Covid-19 and the housing crisis
Housing affordability in Australia was close to the worst in the developed world well before COVID-19 struck, with over 600,000 out of 2.6 million renting households experiencing housing stress. Now...
Worsening housing crisis: resistance required
Prior to the pandemic, ordinary Australians were already suffering from some of the highest housing prices in the world and record levels of household debt. The big banks and the...
COVID-19 crisis: What Socialist Action fights for
Healthcare for all -An end to all funding cuts, closures and privatisations in healthcare. -For huge investment into pubic healthcare to significantly increase capacity and prepare for future shocks. -For...
Rent crisis: How can we win relief?
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated Australia's housing crisis. With almost a million workers either stood down, fired or losing hours, many are now finding it even harder to cover their...
Who should pay for the COVID-19 crisis?
So far, ordinary people have been forced to bear the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. Obviously we have the announcement of tens of thousands of job losses, but even those...
Housing crisis shouldn’t be normal
The struggle for secure housing is, for many, going from difficult to almost impossible. A new generation is consigning themselves to a lifetime of renting on the private market. Every...
Heat or eat: The issues facing many retired workers
In issue 154, The Socialist exposed one of the horrors facing older people, aged care. But aged care is only one of the minefields that we have to negotiate in...
Young people’s mental health on the slide
Figures from the ABC’s Australia Talks survey showed that 44% of young people rate their mental health as either average or poor. This is not unexpected considering the cost of...
Fighting campaign needed to win affordable housing
The situation facing renters continues to look grim. Unaffordable prices, long commute times to work and a general lack of security are the biggest issues facing tenants today. Recent figures...
Victorian Labor announces major land sell-off
Daniel Andrews has announced one of the biggest privatisations of publicly owned land in recent history. The Andrews Labor government is putting 151 sites, totaling 2600 hectares of land, on...
Australia talks but who listens?
For the past few weeks the ABC has been releasing the results of their Australia Talks National Survey. The survey collected information from more than 54,000 people, and was an...
How to make housing more affordable
There has been a lot of news coverage about property prices beginning to rise again after two years of decline. While the property industry hopes for a new price boom,...
Interview: The fight for rent control in the US
Below we carry an interview with socialist and housing activist Kelly Bellin. She talks about the housing crisis in the United States, the problem of homelessness, and the growing movements...
Housing: End the rule of the market
Housing affordability continues to be one of the biggest stressors for ordinary Australians. Recent surveys have exposed the financial pressure that many households live with. Around 40% of all households...
People need relief from sky-high housing costs
Millions of Australians suffer from sky-high housing costs but there is no relief in sight for either renters or mortgage holders. Data from Digital Finance Analytics shows that more than...
Profiteering and housing crises around the world
Cities around the world, from Vancouver, Sydney, New York, London, and Berlin have experienced housing crises over the last decade. While the local details may differ, the root cause is...
Corkman developers rewarded with dodgy deal
The developers who illegally demolished the heritage-listed Corkman Pub in 2016 could still turn a profit on the site under a dodgy deal reached with the Victorian state Labor government....
Housing crisis worsening, time to fight back
According to an Anglicare report from April, there were only two affordable rental properties available in Australia for single people on Newstart payments. The market system is failing to meet...