Page 580 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 2019
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There is a generation of people in this country that the Liberal Party is ignorant of. What you do, however, is claim to speak on their behalf. There is something amazing about the Liberal Party, not just locally but the Liberal Party as a whole across this country, in that you claim to speak for those that you do not represent. You do not represent renters. Do you know who you do represent? It is the property barons in this country. Do you know how I know that? It is because the property barons in this country think that you speak for them. If you ask them, they say they think that you are doing a good job. If you ask renters, they will tell you the exact opposite. Yet for some reason, you come into this place and claim to—
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Pettersson, make your comments through the chair, please.
MR PETTERSSON: Those opposite come into this place and claim to speak for both sides. That frustrates me to no end. It is not just on housing affordability and on rental reforms; they do it when it comes to the workplace. They claim to speak for the benefit of workers. They somehow manage to speak for both large businesses and the working man. You do not get to have it both ways.
I find it very funny that Mr Parton keeps referring to young people in a derogatory manner. It says a lot about the Liberal Party that they do not think young people’s opinions matter. This is going to come back to bite the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party attack young people. They dismiss them. But I have bad news for the Liberal Party: there are a lot of young people and they can all vote.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (11.40): Madam Speaker, I was not going to speak, but Mr Pettersson’s complete lack of understanding of how the property market works in this country and the impacts that that has on people cannot go uncommented upon. Mr Pettersson lives in an inner north bubble of hip young people and has very little real life experience of what it is like to be a parent. I am the mother of five. Four of them are renters. Most of them are renters in this town. I know how difficult it is. I know that most of them have a dog-shaped hole in their life because they cannot own a dog in a rental property most of the time.
Some landlords do allow dogs to be owned and held in their properties. That is the choice of the person who owns the home. I will give you an example of the sorts of reasons why a landlord may not want to have a dog in a property. That person might live in that house and suddenly be posted overseas, or plan to be posted overseas, and put their house up for rent for the term that they are overseas. That family who have gone overseas who own this property may have children with, or may themselves have, allergies to dogs and not want dogs in the house that they will be returning to that is their own home. That is their right. These are circumstances where it is inappropriate for landlords to be forced to do something in the property that they own.
This is all about give and take. But this legislation is not about give and take. This legislation is about forcing landlords. It is not about giving. If you give someone rights over somebody else and there is not a balance, an equilibrium, you put one group at a disadvantage over the other. What will happen, as Mr Parton has already said, is that, if it becomes too difficult to be a landlord, people will walk away from
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