Page 3267 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 September 1994
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I guess that it is very disappointing to see these last minute amendments put down by the Labor Government, and I would like to see just that - to see them put down. When I say "them put down", I do not necessarily mean the Labor Government put down; in this case I was talking about the amendments, but I can understand. The euthanasia Bill is about voluntary put-down.
Mr De Domenico: No, that was this morning. The euthanasia Bill was this morning's Bill.
MR MOORE: Mr De Domenico, I am surprised that you have not realised that yet, after all these months. The question of retrospectivity, I think, is an interesting one because what we are doing by passing this Bill is setting in place - you may refer to them as such - new community standards. Certainly, we are recognising standards that the community would expect of us. That applies to the whole Bill. A time when we recognise standards is a time when we ought to be able to have disputes resolved by a dispute mechanism. We are not suddenly saying, "No, you cannot do this", or, "You cannot do that"; we are saying that, if there is an agreement that is inappropriate, then you have a mechanism upon which to operate. Mr Connolly, a short while ago said yes, but we still have the possibility of going through the harsh and unconscionable. I think this legislation is now harsh and oppressive. The general legal term is "unconscionable", but we now have the opportunity to go through that. The basis for putting up this particular amendment was really that there would be undue hardship. That was the general argument - the undue hardship because of the ratchet clauses - and, if we cut out the ratchet clauses, it would cause undue hardship to some of the owners because of their relationship with their financiers.
Of course, by using these amendments we just transfer the undue hardship back to where it has always been - back to the tenants - and that is the difficulty, because a ratchet clause is one of those clauses that continue to increase the level of rent. It is an agreement that increases the level of rent and it never goes down. It increases by either 5 per cent - the norm would be something like that - or the CPI increase, whichever is the greater. So, when we get a huge drop in interest rates, as we have seen over the last few years, the landlord has a huge advantage. Was any of that passed on to the tenants? Of course not. But, as this ratchet clause applies, they continue to increase the amount of rent that tenants have to pay. That probably does not fit into "harsh" or "oppressive" as a definition, but it certainly seems to me to be entirely inappropriate.
What we are trying to do by this legislation is balance the relationship between landlords and tenants, and we had come some of the way in doing this. One has to argue that, if this was going to cause undue hardship for these owners - and Mr Connolly is presenting that argument - there should be consistency. I find it curious, indeed, that he can stand here and talk about that kind of undue hardship when he knows about the undue hardship that he has caused a small group of business people in the ACT, namely, service station owners. What is good for the goose ought to be good for the gander. It seems to me that he can have it either one way or the other. But if he is going to be consistent he ought not be doing this kind of backdown. He should be prepared to stand up here and say, "Small business in this town is suffering, yes" and "Yes, we recognise that many of the owners are small businessmen. We recognise that they are tied to financiers".
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