The rental crisis is now of national scale and of national importance. While state governments have most oversight of rental markets, there are practical ways the Commonwealth can assist in making renting easier and fairer for all Australians. This report provides five recommendations for Commonwealth intervention in the rental market to make renting fairer, more affordable and a genuine path to home ownership.

Key findings

• More Australians are renting than ever before and for longer periods as home ownership becomes more out of reach. These renters are disproportionately young, though an older cohort is emerging.
• More renters are living in entrenched rental stress, significantly affecting their ability to move towards home ownership.
• A sizeable majority of renters do not wish to remain renters over the long term, and most cite financial concerns as their primary reason for not transitioning to ownership.
• Most of the direct levers affecting the rental market are retained by the states, but the Commonwealth has a crucial indirect role to play in making renting both more tolerable and a more viable long term form of tenure.
• While the Commonwealth has made a number of interventions in the rental market in recent years, its unique role in national coordination, taxation, social services and financial capability leave it well-positioned to go further.

Recommendations

1. Establish a National Portable Bond Scheme which guarantees an interest return to renters, not landlords or governments.
2. Better accounting for long-term rental history in applications for Commonwealth Government housing assistance schemes.
3. Extending Commonwealth Rent Assistance to rentally stressed individuals and families not otherwise entitled to income support payments.
4. Alternatively, introducing a highly-targeted ‘Renter’s Tax Offset’ equal to the prevailing rate of Commonwealth Rent Assistance.
5. Coordinating with the states to produce a nationally uniform prescribed rental application form.