Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, I understand that pigs make very good pets, just putting that out there. If only there really was such a thing as a miniature pig instead of a small pig ‑ us being told it is a miniature pig when in fact –
Ms Forrest – Don’t they still have ferret races at the Henley‑on‑Mersey, though?
Mr Gaffney – No, they had pig races. They were allowed to have the ferrets after a while, but they do.
Mr PRESIDENT – Back to the honourable member for Hobart.
Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you, Mr President. Obviously, the Greens will be supporting the Residential Tenancy Amendment (Pets) Bill of 2025. It is long‑standing Greens policy to strengthen tenants’ rights, and that includes the ability to have a pet in a rental property, and we acknowledge that the animals in our lives, the domestic animals who choose us or who we choose in our lives, become something like family. There’s an enormous body of research to show that pets can bring very significant health benefits and mitigate loneliness, and we know in modern society one of the greatest scourges, and the most damaging to health and mental health, is loneliness. I know people who are solitary types whose dog, for example, is their best friend and a huge source of comfort and support.
For any member who’s travelled to Europe, for example, you will know they have a very different approach to domestic animals in Europe. It is very common to get onto a plane and there is a woman on the plane with her dog. People take pets into restaurants, into shopping centres, onto trains, in taxis; it’s regarded as normal across the very old and longstanding cultures of Europe. Here in Australia, we haven’t advanced to that extent; first of all, we don’t adequately recognise the sentience of animals, but we are also pretty hardline, in some ways, about pets. Our Residential Tenancy Act for a long time has been pretty hardline. That’s why advocacy for this kind of reform has been made by Shelter Tasmania, for example; St Vincent de Paul from memory, the Salvos: community‑sector organisations who are working at the frontline and understand that, yes, people are having to make choices between being able to rent a property or have a pet. If you talk to the RSPCA or the Dogs’ Homes, any number of the animals that are surrendered to them are done so by people with broken hearts, who had to make a choice.
The choices here are pretty limited on an island where you have too little housing, too few affordable rentals. You can talk to young people who go and look at rental properties in and around Hobart, and they will say there were 30 or 40 people there lining up and hoping to get this rental. At the moment, the system is stacked against tenants. Landlords, the property class in this country, really do have an edge. You get capital gains tax discounts; you can negatively gear a rental property. There are no controls in Tasmania on rent increases, and because affordable rental properties are in such short supply, landlords are able to ask high rents. As we heard from the data that’s out this week, the average rental is around $495. That’s just the average rental.
We also have a Residential Tenancy Act which has weak standards for protecting tenants. There is, for example, no standardised lease form. There are too few minimum standards to protect the rights of tenants. That’s another body of work that needs to be undertaken to reform this act, because at the moment when it comes to rights, landlords’ rights dominate. That’s the kind of society that we’ve created, where the property class and the interests of capital are prioritised over poor people, effectively, people on low incomes. This amendment bill is not a substantive change to the Residential Tenancy Act; it’s a rebalancing, if you like, to some extent, without taking away landlords’ rights. It’s a rebalancing of the rights a little bit more towards tenants.
I remember my when my grandfather died, my grandma in her little unit up in Brisbane was very lonely. She was a social person, but she had had polio as a kid, so her mobility was somewhat restricted. Her life absolutely changed for the better when a cockatiel called George came into it. That bird was my grandmother’s whole reason to be; in fact, we thought she loved George more than she loved her grandchildren. It was so uplifting to her and so important to her, in her little unit.
I believe it’s really important, always on every piece of legislation that we come across, that we check our privilege in here. I don’t know if anyone here rents their primary residence ‑ and I don’t need to know – but this is probably not a concern that any member of this place would have, where a member of your family who happens to have four legs and fur might have to be surrendered in order for us to have an affordable place to live.
I think that the potential negative effects of pets can be overstated. When we first got our dog Frankie from the Dogs’ Home, she spent the first year digging up the garden, but that’s all she did. She didn’t scratch the walls, she didn’t trash things. She was just a digger. You can fix holes in the garden. It’s not that difficult. I believe that in the overwhelming majority of cases, pets are not damaging to a landlord’s property. If you have a good tenant who’s taking care of their pet, you should be just fine.
On the issue of the matters raised by the member for Mersey, I think we should give some credit to TASCAT here. If a tenant says to their landlord, ‘I have a pet pig called Gertrude, and I would like to rent your property and have Gertrude in the shed out the back,’ and Gertrude is a large sow in a small property, there’s reasonable tests here for TASCAT to apply when assessing whether or not Gertrude the pig is an appropriate pet to have in that rental. Those reasonable grounds are pretty clear. When the tribunal is assessing a matter that’s been put to it by a landlord over a prospective refusal of a tenant’s request, in 36V of this amendment bill, TASCAT applies reasonable grounds, and it may take into account the following:
Whether keeping a pet, specified in a request made by a tenant under section 36R(2) in relation to residential premises, would have any of the following effects:
(i) cause a nuisance on the premises;
Well, if someone, for example, wanted to have chickens in a closely packed suburban area, depending on what the council by‑laws are that apply to livestock, TASCAT could look at that circumstance and say, ‘Look, having half‑a‑dozen chickens on your small city block is going to cause a nuisance on the premises in your small city rental.’
(ii) cause a nuisance on an adjacent or adjoining premises or other nearby premises;
(iii) cause damage that is more than reasonable wear and tear to the premises;
(iv) pose an unacceptable risk to the safety of any person.
I note the dangerous dog provisions within this amendment, and that’s not to say that someone can’t necessarily keep a dangerous dog on a rental premises, but modifications would need to be made, and the dog would need to be under the effective control of their owner, so they didn’t pose a threat.
Mr Gaffney – Mr President, do you mind if I ask, because this might help –
Ms O’CONNOR – I’m always happy for an interjection.
Mr Gaffney – For example, a miniature pig can be anywhere up to 25 kilograms to 40 kilograms, which is a smaller size than a big labrador or a rottweiler. It would be interesting to see if someone who had a pet pig that was a miniature would be allowed in a unit.
The other one is to do with the chickens. As patron of the local poultry club, there are a lot of purebred chicken ranges that actually do not go outside. They’re kept in small cages and confined in an area. If a person has been showing for years in their backyard and has Japanese bantams and wants to take them into the house, would that animal be allowed to be in that unit? It couldn’t be heard, couldn’t be seen, but would the landlord have the right to say to the landlord, ‘I don’t want show bantams in my back area’?
Ms O’CONNOR – Yes. Thank you for that interjection, and for the not‑necessarily unlikely hypothetical scenario. Again, it comes back to what TASCAT would regard as reasonable. If a landlord has said, ‘It’s a small rental property, and having a pig in a small rental property is not appropriate. I would like to refuse this request,’ then TASCAT has grounds to do that.
Another one of the grounds in approving the application is whether the animal would pose an unacceptable risk to the safety or welfare of a pet or another animal on the premises, and any other grounds that the tribunal considers reasonable in the circumstances. This legislation trusts that TASCAT would apply that reasonable grounds test and make an informed judgment.
It’s not that we’re reinventing the wheel here, because as we know, nearly every other Australian jurisdiction has some sort of framework in place, but as we were told in the briefing earlier, Western Australia, Northern Territory, Victoria and the ACT have very similar frameworks in place as the one we are debating today. That is that there is, in law, a presumption that a person would be able to have a pet on a rental premises, and that if the landlord doesn’t wish for there to be an animal on that property, they need to inform the tenant, and within 14 days ‑ I think ‑ after being given the request lodge an application for a determination from TASCAT.
We regard this as a rights issue, and it’s important that we do protect the rights of tenants. It is a fundamental human right to have a place to call home, or shelter. It’s not a fundamental human right to own property. Some of us are lucky enough to do so, but that’s our privilege, and usually the result of our hard work and all of that, but it’s not a fundamental human right to own property. It’s certainly not a human right to own rental properties.
I have no issue with landlords per se. We own a rental property, but I rent it to my brother (for full disclosure) at a discounted rent, because he has a disability and is priced out of the rental market otherwise ‑ but we’re lucky. Anyone in here who owns their own home, or owns more than one property, is very fortunate.
I hope that this amendment bill receives similar support to what it received downstairs. I note that some members have an issue with it and are concerned about the rights of landlords, but obviously the Greens want to make sure that tenants’ rights are protected and strengthened.
One of the issues that’s come up as a result of this debate is the question of strata titles and people who live in medium‑density apartment blocks, for example, or low‑density villas, where there’s a body corporate in place. I read into the Hansard correspondence I received from one of my constituents, who I won’t name.
Hi Cassy,
I live in Hobart in a unit where currently the prevailing opinion of the strata committee is that pets are not to be allowed on the property, even in owned units. This is completely unfair in the modern world, where the number of single people in units and houses continues to increase. Pets are a vital part of maintaining good mental health and provide companionship to us single people. I’m pretty sure I don’t need to continue for long, but research consistently shows that living with a pet can have significant benefits for both mental and physical health. Studies indicate that pet owners often experience lower stress levels, reduced blood pressure, and improved heart health. Interacting with animals can increase levels of oxytocin and serotonin, which promotes feelings of calm and connection. Pets also provide companionship and routine, helping to reduce loneliness and depression, especially among older adults or people living alone. Overall, the human-animal bond contributes to greater emotional wellbeing and life satisfaction.
That’s just the truth. Anyone in here who has a pet and someone to come home to with four legs and fur or two legs and wings, or no fur and four trotters, knows that they contribute enormously to our emotional wellbeing.
I understand that this act doesn’t deal with people who live in strata title properties, whether they’re the owner-occupier or a tenant. Hopefully, this change will have another positive effect, which is educative to soften attitudes a little bit towards having pets in apartment blocks. My grandson, the whippet Sparky, lives in an apartment in East Brunswick in Melbourne, and I was there to visit him last week. That modern apartment block has a number of animals in it. It’s a fantastic thing. They’ve created green spaces in the middle of the apartment block, green space on the roof, and it adds to the vibrancy and the life of those apartments, and in fact that whole precinct.
I hope that this legislation is supported by the Council. It will mean a lot to tenants who’ve had to make this choice, and it will change lives for the better. Particularly, among Tasmanians who probably won’t ever be able to dream of owning a home. We live in a state where about a third of our population is reliant in some way or another on Commonwealth benefits. There are people who are economically a long way behind the eight ball and home ownership is just a fantasy. It is not something a lot of people who are in this situation even think is ever possible. Let us make sure when they are renting their homes – and let’s not forget this, a rental property is a home to the people who live there – we should be doing everything we can to respect, protect, and strengthen their rights as tenants. I do hope there’s an educative effect of this bill on body corporates, for example, most of whom, in my experience, just have a blanket ban on any sort of pets down here.
I am very happy to support the bill. I look forward to the Committee stage. I can indicate at this point I won’t be supporting the member for Launceston’s amendments and will be supporting the member for Nelson’s amendments on covenant protections. I am very glad to see this bill and very happy to support it.
