Page 606 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 1990
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Tenants Association and the Australian Labor Party was questioned why the legislation had not been introduced earlier.
It is a fact that the legislation was opposed by the Business Regulation Review Unit of the Department of Industry, Technology and Commerce and it did not proceed. But the ACT Labor Party does support the legislation and in government will introduce it into the ACT Parliament.
Mr Kaine: Why didn't you do so? You had seven months.
MR WHALAN: Mr Kaine has interjected, as he usually does, and asked me why we did not do so. I will explain to Mr Kaine. Unfortunately, Mr Speaker, when we were in government we had respect for the institution of this Assembly. Clearly, this Government has no respect for it whatsoever. No other party offers comprehensive protection; certainly the Liberal Party opposes power to arbitrate on rent. We believe that a tribunal without power to arbitrate on rent will be a toothless tiger. That was the basis of our statement, Mr Speaker.
This, then, was the submission of the Australian Labor Party in the period prior to the formation of this Assembly. What happened subsequently was that in July an estoppel was placed on movement in this direction by the Government, by virtue of the actions of Mr Jensen when, in July in this chamber, he moved a motion that a select committee be established to review this issue of the tenancy of commercial premises.
In those circumstances, Mr Speaker, out of deference to the activities of that committee, we placed on hold any move that the Government had made toward the establishment of legislation of this type. What happened subsequently then was that the committee went through its consideration. That consideration ended with the production of a report to this Assembly. After getting some extensions to allow them time to complete their report, members of the committee finally came forward with a report on 20 February of this year.
The recommendations of that report are outlined at (ix) of the report, Tenancy of Commercial Premises, and those recommendations are:
The Committee recommends that:
1. the relevant Minister invite the principal industry associations acting on behalf of the landlord and tenant groups to enter into negotiations to formulate a Code of Practice relating to tenancies, including an appropriate dispute settlement mechanism;
2. Fair Trading Legislation be enacted to support the Code of Practice; and
3. if general agreement on a Code of Practice cannot be reached within six months of tabling
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