Campaigns

As an organisation that delivers housing and related support services to older people experiencing homelessness and housing stress, we see first-hand how the unequal housing system impacts on the health and wellbeing of older people. We support policies that reduce inequality, strengthen economic security, and ensure all people have access to safe, decent and affordable housing.

HAAG welcomes the opportunity to provide input into the Treasury through the pre-budget submission process. This submission is based on our experience delivering housing and related support services to older people, research and lived experiences of older people experiencing housing stress or homelessness in Australia. We especially acknowledge the contributions to this submission made by members of HAAG’s lived experience advisory groups including National Alliance of Seniors for Housing, Retirement Accommodation Action Group (RAAG), LGBTQIA+ reference group and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) reference group and NSW Lived Experience Advocacy Group (LEAG).

HAAG is concerned that the current Capital Gains Tax discount settings are contributing to widening inequality, worsening housing affordability, and undermining Australia’s long-term social and economic wellbeing. We believe significant reform is necessary.

Read our submission here

This report by Swinburne University of Technology, commissioned by Housing for the Aged Action Group, explores the multiple, often overlapping forms of housing precarity experienced by mid- life and older people in Australia, focusing on private renter households and mortgaged households. The report combines measures of housing affordability stress and housing quality and conditions, offering a new lens on multidimensional precarity for ageing Australians.

Read the full report

Read the summary with Federal recommendations

Read the summary with Victorian recommendations

HAAG's pre-budget submission calls on the Victorian Government to further invest in our housing support and early intervention services, build Public and Community housing with some set aside for older people, revitalise the ILU sector and pilot shared equity housing schemes for older people.

Read our pre-budget submission

The new Support at Home program, implemented in response to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, aims to ensure ‘a simpler and more equitable system for older people that helps them to stay at home for longer’. While HAAG supports this vision, we hold grave concerns about whether the implementation of the program will meet the needs of older people in precarious housing.

Read the submission here

Housing for the Aged Action Group strongly supports the Council’s proposal to lease land for community housing in Rosebud. We commend Mornington Peninsula Shire for its vision to provide safe, stable, and affordable medium-term housing for low-income women and their children, as well as women aged 55 and over at risk of homelessness. Community housing provides vital affordable and stable housing that older people desperately need.

Read our submission here

Legislation before the ACT Parliament proposes that the right to housing is included in their Human Rights Act. Secure, adequate housing is fundamental to the wellbeing of older people. HAAG supports measures to ensure older people’s rights are protected and they are empowered to exercise those rights.
 
HAAG strongly supports the inclusion of the right to adequate housing in the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT), and urges the Committee to recommend that the Human Rights (Housing) Amendment Bill 2025 be passed.

Read our submission here

Housing for the Aged Action Group welcomes the passing of new Retirement laws after a five year consultation period and many more years of advocacy from residents. The new laws include significant changes that will improve the day-to-day life of residents, such as a mandatory code of conduct for operators, standardized contracts for new residents, limits on renovation costs, fairer rules about allocating capital gain, and greater transparency and clarity about fees.