Page 2057 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 28 May 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members, is it the wish of this Assembly to debate this order of the day concurrently with the Small Claims (Amendment) Bill 1991? There being no objection, that course will be followed. I remind members that in debating order of the day No. 1 they may also address their remarks to order of the day No. 2.
MRS GRASSBY (4.24): Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise to speak on a matter which I have addressed on a number of previous occasions in this Assembly; that is, the very real need in Canberra for a rental bond board. It is part of the Labor platform and it has been in the Labor platform for many years.
The fact is that many Canberra tenants whose lease on a property has finished, and who felt that they had taken care of that property, have gone back expecting to be given back their bond and have been told that they have no right to it. A lot of fictitious reasons have been given, such as the carpet no longer being in the best repair or holes in the wall. I could in this speech relate numerous things that I have been told by tenants who have come to me with the complaint that they have not been able to get their bond back - things which existed now but which the landlord said did not exist when they took the property over. These tenants have argued and fought with the landlord but still not been able to get their bond back.
Some months ago we saw Mr Collaery's draft version of this Bill, which he made available to various groups and then eventually - some time after, I might say - to me. Let us be very clear: This consultation period was very necessary because his draft Bill was surely one of the least attractive pieces of legislation ever to be witnessed in this place. It was so weak and inefficient as to be practically useless. Mr Collaery himself is aware of this because of all the meetings he has had to go through to correct the earlier versions; and, of course, the initial Bill met criticism from many quarters in Canberra.
Many people who were involved in this, such as ACTCOSS and many other organisations, found that the Bill did not cover the things it should have covered. To be fair, Mr Collaery's consultations with various groups on this piece of legislation have been most valuable and the Bill before the Assembly is now one that is, generally speaking, on the right track. However, there are some points I should like to make about the Bill with the purpose of improving its operations. We have some amendments which we would like to put up as a result of lots of consultation that we have undertaken throughout Canberra on this Bill.
Clearly, there are some points which need to be made to provide a clear indication of the rights and duties of both landlords and tenants. As I have said, the Labor Party has had a landlord and tenant Act and a rental bond board as part of its policy for many, many years. We did bring into this house a Bill which we expected the Government to
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .