Page 3640 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 23 August 2011
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outweighed by the protections that it provides to tenants and the potential benefits it will provide to users of databases in the ACT and nationally.
I turn briefly to the amendments that have been foreshadowed by Mr Rattenbury. First of all, I express some concern that these amendments have been presented at the last minute in response to last-minute comments from the Tenants Union of the ACT. I should note that all stakeholders have been given more than reasonable time to respond to these proposals and that the Tenants Union’s last-minute representations are not issues that have not been raised earlier in the consultation process.
I note that the Tenants Union provided a submission to the government on 6 January last year during the public consultation period for the model uniform provisions. In that submission the Tenants Union indicated they were generally supportive of the model uniform provisions, although they did express reservations with respect to some of the provisions. These matters were considered as part of the final drafting of the final model uniform provisions. The deputy director-general of my directorate wrote to the Tenants Union on 4 January this year attaching the final model uniform provisions. They did not choose to reply until 15 August this year. Eight months after they were provided with the final model uniform provisions, they replied.
I am concerned about that, but nevertheless we need to deal with the substance of the issues before us. Of primary concern to the government are the proposals which are now reflected in Mr Rattenbury’s amendment and which have been instigated by the suggestions from the Tenants Union that a lessor should not be able to list a tenant under section 91(1)(c)(ii) without first obtaining an order from the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal or court order to quantify the amount owed to the tenant.
This recommendation was not incorporated into the bill for a number of reasons. Firstly, it should be noted that the current provisions of the act do not prescribe reasons which give rise to a right to list. Therefore the proposed bill gives clarity by limiting the cases in which a tenant may be listed. An extra advantage of the new scheme is that a tenant will have the opportunity to respond to a proposed listing and seek changes if necessary. In the government’s view, there is adequate recourse in the bill and in the model uniform provisions for a tenant who does not agree with a listing made by a lessor. Apart from having an opportunity to respond prior to listing, an aggrieved tenant can make application to the ACAT for a number of orders in relation to a listing, including orders for compensation. It is therefore not in a lessor’s or agent’s interests to make a listing that is in contravention of these provisions.
The government’s real concern with this proposal is that this could result in tenant databases continuing to operate under the radar. The whole point of this reform is to provide a regulatory framework for tenancy databases. The whole point of the reform is to bring them out of the shadows into the open, make sure they are consistently regulated across the country and make sure that tenants are appropriately protected in relation to any information that may be entered into those databases about them.
If you make the provisions too onerous by requiring that before a listing can even be made you have to go to the ACAT or a court and get an order, my real concern is that it will mean that no-one will operate a tenancy database consistent with this
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