Page 780 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 13 April 1994
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Not only do they not help the landlord; they do not even know how much money has been forfeited under such circumstances. I find this a rather strange situation. I would remind members that we are dealing with public money. We are dealing with taxpayers' money. In a question on notice on 15 April 1993 I asked how much money had been lost to private landlords in the year 1991-92 through default on rent relief payments. The answer from the trust was:
This information is not known.
I do not know whether the suggestion is that they really did not care either. The trust also has no procedures to protect landlords from persistent rent defaulters, because they have no records. Therefore, in July 1993 I wrote to the Parliamentary Counsel's Office seeking legislation to allow the trust to pay rent relief direct to the landlord or to the landlord's agent as a way of overcoming this problem. On 6 December I received a response from Parliamentary Counsel which I want to quote because it is relevant. It says:
In relation to your request for an amendment to have rent relief paid to the landlord, the legislation that seems to be most relevant is the Housing Assistance Act 1987. However, it would appear that the mode of payments of rent relief are governed by instruments under the administration of the Commissioner, presumably a housing assistance program. Might I suggest that you contact the Commissioner's Office who would be better placed to give you detail concerning the bases on which such payments are made . . .
I elected to pursue another matter that I had raised in that same letter with the Parliamentary Counsel which related to rental bonds, and the legislation is before this house, as members would be aware.
More recently the question of rent relief came up again. Members will remember that there was an article in the Valley View of the week before last, and of last week, and that there was an article in the Canberra News of last week quoting landlords who were complaining about this situation. I, therefore, decided that it was time to act and I thought that the simplest way of doing it was by this motion that I have before the Assembly today.
There are over 2,000 people receiving rent relief in the ACT, but I do want to stress that we are dealing with only a minority of problem tenants, namely, those who do not pass the rent relief on to the landlord but use it for other purposes. They are only a minority. Unfortunately, however, this minority has threatened the viability of the rent relief scheme because landlords are becoming increasingly reluctant to participate in the scheme, to accept tenants who are on rent relief, because they fear that in the event of them defaulting they will receive no money. Obviously they will not receive any from those defaulting tenants. Further, they will not receive any, unfortunately, from the Housing Trust, and therefore they are going to be out of pocket. It, therefore, seems entirely sensible, simple and reasonable, I believe, for the ACT Housing Trust to pay the rent relief direct to the landlord or to the landlord's agent.
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