on JobSeeker in our country, this is an

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