RLC in the media

There is such a battle to find somewhere to rent – the competition, the cost, the community you want to live in. But what if the colour of your skin made it even harder to rent?

The City of Sydney last week announced a dedicated squad and investigation to crack down on illegal accommodation across the city. While this announcement answers calls for action, the future of current tenants has been thrown into uncertainty.

May 2015 - Australasian Lawyer Samantha Woodhill The 2014 Productivity Commission inquiry into access to justice recommended an additional $200m in funding for community legal centres, but the latest federal budget will force centres to endure further funding cuts.

'One of the nation's busiest community legal centres is on the verge of cutting half its staff.'

Community legal centres around Australia will no longer have their budgets slashed by $25.5 million over the next two years, federal Attorney General George Brandis announced last week in a reversal of cuts handed down in the 2014 budget.

DIRTY dishes in the sink, leaving the toilet seat up? Almost everyone has a bad flatmate story but these ones really take the cake.

In Australia, unfair and oppressive rules introduced by some apartment buildings have seen a number of tenants summarily locked out of their homes, often over trivial matters. These tenants have found that local laws offer them little in the way of meaningful protection.

Following a fire in an overcrowded property in Alexandria on July 2, the City Hub has identified a series of up to 150 unauthorised boarding houses throughout the city, all of which appear to be part of a single operation.

RLC Tenant Advocate, Tom McDonald, was on the ABC’s program, The Checkout, this month giving practical advice to tenants in relation to keeping their bond at the end of their tenancy.

Discussion about the proposed Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination legislation has been dominated by a debate on religious organisation exemptions and freedom of speech. There has been public outcry over religious organisations being exempt from the legislation and the ramifications for service provision to some of the most vulnerable people in Australia.