Fierce renter advocate eyes Parliament House tenancy

A champion of renters and nemesis to landlords is taking his crusade to the ballot box as he joins the federal election fight.

Jordan van den Lamb, known online as purplepingers, has gained more than 4.6 million views on TikTok for his fierce advocacy of tenant rights.

He first shot to fame for his “S*** Rentals” series, where he would review listings of dilapidated but expensive Australian rental properties.

Then, he created an eponymous website that allows renters to leave honest reviews of their homes.

The 28-year-old lawyer later garnered international attention for setting up a database of empty properties, some of which had been abandoned for years, and encouraging Australians to squat in them.

And on Monday, he revealed his next big campaign, titled Pingers4Parliament.

“If you want to put people before profit, then I’m your guy,” he told AAP.

“If you want to see the rich getting richer, I’m not the person for you.”

Mr Van den Lamb will be the Victorian Socialists’ lead Senate candidate at the federal election, which must take place before May 2025.

Though he continues to advocate for increased investment in public housing, he also hopes to broadly represent the interests of marginalised groups.

“We’re seeing such increases in the symptoms of capitalism: homelessness, the poor (quality) houses that we are living in, incredibly disappointing outcomes for First Nations people, we’re participating in a genocide in another country,” he said.

“We just don’t have to have these things when we’ve got such incredible wealth.”

The Victorian Socialists have historically run candidates who don’t have a very high profile outside of the party, election analyst Ben Raue says.

Mr Van den Lamb’s campaign is the first time the party has put forward a “celebrity candidate”, which may give the party a much larger reach and boost voter numbers.

But Mr Raue still believes the housing vigilante’s chances of winning are pretty low.

Unless a party does exceptionally well, there generally is only room for one minor party on the left and one on the right in most states, and in Victoria that space is filled by the Greens.

“It’s a crowded field and there aren’t that many Senate seats available,” Mr Raue told AAP.

Mr Van den Lamb said he agrees with many of the Greens policies but opted not to join them because he identifies as a socialist and prefers his party’s focus on working-class suburbs.

Though he has no idea what his chances look like, to him, it doesn’t matter.

“What matters is that we’re talking about this and the government knows that there’s a lot of pressure,” he said.

“We’ve got enough landlords in parliament.

“We can do better.”

 

Kat Wong
(Australian Associated Press)