Australian Greens: Greens pitch short-stay regulation overhaul

The Victorian Greens have today launched their plan to overhaul the regulation of short-stays in Victoria, in a bid to help address the state’s housing crisis.

The current weak regulations allow Victorians with multiple properties to rent out their secondary homes as short-stays for holidaymakers – through third party services like Airbnb – for as little or as long as they’d like.

Rural and regional communities report not having enough rental housing stock for local families as well as workers that have moved into an area to work in local businesses. 

This has reduced the capacity of local economies to recover from the pandemic because of worker shortages and has plunged many families into housing stress or crisis.   

With regional rents at record levels and available rental stock down as much as 40% from last year, more needs to be done to increase housing supply including by better regulating short stay accommodation so that every other home is not turned into a mini-hotel.

That’s why the Greens are proposing:

• A cap on how many nights a year Victorians can rent out a property as a short-stay, of 180 days a year.
• Allowing owners corporations to regulate short-stays for properties that are not a host’s principal residence in their building.
• Setting up a mandatory register of short-stay operators.

Leader of the Victorian Greens, Samantha Ratnam, will launch the election policy in Ballarat today alongside the Greens’ candidates for seats in the Ballarat area.

These include Sam McColl for the seat of Eureka, Earl James for the seat of Ripon and Ellen Burns for the seat of Wendouree.

Quotes attributable to Leader of the Victorian Greens, Samantha Ratnam MLC: 

“Victoria is in a housing crisis and rural and regional communities especially are facing a dire shortage of rental accommodation.

“Yet Victoria has some of the weakest regulations of short-stay accommodation that effectively turns holiday homes into mini-hotels at the cost of a family or worker having access to secure rental properties.

“By overhauling our short-stay regulations we can ensure more housing is available to families and workers experiencing housing stress. 

“This would help boost local economies especially in the regions and reduce the number of Victorians facing housing insecurity and homelessness.”