‘Not just a lockdown hobby’: the making of the Renters and Housing Union
An interview with Eirene Tsolidis-Noyce and Zachary Doney, foundational members of the Renters and Housing Union.

An interview with Eirene Tsolidis-Noyce and Zachary Doney, foundational members of the Renters and Housing Union.
Treating insecurity and longing as more authentic than other emotions means giving in to the bleakness of capitalist realism. When I’m depressed, my brain tells me that this is real and my other emotions are fake, but as a friend once reminded me, my depression brain isn’t all that bright.
Mainstream archetypes of femininity, while altered by the marketability of white girl-boss feminism, remain bastions of the gender binary. The psyche is divided: in the masculine corner is dark angry strength, in the feminine is soft emotional vulnerability. In contrast, the women in Killing Eve are violent and desiring, in touch with their Shadow-Beast.
For a prime minister whose performance has been such that he needs to force people to shake his hand, the value of a good imaginary hobgoblin is clear. His willingness to stand behind a transphobic bigot over the criticisms of his own party goes only serves to demonstrate the value of culture war and the ‘national safety valve’ to those whose time is up on any other count.
It was an unedifying spectacle: the Urban Development Institute of Australia, Housing Industry Association and Property Council banding together to scream blue murder over the Victorian government’s proposal this year to introduce a social housing levy.