COVID-19 Public Health Response (Extension of Act and Reduction of Powers) Amendment Bill

I just compliment members who took part in that debate. They were succinct in their questions and identified the parts to which their question was related, so that meant the debate does flow quite easily. So thank you to those members.

So, members, we now come to Part 2. This is the debate on clauses 30 to 37, “Amendments to, and revocation of, other legislation”. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m just looking for clarification around clauses 30 to 33. It’s around the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 empowering to make the orders to provide termination of residential tenancy of COVID-19 orders: “restrict[s] people in the area from moving … to [a] new home or other places of residence”. Well, this is fantastic because that was a whole huge problem for many people during that time and I’m glad it is gone.

But I still have a bit of a concern that if any powers are thrown back and if we do have to restrict people’s movements because of an outbreak of some sort, would there be any lenience within the provision? If they are moving home and to a different place with no one else, or with their household, they couldn’t continue to move. I know that you’ve taken it away, but I’m thinking that we’ve still got these orders here for at least another three years, and if we have to stop people from moving, how is that going to affect people that are moving from an empty home to an empty home or people moving back in with family? If there is a case that you do have to restrict people’s travel between houses and so forth, how would that work? Would you say, “Hey, yeah, you can move, but we need to know where you’re moving to.” Hopefully that makes sense, Minister.

Thank you, Mr Chair. The provision that is being repealed was for use during a lockdown. The Residential Tenancies Act was previously amended to enable the Minister of Housing to make an order during a lockdown to stop tenancies from people being kicked out of their rental property. With the removal of the powers for lockdowns in this bill, then that provision in the Residential Tenancies Act is also being removed. So the question the member put—would we do that again in the future should we be in a situation where that is required?—is precisely the sorts of learnings that we need to reconsider in light of this experience and why the Government has undertaken to do a review of the COVID-19 response.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I have a different perspective on exactly the same set of clauses—from clause 30 to 33. My concern here is: what happens in the context when you actually need to have the lockdown? I brought it up in my second reading speech. It’s easier to put the tools in the tool kit and close the tool box, as opposed to putting the tools in the tool box and chucking away the tool box, and I said that’s what’s happening here. I was wondering what’s going to get put in place to make sure that people can actually stay safe and isolated and not be kicked out of their houses. What is the other mechanism here, if there is one?

Just to reiterate, the bill removes the ability for there to be lockdowns, and then the flow-on amendment in the Residential Tenancies Act is therefore not required either. Lockdowns are not thought to be part of how we are going to need to manage COVID-19 now. It is highly unlikely. There is no current variant that suggests we would need lockdowns, but, furthermore, Omicron and the virus is evolving to be more transmissible, not less. In that situation, measures like lockdowns work less effectively, and you are seeing that play out in China—a country that still uses lockdowns. They are not able to get down to zero, because Omicron can continue to be transmitted because it is more transmissible than the original and the Delta variant. So there are a number of reasons why lockdowns are unlikely to be effective, and nor are they proportionate for our current situation, and that’s why they’re being removed from the Act.

Thank you, Mr Chair, and thank you, Minister, for that explanation. I guess my question is: yes, I understand that, but then what is the mechanism if people are isolating? We are encouraging people to isolate. If you catch COVID, we encourage them to isolate. What’s stopping them from getting evicted from their homes? Just for a little bit of clarity.

Those would be unfortunate—what is it?—concurrent circumstances for that person to be in. It is not the sort of wide-scale problem we might have had with isolation that could have been appropriate when we were trying to eliminate COVID, where just one case posed a threat to the elimination goal. That type of risk—of someone transmitting COVID because they were in that rare situation of both having COVID and being evicted—would not pose a public health reason to exercise a power over the landlord to stop them from being evicted. For that reason, it’s not really a proportionate limitation of powers that otherwise the landlord would have.