HOW MUCH INFLUENCE DOES AIRBNB BUY WITH A MERE $100,000?
Why won’t Australian representative Brent Thomas discuss Airbnb ‘purchasing power’ here in NSW when he is repeatedly given the privilege of interviews with those in the Media?
Yesterday in San Francisco, The Examiner was reporting on one ‘Airbnb sweetener’ that for $100,000 bought the support of the City’s merchants. San Francisco’s Tenants Union was straight onto this.
Meanwhile, spokespersons for the NSW Tenants’ Union support the idea of tenants sub-letting via Airbnb. When asked back in June if the Union was across all areas of legislation and whether any of their employees were profiting from short-term letting, there was no response. Their Tenant Union’s Report appears to be in stark disaccord with findings and the advocacy of other major Tenant Representatives elsewhere. It is, after all, tenants who are evicted and find themselves displaced far from their places of study/employment when their former homes are converted to tourist/visitor rentals.
Australian Financial Review’s Misa Han yesterday quoted Airbnb’s Brent Thomas again claiming: “The vast majority of our (landlords) share their primary residence…for an average of just 30 nights per year.” Thomas needs to convince residents who live 24/7 side-by-side with Airbnb’s rentals, like the single woman whose front door was repeatedly kicked by a group of very intoxicated girls till well past 4:00am two nights ago. Next day at work saw her shattered. Councils receive next to nil complaints? This resident says she also has a City of Sydney ‘gag’ on her. At least four separate Sydney properties saw the rusted-on ‘Managers’ competing with multiple other operators for the apartments owned by investors in their buildings: all operated short-term rentals year round.
Our Legislators cannot leave individuals living in apartments and single-family dwellings to oversee that all their neighbours – Strata Committees included - are complying with Federal, State and Local Government legislation on housing. This week’s ABC’s Four Corners program on flammable cladding highlighted what happens when Legislators abdicate responsibility on matters of compliance.
Homes not Hotels Communities not Transit Zones People before Profits Neighbours not Strangers
