Brisbane Airbnb move just a cash grab

One of the skills Australian politicians have mastered over the years is finding ways to raise ever more revenue from the housing industry,  but pretending that any new measures they’re introducing are actually motivated by a desire to fix housing affordability or a housing shortage.

The latest shameless exercise by a government entity to do this has come from the Brisbane City Council, which rules over a large chunk of the Brisbane metropolitan area.

The Brisbane council, headed by Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner, wants to raise some extra revenue from every politician’s favourite cash cow, the housing market.

And they want to dress it up as a measure to fix the housing shortage – because, Brisbane, like everywhere else in Australia, has a chronic shortage of residential rental properties.

Now the key to getting away from a cynical cash grab from the housing market is to not only pretend that you’re fixing a serious problem, like the housing shortage, but also to scapegoat an unpopular minority for the problem.

In Australian politics, when it comes to housing issues, the scapegoat of choice is always property investors.

So Brisbane City Council has decided to blame the rental shortage on property owners who have put their properties into the short-term rental pool, rather than the permanent rental pool.