Independent MP Wilson Tucker kicked out by landlord wanting higher rent, living out of hotels on $170k salary

Independent MP Wilson Tucker is living out of hotels and his car after he was evicted by a landlord chasing higher rent — evidence not even a $167,000 base salary guarantees a home in the midst of Perth’s long-running housing crisis. A fortnight after he was forced to leave his South Guildford rental after being handed a no-grounds eviction notice, Mr Tucker is currently shacked up at Tribe Perth Kings Park. He plans to bounce between hotels until Parliament rises at the end of June for the winter recess, when he will fly to Kununurra — part of the Mining and Pastoral Region he represents — and live out of a Prado that currently contains most of his belongings. “I would categorise myself as nomadic rather than homeless and my situation is obviously a lot more fortunate than many others,” Mr Tucker said. “But it does illustrate that even if you have the means to support yourself, it is very difficult to find a place to live in the current market and you can end up functionally homeless.” Mr Tucker was served a no-grounds eviction — which has been banned in every other State — at the end of April, giving him 30 days to find a new rental. He had resided at the three-bedroom home for two years and was paying $650 a week, which he acknowledged was well below the asking price of comparable properties nearby. “(The eviction notice) just got handed down and I didn’t really dispute it or try to enter into any negotiation after that, although in hindsight maybe I should have,” he said. Mr Tucker said he spent the next few weeks attending multiple viewings but quickly became disillusioned by the “very frustrating experience”. “Listings go so quickly, so you have to really cast a wide net and can’t be too picky,” he said. “I was spending basically all weekend going from home open to home open and there are literally hundreds of other people there — many of them desperate and making offers well above the asking price.” Prior to his eviction, the former Daylight Savings Party MP — who was elected with just 98 votes in 2021 courtesy of a complex preference harvesting scheme — had spent months advocating for greater protections for renters. He has been an outspoken critic of the Cook Government’s “weak” tenancy reforms which banned the soliciting of rent bidding and limited rent increases to once per year but failed to outlaw no-grounds evictions. “There are glaring loopholes in the legislation and even (Commerce Minister Sue Ellery) herself has said she expects rent bidding will still occur because there is nothing stopping a tenant from making an offer above the asking price,” Mr Tucker said. “I’ve also been forwarded a lot of emails property managers have sent to landlords saying they only get one rent increase per year under the new regime so they had better make it a big one — in some cases up to 30 per cent.” Mr Wilson claimed some landlords were getting around the once-per-year limit through the use of no-grounds evictions, which allow property owners kick their tenants for no reason with 30 days’ notice. “Because of how tight the rental market is, all the power lies with the landlords and a lot of renters don’t feel like they can make even basic repair requests because the proverbial axe might fall and they could face eviction and homelessness as a result,” he said. As a Mining and Pastoral Region MLC, Mr Tucker is entitled to accommodation allowances totalling more than $50,000, which comes on top of his $167,000 base salary and a range of other perks for transport, study and to spend communicating with his electorate. “I have the ability to head up north over winter while the weather is good and be in the electorate and meet people,” he said. “For a lot of people, escaping the Perth property market isn’t an option for them. They are resigned to this fate for the foreseeable future.”