To date, The Greens have tried and failed twice to implement a rent freeze in Queensland and once at the Federal level. In this latest attempt, 2024 Greens Lord Mayoral candidate Jonathan Sriranganathan plans to implement a two-year rent freeze on residential properties in the Brisbane local government area, backdated to January 2023. This assumes The Greens control Brisbane City Council after the election in March 2024.

To implement their plan, The Greens propose to control rents via penalty rates applied to any investor who raises rents above January 2023 levels. Rental properties where rent has increased would be "reclassified into the new ‘Uncapped rental home’ rating category."

The penalty is an additional 650% of the current rates bill so the total rates bill would be 750% higher following The Greens' market intervention. Using The Greens' example of a unit rented for $750 per week with a rates bill of $1,500 per year, any rent increase would result in an extra rates bill of $9,750, with a total rates bill of $11,250.

Any landlord who has increased rent with the tenant's agreement between January 2023 and the Council election in March 2024 would be penalised, whether that rent increase was less than 1% or 30%.

The Greens' plan is to apply the rent freeze to the property rather than the tenancy and to use median suburb rents for any new build or substantial renovation.

Penalty rates are claimed to be revenue neutral as the Greens contend that landlords will not put up rents. However this ignores the fact that many landlords will have raised rents over the 15 month period prior to the 2024 Council election.

Landlords in Brisbane (and elsewhere in Queensland) are currently subject to an effective 12 month rent freeze following the State Government's amendments to the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act preventing landlords from increasing the rent within a 12 month period.

Rent controls in other jurisdictions (such as Ireland and San Francisco) have resulted in reduced residential rental supply as landlords change use to avoid the controls or sell out of the market. It also acts as a disincentive for new investment builds. (Note that The Greens plan to increase rates for Airbnb-style properties by 1,000%.)

Any developer who views The Greens as potentially controlling Brisbane City Council post-March 2024 is likely to look more favourable at projects outside the Brisbane LGA (e.g. Redcliffe, Logan, Ipswich) rather than risk the imposition of a two-year rent freeze on their projects.

Similar to the Queensland government's proposed (then scrapped) land tax changes, the prospect of a rent freeze throughout Brisbane is likely to alter investors' decisions well ahead of any actual imposition of a freeze.

Lord Mayoral candidate Jonathan Sriranganathan proposes two-year rent freeze in Brisbane

Freeze Rents in Brisbane: No more unlimited rent increases

November 2023

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