What is being called “renewal” is, in practice, a reassertion of the bare power of property ownership in service of reconfiguring who is allowed to inhabit the city.

The Hands Off Melbourne’s Estates campaign's organisation, unity, and tactics defeated ten years ago a less extreme version of what Jacinta Allan’s government is implementing today. It’s worth asking how it did so, and whether shifts in the political terrain over the past decade mean such victories are now out of reach.

What I want to suggest is that if you are an elderly Australian who’s electing to share your living space with a younger Australian, your house can and should no longer be entirely your own. Your young housemate, especially if they’re also now your caregiver, should be entitled to an equal share of power and a protective level of financial equity over how your household continues to function.

My father took us up to survey the damage, crying openly at the extent of it, at how much it would cost him to fix, at how beautiful his dream had been — at how no one had supported him in it. It was cold in the house, so we camped beside the fireplace. I did not sleep. The house sold, well below its value. We were, in one sense, free of it.

Some of the stories that have already been shared on shitrentals.org show not only the horrible state of Australia’s housing landscape, with hundreds of images uploaded showing mould in its various stages of progression, caved-in ceilings and electrical work that could only be the product of a drunk landlord — but also the more insidious nature of the real estate industry.

Property values and rents increase when homelessness and housing precarity increase, and they keep going up, exposing the full moral and political decrepitude of the current system, leading one to think: where is the ceiling? What is at the end of the trajectory we are currently on?

At precisely the moment that the housing crisis has caused centre-left parties and think tanks to begin proposing price controls on rent, and calling this ‘a democratic question rather than an economic one,’ the financial world is working to insulate itself from democratic control.

Late last year, Renters United and I joined together to make a new version of Rat King Landlord that would be free to renters. I had been aware of Renters United for about four years when the book came out and I loved what they were up to. Whenever the weird logic of property speculation got air time, Renters United would be there talking about the real impact on people. We were faced with two challenges: where to get the funds to make a few thousand copies, and how to make sure the copies didn’t just sit in our garages getting damp.

My mum took her first job in 1980, when she was fourteen. In my childhood, she worked as a medical receptionist. For every hour she worked, she was almost certainly paid less than a man in a job of ‘comparable value’. For every curtailed pay check, there was a lower superannuation benefit, a lower amount left for savings at the end of each week and, inevitably, a lower amount to put towards a house deposit.

The total value of residential real estate in Australia currently stands just shy of $10 trillion. People’s class position and life chances are now significantly shaped by their share—and often their parents’ share—of this extraordinary wealth.

Laws and governance at all levels of government—local, state, federal—regardless of party, currently support and, indeed, incentivise the maintenance of property as an asset class over any notion of home or dwelling—a guaranteeing of landlord rights that liquidates all other claims.

On 13 August 2021, the Geographical Names Board officially approved Bayside Council’s request to rename Eastlakes Reserve as Jack Mundey Reserve. Mundey was neither a local resident, councillor nor mayor. Yet sixty years ago, he led a movement that saved these four acres of land as a park for the local people.

An interview with Eirene Tsolidis-Noyce and Zachary Doney, foundational members of the Renters and Housing Union.

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.

Private investment funds now have optimal conditions for entry into the new social housing market, with minimal capital expenditure, guaranteed market rent, a not-for-profit managing the tenancies and full control of the assets after 10 years. Governments have created a social housing market that delivers dividends to private capital, dressed up as a solution to the deepening housing crisis.

Indulging in cinematic spaces like these – loft apartments occupied by single artist types – is a salve amidst the current housing crisis in Australia. These viewing habits, the enthusiastic study of filmic trips, have become my guilty pleasure as I grit my teeth through another brutal winter.