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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-09-08 Daily Xml
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Residential Tenancies (Domestic Violence Protections) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 30 July 2015.)

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (16:33): In opening my brief remarks about the Residential Tenancies (Domestic Violence Protections) Amendment Bill 2015, I would like to begin by referring to an event that many in this place attended on Saturday night at the Adelaide Convention Centre, and that was the launch of the Zahra Foundation.

The Zahra Foundation is the initiative of three children, Arman, Atena and Anita Abrahimzadeh, and it honours their mother, Zahra, who was murdered by her estranged husband a couple of years ago in the Adelaide Convention Centre. It showed a great deal of courage for them to set up the foundation and to hold its inaugural event in the same location where their mother was murdered. As I have said, it seemed as if half the state parliament and a fair smattering of federal members of parliament were there.

I reflect that when Arman Abrahimzadeh came to see me about this some time ago, he was nervous about whether a foundation such as this, aimed at supporting the victims of domestic violence, would actually get any traction. I told him he had nothing to worry about and that I was sure people would flock to the cause. I think that the event on Saturday night did them proud and did South Australians proud. We heard an address from Australian of the Year, Rosie Batty, whose own situation has been so publicly aired so many times in relation to the murder of her child by her estranged husband.

The connection, I guess, between that event on Saturday night and the bill before us now is that one of the purposes of the Zahra Foundation is to empower and support women seeking to leave domestic violence, or who have fled domestic violence, and in particular to help them economically. As we know, one of the major problems that is faced by women is that even if they have the will to leave an abusive relationship, often they do not have the economic resources or means to do so.

This bill effectively puts in place a mechanism for dealing with some of these economic issues, in particular in relation to people who might be renting residential premises, whether it is in the public or the private realm. This bill really is quite timely, given the debate over domestic and family violence in Australia at present.

It is not the first time that we have debated these issues in relation to the provision of accommodation. I remember that several years ago we dealt with the Residential Parks Bill; in other words, the range of laws relating to people who are what we refer to as permanent residents of caravan parks. I can remember, during that debate, it was discussed whether there could be some legal breaking of contractual arrangements to recognise domestic situations and, in particular, situations of violence. My recollection is that we did manage to include some provisions there.

This bill, which deals with the vast bulk of residential tenancies, is very timely. The matters that are dealt with in the bill include providing security of tenure, especially for women—and it is overwhelmingly women and their children—who might want to stay in residential premises. It also deals with the breaking of leases. At present, to break a fixed-term lease ahead of time can result in huge financial penalties.

Whilst it has been possible for people to go to the Residential Tenancies Tribunal (now the Civil and Administrative Tribunal) to argue that the hardship provision should be applied to basically relieve you of some of the burden of breaking a lease, the bill before us proposes links to the intervention order regime. I think it is expected that the existence of an intervention order to protect a woman and her children from domestic violence is sufficient reason to break a lease.

There are also provisions in the bill which we support in relation to liability for damage. It is probably not rocket science for people to realise that there are similar traits involved in those who would be violent to their intimate partners—who would be violent to women—and those who would be violent and cause damage to property. In the event a woman and children are perhaps forced to flee a violent situation only to have the violent perpetrator trash the place, ruin the house or flat and cause considerable sums of damage, I think all of us would realise that it is unacceptable for there to be ongoing legal liability on the part of the victim.

What this bill has to try to do is strike a balance between the rights of landlords, whether they be public or private, with our obligation as a society to help the victims of family and domestic violence to escape their situation of persecution, and to do so without effectively bankrupting them, so I think that is why this bill is very timely.

Ultimately, it will take time for the Civil and Administrative Tribunal to administer these provisions when they come into force and we can then judge whether they have struck the right balance and whether they do provide the level of protection that I think we are seeking. I understand that amendments have been filed recently; I have not had an opportunity to look at those, but will do so before we commence the committee stage of the debate.

Finally, again referring back to Saturday night, it was very encouraging to see so many members of state parliament and, in particular, so many White Ribbon Ambassadors. I think most of the men in this chamber are ambassadors and it was great to see them so well represented at that event. With those brief words, the Greens will be supporting this legislation.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins.

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