Page 479 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 20 February 1991
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I note that even ACTCOSS, an organisation I have sometimes had a few tiffs with over other matters unrelated to this, is calling for consultation in relation to the Rental Bond Board. In a letter to the Minister for Housing, Mr Collaery, received on 20 December, Dr John Tomlinson from ACTCOSS states:
We are pleased there will be a process of community consultation following the release of the draft legislation to enable a wide based response to the legislation. We understand that there will be extensive educational and promotional material produced, including material in community languages.
We also support the establishment of an Implementation Advisory Committee of community and industry representatives. We recommend that this proposal go ahead and look forward to receiving further information on the formation of this Committee.
ACTCOSS was pleased that there was going to be a process of community consultation. The Housing Industry Association was pleased that there was going to be a period of community consultation, and no doubt interested individual landlords and tenants would be pleased that there will be a period of consultation. One point that was mentioned, I think by Mr Moore, and I do tend to agree with him, was that, for all intents and purposes, one per cent of landlords and tenants being involved in disputes might appear to be a fairly insignificant portion initially. However, it is not, and that is something that really has to be considered. We have to work out what is the best way of solving disputes, and of solving them satisfactorily and, indeed, cheaply to all concerned, including the ACT taxpayer and the ACT Government. I want to deal with that now.
There are a number of institutions in Canberra where such disputes can be resolved. I appreciate to an extent comments made by Mrs Grassby that people are somewhat reluctant to go to court, even something like the Small Claims Court. But let us just briefly look at some of the current avenues available to people who have a dispute. Why do we have to reinvent the wheel, especially when the reinvention costs a lot of needless money, when we actually have some perfectly good institutions available at present. The Small Claims Court was set up a number of years ago specifically to get lawyers out of the picture, because lawyers do not get costs if they represent a client down there. It enables people to go to court and have their matters resolved in an inexpensive way, without the need for lawyers. That was why the ceiling figure initially was very low; but now it has gone up, I believe, to $10,000. So a large number of disputes can be handled quite easily.
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