Page 165 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2012
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assistance in energy efficiency and water efficiency programs. ACT government assistance measures include energy concession arrangements that are currently helping 22,000 low income households in Canberra. The Civil and Administrative Tribunal promotes the social and equitable supply of energy by dealing with hardship cases on an individual basis. The government is continuing to help reduce energy bills through services such as the home energy advice team, which provides rebates and advice to householders on reducing their energy use.
The recently expanded outreach program and the WEST plus program provide free retrofits of measures that do not require lessors’ permission, including removable window pelmets, blockout curtains, efficient lighting and removable essential appliances such as fridges and washing machines. A significant obstacle that tenants encounter in taking advantage of ACT government incentives, however, is that for more substantial sustainability measures, such as ceiling insulation, the permission of the lessor is required. This split incentive, as it is often known, is an issue that requires further action.
The government believes that a review of the Residential Tenancies Act would be a more appropriate place to consider whether minimum standards of rented premises should be introduced. Such a review would enable us to consider whether the act strikes an appropriate balance between the rights of tenants and lessors more generally and could also undertake a more rigorous survey of the costs and benefits involved in rolling out government strategies to improve sustainability in relation to the residential housing stock. This survey could provide confidence around the flow-on effect of mandating or incentivising the uptake of measures such as those proposed in this bill. A review of the act could also examine whether other options could be considered that would remove impediments to tenants retrofitting measures, including energy and water efficient measures, into rented premises.
As environment minister as well as Attorney-General, I am committed to measures that improve sustainability in an equitable fashion. But the measures contained in Mr Rattenbury’s bill come at potentially too great a cost to those whom it is designed to benefit. So for that reason, the government will not be supporting this bill today.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (12.03): It will be no surprise to the Assembly that the opposition will not be supporting this bill today, and the main reason for that is that we care about the cost of living that Canberrans are facing.
At the end of the day what this bill represents is another financial burden on lessors, who will have no choice but to pass on the costs to tenants, therefore increasing rents in an already undersupplied market. Ultimately it is the tenant who will lose if this bill is passed. The tenant will lose the ability to choose what kind of property they want to rent and they will ultimately lose money as well.
The bill imposes less choice for renters; some renters are happy to rent at a lower cost a property that might be relatively basic but provides everything they need. It will also impose rent increases in an already undersupplied market. These increases will mostly affect those least able to afford the cost of living as it is. The bill also gives the minister ultimate power to change minimum standards at any time and the power to
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