Thursday, 20 February 2025

Consumer and Planning Legislation Amendment (Housing Statement Reform) Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Harriet Shing:

That the bill be now read a second time.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (14:53): I am pleased to rise and make a contribution to the Consumer and Planning Legislation Amendment (Housing Statement Reform) Bill 2024, and in doing so I want to thank my colleague the Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs Tim McCurdy, the Shadow Minister for Planning Richard Riordan and the Shadow Attorney-General Michael O’Brien. This is a bill that covers a number of portfolio areas, including areas that I have an interest in and have carriage of in this chamber. But as I say, the bill clearly crosses a number of portfolios.

The Victorian government’s so-called housing statement tried to outline various changes, including to the rental market, and as a result of the announcement the government passed the Estate Agents, Residential Tenancies and Other Acts Amendment (Funding) Bill 2024 and implemented changes in dispute resolution backlogs at VCAT. It also brought forward this piece of legislation, the Consumer Planning Legislation Amendment (Housing Statement Reform) Bill, delivering, it says, on a number of the proposed changes. It is an omnibus bill, as I have said, covering a wide variety of areas. Part of it repeals the ‘no reason to vacate’ clause for the end of the first term or a fixed term of residential leases and bans all types of rental bidding, including the solicitation of rental bids as well as accepting any without soliciting them. The bill also applies prescribed forms for rental applications and contracts, preventing renters from being asked to hand over unrelated or irrelevant data and personal information as well as adding stronger protections around the retention and deletion of data from unsuccessful applicants.

There is the introduction of mandatory continuing professional development and training for real estate agents, conveyancers, agents’ representatives, owners corporation managers and others. These changes place an onus on individuals to complete the required training, with some elements of the rules around mandatory training to be completed in regulations after the passage of the bill. I would make a comment here that it is important that the government does not over-regulate these areas and lay out burdens or barriers that are too high, because there will be less people entering these fields if they do that. We know the importance of ensuring what an economist would call occupational closure. We know the importance of ensuring that there is reasonable contestability in these sorts of fields, while seeking to balance the need to have proper consumer protections as well.

The bill implements some tighter penalties for those who underquote – which is generally supported – as well as requiring renters to be provided with a free method for paying rent, due to an increase in rent collection and background checks charging money as a management fee of sorts. There are additional requirements being implemented requiring rental properties meeting minimum standards, with the change meaning that any rental properties advertised as such must meet the standards at the point they are first advertised. Further changes in the bill are an extension of certain notice-to-vacate times to 90 days from 60, as well as in the case of all rental increases, and changes to tidy up loose ends around the powers and operation of Rental Dispute Resolution Victoria, including providing VCAT power to deliver alternative dispute resolution in that context. Changes to VCAT and planning laws claim to speed up changes but deliver a number of problems, and I will have more to say about that in a moment.

We do face a housing crisis and we are very aware of the need to do everything that is possible to bring forward housing for people, both owner-occupied housing and rental housing, and to have the widest possible options. The government, though, appears set on placing more and more burdens on landlords – ‘rental providers’ is probably the modern term. Rental providers have to make a return on their properties, and it is important that we understand that. It is interesting that the largest group of people who own a rental property are teachers, making up 10 per cent of rental providers who own at least one such property. This is followed by registered nurses, in fourth position, with 9 per cent of the total. These two occupations are very well figured there. They are not excessively wealthy people, but they are people often making provision for their retirement. There is obviously a need to ensure that people come into the rental market and that they are not squeezed out by the government’s changes. We have seen layer upon layer of changes. I know that real estate agents in my area and people I have spoken to who do own rental property – those rental providers; they are everyday citizens – point to the growing burden that the government is placing on rental providers. We did not oppose the RDRV when it first came to the Parliament. There is a risk with the VCAT matters that delays will become a problem and the speed of the decision-making will not be what it should be.

There are a number of changes to the Residential Tenancies Act 1997, which we have referred to. There are amendments I have also pointed to of the Estate Agents Act 1980. These are primarily centred on the real estate sector – the need for continuing professional development as well as accountability. The steps of registration as an agent’s representative are outlined in clause 70 of the bill, including the application process and eligibility requirements. They are pretty stiff penalties, at 500 penalty units. There are the range of traditional provisions in there as well.

There are amendments to the Owners Corporation Act 2006, with increased training and accountability in the owners corporation and strata management sectors. These are very important sectors, they are growing sectors and they are sectors that need proper regulation, but we also need to make sure that regulation is not so sharp and not so heavy and burdensome that it kills the goose, as it were, that is laying a golden egg in this respect. That is not to say that there is not a need for reform, because there obviously is in this area. In order for an individual to be registered they must first undertake new mandatory training and meet the eligibility requirements for registration as well as undertake continuing professional development. This also extends to those who are applying to register as managers of an owners corporation, such as an individual appointed by a corporate manager to manage a specific owners corp. These are important changes, and I think there is a lot more work to be done in this area to ensure that high standards are achieved but at a low regulatory impact. There are amendments to the Conveyancers Act 2006 too. These are small and once again focused on requirements for continuing professional development, and they also include a number of transitional provisions.

There are significant changes to the Planning and Environment Act 1987, and these are claimed to be designed to speed up development by giving more power to the minister to call in projects and to sideline or ignore community concerns. This is the format with this minister; she has repeatedly sought more and more and more power. This is an overweening minister; it is a minister who is determined to thump and pressure and override councils as a first and early measure; it is also a minister who has been prepared to override communities and not listen to communities, and this has become an increasing trend with this government. We have seen the government first announce the 10 large zones. I have three of them in my area, one in Boroondara; one that crosses Stonnington – I am going to use these as an example because I am most familiar with them – Monash and Glen Eira; and one in the south of my electorate of Southern Metropolitan that actually takes in some of Kingston, Bayside and Glen Eira. These are very large zones where the government intends to pack in tens of thousands of people – massive increases in people and dwellings, and dwelling targets foisted upon councils and done so without proper thought or proper consultation.

I will just pick a couple of examples. I could go on with this, but I think it is important for the chamber to understand what the government is actually proposing and what is driving some of these changes here. In the City of Boroondara there are currently 70,000 dwellings. That is 70,000 dwellings that have been built there or that now stand there after 190 years of European settlement. The state government said that in two to three decades it wants to add 67,000. It wants to fundamentally replicate the number of dwellings in the City of Boroondara – the final figure after 190 years of European settlement – and it wants to do that in 25 or 30 years. I think this is absurd. It will not happen, but a lot of damage can be done along the way. In the case of these large zones that the government is putting in place, the government has taken a central hub and added a so-called ‘walkable catchment zone’. It is an Orwellian phrase, but leaving that aside, there is this catchment zone. There is a dense node in the centre and then a part stretching out from there.

The dense node is to have 10, 12 or maybe more storeys in height, and the walkable catchment zone – the so-called catchment zone – is to have three to six storeys as of right. This will fundamentally destroy many of our established suburbs. They will be completely and utterly turned over and changed in a relatively small number of years if these permits are granted, and some of them are intended to be as-of-right permits. The same applies to the so-called ‘Chadstone’ one. But it is not really Chadstone; it is a huge swathe of Stonnington, way out down the Monash and then into Glen Eira. It is also connected with the Hughesdale, Carnegie, Murrumbeena and ultimately Oakleigh stations, which are also the other type of zone, this sort of station-based zone, the government has said. Up to 20 storeys in those areas – up to 20 storeys as of right. I mean, this is absolutely bizarre.

I have held forums, and there was one the other night, I should say, in the City of Boroondara, run by the council there. The government officials were there – and I am not going to name them because I have no particular truck with the individual officials – but they were deeply unconvincing. The audience, maybe 250 people in the Hawthorn town hall, were deeply unconvinced. They could see that the shape of their suburb, the quality of their suburb and the livability of the suburb – the treescape, the streetscape, the canopy trees – are all at risk, all to be torn asunder by the government’s proposals, which are all to be imposed from outside, with dense, dense, dense development proposed in the centre of that node and then going out 800 metres in each direction.

Michael Galea interjected.

Renee Heath: On a point of order, Acting President, Mr Galea seems to be interjecting while not in his seat, which is outside of the standing orders.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): I am actually going to uphold the point of order; you may find that difficult to believe. Mr Galea, if you are going to interject, you know the rules: from your spot.

David DAVIS: I am trying to describe the nature of the government’s changes. There are the 10 large zones, and some of them, I might add, are not even near railway stations. If you think of Niddrie, the proposed new large zone in Niddrie, with a central core of 10 to 12 storeys and a so-called catchment zone around it, this area has a single major tram route but it does not have a train station and it has higgledy-piggledy buses. It is not up to holding tens of thousands of people, as the government appears to be intent on foisting on that area. I am picking these examples. I have been to some of the meetings in these areas. I have heard what people have said. I have heard what the councils have said. The government officials at the most recent Boroondara meeting were deeply unconvincing.

I know the petitions that we are tabling in this chamber are very focused on protecting these areas. On issues like heritage, the government were not able to give good answers at the meeting in Boroondara the other night. They were not able to give good answers about heritage. I listened closely to what the bureaucrats said, and all they would concede is that heritage would be considered – that is all they would say. They would say it would be considered. Actually, we know the planning authority, the Victorian Planning Authority, is undertaking work, and they have been actively modelling a 50 per cent loss of heritage in some of these catchment zones – a 50 per cent loss of heritage. Think of some of the great streets in some of our suburbs; these will be lost. I held a forum at Hawksburn and had about 50 or 60 people at the forum. It was very well attended on a Sunday afternoon just a few weeks ago. I cannot help but think that the very strong vote that our party had in the Hawksburn area for Rachel Westaway was in no small measure due to the rejection of the government’s density proposals for that area. If people know Hawksburn –

A member: It was a small swing.

David DAVIS: It was quite a good swing I thought, 13 per cent.

A member: Thanks to an ex-Labor person.

David DAVIS: Tony Lupton, to pick up the interjection, is a person of great integrity. I have known him a long time, since 2002, when he first came into this place. I am actually paying tribute to his integrity and to his commitment and to his understanding of the need to put the Greens last. I would suggest that Labor adopt his approach in a broader sweep. He understood that from many of the Greens – and I do not say all but many – there is a fundamentally antisemitic tone. That is true.

A member interjected.

David DAVIS: The Advance group, again picking up the interjection, are very active in that campaign and making the point about putting the Greens last. So I say good on Mr Lupton. I read his article in the Australian the other day. In fact I posted it on my LinkedIn because I thought he made a number of good points, and I say that he is a man of integrity. I spoke to his wife Julie Szego during the process while I was on the booths – again a person of real sincerity and integrity. I make the point that it was a tough battle. We cannot underestimate that task, but the Labor government is not protecting our local areas. They are actually determined to foist and force large densities on local areas and to do that without proper consultation or support. There is not that support, I know. I have spoken to many of the community groups that are very active with this. I have also tabled, as I say, the petitions in Parliament. I have held forums and I have attended forums held by others over the recent months since late last year when everyone across the metropolitan area was awoken by the state Premier announcing these large, dense intensification zones where the planning minister will have the power to override communities and override local councils and to do as she wants. She will have all-encompassing power under these proposals, and they are simply outrageous. They are draconian, they are authoritarian and they are un-Victorian.

Victoria and Melbourne have always had principles about planning that have involved the right to object, the right to go to court, the right to go to VCAT in this case to have your say, to put your point to councils and to do that in a thoughtful and principled way that looks to the future of your suburb and your community. This is about communities, and the state government is determined to override those basic points.

I want to just distribute, if I can, the proposed amendments. There are a number of these. I will not talk at full length to these because I am conscious of the time and I am also conscious that the Government Whip and so forth have indicated that they will not move to the committee stage today, so these can be circulated. People will have time to look at them, and I indicate that I will run a briefing for the crossbench probably next week or early in the week after to run through these in some detail.

Amendments circulated pursuant to standing orders.

David DAVIS: I am open to feedback from the crossbench on a number of these as well. I am looking for a more fulsome discussion with them on these points in particular.

This goes into the far-eastern suburbs too – Mr Welch is very aware of what is proposed at Ringwood and the density that is proposed there – sweeping down the rail line into the neighbouring municipality, out of the city of Maroondah and into the city of Whitehorse, with long tongues running up the traffic and rail arteries. There are the so-called 800-metre catchment zones. ‘Catchment zones’ is this phrase. These 800-metre catchment zones are tacked on the end and up and down, and suddenly you have got –

Michael Galea: On a point of order, Acting President, my understanding from many pronouncements in this chamber is that Mr McGowan is the member for Ringwood. I am happy to be corrected by Mr Davis if that is no longer the case.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Mr Galea, that is not a point of order.

David DAVIS: Further to the point of order, Acting President –

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): No, there is no point of order to be further to, Mr Davis.

David DAVIS: This is precisely my point, Mr Galea. These huge and dense catchment zones that are being imposed do not stop at one electorate. They sweep right across electorates. There was a forum I held with Michael O’Brien. A huge swathe of Malvern is gone on these proposals, and then they run down in a huge sweep into Oakleigh. So this is exactly the point: they sweep far and wide beyond us, and they join up in some cases across large swathes of metropolitan Melbourne. These changes will forever, forever destroy the Melbourne that we know. They will destroy the Melbourne that we know, and I say we have got to fight very hard on these.

I had some planning experts look at a number of these points here. In the amendments that I have circulated there are obviously points that relate to rental arrangements and the rental providers and the balance to be struck there. There are also other matters that deal with the need for a review. There are also matters that deal with the planning matters, and we will have more to say about that as time goes on. I am conscious I have only got a few minutes left, but I want to draw the chamber’s attention to the work that Emeritus Professor Michael Buxton and some of his people have done.

Michael Galea interjected.

David DAVIS: I have asked a group of planning experts to give me some formal planning advice. I am not sure why people would not be interested in the advice of a panel of planning experts about this bill and about the impacts of this bill. The minister has justified some of the amendments in terms of reference to the red tape commissioner’s recommendations. I am going to read some of this because I think it is important.

Members interjecting.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Order! It is normally not hard to hear Mr Davis, but I am really struggling at the moment, from both sides. Can we keep it a little lower, please.

David DAVIS: The bill, the minister stated, is intended to improve and strengthen the planning system by implementing the red tape commissioner’s recommendations. The statement is misleading; that is what the planning experts say. The Better Regulation report included an extensive series of recommendations. Only two recommendations in the commissioner’s report bear a specific relation to any of the legislative clauses in the bill, so I just want to knock on the head this idea that somehow or other this bill is implementing the red tape commissioner’s recommendations. This statement is misleading, is what the planning experts say. Only two recommendations bear a specific relation to any of the legislative clauses in the bill. The report’s recommendations were primarily directed at improving planning processes. The recommendations did not involve major changes to the Planning and Environment Act 1987 or to the land use planning. The report’s discussion of stakeholder feedback included wideranging comments of recommendations, and I am not going to read all of that. But I think it is important to note the proposed legislative clauses that are involved here. New sections 16A to 16E – ‘Request for municipal council to prepare amendment’ – allow proponents to apply for an amendment and a process for councils to accept or refuse. The advice I received was:

In current form unexceptional – except for potential to expand proponent initiation to override councils to minister

New sections 16F and 16G(2) enable a low-impact amendment for the purposes of section 16N(1)(a) and include references to the ‘SRL Minister for SRL-related amendments’. The comment relates to low-impact amendments, referring to a comment below on section 16N(1)(a). On new section 16N, ‘Low-impact amendments’, these are included in a class, or the minister may determine that the use or development is low impact. The minister may prepare amendments which are nominated as low impact. The class is yet to be finalised. And this is where it is a bit like buying a pig in a poke, to use the old expression. It may be added at any time without oversight, and the provision gives unlimited power to the minister to decide what is low impact. What is low impact? Well, I would not trust Sonya Kilkenny with these definitions if you paid me. I would not trust her after what she has done down at Frankston at the foreshore. After what she has done with these announcements to override councils and communities, I would not trust her to define ‘low impact’ and then initiate and approve the amendment.

The advice goes on:

New 23A: After a decision is made on a low impact amendment, a planning authority may prepare, not proceed with an amendment or abandon it.

The comment states, ‘Consequential to the above,’ and there are two of them. The advice then states:

New 28(1) Abandoning amendments: a planning authority (council) must notify the minister of reasons for abandoning an amendment …

I do not have a big objection to that, and nor did the planning experts.

New sections 28A to 28D: If a planning authority abandons an amendment, the Minister may become the planning authority and continue the amendment process and decide whether or not to refer the amendment to a panel

So the minister just rides into the sunset over the hill and does whatever she wants. But she is not the goodie in that movie; she is the baddie. She is the one who is doing the wrong thing. She is the one who is wrong.

At present if a council abandons an amendment, it lapses. The minister may take it up as a separate process, but the new provisions do not require a new process. The sections are a major expansion on the red tape commissioner’s recommendation.

I have got to tell you, the fiercest opposition has come from areas around Hughesdale, Carnegie and Murrumbeena. When we held the forum – (Time expired)

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (15:23:153:): I am pleased to be speaking in support of this bill today, the Consumer and Planning Legislation Amendment (Housing Statement Reform) Bill 2024. More Victorians than ever are renting and renting for longer. We are getting on with the important work of building more homes, but we are also doing the work to make sure that tenants have a fair go. Protecting renters’ rights was one of the six commitments made in our housing statement back in September 2023, and we have already made great progress.

Just some of the changes are: we have invested $7.8 million to help people in need stay in their homes; we have established a renting taskforce to crack down on dodgy rental providers and estate agents who do things like rent out properties that do not meet minimum standards and put up misleading or fake ads or do not lodge bonds; and we began the work to establish the rental dispute resolution service, which will help disputes to be resolved quickly and fairly. This bill continues that work. The bill also delivers on the commitment in our housing statement to reform the planning system by implementing recommendations of the red tape commissioner. The provisions of this bill fall under four main areas of reform. Firstly, on renter protections, this bill will amend the Residential Tenancies Act 1997; remove the ability to give a notice to vacate for no reason; ban all forms of rental bidding; extend the notice period for rent increases and notices to vacate to 90 days – now, that is important; make rental applications simpler and ensure renters’ personal information is protected; require rental advertisements to meet minimum standards; improve the rent review process; and require smoke alarms in all rental properties.

The second area that this bill reforms is professional standards in the property management sector. The bill will amend a range of acts to introduce mandatory licensing and training to improve property industry professionals’ competence and tougher penalties to deter poor conduct. The third area is it will streamline and improve the accessibility of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal by empowering VCAT to offer a wide range of dispute resolution mechanisms for renters and rental providers.

The fourth area is reducing red tape in the planning system by amending the Planning and Environment Act 1987. It will create a low-impact planning scheme amendment pathway, which I think is fantastic, and formalise the processes for proponent-led planning scheme amendments. There is a tendency in planning schemes to just go around in circles finding new issues and more things and not really going sequentially step by step by step, so this will tidy that up. It will allow the minister to continue a planning amendment abandoned by a planning authority and introduce a range of changes to streamline planning processes, such as giving authorities the power to reject incomplete planning permit applications and removing the mandatory requirement for planning permit applications that are called in by the minister to be sent to a panel. This really will reduce the red-tape steps.

A lot of local governments receive incomplete planning applications, and the 60-day clock in which the council has to make a decision has already started ticking. It ends up in this toing and froing between applicant and assessment authority, usually a local council. It goes forward and back, forward and back, just to collect all the information. Sometimes these planning applications sit for months, maybe even years, without any progress because of a lack of information, clogging up planning departments and demanding the time of planners when they could be working on other projects. By not requiring a ministerial called-in matter to also have a planning panel, it takes one of the duplications out of it. We are kind of having a duplication day, with committal hearings in the previous bill.

The local planning authority will go through an assessment process, which will include consultation, community engagement, stakeholders, section 55 referrals et cetera, and that can take quite a long time. Then there is strategic land use planning, including doing section 75 land use agreements, if I remember correctly – I do not think I do, actually – with developers. This can happen, and then it can be taken to VCAT and then it can be called in by the minister and the panel will go through all the same issues again. Then after that, when it gets into the minister’s hands, the department go through their set of assessments as well. In my view sometimes some components of planning processes are conducted three times over. A more formulaic step-by-step process that is acknowledged and accepted at all levels of the process, whether it is the LGA, whether it is the panel or whether it is the department, is surely going to save time and money. This is something that developers have asked for for decades. Developers have been very clear that the pace of approvals impacts their bottom line and that the pace of approvals needs to be faster. This I think has some very strong merit.

Going back to the renter protections, I just want to focus on that for a minute. A third of Victorians rent, more than ever before, and this number is predicted to grow. This is why it is so important to increase protections for renters, providing them with greater certainty over their rental agreements, living standards and finances. The removal of all no-reason notices to vacate is an important part of this change. This bill will remove the ability of landlords to issue a notice to vacate at the end of a fixed-term tenancy. The chief executive of Tenants Victoria Jennifer Beveridge said in a press release on 30 October last year:

We know from the people who contact our services for help daily that many are doing it tough in an extremely tight market for rentals.

…

Extending the ban –

on ‘no-reason’ evictions –

to include the end of the initial fixed-term agreement in a rental boosts this security. Renters are better able to assert their rights, such as asking for repairs, without the anxiety of being evicted for no clear grounds …

particularly towards the end of their tenancy. We are also giving renters more time to prepare for legitimate rent increases and notices to vacate by increasing the notice period by 30 days. In such a tight rental market it is only fair that renters have time to decide if they want to pay the increased amount or have time to find a new home if they feel they have to leave.

We are also banning landlords and agents from accepting unsolicited bids. The website realestate.com.au today shows that the median rental price snapshot for houses in my home town of Warrnambool has risen 8 per cent in the last year. It is a sign of how tight the rental market is that prospective tenants may feel they have to offer more money or to pay more in advance in order to be accepted for a property. It is a slippery slope which has the potential to drive the costs of rentals even higher. This bill levels the playing field by banning all types of rental bidding. It will be an offence to accept bids, and there will be tough penalties. The changes to rules regarding the rental applications might not seem like much to anyone who has not filled out a rental application recently. Many agents now use third-party apps to manage applications, and these apps ask for a whole range of personal data, even passports and previous addresses and payslips and Medicare numbers. We are tightening up the security expectations around that data but also formularising our uniform applications, so again the same information is collected by all real estate agents across the state for an application. This makes a lot of sense and very much simplifies the process.

On 3 December 2023 the ABC news website quoted University of Technology Sydney researcher Linda Przhedetsky:

In overseas markets where these technologies are more established and more invasive, we’re seeing these apps claim to predict things like someone’s eviction potential, and rate their levels of honesty …

This bill will standardise rental application forms to prevent requests for unnecessary information and personal data, and it also increases rental protections on personal information. There is a clear expectation there. An important change to rental property standards is a strengthening of the rules around smoke alarms and gas and electricity safety. This is also a really strong feature of this bill. It will also require rental providers to ensure that gas and electrical safety checks are conducted every two years.

There is also a component of improving professional standards. We cannot have a strong rental sector if our property professionals are not knowledgeable and not ethical. Every real estate transaction involves significant financial investment for both landlords and renters, and they often rely on agents to provide accurate information and advice. So we are introducing mandatory continuing professional development, which will very much enhance the knowledge of those agents in the sector. We are strengthening the registration requirements for agents as well. We are introducing tougher penalties for agents who do the wrong thing as well and providing the director of Consumer Affairs Victoria with more ability and more powers to act when breaches do occur. There are also some reforms in the VCAT space, which will make things a lot more streamlined.

Just in closing, I have had a quick read of the opposition’s amendments here, and they are just ‘omit’, ‘omit’, ‘omit’, ‘omit’. They really look a bit like a reasoned amendment to me, by default. So I do not have much to say on the amendments in that regard, but I heartily support the bill. It is going to save money for all of the relevant sectors, and it is going to make life more secure for renters.

Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (15:38): I rise to speak on the Consumer and Planning Legislation Amendment (Housing Statement Reform) Bill 2024, a bill that is very much an omnibus bill covering a range of issues in consumer rental law and planning law, and it also has provisions in it to implement Labor’s so-called housing statement. I would like to thank the four shadow ministers who worked on this bill and who have briefed us as opposition members: the Shadow Minister for Planning Richard Riordan; the Shadow Attorney-General Michael O’Brien; the Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council David Davis; and also the Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs Tim McCurdy, who is the shadow minister with the largest responsibility in this bill.

The main provisions of this bill are to repeal the no-cause notice to vacate at the end of the first term of a residential lease, to ban rental bidding and soliciting bids, to increase penalties for underquoting, to impose prescribed contract forms, to tighten rules around handling data and rental applicants, to require professional development training for real estate agents and conveyancers, to introduce mandatory smoke alarm safety checks for all rentals and to make changes to planning laws to speed up approvals. There are parts of this bill that we would agree are good things. One of those is prohibiting the soliciting of rental bidding. This bill will make it an offence to solicit or attempt any form of rental bidding, which again is a commonsense approach. It is unfortunate that, because of Labor’s policy settings and both the Greens’ and Labor’s housing policies, the rental market in Victoria has become severely constricted, which has driven up the cost of rents. That is why rental bidding has arisen. It has arisen because Labor have created the problem and because rental properties are in such short demand that people enter into bidding wars in order to get access to a rental property.

The bill will extend the notice-to-vacate time from 60 days to 90 days. Again, because of the shortage in the rental market, this is probably a good thing for those who are stuck in the rental market system and who are vacating a property. It will give them a little bit of time to find a new property. It will require fee-free payment of rent by estate agents. This is something that is a good initiative because nowadays we have all these electronic payment methods and people are not accepting cash, so it is very difficult to go in and pay cash anywhere. Of course every time you want to pay by an electronic payment method they want to charge you a fee to do that, so it is a good thing to provide a fee-free payment option for renters when they are paying their rent. The bill will also introduce as a minimum standard the inclusion of smoke alarms in annual checks, and that is a good thing as well.

But the thing that I really object to in this bill is the repeal of the right to issue a notice to vacate without reason. Labor wants to repeal this because Labor always wants to brand the people who are rental providers as being bad. We know that in every market there is good and there is bad. Yes, there are some landlords who do the wrong thing and who need to be dealt with appropriately, but the vast majority of rental providers are good people who are providing a home for somebody else to live in. They may need to have their house vacated for the reason that their son or their daughter is returning from overseas and needs that property to live in, but this government is going to take away their right to just give a notice to vacate for no reason.

The reason they are doing this is because, as I said, they want to brand every rental provider as being someone who rips off their tenants and who is using this provision just to jack up the price of rent when they get a new renter in. But in reality rental providers like having good tenants who are reliable and who stay in the property long term. It reduces the turnover costs and lost rent for the provider while they search for new tenants. My nephew has just been through the process of renewing his rent. His rental provider is so happy with him and his fiancée that they put the rent up by only $10. They were very happy to have my nephew and his fiancée stay on, because they are good tenants who look after their property. The rental provider is very happy with them.

We are concerned that the inclusion of this provision to repeal the right to issue a notice to vacate for no reason will actually have a negative effect in the rental market and drive more rental providers out of the market, so we will introduce amendments to remove this clause. Like a probation period for employers, it is important that rental providers have the option to ask a tenant to vacate after the first year if it is not working for them, if the provider is not happy with the tenant or if there is some other problem. When I first became Minister for Housing, I went around to all of the housing officers and I asked to speak to the staff who were on the front line. As we all know, it is almost impossible for anyone to be evicted from public housing. I asked those housing officers what was the one thing that I could do for them that would make their job easier, and every single one of them said, ‘Give us the right to evict a tenant.’ That is almost impossible in public housing and it is not something that we did move to introduce, but I could understand why they were saying that. The vast majority of public housing tenants are very good people who just need a little bit of assistance from the government with housing, but there is a very, very small percentage, an extremely small percentage, of the tenants who actually cause problems in neighbourhoods, who cause problems for the other public housing tenants around them, who cause problems with the law and who take up the vast amount of the housing officers’ time in management. I could understand why they were saying that, but that is not a provision of public housing. Public housing, as we know, is an open-ended rental arrangement, so there is no opportunity there to have a right to evict. You need to go through the processes, and it is very, very difficult to evict anybody from public housing.

There is a serious danger in this state that the rental market is dying a death of a thousand cuts, and this is because of the policy of the Greens and Labor. The Greens and Labor need to understand that their housing policy and settings are forcing rental providers out of the market. They no longer want to be rental providers, because it is getting too hard. That is partly because of Labor overtaxing rental providers, people who have invested in a second property to provide a home for somebody else, or it is because of the policy settings tipping the scale far too much in favour of the tenant rather than the rental provider who actually owns the property. It is restricting the private rental market. What we need in this state is a strong private rental market, because government cannot house everyone. There is no possible way the government can build enough homes to provide homes for everyone who wants to rent a property, for everyone who cannot afford to buy a property, so we do need a strong private rental market. The way to do that is to encourage people to invest in housing and put that housing into the private rental market, not to tax them out of existence, not to regulate them out of existence so that the private rental market becomes so restricted that it drives up the cost of the rent.

Every new restriction or requirement makes it more likely that investors will sell up and get out of the rental market, because it is just too hard, too complicated, too expensive for them to actually rent out a property in Victoria. We must remember that about 70 per cent of rental providers have only one rental property: it is either the first home that they bought when they were young, and then as they have moved on to a second home they have kept that as an investment property; or it is part of their superannuation, and they use the income from that to generate their own superannuation. When we talk about rental providers, 70 per cent of them have one rental property, so we are not talking about commercial property owners who can fund heavy compliance costs. But this government wants to impose heavy compliance costs on everyone.

What we are talking about here are mum-and-dad investors with one rental property as a retirement investment. Almost 20 per cent of those investors are schoolteachers or registered nurses. These people have busy lives, and they have limited capacity to perform more and more compliance work. At some point it just becomes too difficult to provide a rental property, and that is when they sell up and they leave the market. One Bendigo real estate professional estimated that nearly 40 per cent of the rental properties they had sold over the past year had actually gone to owner-occupiers because these are rental providers selling the property because they are getting out of the rental market. That has certainly restricted the rental market in Bendigo. This means there are less rentals available, there is more competition for homes and there are higher rents for those who need to rent.

What we heard when we were in Bright for the regional setting is that every home that is sold there is bought up for an Airbnb and there are no homes for the hospitality workers to rent. In Bright at one stage – I am not sure if they are still doing this – they actually had to have a roster of which restaurants would open on which nights because there was not enough hospitality staff to staff all the restaurants. There were no homes for them to rent because the rental providers are exiting the rental market.

This bill will prohibit soliciting or accepting rental bidding. It is actually a very good thing that that is coming in, but why did the rental bidding start in the first place? The rental bidding started because Labor is driving rental providers out of the market with more taxes and more red tape every year, leaving fewer rental homes available. Labor had to introduce this rental bidding ban because Labor policies have drastically reduced the number of rental properties in the market. Since Labor came to power in 2014 rent in metropolitan Melbourne has increased by over $200 a week, a more than 55 per cent increase. In regional Victoria the median rent has increased by 60 per cent in the last decade under Labor.

This is not just a problem for renters but has knock-on effects and other industries. Our regional hospitals cannot get medical staff to the area because there are no homes to rent. As I said, in our tourist towns they are having difficulty getting staff to move there because there are no affordable rentals. It is time that Labor and the Greens realised that their policy settings are driving rental providers out of the market. They are restricting the rental market and they are driving up the cost of renting in Victoria, making it harder for those who are most vulnerable.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (15:53): I am pleased to make a contribution today on the Consumer and Planning Legislation Amendment (Housing Statement Reform) Bill 2024. There is a lot that this government is doing to improve the supply of housing here in Victoria and particularly in this bill to improve the quality of housing here in Victoria principally relating to rental properties. Despite the criticisms of the opposition, who seem to not be interested in supporting renters in this state, the Labor government are very proud of the more than 130 reforms that we have made to back Victorian renters – strengthening their rights and helping them with their cost-of-living pressures. We will always continue to support renters in our state. This government is a government for the renters of Victoria.

We hope that the measures in this bill – comprehensive reforms, particularly on the residential tenancy side – will give more security and more certainty to those who rent their home here in Victoria. We also hope it is going to improve the quality and safety of those homes, because I am sure that everyone in the chamber would agree that people should be able to live in safe, quality homes no matter whether they are home owners or renters.

The bill does a range of things. The first thing is it is going to make renting fairer by ending no-fault evictions. They are not fair, they are not right and they will be no more when this bill goes through. This is probably clearing up some of the scaremongering, some of the misinformation potentially, or maybe it was just a lack of understanding about how the provisions of the Residential Tenancies Act 1997 will continue to operate after the passage of this bill. Rental providers can still end residential tenancies. They have just got to do it with a valid reason. Renters, as a result of this bill, can have the peace of mind of knowing that if there is no valid reason for their landlord to do so, their landlord will not just be able to kick them out with no reason at all. The question of no-fault evictions – evictions without a valid reason – will be ended. We want to make it really clear to the landlords out there that you cannot kick someone out and put the property back on the market to jack up the rent. You cannot do that here in Victoria after the passage of this legislation. You cannot kick people out for no valid reason. There are a range of valid reasons that exist in the Residential Tenancies Act and will continue to exist, including the rights of landlords to move back into the property and to sell the property – all of these things will remain grounds. But ‘no reason, no eviction’ is pretty clear.

We are also increasing the period for notices to vacate or increase rent to 90 days, up from 60, so that everyone has the opportunity to have sufficient notice to be able to adjust to changes to rental amounts or indeed to find a new place to live. We have increased the minimum standards for rental properties so that people know that the housing that they are renting is up to a minimum standard. We are making sure that there will be no forms of rental bidding. Rental bidding is a pernicious feature of the rental system where people offer a bit more to the landlord in order to secure a rental property. You will no longer be declined a home because someone else offered to pay more rent in an unsolicited bid above the asking price. It pushes rents up and it is unfair on those who play by the rules, and we are closing these loopholes down.

That is not the only reform contained in this bill that will help with the price pressures of renting. Rental Dispute Resolution Victoria, which is being established in June of this year, means that tenants will no longer have to go to VCAT in order to get simple repairs done. We know that for many going to VCAT can be a costly and time-consuming process. It is an expense of both money and time that many cannot afford, creating barriers to renters seeking adequate redress from their landlords and allowing some unscrupulous landlords to get away with behaviour that is simply not acceptable. Once we establish Rental Dispute Resolution Victoria renters will have more access to swifter processes to enable their disputes to be resolved so that they will be able to get repairs done on their properties.

One of the most important things that the bill contains – and we certainly saw very moving instances of this when the bill was debated in the other place – is consumer protection provisions that were advocated for by some families here in Victoria to help save the lives of people living in rental properties. The reforms will ensure that the rental provider or agent must immediately arrange for urgent repairs to be carried out on faulty smoke alarms. We know that smoke alarms save lives. There have been too many instances where tragic incidents have occurred and where a working smoke alarm might have prevented the deaths of tenants. Very clearly, the onus should be on the rental provider to ensure they are providing a safe home for tenants to live in, and that is why the bill is going to extend the requirement for rental providers to ensure that gas and electrical safety checks are conducted every two years by qualified tradespeople at all residential properties.

Among other things, the bill will also improve the standards of service by property industry professionals, including mandatory licensing and training as well as requiring agents’ representatives to be registered and ensuring that agents’ representatives have to meet eligibility requirements before being registered. Many of the interactions that renters have with their property managers can from time to time leave something to be desired, and I think we will all benefit from having these provisions put in place across the industry. We are also introducing tougher penalties for real estate agents who break the law, particularly in relation to underquoting, something that is devastating to those seeking to buy their own home. These practices stand in the way of people realising their dream of buying their own home, so we think that strengthening those penalties for real estate agents and sellers who break the law, particularly in relation to underquoting, is going to have a significant benefit.

The bill is going to strengthen the planning system by implementing some recommendations from the red tape commissioner, which will help make good planning decisions faster – changes that are aimed at modernising the planning system to make it more responsive, more agile and better equipped to handle the housing affordability challenges of today and set us up for the future. The proposed changes following the red tape commissioner’s recommendations being made to the planning system are broadly supported by industry and councils, who are going to benefit from fast-tracked processes and clearer pathways in making a range of decisions.

This is a very timely debate because the government is committed to building more homes in Victoria to give more Victorians the opportunity to become home owners, to have a place to live. If they are in the rental market – and around 30 or 40 per cent, depending on where we are, of Victorians are renters – we are ensuring they have more protections around renting, that renting is fairer and the quality of the homes that they are living in is higher and that they are safer in those homes when they rent.

There is a lot that this government is doing to provide more homes for Victorians. As I have said time and time again in this chamber, the only way we are going to solve the housing crisis is to build more homes. Building more homes, building more dwellings, is the only way that we are going to get through the housing crisis and ensure that Victorians have a place to live, a place to call home, particularly in the communities that they want to live in. Whether that is where they grew up or whether that is where their family is, we want to make sure that people have the opportunity to buy a home in these communities, and we are supporting them.

We are also making sure that the settings are in place to create more opportunities in the rental market. We know that three-quarters of all of the build-to-rent projects in Australia completed in the last year are right here in Melbourne. Build-to-rent as a model provides larger scale residential rental developments. They provide the opportunity for longer term leasing and tenancy arrangements and, supported through a range of tax concessions, provide incentives for landlords to think to the long term. One of the features that we have had in the rental market and the provision of rental properties in Australia is that often a structure of the investor market is being driven by the seeking of shorter term capital gain in the rental market, supported by a range of Commonwealth tax concessions, which does not incentivise adequate maintenance or upkeep of rental properties. The big advantage of the build-to-rent sector for renters is that by having landlords who are in it for the long term, those incentives are shifted. There is a greater incentive for landlords in the build-to-rent sector who have got the 20- and 30-year horizons that they are looking at to make sure that maintenance and upkeep is done adequately on these properties, not just to the bare minimum but to keep their long-term asset in good check. I think the build-to-rent sector is making a huge difference for renters in Melbourne, and Melbourne is absolutely the home of the build-to-rent sector in this nation.

We have got huge investments underway in housing, particularly on the social housing side. In Southern Metropolitan Melbourne there is so much building going on, particularly of social housing. We have had huge developments in our social housing sites in Prahran, in Brighton, in Ashburton and in Hawthorn, to name just a few of the projects that have already been completed by this government under the Big Housing Build. They have already been completed by this government and have tenants living in them today – brand new, modern, energy-efficient social homes built by the Labor government with people living in them, and we have got more coming. There is a huge development underway on Bluff Road in Hampton East. There are significant developments underway in Prahran. More social housing has recently been approved, a significant project in Balaclava. You do not need to travel far around the Southern Metropolitan Region –

Ann-Marie Hermans interjected.

Ryan BATCHELOR: I note the murmuring over there on the other side, where those opposite think that building social housing destroys communities. That is what they think, because they have said it. They have said it before – they did. They are sitting there saying, ‘You are destroying communities.’ Well, I can categorically put on the record that social housing enriches communities. There are residents who are living in New Street in Brighton. The ground lease model 1 site – opposed by the Liberal Party, denigrated by the Liberal Party – now has residents in there. When they opened Minister Shing and I met Deb, who was in one of these brand-new energy-efficient apartments on New Street, Brighton, in social housing. The look on her face when she showed us around her brand new apartment said it all. The smile ear to ear, the pride – it was amazing. She loved it, it looked great and it is her home, built by this government.

Hundreds and hundreds like it are being built right across Southern Metro. We have got huge plans to build more and more and more. The Liberal Party just seems to want to block and block and block. Labor wants to build. The Liberals want to block. Labor wants to build more homes for more Victorians, give more Victorians the opportunity to have a home and to own a home, and all the Liberal Party wants to do is stand in the way. We will not let them. We will not let the Liberal Party stand in the way of Victorians having a place to call home. We are getting on with the job of building more homes for more Victorians, and I support this bill.

Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:08): I also rise today to speak on the Consumer and Planning Legislation Amendment (Housing Statement Reform) Bill 2024, and just to clear up any misconceptions about the Liberals, I myself was once a housing support worker. Yes, I worked with homeless people and I actually ran houses. I worked with homeless people, I helped them get into accommodation, I supported them and I did case management with young people and young adults, both in the private rental market and with department houses and in things that were a combination. And I can say that I have never seen a situation as dire as we are currently in in the state of Victoria. I have never seen a more incompetent Labor government when it comes to housing.

When I look at a bill like this I just honestly look at it and go, ‘What the heck?’ Why is this government so bent on doing these omni bills where they throw a whole bunch of things in and stack it all in there and there is the good with the bad? And we are supposed to just go, ‘Yep, no worries,’ because we want to keep the good and just let the bad go through. I mean, once again this is one of these bills that gives the minister incredibly exaggerated powers so that they are able to cut corners and make decisions without going through proper planning processes that have been put in place to make sure that things are done properly. Now, just in case you have any misconceptions about what this government is actually ‘achieving’, I can say it is not achieving because constantly do I have to deal with the most heartbreaking stories of people needing accommodation in the south-east. They are the most heartbreaking situations which, let me tell you, Mr Tarlamis and Ms Williams in the other place know all about because their offices are right next to WAYS. People come there because they are misled by the website into thinking that they are going to get crisis accommodation, and the reality is they get there and there is no room in the inn. There is nowhere for them to go, so we have situations where people are camping outside the back of their offices. Of course then we have the unsanitary situation, when there are no toilets available, where people are having to go to the toilet outside. Clearly some of them would be extremely hungry and desperate, and as the weather gets colder it is going to be more and more dire.

It is actually unacceptable to think that this can just be swept under the carpet, and then we are going to put something together that is just so convoluted. It is just another messy, messy bill put together by a government that just does not know what it is doing. It has no idea. It has got some good things; I am not going to say it is all bad. I mean, I do not have a problem with smoke alarm checks every 12 months. I think that that is necessary given that we are going to have more and more fires because we are going to have more and more people in situations where they are in desperate need. I personally have been to homes where people are not wanting to turn the heater on in winter – and that was last year. It is only going to be worse this year.

Let us just start with some of the figures that we know to be true. After a $6 billion Big Housing Build this is the net result of homes available to those on the housing waiting list. While there was an increase of just over 4000 in the community housing sector – not Homes Victoria – the Homes Victoria total stock decreased by nearly 500 homes, or 488. Now, you might look at that and think, ‘Well, does that mean we’ve got more beds?’ No, in actual fact we have 4551 fewer bedrooms available now in social housing. That is right. And if you look at what New South Wales was able to provide in the same period between 2015 and 2024 compared to Victoria, well it just says everything. It shows how this government that has been in for more than 10 years has failed the people of Victoria and continues to fail the people of Victoria. In New South Wales we had an increase in social and community homes, which went up by nearly 10,500 – in Victoria only 4000. Again, there is constant hot air from the other side of the chamber – hot air, promises, things that they never deliver. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah is all we hear in this chamber, and then as soon as you pick them up on it, it is more blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And people are actually sleeping on the streets.

What breaks my heart is when I actually have to see young people who are under 18 who are in a situation where they are trying to go to school and they have nowhere to live. That is not just one or two or three. You can go to schools, let me tell you, right now in the south-east ؘ– and Michael Galea, I encourage you to find this out, and the same with you, Mr Tarlamis. Go into these schools and actually really see these needs, because they are real and we have a number of people that do not have anywhere to live.

But let us get back to the bill. Let us get back to the bill, because look at all the issues here. Let us think about what it means to be a rental provider here in Victoria. There is a reason why people are just going, ‘It’s too hard; I can’t do it anymore.’ And as has already been stated in this place, about 10 per cent of people who are rental providers are actually teachers – that is right, teachers. About 9 per cent of them are nurses. Now we should be getting worried. We are going to go and hurt our teachers and our nurses, who are simply looking for a way to actually be able to provide something a little bit extra for the community, and we are going to make it more difficult for them. As if they have got time to do more training on top of what they are already expected to do with their registration. It used to be, once upon a time, that you got registered as a teacher and you were always a teacher that was registered. No, not under a government that is Labor. We have got to register, register, register and do umpteen things to get that registration. It is the same with the nurses.

They have made life so difficult for Victorians. But that is nothing in comparison. The teachers and nurses are not complaining; the point is that they are prepared to do it, but now you are going to make them do additional training – and at what expense? Who is paying for it? Is the government going to provide the payment for this training? Is this just another way to hit the pockets of hardworking Victorians who are already bleeding? ‘Let’s just make them do an additional amount of training. We’re going to make them pay, pay, pay’ – because we can already all pay our bills! There is just no consideration for how much people are suffering in this state already under this incompetent Labor government.

Let us have a look at some of the restrictions on ownership freedoms. Why does it not surprise anybody that there are going to be restrictions on ownership freedoms in this state under a Labor government like this? Of course there are going to be restrictions, because that is all they do. There is a constant binding, binding, binding – just making life so incredibly difficult for every single Victorian. ‘Let’s find another way to do it,’ says Labor. ‘Let’s put in a nice big bill to make it more difficult to get a house, more difficult to be a rental provider.’

Members interjecting.

Ann-Marie HERMANS: That is right. They are all getting upset because they know it is true and they are just trying to hide the fact. Let us have a look at one of the ways they are making it more difficult. I can tell you that anybody who has been actually reading their emails will know that they have received as many emails as I have. I cannot even tell you the volume of people that have written in about their concerns just on one specific issue – because the bill is full of things – this 90-day notice period

I can say that as a coalition we strive to support both renters and rental providers. Right? We are not here to hit out at anybody. We are looking forward to two years, when we will be here to govern for all Victorians, not simply a few hand-picked buddies that happen to be mates with some of the MPs in the state Labor government.

Members interjecting.

Ann-Marie HERMANS: No, that is right. We are here, and we are looking forward to the day that we can govern for all Victorians. The addition of the 90-day notice period at the end of a fixed term rental agreement is something that is going to really affect a lot of rental providers. I am not one of them. Right? I am not one of the teachers with a background of having a rental property that I am renting. I am not one of them, right, so I am not going in to bat for myself, I am going in to bat for other people. You may well be among all these people having lots of rental properties, but let me say that I am not one of them, okay? But I have been a renter plenty of times in my married life and before I was married, so I know what it is like to have to go through these challenges.

I will say this though. As a person that has also had to move out of my home and rent it out, the last thing you need is to have a situation where you are looking at the challenges ahead. You have got to be able to look at how you can continually bring in that income. People are not going out – or not very many of us – and paying cash to be a rental provider of a property. They are paying for it with the bank as an opportunity to maybe support their family down the track and as a type of superannuation. To have a 90-day notice period at the end of a fixed-term agreement is simply going to make it more difficult; 60 days in itself is already a challenge for many people.

We understand the rental market is competitive. We understand that, because not enough houses have been built. Yes, that is right, Minister for Housing. There are lots of promises about how many great houses are being built, but the reality is, as I said, that I have people in my region who are sleeping on the streets or who are having to sleep – right now – on people’s couches tonight. There are people that I have met – single parents – who went to someone’s house on a short-term basis but have been waiting now for a couple of years for somewhere else to live. Because the response is, ‘Well, you have somewhere where you at least have a roof over your head, so you’re no longer a priority’. But this is actually a person that very kindly said yes for a short time, not realising that two years later they would be in this situation. We cannot afford to punish both the renters and our rental providers. The Labor government, this Allan Labor government, needs to think about some of the changes that need to be made. We have given that some thought. We have worked out where the shoddy parts of this bill are, and we are saying, ‘Just take this bit out. This needs to be reconsidered. Take this bit out.’ You can have what is left in the parts where we go, ‘Well, that bit’s good. We think that’s going to be beneficial.’ The reality is we have a better understanding of what is going on here and how to fix it and you guys clearly have no idea, and that is why we have such a crisis on our hands.

I have got so much paper here it is unbelievable – all the issues. I personally do not like the whole concept of rental bidding. I have never seen it done. I am sorry for those who have to go through it. I think it is challenging enough to be trying to get a rental property. But I also think it is incredibly important if someone’s super is all tied up in a property that they be allowed to have people that are responsible looking after what they have and what they consider to be something that will hopefully be able to help them in their old age and to help their family, and that they can actually know that they are not going to go under with the risk that they have taken, because of this state Labor government making legislation that actually makes it more difficult for more Victorians. That is our concern with this bill.

The bill introduces mandatory continuing professional development. That is a major issue. I am not against the professional development, but I am wondering how that is going to be rolled out, how that is going to be beneficial, and it is really interesting that there are some people who are going to be able to be exempted from it. Well, I wait to see who those people are, because I guarantee that there will be a real pick-and-choose thing that happens here and some really good people are going to be treated really badly through this whole process. Then they will just come to my office again with more stories about how this government is letting them down. As I said, I do not like the minister to be given more power – the Minister for Planning in this case to have more power as well. That bothers me because this government has not shown itself to be trustworthy with more power; it has shown itself to be horrendous in fact with power.

I am really sad that I am going to run out of time here. Rental providers are going to be hit with financial penalties, and that is a real concern. The government is moving to no-fault evictions, which is going to be a really difficult thing for all Victorians. They are simply not fit to govern, and it is time they stepped aside and let us help them out with their bills.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:23): As I rise for my 15 minutes of ‘Blah, blah, blah’ on the Consumer and Planning Legislation Amendment (Housing Statement Reform) Bill 2024, I am entirely struck – I am stunned as a matter of fact. I am not sure what is more surreal: to be lectured by Mrs Hermans on blathering on, or whether I should be more stunned by the implication that the housing statement is making it harder for young people to get into housing – quite an extraordinary comment from Mrs Hermans. Even Mr Davis was not suggesting that, as he was valiantly defending his NIMBY friends in the inner east and south-east of Melbourne against any sort of prospect of young people living in those areas – we cannot have that! We know that Mr Davis is perhaps Victoria’s chief NIMBY, and he brought up many things. But again I am quite flabbergasted, Mrs Hermans, that you would associate this with a housing statement proposal that is all about getting more Victorians into housing, that is about providing those options in the regions and in the outer suburbs, such as places like Clyde North that we represent, or indeed – dare I say it – perhaps millennials and perhaps gen Zs being allowed to live in the inner city as well. Outrageous! Certainly, Mr Davis, we absolutely cannot have that, because to do anything to change that would be, in the picture that he was painting, to demolish apparently every tree in the City of Stonnington, which would be a very, very bad thing. But that is not what this housing statement is about. That is not what the activity centres are about. It is about that sensible infill development at places like, yes, Hawksburn.

In the previous sitting week we had a debate on the electorate of Prahran and I outed myself as having lived in the electorate of Prahran for a few years around about a decade ago. At the risk of further doxxing myself I am going to say that when I did live in the electorate of Prahran I was actually living in Hawksburn. A beautiful place it was, too. Again, as I said last week, it does not compare to the south-east and I never quite felt at home there, but it was a lovely place and it was terrific. I could get on a train and be at AAMI Park to watch Victory demolish Melbourne City in 4 minutes – incredible. It was not like the hour it takes me now to get in from around near Pakenham. It was a much more convenient way to go and see the A-League.

Harriet Shing: Four minutes; that’s how long we wish Ann-Marie would speak for.

Michael GALEA: Indeed, I could have been from my front door to AAMI Park in my seat in less time than Mrs Hermans’ contribution just then. It would have been perhaps a more productive 15 minutes, I might say.

Harriet Shing interjected.

Michael GALEA: More productive indeed, Minister Shing. There are many, many benefits to living in places such as Hawksburn, just as there are many benefits to living in places like Hampton Park or Hamilton. Victorians should have that choice, and that is what the government is saying with this housing statement. Now, even Mr Davis was not outrageous enough to suggest that the housing statement was blocking young people from getting into housing, because he knows that really the only people blocking housing here are the Liberal Party and depending on the issue possibly the Greens.

When it comes to these activity centres, they are not the only part but one very important part. If you were to listen to Mr Davis’s contribution you might be forgiven for thinking that they were the only part, but they are not. There are many, many of these proposed new activity centres in addition to places like Arden, which will have the new Metro Tunnel station opening very soon, directly servicing in fact my region. You can hop on a train in Pakenham and get off at Arden, for example, just as you can at Parkville – a terrific location to have some new housing. But, yes, God forbid, we are also putting housing in Hawksburn, in Toorak, in Armadale, in Malvern – even in Brighton. I know the other NIMBY friend, Mr Newbury, is also up and about about that and really connecting with those millennial and Gen Z voters by protesting and picketing and saying, ‘We don’t want you to live here, you can go and live in the outer south-east.’ Again, that would be fine if they had any sort of plan for the outer south-east suburbs but of course they do not. Their plans at the last election: 55,000 new lots in the suburbs. ‘Oh, infrastructure? No, we’ll think about that later.’ That is unlike this government, which has been constantly investing in the schools, the road upgrades, the level crossing level removals and the new train stations, all of these things, not to mention hospital upgrades, early childhood – you name it; the list goes on. We are doing those things. We are walking and chewing gum at the same time, as they say, making those investments in the outer suburbs as we support their growth.

Continued growth in the outer suburbs is still very much part of the housing statement. This is not to say that we are blocking off that option. For many people, for many young families in particular, it is a great place to be. But many others want to be within 10 minutes on the train from AAMI Park. Ms Watt here is another terrific sports lover. She is a passionate advocate for Melbourne Storm among other clubs too. She may wish to be within relatively close reach of places like that as well. Whether it is for those work opportunities, for those social opportunities, whatever it is –

A member interjected.

Michael GALEA: hospitals, yes – what the Allan Labor government is saying is that you should have that right. You should have that opportunity.

We saw a very interesting speech today, not in this place but just up the road, by Ken Henry, a former chief official at the federal Treasury, who was speaking quite bluntly in fact about the way in which governments – especially the federal government but governments at all levels – have really been setting tax policies that will disadvantage young people, perhaps in no more significant way than in getting into that housing market. In fact he was making some very bold statements, and I think it would be a very interesting speech to get to the bottom of. They were very bold statements basically saying that governments have ignored those people. You cannot say that though of the Allan Labor government, because we have a housing statement that actually says that if you are a millennial or if you are a gen Z voter you should have the right to a home.

That home could be in the city, it could be in the suburbs or it could be in the regions, but we are saying that the system as it is is not working for young people, and that is not good enough. Young people are increasingly bearing the larger share of the tax burden in this country, but they are not getting the same benefits that generations before have had. That is exactly why the housing statement in this particular area of policy is so important, because we know that especially when it comes to taxation the states are very limited in what we can do to change those levers. The federal government have more controls than states do, and without going into a whole other discussion of the vertical fiscal imbalance and how they have those capacities more at their fingertips, it is worth noting that states do have some roles that they can play, and the aspect of housing is perhaps one of the most important.

We on this side of the chamber have been a government that has actually delivered on infrastructure – that has not just talked about it but has got on with it. You have seen that, whether it is a level crossing on Clyde Road in Berwick, whether it is the Metro Tunnel, whether it is the West Gate Tunnel or whether it is major, wholesale hospital upgrades – Frankston Hospital in my electorate, just to name one – we are getting on with it. We know that, unlike the four years before we came in, if you have a very fast-growing state, you need to invest in that state and you need to invest in the future of that state, because not to do so and not to build schools, like those opposite did when they were last in power, is to go backwards. If you are growing and you are not investing in that growth, you are going backwards. That is what we have done and that is the record that we stand on over our existing 10 years in government.

What we are now saying is we will continue that work, but we recognise that the housing system in this state – and in this entire country as well – has not been adequately responding to young people, and that is one of the key things that the housing statement will address. Whether you are in private or community housing, you deserve a safe, habitable roof over your head. There are many, many other levers that we can pull, but the activity centres – which do get the Liberals so worked up and so agitated – are a very, very important one because they do provide that choice. You should have the option: if you want to live in the suburbs, you should live in the suburbs, and if you want to live in the city, you should live in the city. Again, those opposite will just come in here and bring petitions every single day into this place opposing new housing development and then turn around –

Ann-Marie Hermans interjected.

Michael GALEA: You read one in this morning. Your colleague, Mrs Hermans, read one in this morning. Your other colleague read one in yesterday morning. If you were in the chamber, Mrs Hermans, you would have seen, day after day after day –

Ann-Marie Hermans interjected.

Michael GALEA: Read the notice paper – it is in there. Read the daily blue – it is in there too. You would have actually seen petition after petition after petition.

Ann-Marie Hermans: It’s a democratic process.

Michael GALEA: It is absolutely democratic, Mrs Hermans, but your choice of priorities is day after day after day coming into this place and attacking new housing for all Victorians, but especially in doing so you are effectively attacking new housing for young Victorians. You have come in with petitions every day this week, and then you turn around and say that we are making it hard for young people to get a home. That is the most outrageous thing I have ever heard. You talk and talk and talk, and honestly between some of your speeches I cannot tell what your position is. We have Mr Mulholland, who is conspicuously absent for this debate, who might very much disagree with Mr Davis. I would be very keen to hear his views on Mr Davis’s speech today, in fact.

Harriet Shing interjected.

Michael GALEA: I will ask the IPA about that, yes, Ms Shing. But I would be very grateful if Mr Mulholland did want to come into the chamber to give a contribution on this debate, and perhaps he might be able to rebut some of Mr Davis’s comments as well. Mrs Hermans, it would take a litany of hours and days to rebut all of your comments, to be honest. I was at least very glad to hear that you do support one element of this bill, and that is with regard to smoke detectors. I appreciate that you are not entirely consistently negative. Frankly, I am surprised that we could even get you to support that, but that was good. You said that you rented, and yes, just as many in this place have, I did indeed rent for many years, including when I was living in Hawksburn. I had a very good agent there – I have got to say that she was a terrific property manager – but I have also had some very bad ones in different places as well. I know what some of the issues can be when you are trying to get a dishwasher replaced, fixed or just working at all and you are consistently getting rebuffed or ignored. That is one example that happened to us.

Ann-Marie Hermans: Wow, First World problem – your dishwasher’s not working.

Michael GALEA: I will take up that interjection, Mrs Hermans.

Harriet Shing: Basic standards, meeting the terms of the contract – wow.

Michael GALEA: Yes. If you think it is okay for basic services and utilities as part of a house to not be functional and that that is what we should be accepting, that is quite extraordinary, and that probably goes to explaining why you are so vocally opposing the bill today – if you do think that people that provide homes to people should not actually be required to keep them in a condition that they were rented out and advertised as.

Ann-Marie Hermans interjected.

Michael GALEA: That is exactly you are saying, Mrs Hermans, if you think that those things should not be attended to. A lot of these things are things that should be common sense, and to be quite honest, a great deal of landlords and property agents do the right thing, but there are far too many that do not. And that is what this bill before us is designed to address. This will not affect the ones that are already doing all these things, because it is largely about common sense. And if you oppose that and you are saying landlords should be able to let their houses deteriorate and degrade and ‘Well, that’s too bad, get over it, First World problems’ – they may well be First World problems, but for people who are perhaps working multiple jobs, trying to make ends meet, trying to maybe study as well, trying to raise kids, they do not have time to deal with them. They have got more important things to deal with. And if their basic household services are not functioning, Mrs Hermans, you are now saying, ‘Well, too bad. Get on with it; get over it.’

Ann-Marie Hermans interjected.

Michael GALEA: That is exactly what you are saying, because that is what you just said in your interjection and in your opposition to this bill and, if I may say so, Mrs Hermans, in your blah, blah, blah when you were speaking at great length and opposing it. That is exactly what you were saying.

I am grateful to have Mr McGowan in the chamber. I was about to pay you a compliment, Mr McGowan, but I see you are perhaps already leaving. It is all relative. Perhaps you can help me to make sense of this, Mr McGowan. We have got Mr Davis saying something and Mrs Hermans saying other things. Maybe you can come through with a modicum of sensibility and decent thinking and actually come out in favour of sensible housing options and of giving young people the chance to live, God forbid, in the inner city. Do you support that Mr McGowan?

Members interjecting.

Michael GALEA: Indeed, another activity centre I could talk about is Ringwood. Now, we had Mr Davis refer to –

Nick McGowan interjected.

Michael GALEA: Mr McGowan, you would be very interested to know that Mr Davis was in fact referring to Mr Welch as the member for Ringwood earlier, so I am sure you will be keen to speak so you can reclaim your title off Mr Welch. Mr Davis was trying to call him the member for the Ringwood area, but I know you will set that record straight. I fiercely defended you, Mr McGowan. In fact I raised a point of order on your behalf. And I am sure that you can talk to the benefits as well of having good housing options in places like Ringwood, where we have got good services and a good station. We have got a great shopping centre there and indeed we have got a good electorate office there as well, I believe. I would of course want more people to be able to live in proximity to your office, Mr McGowan. There are many, many things that I would love to talk about. I do not have the time, so I will commend the bill to the house.

Trung LUU (Western Metropolitan) (16:38): I rise today to contribute to the Consumer and Planning Legislation Amendment (Housing Statement Reform) Bill 2024, a bill that takes yet another swipe at our state’s rental providers to remove the last remaining controls that they have over tenancy arrangements. Make no mistake, this bill is an attack on rental providers, who are mums and dads, hardworking average Victorians. It will place further stress on them in the property sector, and this is one of the main reasons this side of the house are concerned about this bill in its current form.

It is not the only reason that I am concerned about this bill, however. This bill also actively strips away rights of local government to consult with their communities on major developments impacting residents and in some instances that will completely reshape their communities and make them unrecognisable from the suburbs in which they currently live.

This bill is inconsistent with local communities’ bids, taking away communities’ and individuals’ rights in planning decisions. I would have assumed it was a fairly reasonable request to have a say about your neighbourhood. We have always and will always continue to actively promote greater local decision-making in planning matters. It is so important, particularly for constituents of mine in the rapidly growing outer western suburbs of Melbourne, who have experienced decades of rapid development and growth in areas like Brimbank, Tarneit, Wyndham Vale and Mount Atkinson.

From the outset it is clear this omnibus bill was cobbled together to try to win back voters in seats like Richmond and Melbourne in the inner city, people who are rental providers at the expense of other hardworking aspirational Victorians elsewhere in the state. The only parties in this Parliament who stand with both renters and rental providers are those on this side of the chamber. We know that striking the right balance is critical. We need to ensure that we are helping to increase supply by way of building more homes to increase supply in the housing market, while ensuring the rights of those renting are paramount, and we will continue to advocate for that balance.

We owe it to Victorians to get the planning decisions right, to have livable and thriving local communities and to help building homes. Having a home is a fundamental right. We know that. Furthermore, I have listened intently to those opposite and have come to realise they no longer represent aspirational Victorians, who just want to own their own home and to have a voice in their local community, in the environment and in infrastructure.

On this side of the chamber we stand for a strong voice for the community we have been elected to represent, and I am determined to be the voice for the Western Metro region. This means standing up and making clear that the government cannot bulldoze dissenting voices of the community with objections from local councils or community groups opposing widespread overdevelopment. This bill strips away proper and real community consultation in planning matters, while residents and local councils in my areas are telling me this bill will further erode local planning controls and will whittle away and severely reduce the role of councils and residents to have a say in decisions that directly affect them in the place they live and the place they have grown up in.

I also want to make some remarks about the war this government seems determined to wage against rental providers. Whether it is to please the Greens or not, I am not sure. When you go to war with rental providers, you ultimately go to war with renters. In the end, no-one wins. We know that when too much stress is placed on rental markets, including when the rent you are paying becomes unreasonable and impossible for renters, our social housing market is placed under even greater strain. We know from data the social housing waitlist in Victoria is growing at a rapid rate. We do not want to place an additional strain on the social housing network. However, this bill has the potential to do just that. The government should be more focused on supporting those people who are creating supply in the rental market, to add supply and to provide more options for renters. People who invest in a second home to get themselves and their family ahead should not be demonised and punished. They should be supported.

Feedback from the sector is resoundingly in favour of increasing stock and supply in the market and using all levers the government has at its disposal to facilitate this outcome. The Australian dream of owning your own home is why so many migrants move to Australia, this great country of ours. Their dreams and aspirations to own a home for their family should be encouraged and supported, and if they want to invest in property to get themselves ahead, this is a good thing. It should be noted that 70 per cent of rental providers only have one rental property. These people are not property tycoons. They are the average mum and dad who seek the investment of a house for their future security.

This bill, as I mentioned, removes the last remaining controls for rental providers and could ultimately lead to serious unintended consequences which I am not sure the government has even considered. When rental providers leave the market, the affordability of the rental stock that remains goes up. This is the last thing we want or need in a cost-of-living crisis. Rents will rise, and we know what happens when rents become unaffordable: the most vulnerable in our community could become homeless. They are locked out of the market entirely. I have heard this message loud and clear from my community and many local housing services that are trying to manage the influx of those seeking emergency accommodation. For this reason those on this side of the chamber will continue to voice our concern and attempt to improve this bill in this state through our reasoned amendment. I thank the house, and I will leave it there.

Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (16:46): This bill is being introduced under the guise of protecting renters and improving rental conditions, but let us be clear: it is not about fixing housing affordability. It is about the government covering up its own failures.

Members interjecting.

Renee HEATH: There is a bit of touchiness from the other side of the house there, Mr Galea. After years of harsh lockdowns and government mismanagement the priority should have been rebuilding lives and industries. Instead, this government has funnelled billions of dollars – taxpayer dollars, by the way – into its corruption-ridden Big Build projects, draining resources, labour and materials away from housing investment. Now, having failed to build enough homes, the government is forcing rental providers to fill that gap. Rather than addressing the root causes of rising rents and declining rental availability it is using this legislation to shift the blame, fostering a toxic divide between rental providers and renters. I think what we must do is stop and look at the real cause of Victoria’s housing crisis. While the government and the Greens often spin this narrative of greedy landlords, the facts tell a very different story, and I want to talk to you about some of those facts today.

Number one: 90 per cent of rental providers in Victoria are private individuals, not big corporations. Many of those are teachers, nurses and working families who just own one property. Number two: they are grappling with higher taxes, costly regulations, rising mortgage rates, council fees, insurance premiums and surging energy costs. Many of those things are completely outside of their control. And number three: 54 per cent of rental providers already operate at a net loss, meaning that they are not profiting from their investment.

Rather than providing real solutions, this bill introduces punitive policies that will drive more investors out of the market, further shrinking rental supply and driving rents even higher, and that is something that I am genuinely worried about. The fact is in Victoria rental stock is plummeting, and the numbers speak for themselves. In just one year Victoria lost 24,716 rental houses. That is the biggest drop on record since 1999. Over the last decade Victoria’s total rental stock has dropped by 12.8 per cent. Investors are leaving Victoria at an alarming rate, taking tens of billions of dollars out of Victoria to more stable states with better policies and better conditions.

Industry experts have sounded the alarm. The Real Estate Institute of Victoria has warned that Victoria’s rental law reforms are the key reason investors are fleeing the market. The Property Investors Council of Australia called the decline in rental stock ‘appalling’, stating:

Investors in Victoria especially are sick and tired of being treated so appallingly by the state government, and they’re selling, and that is fundamentally reducing the supply of rental accommodation in Victoria.

Yet instead of listening to this feedback, the government is doubling down with new restrictions: no-fault evictions removed, meaning rental providers may be forced to keep problem tenants; caps on rental increases, ignoring the rising costs of maintenance, repairs and mortgages; and more expensive compliance rules, forcing landlords or rental providers to install ceiling insulation, 5-star showerheads, blind cord anchors, draughtproofing and energy-efficient appliances. All of these are fantastic things, but that is at an estimated $30,000 per property. When we think back to who actually own these rental properties, they cannot afford to keep them, and they are fleeing the market. If they flee the market, that puts more pressure on everyday Victorians. This is nothing short of government overreach into private investments. It will accelerate the rental market, and sadly, I do not think it will solve it.

What has driven rents up? Instead of misleading the public with anti-rental-provider rhetoric, the government should be addressing the real causes of rental increases. One of those is supply-and-demand imbalance. Fewer rental homes naturally means higher rents – it is just basic economics. Yet the government is pushing investors out of the market, and that will make the problem even worse. The Big Build seems to be prioritised over housing. Billions have been spent on cost-blowout infrastructure projects while housing supply remains stagnant. Also we need to have a housing plan that will keep up with immigration. Eighty per cent of new housing in Melbourne last year was taken by international students. Obviously this is an important issue but we have to be realistic and look: we are just not keeping pace with the amount of new homes. Another 187,000 new students are projected to arrive this coming year, which will increase the competition for renters. No plan exists to accommodate this surge. Instead, local renters are being completely squeezed, and because of the increased pressure a lot of them are leaving the market.

Victoria has the highest taxes in Australia. We have more debt than New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania combined. This government has increased taxes over 55 times since coming to government. This government has introduced 30 new property taxes. A land tax hike in 2023 now affects people with properties valued at just $50,000. Experts warned that these policies would shrink investment and reduce revenue, not increase it. The reality is that rental providers fill an absolutely vital part of the market. They are not the problem; bad government is the problem.

Where is Victoria headed? Victoria’s economy is already one of the worst performing in the country, and it is no surprise that housing forecasts for 2025 rank Victoria amongst the weakest markets in Australia. This rental crisis is government made – there is no doubt about it. It was created by bad policies, high taxes and reckless spending. All of the responsibility for those things is at the feet of the Labor government, and this bill could make it worse. If this government is serious about rental affordability, it really must take a comprehensive approach. It has to end the war on investors, encourage investment, restore confidence in Victoria and reward effort rather than punishing it. It needs to reduce taxes and the regulatory burdens that are driving rental providers away. It needs to address the housing bottlenecks and stop diverting resources to wasteful megaprojects that probably will not be delivered and then saying that they are on time and on budget when it is clear that they are not. Develop a proper plan that will be able to accommodate the growth of Victoria. This bill is not the solution; it is political damage control designed to distract from years of failure of the government. If passed, it will further weaken Victoria’s rental market, hurt both renters and rental providers and leave Victorians worse off than they are.

Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:55): I move:

That debate be adjourned until the next day of meeting.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until next day of meeting.