Smoke alarms
Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (13:16): In Ballarat in 2022 Simon Scarff died from a fire in his rental, which did not have a single working smoke alarm. Under Victoria’s law, Simon’s landlord did not have to make sure that they were correctly installed or tested regularly. The same fatal loophole exists for over 43 per cent of rentals here in Victoria because the leases began before 29 March 2021. In the last 10 years coroners have recommended three separate times that the government amend the legislation so that every rental must have working smoke alarms. Labor, this must change now, before more lives are lost to faulty smoke alarms.