Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia was facing an incipient eviction crisis, the gravity of which had been obscured by inadequate data and the gradual mounting of systemic problems of unaffordability and insecurity. This article reviews the legal framework around tenancies and evictions and the sparse data it produces. Tribunal data obtained by the author shows that Australia’s two largest jurisdictions had, prior to the pandemic, a termination application rate somewhat more than half that of the US ‘crisis’ rate. The article concludes with directions for further research and reforms to address evictions in an enduring way, beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

在COVID-19大流行之前，澳大利亚正面临着一次迁离危机，其严重性由于数据不足以及无法负担和不安全的系统性问题的逐步蔓延而被掩盖。本文回顾了有关租约和迁离的法律框架及其产生的稀疏数据。作者获得的法庭数据显示，在大流行之前，澳大利亚的两个最大司法管辖区的终止申请率略高于美国“危机”率的一半。文章最后给出了进一步研究和改革的方向，以超越COV-19-19大流行的持久方法解决迁离问题。