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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 2 Hansard (1 March) . . Page.. 505 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

The government bill has been through an exhaustive process. When he was minister for fair trading, Mr Humphries announced in December 1995 a review of the Tenancy Tribunal Act 1994 and the commercial and retail leases code of practice by a working party made up of representatives of landlords, tenants and interested parties.

The working party reported in November 1997 with 84 recommendations. The government responded to that report in August 1998. An exposure draft of a bill was released in December 1998. The exposure draft was widely criticised, so the Law Society, we thought as honest broker-and I think many of us had hopes that the results of the Law Society's intercession would have been slightly more productive than in the event it was-examined it and prepared a submission to government in August 1999. The current bill was then prepared and presented.

Given this exhaustive process and the content of the bill, the Labor Party has decided to support much of the government's bill and will not be supporting Mr Rugendyke's bill. As I said, Mr Rugendyke's bill has an uncertain provenance and, in our opinion, makes no attempt at balancing, to the extent that it should, the competing interests of the parties. Having said that, I should indicate that the Labor Party is prepared to support significant amendments that Mr Rugendyke will nevertheless, as I understand it, be making to the government's bill.

It is also obvious that the government's bill does not please all parties, with landlords claiming bias in favour of tenants and tenants claiming bias in favour of landlords and both claiming that unexpected and unexplained procedures have been placed in the bill by the government. In such a vital and sensitive area, unanimity probably cannot be achieved and uneasy compromises will be necessary.

There have been some serious misstatements, perhaps to the point of being scurrilous, in the media about the Labor Party's position, but the Labor Party has listened deliberately and carefully to both landlords and tenants in this matter and has worked extremely hard at achieving a balanced and reasonable position in relation to this bill.

My office and those of other Labor members have received strong representations from tenants' representatives, property owners, the Law Society and individual lawyers and business owners about the bill. We have decided that, despite the effort that has gone into the government's bill, additional balancing of it in favour of the tenant is desirable. We will be moving a series of amendments all designed to assist the tenant in negotiations with landlords without locking either of them in to undesirable positions.

We will propose an amendment to ensure that tenants cannot be locked out of their premises. If the lessor wishes to terminate the lease, it must apply to the court for an order ending the lease and to evict the tenant. Residential lessors cannot just lock tenants out. Commercial and retail tenants must apply for a court order if they wish to terminate the lease. It is reasonable to safeguard the tenant's interests, stock and possession of the premises by requiring a lessor to apply for a termination order. It will be incumbent upon the government to ensure that the court procedures are streamlined so that applications for termination orders, and all other disputes referred to the court, are determined speedily.

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