Key Points
A Rebecca White Labor Government will ensure renters can make a house a home.
After 10 years of the Liberals, more and more Tasmanians are renting, but they don’t have the rights they do in other states.
Labor’s top priority is taking urgent action on the cost of living – and that includes urgent action on housing.
To achieve this, we will allow all renters to:
- Hang pictures, plant veggie gardens and have pets
- Affix furniture to the walls to keep their homes safe
- Put in child safety gates and mobility aids
- Carry over their bond from one home to another
- Apply for rentals more easily, without losing their privacy
- Require genuine grounds for eviction
Why we need it
After 10 years of Liberal Government, which has seen more and more Tasmanians renting, Tasmania’s rental laws have not been updated and haven’t kept in line with other states.
Renting used to be easy and affordable – as it should be. Now Tasmanian renters constantly worry about how they'll afford to keep a roof over their head, and where they’ll go if they have to move out.
“Labor will ensure renters can make a house a home”
We need more homes for renters, but we also need to make sure renters have the protections they need, and can have pets, hang pictures and do the things they need to make their house a home.
The details
As part of our Plan, a Rebecca White Labor Government will:
- Let renters make their house a home. We will allow renters to hang pictures, plant veggie gardens, affix furniture to the walls for safety, and put in child safety gates and mobility aids. We will also allow renters to have pets, and make clear that assistance animals are always allowed in rental homes.
- Crack down on rent bidding and other dodgy practices with more funding for the Residential Tenancy Commissioner to do its job. We’ll provide the RTC with $120,000 of funding for an additional investigator, who will be dedicated to reviewing reports of unlawful and unfair behaviours.
- Establish a Portable Bond Scheme so tenants can carry their bond over from one home to another.
- Make it unlawful to ask for more information than is necessary for residential lease agreements. Real estate agents won’t be allowed to ask renters for a full bank statement, for example. And we’ll make sure real estate agents follow privacy requirements so your information is safe.
- Protect people against unfair evictions as a way of getting around existing limits on rent increases, and act upon the federally agreed Better Deal for Renters by implementing a requirement for genuine reasonable grounds for eviction.
- Implement extra protections for tenants experiencing domestic or family violence, by implementing the Better Deal for Renters reforms.
- Scrap charges for connecting and disconnecting electricity meters for people who move house. These charges disproportionately affect renters and young people who move house more frequently.
- Incentivise landlords to make energy efficient upgrades to their rental properties, with $1,000 grants for upgrades where the landlord makes a matched contribution.