Page 2064 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 28 May 1991
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We note with interest the dispute settlement procedures provided for in this Bill. Under the Labor Bill we were looking at a very simple, almost administrative, determination of disputes; but we always had in mind that the appropriate final arbiter of disputes may be the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. If the Community Law Reform Committee ends up giving a comprehensive report on residential tenancy reform in this Territory so that we end up with a code of practice on that - and that has been a longstanding part of Labor policy - we would expect that the options would be either a residential tenancies tribunal to deal with tenancy disputes or a specialised division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, so you would make some savings on registries and so forth.
The method that has been chosen by the Government is to refer disputes eventually to the Small Claims Court. We have some concerns about that. The Small Claims Court can be seen to be in some sense a little more formal than an Administrative Appeals Tribunal and, because it sits in the Magistrates Court and it carries with it many of the trappings of the Magistrates Court, there is perhaps a tendency for people who may have had unfortunate dealings with the Magistrates Court on some occasion to be reluctant to go there. But we will suspend judgment on that. We will not oppose it, because this whole issue will be looked at by the Law Reform Committee.
We are particularly interested in the proposal to use mediation. I am aware that there is some concern from tenant groups in this Territory that mediation may not prove effective because of the unequal bargaining position between landlord and tenant, and there is a view that it would be best to go straight to the Small Claims Court. The Labor Opposition is inclined to support the government moves on this and to, in effect, give this mediation approach a try. The concept of alternative dispute resolution is one that we support. This Bill is being introduced to fill a gap in the legislation - a gap that, of course, would not have been there had the Labor Bill been implemented last year, but a gap nonetheless. As the Law Reform Committee is going to look at this whole issue of landlord and tenant, it may be appropriate that we try this initiative of alternative dispute resolution.
We can see how it operates. If, as the Government hopes and as we would hope, it proves a speedy and economical method of resolving disputes, it is probably a method we would stick with in other areas of landlord and tenant law. If, on the other hand, the concerns of the Welfare Rights and Legal Centre are correct and mediation proves ineffective because of the disparity in bargaining power and the reluctance of tenants to perhaps have to be seen to confront the landlords in those circumstances, then we will look at the matter again. But at the moment we think that it is certainly worth a try.
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