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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (7 May) . . Page.. 1102 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

This Government has had plenty of time to work on these processes. One of the issues raised by the Minister for Housing is the fact that, if this amendment goes through, then there would be grave problems within the ACT. He suggested additional costs because there would have to be new procedures. What is he going to do when new legislation is introduced? If there are going to be changes - and he has telegraphed and telegraphed that there would be equity in process between public tenants and private tenants - will this require changes in the public housing sector, or are they going to use old procedures for new legislation?

There are going to be costs associated with the introduction of the new residential tenancies legislation. If these costs are not going to be met, why are we talking about them? How are you going to pay for the new procedures, or is there no legislation? That is one of the concerns I have with the promises and the suggestions that there will be new legislation, and that is one of the reasons for going ahead with my amendments. When I introduced the amendments in February the Minister said the legislation was imminent. Two months later, it is still imminent.

Mr Kaine: He has said "15 May" now. "Imminent" is relative.

MS REILLY: We now have a closer date, but it is still not happening; we are all still waiting. The comment that the legislation will be introduced next week and consequently passed quickly seems to suggest that there are not a number of stakeholders in this area who would be interested in having a look at the draft and the opportunity to comment on this draft. Surely this Government has a procedure in place to take care of that. For how long are we going to wait between the introduction, if it is introduced, of the new legislation and the passing of that legislation? In the meantime, we continue to use the 1899 New South Wales Landlord and Tenant Act in relation to the eviction of public tenants. The use of this archaic procedure is of concern. We are going to go on doing that for quite a number of months. There has to be a lead time between the introduction of the Bill and the actual commencement date of it.

The other issue that I want to raise in relation to that, because it is an issue that is also affected by the introduction of these amendments, is how we are going to inform people of these changes or inform people of the new legislation. What provisions have been made to ensure that all public tenants are aware of the changes that are being suggested? What procedures are in place to assist organisations such as the Tenants Union to inform and educate people about the new Act? These are going to be very important. There does not seem to be any suggestion at the moment that this will happen, and this is something that we need to consider very carefully.

At the moment we are looking at great changes in the provision of housing through the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. This is going to put more pressure on the private rental market and the use of the private rental market. I would have considered that, since the Minister has been a party to a number of the discussions, he would have been working overtime to ensure that he ended up with quality, up-to-date legislation to assist people in residential tenancies. Instead, we have been stuck with the situation where it has gone on and on, with promises, promises, but no legislation. I am gravely concerned that we are still on a promise of legislation at the same time as there is no support for my amendments.

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