Residential Tenancies

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (15:49): In 2010, I was renting in Adelaide. It was a nice place. I enjoyed it, I had no pets, I looked after it. The landlord and I got on pretty well, I think. One day a letter was sent to me by the landlord, and it said that for reasons of sale I had to leave. After a bit of googling—you could google back then—I discovered I had no options. I had around about four weeks —actually a little bit less than that—to find a new home. Well, I did not. I ended up falling back on family. That was in 2010, nothing like what the rental market is now. The fact is, even though I did not think it then, I was lucky.

With a vacancy rate of less than 1 per cent, tenants are facing unprecedented levels of housing insecurity. In the media, in the pub, around the water cooler, having a coffee, people are talking about it. Everybody is talking about it. Too many people are urgently seeking advice because they have found themselves, often without a great deal of warning like I was, either homeless or days away from being homeless. It is not about dollars. Most will tell you they have a job. Some are even actually quite accomplished professionals. Some are single people, but many are families with children and often with dearly loved pets.

Unlike some in parliament, I am not a landlord. I do not own more than a dozen properties. I own a home. It is mine. I live in it. That said, while not all landlords are good landlords, the situation we are in has not arisen because a majority of landlords are doing the wrong thing. The fact is, we cannot take our hands off the wheel when it comes to addressing the housing crisis. We have to take action, and that is why Peter Malinauskas and Labor are doing so.

We have begun already by cutting taxes for first-home owners, releasing huge tracts of land for new housing and purchasing sites of land to offer more affordable homes for public housing. We are doing this not in far-flung places, some are right here in the CBD or just outside of it on major transport corridors.

This week, impressively, I feel, we are going to go further. I am pleased and quite genuinely relieved, in fact, that this week Labor is acting so decisively to change our rental laws. I thank the pragmatic Greens for supporting us in doing so. Their support is very necessary for this to occur. These laws will improve security for tenants while balancing the rights of landlords. It is a very pragmatic approach.

Today, we will see the beginning of the end for no-cause evictions in our state. Today, we will begin changes that make it easier to rent with your loved ones who just happen to bark, meow or otherwise. Today, we will support a tenancy advocacy service. Today, we will make it easier for people who are fleeing domestic violence to break a lease. The fact is, this is not actually revolutionary stuff, but it is what people are talking about. There is a lot to do in this space, but it is good to be starting it. Wrong or right, these are just some of the biggest reforms to our residential tenancy laws in a generation.

Should we have got to it sooner? Maybe so, but the fact is, we are starting now. They are not revolutionary—you can see them in other jurisdictions around the nation—but I am so pleased, I am so relieved and I am actually really proud that this government is taking these reforms on the front foot. We are starting now. It is going to happen this week. It is actually going to happen.