Page 960 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 31 March 1993
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As recorded on page 610, I think Mr Whalan's comments are particularly embarrassing for you. He accuses the Alliance Government of backing down from a promise to the tenants that action would be taken; he says that the recommendations do nothing to rectify what was identified as an imbalance of power between landlords and tenants. We have a curious situation here: A Labor government that adapts a previous Alliance wimp-out response to their own party's demands for tigers with teeth, that is, a code of conduct instead of specific legislation to redress the imbalance of power.
Mr Connolly: What did we say going into the election?
MR MOORE: It is curiouser and curiouser, that the Wonderland Labor Government, historically elected on a platform of representing the underdog, the working class, the disempowered, should refuse repeatedly to take action to protect those struggling in small business. Mr Adrian Redmond, the butcher who went broke in Campbell recently, Miss Barbara Kyle, the once owner of Fairyland Creche in Garran, plus many other retailers in Civic, Fyshwick, Mitchell, Woden and Belconnen, cannot possibly believe that a Labor government exists to protect the vulnerable when it takes the side of the Sheriff of Nottingham year after year. I do not blame them for thinking that they have champions in the Labor Party. Here is the answer to Mr Connolly's earlier interjection, "What did the Labor Party say?". The Labor Party platform states categorically, under the heading "Small Business", at 7.7:
Protect small business from unfair and discriminatory practices, including by regulating relationships between lessors and small business tenants ...
Again, under "Leasing", at 32.2:
An ACT Government will:
Establish a commercial tenancy tribunal to review disputes arising from commercial tenancies.
Legislate to ensure that commercial leases have basic protections in areas such as rent reviews, options, compensation for tenants' fixtures and fittings, minimum terms and assignment of leases.
So, thank you, Mr Connolly, for your question. Is it, perhaps, ACT Labor Party policy to renege on all of its promises that it published during election time one by one? If so, that is the one policy we seem to be able to count on. Contrary to popular opinion, I am not raising these matters simply to embarrass the Government out of a wimpish stance and into taking some action; I am presenting this Bill in the distinct hope that finally, after all this time, the Assembly will show some courage. I think this is an appropriate time to quote from the proceedings of the second House of Assembly on Monday, 20 June 1983. Mr Whalan, speaking on commercial tenancies, said, as recorded at page 3144:
... I would like to point out that the motion that is coming up is probably a little bit irrelevant because the ever active member for Canberra, Mrs Kelly, has been working very hard in this area; it was she who originally initiated this matter in the Assembly in 1974.
That is the House of Assembly.
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