Mr Goff takes issue with Chch landlord

Press, 4 October 1985, Page 5

Mr Goff takes issue with Chch landlord

Landlords almost outnumbered tenants at a fiery annual meeting of the Tenants’ Protection Association last evening. About 30 people attended the meeting, which was addressed by the Minister of Housing, Mr Goff. Voices were raised when a heckler, who was thought to be a landlord but later turned out to be a tenant, interrupted Mr Goffs long address to tell him to stop “buH shitting” and tell people the facts. After repeatedly asking Mr Goff how many flats he owned in Auckland, the heckler decided to stay and question Mr Goff at the end of his address. Mr Goff himself took issue in his address with comments made to the news media last week by a prominent Christchurch landlord, Mr Jim Glass, who said he had sold all his flats because of the proposed new tenancy legislation. Mr Glass had cited the examples of tenancy laws in South Australia and Victoria, on which the New Zealand law has been based, as showing how dangerous the proposed law could be fqr tenants and landlfflrds. stfr Goff said that claims made by Mr Glass were contrary to the facts.

Information from South Australia showed that the Residential Tenancy Act of South Australia had made the job of the emergency housing office (which was set up before the introduction of the legislation and not after, as Mr Glass had said) much easier. The act had not had any negative effect on' the supply of rental housing, said Mr Goff. “South Australian census figures show no decrease in the number of private rented dwellings since the legislation. In fact, South Australia is better off in this regard than states like New South Wales which don’t have such comprehensive tenancy law.” Mr Goff said that returns in South Australia were still below the average of most other Australian states. “A survey of landlord and tenant attitudes to the new legislation by independent researchers ... in 1982 found that 67 per cent of landlords and 83 per cent of tenants supported the reforms. “Only a small number of landlords in the comprehensive survey cited the laws as any disincentive to renting-” Mr Goff said that the general manager of the

Real Estate Institute of South Australia, Mr Colin Spry, had said that the act helped landlords and tenants alike by clearly expressing their respective rights and that the new law was long overdue and had worked well. “Clearly the statements by critics of the legislation like Mr Glass, do not stand up to close scrutiny.” Mr Goff said that an article in an Australian business magazine earlier this year had said that South Australia had the best supply of rental accommodation in Australia, several years after tenancy legislation was introduced. “Yet some landlord spokesmen like Jim Glass in Christchurch and Peter Chilwell in Auckland have condemned the new legislation as being everything from an unwarranted interference in the rights of landlords to ‘fascist’ measures.” Mr Goff said that he did not believe the opinions of these two men were representative and that he was confident that the majority of landlords would support the reforms. “While panic scenarios have been sounded by certain of the more extreme

landlord elements, there have also been criticisms from some tenants’ groups.” A Wellington Tenants’ Union spokesman had said that the proposed 90 days notice to quit was not enough and that tenants should be provided with total security, said Mr Goff. “The whole purpose of the legislation is to bring fair and enforceable rules to tenancy relationships, not to legislate for one side against the other. “I think it is to be expected that the very fairness and balance of the new laws means that the more extreme elements in both camps will probably be unhappy.” Later Mr Goff told “The Press” that the degree of support for the bill was so remarkable that the National Party would have to start rethinking its opposition to it. “I don’t think it will be fought clause by clause,” he said. Mr Glass, who attended the meeting, said the experience in South Australia was far less attractive than Mr Goff had protrayed it. Mr Goff Jiad also not challenged any ! bf the figures that he (Mr Glass) had given, he said.