Damaging red tape proposals will hurt NSW working families

Airbnb’s Head of Public Policy for Australia and New Zealand, Derek Nolan, has today announced a campaign in support of working families that use the Airbnb platform, either as hosts or guests. He said the campaign would highlight damaging proposals being considered by Government that would dramatically increase red tape, hurt tourism and impact jobs.

Tourism is the lifeblood of many regional communities in NSW. But extra red tape being considered by the NSW Government will make it even more difficult for families in these communities to earn a living.

The proposed new rules include limiting the number of people per room to just two in a listing, making it more difficult and expensive for families to travel together. 

Airbnb hosts have made it clear that they are extremely concerned about the impact of these proposed regulations and they want their voices heard. To that end, we’re calling on the NSW Government to rule out these proposed changes. We want to ensure that Airbnb hosts’ concerns are heard loud and clear.

More than 365,000 Airbnb guests are estimated to have spent almost $200 million in regional NSW outside greater Sydney between 1 September 2018 and 31 August 2019*, supporting thousands of jobs and breathing a lifeline to many local businesses, including shops, restaurants and cafes. However, arbitrary new rules being considered would put this valuable economic injection at risk and make life unnecessarily harder in the regions.

Mr Nolan said the proposed rules would serve only to make it more expensive and difficult for working families to holiday in regional areas.

“The extra layer of red tape being considered by the NSW Government is unnecessary. It won’t just make it more difficult for everyday families to enjoy a holiday, it will also hurt small businesses and put local jobs at risk in regional towns across NSW,” he said.

“In countless homes across NSW, kids share bedrooms through a mix of single and bunk beds with no issue – so why is this suddenly OK in the family home but not during a holiday? We need to take a commonsense approach to this. 

“We’ve been supportive of the NSW Government’s previous efforts to develop fair and sensible regulations. But they have walked back from that system and the commitments they gave at the last election. Together with the Airbnb host community, we’ll continue working with government  to ensure the final set of rules are consistently grounded in commonsense. NSW needs commonsense rules that support tourism and regional jobs.”

Airbnb remains supportive of the original suite of reforms introduced by the NSW Government, detailed here. 

*Based on internal Airbnb data and the latest published 2018/19 Tourism Research Australia