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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-05-03 Daily Xml
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RESIDENTIAL TENANCIES ACT

Mrs VLAHOS (Taylor) (14:39): My question is to the Minister for Business Services and Consumers. Can the minister inform the house about what kinds of reforms are being proposed to the Residential Tenancies Act?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (14:39): I thank the honourable member for her question. The issue of the review of the Residential Tenancies Act has been around for some time. Indeed, the current legislation has been more or less in its present form since 1995. Since becoming minister, I have sought to see what can be done to modernise and bring the legislation into some conformity with the expectations the community has about the legislation in contemporary times.

As a result of that, today there has been released a discussion paper with some 50-odd recommendations as to ways in which the act may be improved. The proposal is that there will be a discussion period of some six weeks, during which anybody who wishes to make a contribution may do so and, at the end of that time, it is my intention to bring recommendations forward for the drafting of legislation arising from those discussions.

I just want to mention briefly for members some of the aspects of the discussion paper, as they may have an interest in these matters. I am sure all of us as local members of parliament get these things from time to time. I need to make it clear that this legislation is intended to make improvements from the perspective of landlords, improvements from the perspective of tenants and, indeed, improvements as to the administration of the Residential Tenancies Tribunal, which should benefit everybody.

In relation to landlords, if I can briefly touch on a couple of matters, we are proposing that there be the capacity for landlords, first of all, to maintain anonymity when they use an agent to manage their property; secondly, to ask for additional rent in advance for high-end properties; and, thirdly, to more easily evict tenants who are repeatedly in rent arrears. These are common complaints we have heard from landlords.

In respect of tenants, we are looking at providing better regulation of entry and inspection time. We are looking at preventing agents from using application forms to create binding tenancy agreements and at requiring landlords to disclose their intention to sell a rented property and negotiate open inspection times with tenants.

Reforms aiming to improve efficiency and address the current delays in the tribunal, which I acknowledge are unacceptable and need to improve, include expanding the mediation provisions, raising the tribunal's jurisdictional limit from $10,000 to $40,000 and enabling the tribunal to determine small claims without parties necessarily needing to attend a hearing.

Additionally, it is proposed to improve the protections available to rooming-house residents—a group of people who have not really been the subject of as much protection as they should have been—and to provide better regulation around student accommodation; expand the scope of the RTA to capture lifestyle villages (also known as rental villages) which are currently unregulated; and adopt the national model provisions for the regulation of residential tenancy databases, commonly known as tenant blacklists.

The Real Estate Institute says that it welcomes the news and believes that tenants, landlords and real estate agencies will benefit from the opportunity to review the laws that govern residential tenancies to ensure they reflect current community needs. The discussion paper, for anyone interested, is available to download on yoursay.sa.gov.au.

Mr Goldsworthy interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Terrific! The member has one, excellent! I am delighted to see you have it and I look forward to your submission. Hopefully, you are supporting a lot of it. The closing date—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am trying to help the member because I do not want him to be late with his reply. The closing date—

The SPEAKER: Order! Point of order.

Mr PISONI: Sessional orders—that is four minutes.

The SPEAKER: He had four seconds to go according to the clock in front of me. I am watching it very carefully. He had four seconds. Minister.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Friday 15 June 2012 is the closing date.

The SPEAKER: Thank you. Your time has expired. My clock must be more reliable than yours, member for Unley.

Mr WILLIAMS: On a point of clarification, Madam Speaker, can I suggest that the clock you are using there be tested because my clock certainly was the same as the member for Unley's, and it would be most unusual for two to be inaccurate and one to be accurate.

The SPEAKER: Then we will need to contact www.online.stopwatch.com. I think it may have happened because we did stop the clock for about three seconds when there was a mass of interjections. Is that right, Mr Clerk? I think that is where your three seconds are out. The Leader of the Opposition.

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