Raising Standards

Safer renting

Under New South Wales renting laws, landlords have some general obligations in relation to the state of repair of rental housing. These general obligations should be complemented by a number of specific obligations that would raise the standard of rental housing in important ways.

The specific obligation for smoke alarms, introduced in 2005, was an important, practical and uncontroversial reform, and is a model for further specific obligations in relation to:

• Child-safe window-limiting devices. Each year dozens of children are killed or injured in falls from windows and balconies on residential buildings in New South Wales. The installation of window-limiting devices (such as locks, bars and meshes that can restrict windows to opening 10 centimetres) can prevent falls. The TU supports the recommendations of the Children’s Hospital at Westmead for reform of the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 and the Strata Schemes Management Act 1996 to require the installation of window-limiting devices on all windows more than 3 metres above a surface in residential buildings.
 
• Electrical safety switches. These devices, also called residual current detectors or RCDs, save lives by cutting off the power before a fatal electrocution occurs. They have been required in newly built and newly rewired premises since 1992, but not older premises – which comprise about three-quarters of our housing stock. The Queensland and Western Australian Governments have recently legislated to ensure that electrical safety switches are installed in all rental housing; so should New South Wales.

These specific obligations would improve the safety of rental housing and should be a priority for reform. Consideration should also be given to specific obligations that improve the energy efficiency of rental housing, such as insulation to a standard suitable to the local climate.