Page 983 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 15 March 2005

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tenants, be they public or private, making the life of neighbours an absolute misery. It is a sensible addition to the bill and has the opposition’s full support.

The bill also contains some other provisions with relation to transferring public housing tenancy under a will. The bill provides that a new residential tenancy agreement may provide that a tenancy may not pass to a non-occupier on the death of a tenant and also enables the minister for housing to adjust the rent or terminate the agreement by seeking an order from the Residential Tenancies Tribunal. The courts have upheld wills that have enabled public housing tenants to transfer their tenancy on their death to a relative. Quite clearly, a restriction is needed in this area and the bill seems to do that.

The bill also provides a number of other things such as a penalty for failing to lodge a bond in the prescribed time. This is something we will be watching although we note the government has indicated there are some people who are late lodging rental bonds. The bill also makes a number of minor amendments, which the opposition will be supporting. For example it is common sense that tenants should not be required to notify the lessor of minor maintenance such as changing a light globe or fuse. This is something tenants could and should do themselves. The opposition will be supporting the bill, but there are a number of potentially contentious areas in it and we will be monitoring its progress.

DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (10.59): Mr Speaker, the Greens will be supporting this bill in principle, but with some reservations because it makes a range of valuable changes to the Residency Tenancies Act 1997. These changes follow from the review of the act that culminated in a set of reforms in August of last year. Certain matters that were not dealt with at that time come before the Assembly today for approval. Extensive consultations were conducted last year, prior to the August reforms, and resulted in changes to the act that effectively balances the interests of landlords and tenants.

The bill before the Assembly today contains provisions that might be thought to be largely uncontroversial, but the issues addressed by the provisions are worthy of attention. However, it appears that the detail of the legislation has not been the subject of sufficient community input to ensure an appropriate or best practice resolution of some of the issues addressed. In particular, we are concerned that, one, the provision intended to allow for a change of lessee in a domestic violent situation is not broad enough to encompass most of the situations in which such a change might be required and, two, the provision which allows for the immediate removal of a tenant where there has been an infringement of a neighbour’s quiet enjoyment, provides an unnecessarily harsh and immediate remedy for some of the circumstances which might fall under this legislation.

During the detail stage, we will be putting forward three amendments to the bill and suggesting some regulatory and administrative matters that should be attended to in support of the legislation. Clause 17 of the bill allows the occupant of premises to apply to become a tenant where a court has made an order to remove the tenant from the premises. This clause is particularly intended to apply in situations of domestic violence. Unfortunately, the clause in its present form only operates in circumstances where a court has a “kick out” order against a tenant. Many of the cases in which a change of tenant may need to occur, arising from a domestic violence situation, will not be picked up by these words.


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