Voters in New South Wales have backed the Labor Party’s promise to ban landlords from evicting tenants without good reason, while the government sees rental reform as a key piece of a housing puzzle that urgently needs solving.

According to an exclusive poll, 56 percent of voters support the government’s ban on evictions without cause. Only 23 percent are against enforcing stricter rules for evicting a tenant from a rental property.

Labour is aiming to deliver on its election promise to abolish the statutory no-cause termination scheme by next year. The party has launched a final round of consultations with key stakeholders, including tenants’ associations and investors.

Under the proposed laws, landlords will be prohibited from evicting tenants on fixed or permanent leases without “sound and reasonable cause.”

The results of the Resolve Political Monitor, which is responsible for the The Sydney Morning Herald by Resolve Strategic will add weight to the Government’s argument that more needs to be done to protect renters if Sydney is to retain young people and their skills.

New eviction data from the Government’s End of Tenancy Survey shows that 320,000 tenancies end in NSW each year and 73,000 of these, or 23 per cent, are “landlord initiated”. Of this number, around 32,000 are evictions without cause, or 10 per cent of all tenancies ended.

Minns stresses that increasing supply remains an essential part of the puzzle, but the rental market is a “fairness issue for young people.”

The government’s housing policy is based on four pillars: comprehensive changes to planning laws, including transit-oriented developments (TODs), investment in public housing, the sale and development of surplus state land, and changes to rental prices.