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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (6 November) . . Page.. 3761 ..

Debate resumed from 15 May 1997, on motion by Mr Humphries:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

MS TUCKER (5.02): Mr Speaker, this Residential Tenancies Bill is very important legislation and has certainly been a long time coming. Tenancy is an important area for government regulation because it is critical to find a fair balance between lessors and tenants. Access to affordable, safe and secure housing is obviously a fundamental human requirement. As far as this applies to residential tenancy, the Community Law Reform Committee, in its comprehensive report which forms the basis of this legislation, said that all residents should have minimum standards of repair and cleanliness of premises, a measure of security of tenure, clearly defined rights of privacy, clear information concerning the rules of the premises and the rights of the residents, and access to appropriate in-house and external dispute resolution processes. In the ACT tenancy legislation is particularly critical, as we have the second highest proportion of public and private renters in Australia. We also have a high proportion of people in public housing. As the ACT Grants Commission submission argues, low-income housing is a problem in the ACT. The ACT has the highest median weekly expenditure on rental payments of any State or Territory in Australia.

Legislation of this sort is obviously never going to please everybody, but I believe that what we have before us today is a significant improvement on the Bill that was tabled earlier in the year. The legislation we now have in the ACT has some fundamental flaws and is very out of date, having been enacted in 1949. There are many gaps; but one, in particular, that we will be aware of is that there is very poor coverage in relation to maintenance and repair issues. Another major problem is that the dispute resolution process is quite inadequate.

This Bill is drawn from an extensive document and exposure draft prepared by the Community Law Reform Committee. I would like to commend the Government for this Bill, and also the previous Government and the Community Law Reform Committee for the extensive work that has brought us to where we are now. This Bill does largely implement the recommendations of the Community Law Reform Committee. One very significant feature of this Bill is that public housing has been brought into the legislative framework. In this Bill the repair and maintenance provisions are greatly improved, and the rights and responsibilities of tenants and lessors are much clearer and better defined.

Mr Speaker, there were a number of concerns with the Bill as it was originally tabled, and I am very pleased that we have been able to resolve the majority of concerns in a consensual way. Ms Reilly, Mr Moore and I wrote to Mr Humphries proposing a number of changes. We also proposed that, given the desire from all sides to have this Bill debated and passed as soon as possible, the Government should, in consultation

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