Page 615 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 2019
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which allows the lessor to obtain prior approval from ACAT to impose a condition on the consent for keeping an animal in a particular dwelling.
Proposed new clause 4B is also part of this amendment. It relates to new section 12(3)(ca). As well as the information that lessors are currently required to provide to tenants prior to entering into a residential tenancy agreement that is detailed in section 12 of the RTA, this amendment requires that the lessor provide information about the minimum standards created by these amendments. Specifically, the lessor is to provide the tenant with information that explains minimum housing standards, the processes that are open to a tenant to pursue action should the tenant believe that the house does not meet a minimum standard, and, if the premises that are leased have an exemption from any of the minimum standards, a copy of that exemption.
As I mentioned before, part 3A is about the minimum standards. These standards can relate to but are not limited to the provision and maintenance of locks and other security devices; construction, condition and safety of premises; sanitation and plumbing; supply of hot and cold water; ventilation and prevention from damp; heating; laundry and cooking facilities; electrical safety; lighting; and hard-wired smoke detectors.
The amendments provide that these standards, once developed, will be published as a notifiable instrument by the minister. There is a lot more that goes behind this—definitions of what “rectification notice” and “rectification work” are. I will not bore the Assembly by going through all of the details, because after all it is in the amendments. But I would point out a couple of things.
The minimum housing standards must be determined by the minister. There will be a disallowable instrument on these, if my amendment is changed. The amendments also require the minister to have public consultation about this. It sets up a whole regime regarding the minimum standards, and how the tenants would give notice to the lessor et cetera, and the rectification notices.
There are a number of new points, and they basically go through how this would work in practice. I will not bother talking about those in great detail, because no doubt we have all read them. It also talks about what happens if there is a disagreement; eventually it goes to ACAT, in the same way that everything else does. There is also a possibility that the minister can exempt either a premise or a class of premise from complying with the minimum housing standards. I can think of a number of possible things there. It could relate to the age of the premises, potentially, one of them is having a functional kitchen. I have heard of very small apartments being advertised in mixed use areas where the assumption is that people will never eat at home. They will only need to make a cup of tea; thus they do not really have a kitchen, and it is basically a hotel room. Nonetheless the proposed legislation would allow for that. I commend my amendments to the Assembly.
MR PARTON (Brindabella) (3.39): As is the case with a number of parts of the original bill—certainly, it applies to quite a number of these amendments—it seems to have been constructed in response to the current market conditions. If we had a balanced market, if we did not have a situation where vacancies are at one per cent or
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