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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4847 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

That approach by the Opposition is consistent with public statements we have made to that effect. In the next parliament we, as the Government, will give a full response to that report. Of course, we may well go beyond what the report has recommended or, perhaps, ignore what it has recommended. I say again that reports of this nature are for our information and for advice to us. This report seems to me to be a very substantial one. It is well put together. It took a long time, but it involved lots of people and lots of complex issues. I am grateful that the Assembly gave us time, albeit a brief amount of time, to consider the further amendments that we have received to date. I acknowledge the cooperation of the Minister in providing a briefing on that.

Mr Moore's amendments seek to expand the Act, and I will respond to two of his key proposals. He seeks to expand the business before the tribunal covered by the code of practice to all business and to remove the restriction relating to small business. Yet, the working party made no suggestion that this should occur. It recognised that the Act is to protect small business. I think the purpose of the Act from the beginning is to protect small business, not big business, which is quite able, too well able, to look after itself.

A key provision that Mr Moore wants to include is to allow for the tribunal to hear disputes about whether the rent is, in the circumstances, excessive. Yet, as I read it, this is another matter which goes beyond the recommendations of the working party.

Mr Moore: It is consistent with the minority report for the small businesses you talk about.

MR WOOD: The question of rent was discussed, but there was no clear agreement. That is not surprising, considering the nature of the working party, which had representatives evenly split between tenants and landlords, and a number of others who were not particularly committed one way or the other. But there was no clear statement in the report to support this amendment and there is no recommendation. On the other hand, the relevant amendments proposed by the Minister refine the provisions of the Act. In an appropriate manner, there is a strengthening of the provisions about unconscionable conduct, to allow tenants access to the tribunal and to make it easier for them to be successful in their disputes about rent. Accordingly, we will be supporting those amendments, but not Mr Moore's amendments.

The Greens also have proposed amendments which have not formed part of the recommendations of the working party. On that basis, they will not be supported by the Opposition. In short, we will not be supporting the amendments from Mr Moore - there might be one there that will be supported - or the Greens; but we will be supporting, in the main, the proposals from the Government.

MR MOORE (4.02): I must say, Mr Speaker, that I am not surprised about this. We have Labor and Liberal combining, once again, to support big business. We have Mr Wood saying he is going to rely on the working party and only on the elements of agreement of the working party, instead of getting the whole picture from the working party. The whole picture includes, of course, the minority report and the tenants' perspective. There was never going to be agreement between landlords and tenants on such a fundamental issue as excessive rents. So, all I sought to do was to say,

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