Page 4434 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 30 October 2018
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government tabled the report on the review of the Residential Tenancies Act. The act was amended in 2016 to give effect to a first tranche of recommendations, including amendments to help people experiencing domestic violence change their tenancy arrangements. That legislation also brought forward requirements for rental properties to have smoke alarms.
We have continued to deliver reforms that support vulnerable people in the housing market since that time. In June this year the Assembly passed legislation to protect vulnerable people from bond alternatives. The idea behind these products is that, instead of paying a bond, a tenant can pay a monthly fee to a private company that guarantees payments to landlords. These are products that, by their very nature, are going to be marketed to people who cannot afford a bond. They carry significant risk for vulnerable people. We will not allow that to occur in the ACT. In that same legislation, we introduced protections for people who face housing stress by providing a clearer, fairer process for managing unpaid rent which benefits both tenants and landlords.
As we publicly announced last week, we will be going further in supporting tenants. This week we will bring forward reforms that support tenants to own pets, to make minor modifications and to be treated fairly when they leave a home or a landlord seeks a new rental rate. As a government we are committed to making housing more secure, more livable and more affordable. In particular, we want to ensure secure housing for vulnerable people. It is important that renters have the right protections to deal fairly with agents and landlords and to live as fully participating members in our community.
Over the next year we will be turning our ongoing consultation on residential tenancies into even more protections. We are continuing to engage with the Make Renting Fair Alliance and the Real Estate Institute on additional reforms. We will be looking at a range of further improvements, including how much notice tenants should get when a landlord wants to do something with a property, and ways to ensure tenants are not unfairly kicked out because they exercise their rights.
We will also bring forward changes to the way that occupancy agreements work in the ACT. Over the past year we have consulted with working groups that have people representing the interests of people in caravan parks, boarding houses, crisis accommodation and student accommodation. I look forward to bringing in further reforms that make their living situations safer and more secure.
There is clearly more work to be done. The housing strategy sets out what we heard from Canberrans about what to do and how to do it in our rental market. We will keep working over this term to implement the recommendations of the review of the Residential Tenancies Act and will keep working to support advice through the Tenants’ Union, through Access Canberra and in our broader consultation processes to make sure that Canberrans are fully aware of their rights.
As the Attorney-General, I am proud to support the Deputy Chief Minister and all of my ministerial colleagues to deliver more equitable, more diverse and more sustainable housing solutions for Canberrans, because the government has a track
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