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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (6 November) . . Page.. 3769 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (5.33), in reply: Mr Speaker, in closing the debate on this Bill, let me first of all thank members for their support for this legislation. It is, I think, legislation which is extremely significant - not merely because of the time it has taken to work its way up through the system, but also because of the extensive overhaul that it represents of the law relating to residential tenancies. The Landlord and Tenant Act is a piece of legislation which was enacted, I think, just after the Second World War. It was enacted in a totally different environment from the one which Canberra finds itself in today. A comprehensive re-evaluation of the legislation, the protections it provides, how it regulates appropriately the relationship between landlord and tenant without being intrusive in that process but reinforcing the rights of people who might be disadvantaged in that process, has been a very complex and difficult task.

I think it is appropriate to make reference to some of the people who have been involved in that process and whose efforts have contributed to the legislation before the house today. The Community Law Reform Committee played a very important role in that process. Some of the recommendations they have made are not reflected in the decisions that we will make today; nonetheless, the basis of what we are putting before the chamber today and which will pass is the reflection of the work of the CLRC. From that body, particularly, I understand that Graeme Lunney and Peter Sutherland deserve to be commended for their very significant contribution. I also want to make reference to Robin Gibson from the Law Society, Simon Hearder from the Real Estate Institute and Mr Peter Jansen of the Landlords Association.

Mr Speaker, I do not want to comment in detail on the amendments, because we will have a chance to do that during the detail stage of the debate on the Bill; but I will comment on a few issues that have been raised in the course of the debate. Ms Tucker asked me to affirm that a standard tenancy agreement would be available to members of the public free of charge. I am aware, in making that commitment, that we are putting out of business a small cottage industry in the ACT based around the production of those agreements, principally from the Law Society. I know that tenancy agreements are also available in newsagents, where presumably someone makes a small profit on them.

Notwithstanding that, I appreciate that there is a view that this information should be available, since it is essentially drawn from a public document developed with public money, namely, the Residential Tenancies Act. The Government will publish an agreement on the Internet and that agreement will be available through any public library and can be produced from any of those outlets. Of course, people will also be able to take it off their own computer at home if they have access to the Internet in that way. Ms Reilly raised some issues about the resourcing of the tribunal. Obviously, we need to ensure that the tribunal is well resourced and, obviously, a variety of things will come before the tribunal which may or may not be within its capacity to deal with properly.

At this point I might make a comment about the amendments which propose to expand the size of the tribunal. Those proposals, I understand, will fairly significantly add to the cost of operating the tribunal, in that in each case where a full bench, so to speak, of the tribunal is convened the cost of those members' pay will be something in the order of $1,000 for an individual matter that might proceed before the tribunal. If there are 50 or 100, or whatever, matters for which a full bench of the tribunal is required,

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