Page 205 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2012
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would have on tenants. We have the Tenants Union, the biggest single advocate for tenants, saying, “We really need legislation like this.” The people who work with tenants every single day of the year, who spend their entire time battling for the needs and the rights of tenants, are saying: “We need something like this. We need this kind of legislation because tenants are getting a raw deal. Nothing can be done.” Tenants are in a weak bargaining position. It is a lessor’s market out there and the tenants have no capability to get these improvements to their properties.
That is why the Greens have brought forward this legislation. We have been told by the people in the community who work with tenants every single day, who work for those people that are suffering disadvantage, that because of the power imbalance between the landlords and the tenants we need these sorts of standards, these minimum standards, to be legislated.
It is important to recognise that we are talking about minimum standards here. From the way this debate has gone on in some places, both in the media before today and in some ways through the chamber today, you would think we were talking about gold-plating the quality of rental houses in the ACT. This is not what we are talking about. We are talking about going from a zero-star rating to a three-star rating. This is not six or seven stars. This is not nine or 10 stars, when you are getting towards a carbon-neutral house. This is a basic standard of ensuring that houses are warm in the winter and cool in the summer so that people are not getting sick in the winter because they are so cold, and not suffering a terrible quality of life because they are cold, and not sweltering in the summer or having to close everything up and turn on an air conditioner at considerable expense.
We talk about the cost of these things. We have seen the data that comes out of Queensland and the impact of air conditioners: every time a new air conditioner gets installed in Queensland, that is a cost to the taxpayer of $1,500 in grid upgrades. Mr Coe talked earlier about the impact for taxpayers across the territory; these are the sorts of hidden costs that Mr Coe’s right for everybody to have an air conditioner starts to lead to when it comes to looking at the true cost of things.
Mr Coe: Are you going to ban air conditioners?
MR RATTENBURY: Mr Coe seeks to verbal me again. I have never suggested that we should be banning air conditioners. What I am saying is that we should not necessarily require everybody to have an air conditioner. And if we built our houses properly, people would not need them. I have not turned my air conditioning on once this summer, because I have insulated my house. That is the sort of advantage that you can achieve if you do not live in the sort of cave that Mr Coe lives in.
The true cave dwellers in this chamber are the ones that do not understand these facts. They have not lifted their heads out of the caves long enough to look. It is possible to do it in a different way, a way that is beneficial to the entire community and does not push the hidden costs on to all of those who are not participating. That is what is going on here, and it would do you well to lift your head out of the cave some time, Mr Coe.
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