Since 2021, Victoria has been driving an ambitious rental reform agenda. With about 250 changes to the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) over the past five years, Victorian renters have seen increased protections. These rental reforms have delivered important gains. However, Victorian renters are facing a combination of pressures that threaten to undermine the efficacy and ‘real world’ impact of this reform work. 

A combination of factors including scarce social housing supply, low Commonwealth Government income supports and high rents is creating a pressure cooker for low-income renters trying to keep a roof over their heads and cover the essentials. These conditions are putting significant pressure on Victoria’s rental reform agenda. 

This report provides insights from 250 community sector workers who are on the frontline of this crisis, supporting Victoria’s most marginalised renters. Community sector workers report that a lack of affordable housing, a highly saturated rental market, and limited statutory enforcement of rental rights are stacking the deck against renters, perpetuating a power imbalance in which renters are unable to assert their rights out of fear of ‘rocking the boat’. 

The report sets out actions that the Victorian Government and the regulator, Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV), can take to: 

• get maximum impact from existing laws and regulations
• introduce additional legislative reform to combat discrimination and the long-tail impacts of eviction
• improve dispute resolution processes to strengthen RTA compliance
• increase the supply of social housing stock to protect low-income renters who are locked out of the private rental market.