Page 3590 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
47.2 per cent of rental dwellings have actually been rated for energy efficiency. I reiterate that it is not mandatory for landlords to disclose the energy efficiency rating of their property if they have not obtained one, but if they do they are supposed to, and this report indicates they are not even complying with that.
In early to mid-2003, there was a spike in the level of compliance. I have been told that this was limited to one real estate agent who was threatened, although this has not been confirmed, with enforcement measures. In any case, the compliance quickly subsided back to the ordinary level as soon as the apparent threat of enforcement eased.
The other key point to note is that, predictably enough, compliance is skewed to those dwellings that achieve better ratings. This might be attributable to the fact that landlords who have a more energy-efficient house would want to spruik that and get ratings for them. Therefore, this anomaly is not an issue of compliance failure; rather it is a product of the system itself. Even so, it is still an important reason why the requirement should apply across the board.
Given these problems, it is certainly clear that, in order for the market to properly discriminate between efficient and inefficient houses and to reward and encourage landlords to improve the efficiency of their houses, we need an all-encompassing scheme that is easily enforceable and effective. The options are to either actively enforce the current requirements by maintaining a register of EER assessments and checking advertised properties against a list or, as this bill does, requiring that all advertisements contain an EER. This is a much simpler and cheaper way of doing it and, we believe, much more effective and helpful for potential tenants.
The cost of EER assessments is relatively low, at approximately $200 to $250, which includes recommendations for improvements. In other words, it is an energy audit with proposals as to how to increase the energy efficiency rating. It is not unreasonable to expect landlords to get their properties energy efficiency rated, particularly in light of the very high rents that Canberra landlords are able to charge. So we have to understand that people are not only paying high rents but they are then paying very large electricity and gas bills in order to warm energy-inefficient places and, unfortunately, in summer, turning on the air conditioning.
Given Canberra’s significant rental population and the fact that it is much more difficult for tenants than it is for owners to make changes to their dwelling, we should be doing everything that we can as regulators to encourage improvement and promote awareness. While there are things that tenants can do, it may simply not be practical. Heavy curtains with pelmets, for instance, make a significant difference, and tenants can put these up. However, if they are not going to be there for a long time—and nobody can be guaranteed more than a year in our current rental market—what is the tenant going to do with curtains that might not fit the windows of their next house? It makes much more sense to encourage landlords to implement these sorts of measures. And, by the way, landlords at the moment are supposed to provide curtains and blinds in the houses they rent.
There is much more that can be done that is relatively inexpensive yet will make a big difference. The most appropriate person to be doing this is the landlord and not the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .