They all stipulate that you must be under 35 years of age and be a foreign passport holder (i e non Australian).
I was planning to stay a few nights in Brissy but it looks like I might need to cough up the extra money for an Airbnb.
I have never had this issue backpacking anywhere else in Australia.
Do I have any rights under the Anti - Discrimination Act?
Thank you
Yes you do have rights.
Age discrimination is already against the law, unless the hostel is a registered charity.
QHRC even gives a relevent example:
It is also unlawful to discriminate against a person because of their association with or relation to a person identified on the basis of their age - such as a friend, family member or co-worker.
For example, a backpacker being refused entry to a hostel when travelling with her mum because she “wouldn’t fit in with the usual crowd”.
Race Discrimination which includes "nationality or national origin" is already against the law. The siutation you described does not seem to be allowed as an exemption.
You may wish to make your complaints (e.g. to the Qld Human Rights Commission or Australian Human Rights Commission) after June 2025 when Queensland's updated Anti-Discrimination Act comes into effect. Businesses will have a positive duty to prevent discrimination.
These changes to the Act will extend protection from discrimination to:
…
People experiencing homelessness
Also
Extended protections from discrimination: where will coverage apply?
…
accommodation – including holiday and long term rentals
And
Intersectional discrimination will be better recognised, and people will be able to make complaints on combined grounds.
Slater and Gordon?
In case reading or comprehension is difficult for you…
you may wish to make your complaints (e.g. to the Qld Human Rights Commission or Australian Human Rights Commission)
@tenpercent: Dutto will be getting his lap DOGE onto that rort as soon as he wins govt. Only "his pick" get rights.Most of them are anything but human.
"Do I have any rights under the Anti - Discrimination Act?"
OP should go ahead and good luck getting anywhere fast.
Why do you want to stay with a bunch of full-time partying backpackers anyway?
The criteria is probably for your own good
I think you might be confused. @tenpercent is not the OP, and is not asking about accomodation.
You may have mistakenly replied to the top comment instead of adding your comment to the post. To add a comment to the post, scroll to the bottom of the comments and there's a text box. Hope this helps.
Do yourself a favour and don't use Airbnb. Have a look thought Booking.com or Expedia. You'll probably find hotel rooms around the same price, if not cheaper than an air Airbnb - and the hotels wont have ridiculous rules like bnb's often do.
Airbnb is still worth a quick look first. Some hosts undervalue their property especially during public holidays as they don’t bother updating the rates. But yeah I agree with you. I find myself often booking traditional hotels thru other sites at the end.
Are the airbnb service and cleaning fees a new thing or has it always been the case? It doesn't seem quite as cheap as it used to be.
The cleaning fee is set by the host. Service fee was always a thing I believe but it might have increased.
Either way, just look at the total cost and compare that with other sites.
Cheap camping holiday 🤣
I understand this after 28 i was over hostels. That and the housing crisis in QLD is real i have people in my street sleeping in their car. Otherwise all the hostels would be full of locals.
That sounds pretty grim. Hostels usually stipulate a maximum stay of say, 10 nights with a 12 month period, to prevent homeless people and vagrants using them.
Even if the homeless people are paying?
Why should they 'prevent' homeless ppl using them? And what's with the 'vagrant' term? Your definition is?
There are more rich tourists and backpackers overstaying and abusing these places than people down on their luck.
Not sure why you sound cranky. A business is allowed to specify what type of accommodation they run and set their own conditions.
Peak season maybe, but how do you think they fill beds in non-peak season? Homeless services use hostels to find beds regularly.
@GardenGnome: Big difference between banning the homeless, labelling somebody a vagrant, and encouraging the least fortunate to seek support and accommodation through a NFP service. It smacks of 'out of sight' It's an Apartheid attitude,period.
The few people I've known who've run backpacker hotels do so because they like backpacking and meeting travellers. And backpackers who use them like the cheap accommodation and randomly meeting up with other travellers.
Not sure why you think they should be forced to change to a totally different business model, and why a backpacker using a backpacker hostel is "abuse" of the business.
10 nights with a 12 month period
If this is the way it works, they can stay there for ten nights.
@rumblytangara: OP comment was to PREVENT them. Not to allow them for those ten days. My criticism is for the attitude of wishing to bar them at first hurdle.There is a housing crisis, which IMHO should put our ppl in need ahead of secondary outside cohorts.
@Protractor: So you're worried about semantics of how he worded his post?
It's to prevent the location being used as long term accommodation. This would apply to anyone.
Sure, there's a housing crisis. You may as well argue that five star luxury hotels should be forced to accept lower rates because it excludes people on lower incomes, or that shopping malls should offer long term inside campsites- makes just as much sense as saying that limits on nights spent should be removed for a very specific type of business model that caters to backpackers.
@rumblytangara: Nothing to do with semantics.I'm sick of the worse off getting shunted while immigration and greedy opportunism (landlords RE agents,investors) sucks up housing for profit. The classifying of homeless ppl as all being dead space is a new and unwelcome attitude in this country.
Sweeping disadvantage under the carpet is a pox as are its' enablers and proponents
@Protractor: Welcome to capitalism, I guess.
Backpacker hostels seems to be an oddly niche market to rage at- these places probably account for less than 1% of all temporary accommodation in the country after hotels, motels, Airbnb, caravan parks and campsites.
Backpacker hostels also cater to a very specific demographic that is probably a lot younger and less cash and asset rich than those other parts of the market.
@rumblytangara: There but for the grace of(insert superstition here) go I. The standard we walk past is the one we tolerate,enable,endorse,empower,accept,consolidate etc.
@Protractor: There's something to be said for picking your hill to die on. Backpacker hostels would be more of a pebble, or a grain of sand. And being outraged on the internet about a term like 'vagrant' rather than what I guess is the more politically correct 'homeless' costs nothing, I guess.
Getting worked up about federal government immigration decisions or state government infrastructure programs I can understand. But backpacker hostels and common English words that were actual legal terms until about 20 years ago seems like misdirected anger.
@rumblytangara: How many times have you deliberately missed the point?
Hint, you're well past a hat rick.
I'll let you know when I've chosen a hill to die on.It won't be the one to preserve the current human mindset, that's for sure.Trump could be the asteroid of ~~justice~ Karma ,heading our way, whether we like it or not. So we may all die there.
@Protractor: If you decend into some kind of pseudo-woke cryptic social commentary with political overtones, then whatever point you're trying to make is buried in your own gnomic gibberish. It's almost like you're speaking in code into a mirror.
I honestly don't know what you're talking about anymore.
tolerate,enable,endorse,empower,accept,consolidate,etc
I mean, really? This is what you try to pass off as genuine discourse?
@rumblytangara: Anyone using the word woke , and then adding a prefix to disguise it, has already reached their upper limit of whatever native language their comprehension is based upon.
@Protractor: If it makes you happier, consider it just "woke" then.
I'm glad you can embiggen your masterful writing with the asymmetrical application of tildes. That's always a good sign of teh smarts communicators.
But don't you worry, I'll let you have the last word in this little spat.
Oops, I hit the Post button. But I'm sure you can still pop in a brilliant reply.
@Protractor: <facepalm>
….maaaate…. you don't do teh ironies do you?
The misspelling followed by the incorrect pluralisation should have been a giant honking clue. There, I've just done it again in case you missed it.
If you're going for the last word, make it a little less cringe.
@Protractor: The problem with homeless people or the 'disadvantaged' is they bring crime, they rob and steal, they beg outside supermarkets even when it's pension day/week, they bring drugs, they bring a lot of undesirable behavior to anywhere they go. It's sad but whenever they setup public housing in suburban areas it makes the area less safe and causes so many problems that were not there before.
Now you're not wrong for pointing out the failures of society to help these people, the problem is the system is failing people, and they are falling through the cracks. Instead of lamenting about the attitude in this country maybe ask the community services minister why they are failing and why are they not helping people to improve and make better lives.
@GardenGnome: What a lot of biased bigoted dross. "Some' homeless ppl", maybe. There is a live crisis where middle aged ppl, young ppl,single ppl, fully employed,ppl ,with or without kids,ppl with pets, who are being chucked out on the street because landlords have gone full metal greed. And the latest rate drop will amplify the effect as investors cash in again, and ppl exhaust what little supply is available.
Politicians aren't the problem, community attitude is.As you demonstrated.
@Protractor: Do yourself a favor and actually go out into the community and see what life and reality is like for people. People won't say as bluntly what I have because people like you get abusive and angry, but attitudes are built on people's own experiences. You can whine all you want about greed and fairness, but we live in a capitalist system not communism.
And I have zero problems hostels banning homeless people, vagrants or even older people above 35 years old since they have to protect their mainly young clientele. The problems that cohort brings are just not worth exposing your young backpackers to such harm.
@GardenGnome: Maybe you should educate yourself on the issue? (note the timing)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-24/solutions-to-rental-a…
Wrong way around
People's own experiences are built by attitudes
@Protractor: Let me profile you, Greens/Teals voter, Palestinian rights protester, Voice supporter, Climate change extremist, supports drug legalization, closet communist, and I guess you're a feminist too. It's nice living in a bubble disconnected from reality isn't it?
@GardenGnome: You got 1 correct.
May I reciprocate?
You> White,bigoted,science sceptic,male?
Probably not even born in Australia.
@Protractor: The irony of calling someone a bigot then being racist against immigrants in the same post is strong with you. Can you smell the smugness in the air? And then using the ABC as evidence to back up your opinion oh my dearest….
@GardenGnome: Can you imagine the hypocrisy of (1) profiling ,then complaining when it is reciprocated. But worse, (2) can you imagine the even ranker hypocrisy of denigrating avast swathe of the community in one fell swoop, and then clinging to the cobweb thread of credibility and tenuously drag yourself up to a place of morality. Smugness?
Do you think NONE of the Vic Ninjas have non Australian ancestry? LOL
@GardenGnome: So you're another member low-balling coward that has to defame ppl with drug taking accusations?
The answer is QLD
Don't you worry about that.
OMGoodness, yes, pumpkin scones.
i wish i was this poor
You are punctuation and capitalisation poor. So you are double poor. Congratulations, your wish has been granted.
Don't underestimate the savings on keyboard wear and electricity by skipping such luxuries as capitalisation and punctuation.
Not everyone is as privileged as you and I to afford such high falutin symbols of bourgeoisie decadence.
From 2005 to 2011, I worked weekend shifts as a receptionist at my friend's backpacker hostel in North Queensland.
Australian & New Zealand males were barred from staying in dorms & could only book rooms. This rule was introduced due to drunken behaviour and complaints from young female backpackers. Also, locals were barred from the hostel as their reason for staying was usually to have a 'night out' at nearby pubs & clubs. My friend wanted to maintain a peaceful atmosphere in the hostel for the majority of guests. Exceptions were made in all these cases if the individual was known to the owner as a trusted guest.
As well, he had a sharp eye in discerning who were junkies & wouldn't allow them to stay.
It only takes a few bad apples to ruin it for the rest of us. If it wasn't for hostels, I would travel far less in my own country. As a solo traveller, I can rarely justify the exorbitant cost of hotels and motels.
I agree.
Accommodation is expensive in Australia (apart from hostels). Camping is less expensive, but usually requires having a vehicle.
Have you heard of CouchSurfing? I've never used it, but an American friend has used it in many countries throughout the world. Here is a link to the Brisbane group
https://www.couchsurfing.com/places/oceania/australia/brisba…
Until recently membership was free, but now there is a joining fee.
Is it really only a few bad apples though? I've generally had great experiences (a long time ago) with hostels, but have had friends who worked in them who said that bad behaviour was fairly common (this was overseas and often based around alcohol). And I've seen stereotypical Brit 'lad' types be generally irritating (persistent low key attention) to women in enough Euro hostels.
YHA have no age limits and only refuse guests if your driver license address is in the same LGA as the hostel
YHA is a good suggestion 👌
There is a YHA hostel in Brisbane with dorm prices @ $60
Membership is $15 for 2 years or free on first booking:
https://www.yha.com.au/Membership/frequently-asked-questions….
Great suggestion. Thanks.
Had a great experience with YHA in Europe years ago, staying in castles and other great accom.
She'll be right maaaaate!
QLD councils have ya back>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-26/moreton-bay-council-m…
Interesting to see how this plays out. We have similar issues with the homeless in my area.
Fancy those nasty homeless nuisances cluttering up those beautiful streets.
It's all their own fault.
s/
No you Do Not !
Buy a building and make your own Backpackers accommodation in Brisbane where anyone can stay for very cheap