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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 10 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 3097 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

The period we stipulated originally for that review was six months. We were in government six months after the legislation came into effect, but it was the view of the Government that, since at that point no matters had yet reached the Tenancy Tribunal for a full hearing, it was premature to have a review.

The Government a little later, in fact, set up the working party on the Tenancy Tribunal and the code of practice, which is at the moment meeting on a regular basis to consider ways of improving the legislation and the code of practice. I have attended one meeting of the working party. I am in constant contact with members of the working party about issues being raised there. I have had correspondence with Mr David Crossin, the chairman of the working party, about raising issues of concern to members of the working party. One of those issues was the availability of mediators as a way of resolving particular disputes which were heading up the line towards the Tenancy Tribunal. I was pleased to be able to appoint some additional mediators in order to assist the resolution process. Nonetheless, the main task before the working party lies ahead of it. Although it has met on a number of occasions over the last six months or so, it will certainly be meeting until the end of this year to sort out those matters.

I would like the progress to be faster. I was faced with the decision, at the outset of the working party's life, as to how large the working party ought to be and who ought to be represented on it. I had appeals from a large number of organisations for the right to be represented on it. I eventually decided, on the whole, those sorts of organisations that should be entitled to representation and that the number of landlord-based or landlord-favouring organisations and tenant-based or tenant-favouring organisations ought to be exactly the same. That is, I think, Mr Speaker, what we have achieved. However, I acknowledge that, as a result of that policy, the body is rather large and it is going to take some time to reach a concluded view about reform to the Tenancy Tribunal Act and the code. That means that there will need to be consideration as to what to do about those people who claim that they are not caught by the code at the moment.

Mr Speaker, I have had a lot of contact with people who are concerned about the behaviour of landlords in the city, and I have had the chance to discuss those issues, both with the tenants and with the landlords themselves. I remain of the view that legislation will be successful only if an environment is created in which a dialogue can exist between landlords and tenants to be able to sort matters out; hence, the desire to appoint mediators to bring people together at an early stage of legal proceedings to deal with those sorts of problems. A number of matters have been moving towards a hearing and, in fact, a number have been heard already by the Tenancy Tribunal. I have no doubt that there is a large number of cases that are yet to be heard. I do hesitate, in the present environment, to effectively increase the number of people who are covered by the code and the legislation itself, firstly, while the process of reviewing the code and the legislation is going on; and, secondly, after the legislation has been enacted and we have made a commitment to the community to see how well it works before we change it.

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