Former host of Sunrise David “Kochie” Koch has used his newfound free time to write an opinion piece on the topic of who should be blamed for the ongoing rental crisis in Australia. In it he shared the controversial opinion that renters should “love your landlord” — proving yet again that comedy really was his area of expertise.
In an opinion piece for The Nightly, the former financial journalist opened with a statement that tenants should not blame landlords for the skyrocketing rents, but the three levels of government.
“Governments, not landlords, have been derelict in not foreseeing and planning to avoid this rental crisis,” Kochie wrote.
True! Go off, king.
(Don’t worry, it gets better.)
Kochie’s main argument was that 20% of the Australian population are landlords, and that a portion of these — he didn’t say what portion — aren’t “property moguls”, but just “ordinary Australians trying to build a nest egg”.
“[The rental crisis is] complex and there is no silver bullet solution. But so-called ‘greedy’ landlords are being unfairly targeted as the scapegoat,” Kochie continued.
His grand plan? More landlords. Also, love thy landlord or whatever. Give your landlord a big wet smooch and say “thank you” for ignoring 532 emails about the black mould.
“The only way to quickly resolve the rental crisis is to love your landlord and encourage more property investors to make more stock available,” Kochie said. “So when debating the merits of negative gearing, be careful what you wish for.”
David Koch urging renters to ‘love their landlords’ and ‘blame government’ in Kerry Stokes/Gina Rinehart/Gerry Harvey’s new online newspaper…oh dear…
— Richard Denniss (@RDNS_TAI) March 1, 2024
I wonder what demographic they going after…#auspol pic.twitter.com/3pgVTO7pKZ
Funnily, not everyone agrees with the self proclaimed “professional bullshitter“.
Especially not the accused guilty party: the government members who are actually pushing to improve the living quality for renters.
Greens MP for Griffith and renter Max Chandler-Mather said that if landlords want love, they should earn it.
“Renters wouldn’t mind landlords so much if they stopped unfairly putting up their rents, stopped evicting people just for asking for basic maintenance, and stopped treating renters like second-class citizens,” Chander-Mather commented to PEDESTRIAN.TV.
While renters can try to not unfairly write off their landlords, the property owners should also try and make sure the love is shared both ways.
“The best way landlords can love renters is by joining in the call to freeze and cap rents and scrap the tax handouts for property investors denying millions of renters the chance to buy a home,” Chandler-Mather continued.
At the end of the day, everyone is just trying to “build a nest egg” as Kochie put it.
It’d just be nice if that nest egg being rented for the same price as a mortgage repayment didn’t have a mould problem that the landlord ignored. Is that so much to ask? Apparently so.
