

We Have a Housing Crisis - Wake Up NSW!
The Tenants Union of Tasmania, in response to a crippling acute housing crisis and the ‘Airbnb Monopoly squeeze on the property market’, is calling for restrictions on short-term stay accommodation plus ‘empty house’ penalties to incentivise landlords to rent housing long-term to tenants. If the dire housing situation in that State wasn’t bad enough, Tasmanian Greens MP Dr Rosalie Woodruff MP raised in Parliament with Minister for Consumer Affairs/Attorney General Elise Arch


Will Anyone in NSW Enforce Legislation?
Late last year, on 01 November, NSW Fair Trading’s Code of Conduct for the short-term rental accommodation industry - aka, commercialisation of residential housing, came into effect. (For the Byron Shire, the start date was 01/12/21.) Regulation 2.2.5 (page 8) of the Code states: “On and from the day that registration on the premises register becomes mandatory under planning laws, a booking platform must ensure that short-term rental accommodation premises are not advertise


“‘Screw you’: The Critical Workers Squeezed Out…”
In yesterday’s SMH, Byron Shire Council Mayor Michael Lyon reportedly said: “Action was needed to keep locals housed.” It is of course Local Councils only who have the legal power to enforce Residential Zoning. Reporter Tawar Razaghi’s article highlights the plight of, amongst many others, paramedics with families who are not only priced out of purchasing a home, but even renting one. Paramedic Benjamin Gilmour said the situation was “dire - My question to our illustrious l