Brennan Justice Talks 2023 Tenancy Rights

Renata Grossi: Are we making a start, then?

Okay.

Well, good evening, everybody, and welcome to the Brennan Justice and leadership program, and to our justice talk which tonight is on tenants rights.

I'm. Renata Grossi, the Faculty Co-director of the Brennan program.

I'd like to begin on behalf of all of the speakers here tonight to acknowledge the traditional owners of the Eora nation on whose ancestral lands our University now stands.

I'd like to pay our respect to the elders, both past and present.

acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge. For these places

I'd like to emphasise that this land has never been seeded, that a treaty has never been signed.

and that as a university we have a big role to play in writing these injustices.

Okay, so our justice talks aim to air leading justice issues of our times, and one might argue that tonight's topic

couldn't be any more fitting.

You would need to leave under a rock not to know that we are currently living through a severe crisis in the rental market.

and that renters' rights have never been more perilous. A quick glance at the news will tell us that there is a shortage of rental properties.

In this context, renters have very little power to resist predatory rents and abuse of rights.

We all have stories. I think we're going to hear many tonight. But there are 2 stories at the forefront of my mind going into tonight going into tonight.

One was recently reading about an ACT landlord

who would put a clause in a lease that prevented one of the tenants from having overnight guests

and yesterday, as I was glancing through the paper, I noticed that there was a situation in Sydney where a landlord had offered one year rent free.

on the condition that the tenants would undertake a full renovation of the house, and what really interested me there was that

should the least continue into a second or third year, the rent would then be negotiable.

So it's in this green context that I introduce all of the speakers for tonight's discussion.

So let me introduce all of them at the beginning.

Our first speaker is Rachel Polt-Cai, who is a tenants advocate at the Marrickville Legal Center, and very important to note a graduate of UTS Law, where she majored in legal tech.

She previously co-created Marrickville Legal Centre's the Nala legal chat box, which I don't know much about, but we might hear about.

and now works within the Inner West and Northern Sydney tenancy services

Tonight Rachel will be providing a brief overview of some basic tendency principles, for example, in relation to repairs,

tenancy agreements, and termination. She will also speak to us about mixed agreements and social housing reforms.

Our second speaker is Justin Abi Daher who is the assistant principal solicitor at Marrickville Legal Centre also.

He's been there for close to 6 years, and previously worked at the Western Sydney Community Legal Centre. He currently supervises and manages the legal practice for the center statewide strata Inner West and Northern City Tenancy and Civil law services.

Justin is going to be speaking on why and how law and policy can and needs to be reformed to improve renters' rights.

He will also discuss current campaigns running in New South Wales. Campaigns, such as changing pet laws, introducing rent caps, and removing no ground evictions.

He will also discuss case studies from the services in the sector to demonstrate how the human right to housing is being eroded by current law, and the application of law in the courts and tribunal.

and our third speaker

is Linda Przhedetsky. I've said that wrong. I'm sorry, Linda. Who works at the Human Technology Institute here at UTS where she leads the skill labs.

Now, Linda has worked across government, academia, civil society, and nonprofit organisations, and is passionate about ensuring that human values are embedded in AI systems across every sector.

So Linda is also undertaking a Phd. Specialising in the ethical development, regulation, and use of artificial intelligence. She's also a research fellow at the Gradient Institute.

and a Board member of the New South Wales Tenants Union, and you may have seen her quoted in the Guardian story yesterday, where she was talking about the use of AI in rental applications.

So this will be incorporated into what she's talking about tonight. Linda will be discussing her research into the use of automated decision making in tenancy application technologies.

Her talk will include an overview of emerging issues.

Explain why existing regulation doesn't sufficiently protect renters and make a case for urgent intervention.

So the order tonight is that Rachel and Justin will speak first and then we'll be followed by Linda.

and then we'll have a a good half hour for questions and and discussion. So if I can ask you to keep your questions, note your questions, and we'll return to them after everybody has spoken. So let me now hand to Rachel and Justin.

Rachael Polt-Cai:  Hi everyone, and thank you to Renata and Crystal as well for the lovely introduction. I'm Rachel, as I said, and I'm here with Justin to talk about tenancy rights and reform

a quick disclaimer that this is not legal advice just legally information.

So if I can get a virtual show of hands, how many of you are rented or have rented at some point in time?

Yeah. Okay. So a few of you here. So for some of you this might be quite familiar.

I will speak on a general intro to tenancy rights and laws, and then Justin will give a bit more detail about law reform. So you may have touched on some of these if you've rented before, or if you've done real property, but I will just give you a general intro. So we're all on the same page.

So, starting with our service, Marrickville Legal Centre is a not for profit community legal center in Sydney's Inner West. We're based in Marrickville.

and our aim is social justice. So we try and provide free legal services to people who experience social, economic disadvantage

For tenancy specifically, we have our Inner West and Northern Sydney tenant services so depending on catchment that is the area that you might fall into if you're looking for tenancy advice.

So living arrangements I can go to next slide, please, Justin. There are many different living arrangements which are governed by many different legislations and roles. If you done real property, as I mentioned, you may have touched on this.

Rachael Polt-Cai: and some of the most common forms of living arrangements are as follows: so, firstly, we have tenants.

Residential tenancies are governed by the residential tenancies act, and you'll commonly find that a person will
sign the agreement which many people call a

lease, and this is usually a written standard form agreement for a fixed period of time, usually 12 months or 6 months, which is later
either renewed or becomes periodical, what some people call a rolling lease when the initial fixed term ends.

This also has some sort of in between, I guess, situations such as head tenant and sub tenant, where one person i.e. the tenant, is on the list. But there are other people living at the premises who don't have a written agreement with the landlord, but do have some sort of written arrangement with the tenant.

So that creates a sort of head tenant sub tenant situation. Next, we have boarders. A boarder will often sign an agreement called an occupancy agreement and they come under the Boarding Houses Act, which is a different law or
legislation to the residential tenancies act.

General criteria for a border, or, what you might see is, for example, 5 more beds.

no agency over the premises so, for example, you have no keys to your own apartment or room, that you can lock

house, rules, security deposits, shared facilities, and someone generally managing the premises. So that's an idea of the difference between tenants and borders which are the 2 main ones. We also have lodgers.

They typically have no or very limited protection. That's because there's often no written agreement.

So where you're living somewhere, for example, and you have nothing in writing generally this very limited protection. So that's what a lodger is.

But there are also other arrangements, such as social housing and mixed agreements which I will touch on later.

Now, where there's a problem with your tenancy or as a border? What you would look at is NCAT, also known as the tribunal, and this is the jurisdiction where any disputes are typically heard.

So a tenancy being the main form of living arrangement that we see as a picture of what you might encounter if you're in a tendency. you will have your lease that you sign, a bond that is lodged usually with the rental board.

Also have a holding deposit that's often paid.

The in-going condition report about the condition of the premises when you move in, and

rent there can be paid including rent in advance, there are also repairs that are often encountered as an issue that we often advise on as tenants advocates in our service as well as rent, including rent

increases rent arrears where you fall behind, and reductions they possibly see in the situation such as where repairs have not been done.

Now the end of a tenancy is where we also see a lot of disputes, and commonly you'll find that there are bond disputes. Things about the outgoing condition report. So the condition of the premises at the end of the tenancy

and vacant possessions. That's when you leave a tenancy you're no longer possessing. So you've left.

and that all falls around that idea of termination.

Now we get to the fun part and this is where we have some areas that we need looking at in terms of reform.

So I mentioned mixed agreements, and that's something I touched on it earlier. So these mixed agreements or blended agreements are what we'd often seen to be an attempt to contract out of either the residential tenancy act or boarding house requirements.

so they often feature aspects of each act or agreement type that can mean it's quite difficult for someone to enforce their rights where they're not really sure what they sit

So you get this question of an agreement where you kind of got some provisions from one provisions from the other.

and the person sitting in between in this gray area, so that can make it difficult where there's uncertain terms, or really they're playing unfair terms in those agreements.

some of you who are renting, maybe in these situations, and you'll find that the agreements are listed with them as share house providers or group living organisers, such as Sweet Potato, Uko, Sharesorted.

But there are a whole lot of them out there, not just those 3.

So that is quite difficult to address.

quite difficult to address in that you can't really contract out the act as I mentioned, but enforcement tends to be on an individual basis. So for each individual tenancy, that's usually where if there's a problem with it, it will be addressed. So any reform in that area can be quite hard

to approach, because there is nothing at this current stage that looks at proprietors, with their overall conduct in terms of individual tendencies, at least from our angle as a tenants advocate, so that can be quite hard. We can provide advice, for example, in relation to everyone's individual agreement.

but in terms of broader reform that's quite difficult, and because there's so many different types and different blends, if you like, in these agreements, that there is no one right answer in relation to rights with any mixed or blended agreement.

and now on to social housing.

So there are various streams of social housing. It's something you may have encountered in the news recently with affordable housing, and it is essentially not to be that it's meant to be secure and affordable housing for people on low incomes or with housing needs, and this includes public

community and Aboriginal housing. Protection under social housing is usually under the Residential Tendencies Act.

But there's just different management and structures depending. So, for example, you have public housing managed by the departments of communities, and justice

and you've also got non-government organisations, such as link housing or bridge housing

which provide additional housing to people as well.

but just a little tid bit of information in relation to that, just to give you a realistic glimpse of the picture we're looking at here. It's unfortunately, not all sunshine and roses.

What we see is often. There's approximately 85% of housing applications that tribunals made by landlords They many of these are seeking tenants evictions, and that's up to 75% of all applications. Now most of these or a lot of them are people in social housing.

and what that means is often they already have financial vulnerability or mental health, vulnerability, illiteracy, etc., and social housing tends to be a last port of call

where someone doesn't have anywhere else to go.

so where they can't afford to live or rent in private housing they'll often find themselves either on the wait list or within social housing already. So where you have lots of applications for termination, whether that be for the arrears, etc. that means that that person now has no where to go

and oftentimes we have difficulty where the person will then become homeless. So that is somewhere that really needs reform in terms of

changing how arrears, sorry, not arrears, how terminations are brought about, and how we approach that. The other thing that is included in here in terms of reform is policy.

So social housing is often governed by policy which is difficult to understand.

and is often obscurely managed. So this can provide a barrier to justice in that the accessibility to policy for a lot of social housing persons is quite difficult and reform to this area, for clarity and greater protection would be ideal.

Further, I mentioned a wait list there is an ever-growing, and ever-expanding wait list of people who need  affordable housing 
many without a place to live at the moment, many of them, if not homeless,

are couch-surfing or
similar forms of not having a place to live that is secure and stable, or oftentimes will not have a place to live that's a suitable for their needs. So, for example, people with disabilities may not be able to live at certain places because they're just not appropriate for their needs.

Another thing we frequently see in social housing is repairs

and they are often neglected in social housing situations where there is limited accountability

and people don't really want to chase repairs for fear of not having somewhere to stay, because it really can be that last port of call

So moving on we then have domestic violence. So then, domestic violence is another big area for reform.

Note that if this is triggering for you, please feel free to step away from your computer or whatever makes you comfortable.

Domestic violence is an area that has seen some good progress in terms of reform in the residential tenancy space. But there is definitely more to be done.

Boarding housing, boarding houses. Sorry on lodges have not quite seen those same predictions, so it'd be really good to see an expansion into those areas, particularly where, as mentioned before, there's very vulnerable people who are in situations with financial vulnerability.

So on and so forth...

so some recommendations we'd like to see, at least MLC is pushing for is an expansion. Firstly, of the definition of competent persons. So to give some context for those who are less familiar with this at the current stage, domestic violence

where someone is looking to leave a tenancy can give a letter from a list of competent persons. Now this list is has been extended, but is still quite limited. As to who can provide that

I guess paperwork. So what we're looking at here is an expansion of that definition, so that it's more successful for people in domestic violence, situations where you can include, for example, disability, support workers, homelessness, workers and community leaders, just that people really have that access to housing.

Rachael Polt-Cai: And then, in terms of

broadening the scope on recommendation 2. We want to go on the scope of documents that victims survivors may rely on to substantiate domestic violence.

For example, victims
services, certificates of injury. I've seen cases where clients have been unable to access certain services, and only have access to things that they can log into from their own computer. For example, they can't go out. So something like victims services is really important to providing them

that ability to keep documentation. Recommendation 3

is expanding the timeframe for them to provide those documents. So at the moment it's quite limited. For example, a more extended timeframe would be useful

so that people can, in a situation where it's quite traumatic, have the ability to setup the process to get support and help that they need.

and then be able to bring those documents to the table, so that extended timeframe is important too in the sense of a trauma informed approach to domestic violence and tendencies.

Other recommendations that are great too include removing the requirement for the tenant to serve any other co-tenant

with a termination notice in relation to domestic violence.

Amending the legislation to ensure that they can claim that bond without as much difficulty, because bond is often lodged with or under the name of the perpetrator.

Other recommendations are ensuring that victims survivors are not liable for property damage that isn't caused by them, but the perpetrator.

And of course, including increased funding for services, is very important. For example, victim services where people can then access the documentation, for example, additional support, funding and what they need to be able to survive and escape.

Now I'll hand over to Justin, who will talk you through the rest of the reforms.

Justin Abi-Daher: Thanks, Rachel. Thanks everyone for having me.

Law reform I mean Rachel's kind of already started on domestic violence. Now I'm only going to touch on 3. You've obviously heard a lot about rent increases in the news

on Tiktok, on Facebook, on Sydney
Morning Herald, everywhere essentially. So that will be one of them another one will be no grounds terminations, because we've been working for many, many, many, many years to get rid of them.

and the last one is pets, because everyone loves to talk about pets in homes. So they're the 3 we're going to touch on today. But there's a huge range of them out there. I'm always happy to discuss those with anyone.

So the big one at the moment is rent increases. A huge misconception in New South Wales is that there's a cap on the amount that the landlord can increase your rent by, but unfortunately there's not in the legislation. They could technically say to me, the rent going from 500 to 3,000, and

that's something they can they can do. However, there are provisions in the law to stop what's called an excessive rent increase, but that does involve a tenant having to make their own application to tribunal, pay the application fee, and

prove their case on the balance of probabilities, rather than the landlord having to prove anything.

Another huge misconception in New South Wales is that your income, or your ability to afford the rent, is a factor that's considered in the question of excessiveness. But unfortunately, the law is specifically designed to exclude those 2 things as a factor that the tribunal can consider.

So it's very a procedural in terms of what is considered the run increase. It doesn't really come down to your personal situation, which cause a lot of problems for people.

We're tracking our data for rent increases. In March alone our Inner West and Northern Sydney services we've had 53 rent increase inquiries. We've been tracking the percentages of them, and the top 3 other than the highest one of 2022, but the top 3 in March, were 56.3% in Ryde

56% increase in Macquarie Park, and 44.3 in Gladesville with an average of those 53 increases, being 22.8 percent which is very very high for a rent increase. In 2022 late last year we had one, which was 73.3% in Chatswood.

Yes, sorry. It's it's very excessive at the moment, and a lot of things are going on, and it's kind of we're seeing a lot of illegal and unlawful actions by agents such as

issuing an notice, canceling it, increasing it, doing it again like constantly doing it until they get the right market rent that they think is correct, but we'll talk about some solution shortly.

The second one is pets.

I'm sure you've all heard about recent strata law changes, and how the owners corporation and the strata scheme cannot

unreasonably refuse a pet. That's also caused the misconception in New South Wales where tenants think that it's automatic if you live in a strata scheme, you're allowed to have a pet and your landlord can't say anything but the law the tenancy law has not kept up to speed with the strata legislation.

So if you're a tenant in a strata scheme, your landlord can still ban your pet.

If you're a tenant in any situation, the landlord can still ban the pet, and they don't have to give any reasons. They simply just cross out the additional term in the lease hidden at the back

and give no reasons. Now there is an argument that not a not approving a pet is a breach of your right to quiet enjoyment.

It's an untested area of law, and no one's tested it,

because we think most tribunal members currently would not agree with that kind of argument.

So I don't think any service in the network has run that far.

Bit of lie is that a landlord can't ban an assistance animal, that to high threshold test it. It refers back to the definition and Disability Discrimination Act, which is in New South Wales, that a pet is trained to alleviate the effects of a disability, and me to the standards of public hygiene and

all that stuff. But there's no official accreditation system in New South Wales so technically you could self train your pet to do things like alleviate the impacts of anxiety, and that could potentially meet the definition of an assistance animal in New South Wales.

The last one is no grounds. NCATs hands with these kind of evictions are tied, because the law says they must terminate, not they may. So there's no discretion.

If you, landlord, it serves you an end of fixed term agreement. When your contracts come into an end, or serves you with an end of periodic agreement, the tribunal has no choice but to terminate your tendency

unless there's a finding that it's a retaliatory eviction. Now, that sounds very great and easy, and

let's go to the tribunal, and try it, but it's very difficult, because again, the law is drafted in a way that says Yes, the tribunal can see that there's retaliation, either partly or holy, because you try to enforce your rights.

But even if we find that as retaliation, we can decide to still terminate the tendency, because the landlords created some kind of reason for why they need the property back. Usually the landowner will say I'm moving back in, or someone's moving over someone's coming back from overseas. I want to renovate.

So retaliatory evictions are possible. We have had some success, but there's a very uncertain discretion there, and it creates uncertainty to your housing essentially.

So I guess our current goals before we address reforms is, I hope some of you have heard of the make renting fair campaign through the tenancy, and all our tap services

and all the services our aim is to make rent affordable for everyone. So not worry about going without their life essentials. Our solution is that the government commits to building at least 5,000 new additional homes each you for the next 10 years that are affordable.

and introduce stronger protections against excessive rent increases. Second, is that it's stable, so we can feel stable and secure in our homes, fear and free from the threat of unfair, no grounds evictions. Often people are very scared these days when they, when there's a repair issue, and they won't, say anything, because they know they're just going to get a no grounds.

so replace that with reasonable grounds instead. The third thing we want is for rent to be healthy. That means the home itself have meets accessibility needs and ensure people

that premises are fit for habitation at the start of a tenancy. And the last one is rent to be a home. Sorry renters should, in getting a lease agreement, having exclusive possession of the premises, be able to make simple choices like whether they can have their pet there or not.

and not have to make a decision about whether to abandon their pet or give it to someone else, just to sign a 12 month fixed term. So the solution is to prohibit

no pet clauses in New South Wales tenancy law.

We've been campaigning for a while on all these, and doing a lot of extensive law reform submissions ourselves and the Tenants Union. No grounds one has been one that's going for decades. In 2019 we released a report, Marrickville and the TU, called the Lives Turned Upside Down report.

And we found that 77% of renters did not assert their right to report a problem because they were worried about a no grounds of eviction. 63.9 said no grounds was a source of anxiety, and 74.6

of renters with experience compared to 52.7 identified no grounds as a serious source of anxiety. You often hear other states

saying they remove no grounds. Not necessarily true. For example, Victoria has said, we don't have no grounds anymore, but they still allow no grounds on the end of fixed term.

Which is technically in itself, on a technical legal basis, a no grounds notice. Current reform during the elections

we saw a lot of promises from all the parties saying we're getting rid of no grounds. It doesn't go as far as well to get rid of end of fixed term, no grounds. It leaves a loophole where agents are taking advantage but what they'll do is shift renters onto rock shorter, fixed term contracts let's say 3 months, 6 months

instead of letting them go on to periodic, where they can no longer issue no grounds once that law comes into effect.

Currently it's around 70% of no grounds at the at the end of the fixed term. So the current suggestion of law reform is only going to assist 30% of cases which is not good enough

Pets there's a lot on pets. We recently submitted this to the New South Wales Government, because pet law is under review. We recommended to amend the act, to add a provision that landlords cannot ban pets outright.

A case study:
Ahmed approached our centre due their landlord crossing out the additional terms. The client lived alone within the strata scheme and wanted some companionship, despite the owner's call for having a new bylaw which allowed pets to landlord to refuse to consider amending it to allow the pet and he was unable to get his pet despite other people who own in the strata scheme, being able to have pets in the exact same situation.

as well as other tenants, whose landlords were more willing to allow pets. Recommendation to it. to adopt a model where tenants are permitted to keep a pet

and 3 is to amend the act add a specific provision which provides that you can't restrict an assistance animal, and if you do have that cause, it should have no effect, because the law doesn't really address that point at the moment.

and an important one is to not amend the act, to allow landlords and agents to charge a pet bond. We often see them illegally saying yes you can have a pet but you need to pay another 4 weeks bond on top of your current 4 week bond. Well, our view is they're already able to get a full week

bond, and that should be enough to cover any damages caused by a tenant having a pet; and if there is damage beyond, and they can prove it. Then they can

apply a tribunal for compensation and prove their case. Shouldn't be on the tenant to put money upfront for a hypothetical scenario. And last one is rent increases, so this one's a bit complex. But I guess the starting point is to have rent caps on rent increases during a tenancy, so that people are not having 73.3% increases in one go and as well as probably limiting the frequency of rent increases when you're in a periodic agreement, which is where your fixed terms expired, and you're going week to week or month to month.

Currently, it's once in any 12 month period we haven't put any suggestions yet there's no law reform projects at the moment on this, but something less than 12 months would be ideal.

I looked at some models in other sites, and the ACT one is quite recent, and it sets a threshold for reasonable increases of a 110% of the change in CPI since the last increase, or since the agreement began.

What this does is it creates a balance between the onus of proof. So in New South Wales the onus to proof is on the tenant. In the ACT you can flip, if the landlord tries to go above the threshold of the increase then the onus of proof turns to the landlord to show

where the tenant does not consent, sorry, to show evidence as to why the increase above the threshold is justified, which is probably not perfect, but much better than what we have at the moment in New South Wales.

That's all for me, actually, except for one thing, Rachel, I'm just gonna skip this to quickly plug our new Youth Justice Ambassador Program, which is for young people

who want to improve their understanding of the law, and are willing to share that knowledge with kind of local communities in the inner West.

Essentially, it's Marrickville training you on things like tenancy law and then you going out there and delivering CLE

to your local communities.

and you become essentially Youth Justice Ambassador and get a certificate of completion and gift cards. That's all. Thank you.

Renata Grossi: Thank you and

that sounds like an interesting project.

Lots to think about there, but I think we will go straight to our third speaker, Linda. So if you can stop sharing your screen guys.

then over to you, Linda.

Linda Przhedetsky: Hello! Let me just get

that in present mode so you can see my screen now perfect. Firstly, I just wanted to start by acknowledging the lands of the traditional owners that I'm meeting from today. That's the Gadigal people and pay my respects to the Elders past and present, acknowledging that sovereignty was never ceded.

So I just wanted to thank everyone for the opportunity to present today for a little bit of context

we've already discussed I wear two hats. One is at the Human Technology Institute, and the other one is through my Phd. Which looks through emerging technologies.

While Justin and Rachel were talking, I was particularly

a particular point came to mind, and that is that a lot of what we're talking about. I just really want to emphasise from the get go, is, it's not inevitable. So a lot of the discourse around, you know the housing crisis and the rental crisis we are talking about things as if they're just going to happen, it's going to get worse.

and I guess as a policy maker as a researcher, the point that I really want to bring home is that it doesn't have to, and there are things that we can actually do to make the situation better. So I just want to start, start off from that perspective.

So I'll take you through to my research topic. So what I look at is designing effective and accessible consumer projections against unfair treatment in markets where automated decision making which are referred to as ADM is used to determine access to essential services.

and my thesis is a project in Australia's rental housing market. So if you look on the left-hand side there you'll be able to see an app. The app is now defunct, but it's called Trust Fund, and it's a really good example of the kind of technologies that I study.

So this one linked in people's social media profiles in order to develop a point system to basically determine how trustworthy they were.

I don't really think that you could determine how trustworthy I am from looking at my AirBnB ratings, but i'll let you be the judge there and see if that's something that you think is a useful is a useful tool.

So when we're talking about the problem I also want to emphasise that

there are a number of components to it

from a rent's perspective, so I'm a renter myself. You'll see on the left that there is a little score that was given to me in my partner when we applied for a property, so my actual experience was receiving one of these scores, this is after I started my PhD by the way, so it's not a personal graph, my whole project, but

ultimately I couldn't tell where I had lost that additional 27 points. How could I possibly increase that much score?

There is a lot of opacity in these processes, and it's simply unfair for renters like myself

to be putting our data our personal information into these algorithms without knowing how on earth that data is being used.

So the way that I articulate the problem is ultimately that automated decision-making is used to determine access to products and services

at in competitive markets. But it can limit an access to a quality and fair treatment. So if you're a vulnerable member of society you are less likely to be competitive in terms of your application, whether you're disclosing that you're receiving social welfare benefits, whether you have a low income.

etc. when these unregulated technologies cause harm in essential services markets, people experiencing vulnerability are disproportionately effected

and existing regulation lags behind technological development. So ultimately what I'm trying to do is to make sure that I influence policy in a way that helps the regulation keep up.

And current consumer protections focus heavily on consent and consumer education. So saying, educate yourself about your privacy, you know make sure you read these privacy agreements but ultimately what we're saying is people are getting pressured to use these technologies in the renting sector. They don't really have a choice, and if they were to opt out and to say "hey, I don't want to use a digital application" they don't really

have any other options.

And the other thing is is that these technologies are already being used in the Australian market, and people who are renting don't know how they work, so

coming back to my application, did I receive a lower score because I was a student?

Could it have been taking it to another factor? another factor into account, we don't really know.

So the way that I approach my research is, I have identified 5 key categories of harm. So the first one is that information is used illegally and unfairly. I'll give you a couple of examples, but there'll be more coming up on the next few pages.

So what that might look like is your information has been taken into account, whether it is your age, whether it is your gender

something that is discriminating on the basis of a protective attribute

now that is covered under anti-discrimination legislation, but there are more nebulous grounds around when your information is used unfairly. So, for example:

your welfare status isn't a protected attribute. But someone could still discriminate against you on the basis of you, disclosing that you receive Centrelink, for example.

the other issue that I look at is the information is inaccurate and incomplete. I'll show you a picture in a couple of slides where someone has

an algorithm has essentially found that someone has applied for a property, then found a matching profile in a criminal database, because that that person had the same name. Now that person didn't have a criminal conviction, but they were missing out on, you know, heaps of properties, and it wasn't until

a real estate agent told them that that red flag was being triggered, that they could then go through a very convoluted process to seek redress and actually get themselves to removed from that database. But what's to say that all of these other databases haven't done the same thing?

The other thing is the incompleteness. If you are a recent migrant, maybe you don't have a rental ledger that needs to be uploaded into one of these applications. Maybe you don't have that documentation, but you still need a roof over your head.

The third harm is that the use of screening technologies results in ongoing consequences. For example, being stuck in a database.

The fourth is that the consumer pays. So this was a big issue in the media recently. So the consumer costs money or data. Either you put more data in to improve your application, even though you might not want to

or you pay for an additional background check. Now I see this as creating an exacerbating disadvantage, particularly if you're using multiple applications and you're paying that background check again and again and you're providing that data again and again.

And ultimately opting out of the use of these digital platforms might result in penalties, so it's the real stage of might not even look at your application.

I also look a little bit at secondary harm. So, for example, when these technologies are collecting all of this data, there is evidence that they are prompting real estate agents and landlords in some jurisdictions

to actually raise their rent. So driving up the rental process in a region collectively. Also, if your rental application if your rental history is being used to consider a mortgage but you've been locked out of the market due to these rental applications, this might further disadvantage your future.

So the way that I look at these processes and try to break them down is I define them as screening and sorting. So screening, I see, as do you meet a threshold?

Lex Luther in the Powerpoint side there, does Lex have a criminal record? That's a yes or a no.

Whereas if you look at the example at the bottom.

that's an example of sorting. So this could be a numerical score, a rating such as an A plus a B rating or a color rating or a ranking. So saying that Jane is better than John, who's better than Candice?

So basically sorting, rating, and ranking all of the tenants, according to some usually very secretive algorithm.

I'll give you an example of some of the products that are real and are currently being used in the market. So this one is CERTN. It is a product available in North America. They use artificial intelligence. You'll see, I pilot in the top left hand corner, Claire.

Which apparently predicts behavior with in-depth character mapping from consumer insights from thousands of data points.

On the top right hand side you'll see that they also have provided a Credibility School, a Stability School rated someone's neighborliness, cleanliness, and honesty, which again, I want to emphasise that these are mathematical calculations, and they can't predict the future. But there are some really big claims being made here.

They've also predicted an applicants damage likelihood to damage property, their eviction potential. And finally, in the bottom right hand corner, even though the applicant has not provided any social media profiles, the

algorithms, scraped the web, and found

some of their accounts, and then analyse them for so-called red flags. Now that is extremely concerning, and the kind of things that I'm thinking about is sure we might not have these products in the market yet. But then this invasive

but it's coming. Why wouldn't they come if we don't have the regulation to stop them?

This is the example that I mentioned before. So people being locked out of rental application processes because they've been mislabeled. That's the example of incorrect information.

And this could be devastating. Imagine also, then, having to go and challenge this every single time with every single rental database you're applying for, and trying to prove

that you have a criminal, that you don't have a criminal record when that's just ended up in a database.

This one is in the Australian market, so it claims to mark a estimate of tenants safety score.

It uses behavioral questions. So, for example, are you someone who is helpful and unselfish with others, or do you do a thorough job? So by seemingly positive things, but based on your responses, it'll determine whether or not you've lied.

and then provide an assessment of how likely you will be to be a safe tenant so very, very concerning things.

Now this with a little experiment that I did last year, if you've read the Guardian article you would have, you would know what I'm referring to. This was the match score, and I was able to prove that for a Victorian property, when I put in my same application

same length of lease, the same lease start date, but a different price, I was given a different match score.

So what does that say? For me that was very concerning, because this was in a state that had actually outlawed rental bidding. Now the way that the legislation is written up, it's about stopping landlords from inciting or inviting those higher offers.

What if a third party app is doing it? so that wasn't tested, but again this was out in market, and we

I guess it was a little bit of a stir, because it's exciting to see that they have actually stopped doing that, at least for the time being and I wasn't able to replicate that when I was trying to do that over the weekend ahead of the launch of the choice report.

So

in terms of my research, I also really care about thinking through how we actually translate the research into making real tangible impact and change, because at the end of the day

I'm one of the people who is researching the use of rental tech specifically in Australia, and I feel like we have a really big opportunity to intervene

now before the situation gets as bad as it is in the US. And the UK markets.

The media landscape is getting more and more

in conversation about this about these issues. So when

when last year Harcourts, which was one of the real estate agencies, leaked everyone's details over the web that generated a bit of a stir and also people started thinking about the cost of background checks as soon as

the rental housing housing crisis got as as bad as it has been in the next in the previous few years.

So

at that time it was a really good opportunity also to collaborate with the journalist Steph Convery, who I worked with to put up that snug article that some of you will have read, and the other cool thing as well is that through our investigation we found that the company was putting in a patent application

to essentially develop and scoring technology using people's, social media profiles that they deny, but the patent application was still live at the time.

and they also had purchased a Facebook group where people would share advertisements for rooms and share houses. So one of the biggest issues I have there is that you might say, hey, I love to smoke a joint on the weekends, I'm queer, I you know I'm sex worker friendly

very intimate details about your life, whatever you might be willing to share in an advertisement, it's just not appropriate for this company to be mysteriously having control over that intimate space that the group

the the group had created.

So this was yesterday's choice report if you're interested in this area, I would recommend reading some of the articles.

What was really cool is, I got to collaborate with choice to develop some of their report, some of their research. That's me in my kitchen table, my kitchen table, pretending to look very serious and

scare all of the real estate people away.

and what was really effective as well is that they were able to find a case study of someone who had experienced this first hand, so that made the story really powerful and made it a little bit more relatable for some of the people who were reading it.

Now, as I mentioned, this stuff also does have make a difference. So in the reporting yesterday, one of the reporters managed to get quotes from a number of companies which said that one of the biggest companies to apply had stopped, or is phasing out the star rating system.

Which they had no plans to do before. And also that's not this much score is not giving rent as an advantage, so I guess I want to highlight this because I think that

this is something really really exciting and a really big movement in the market, and although these companies may have stopped it it doesn't it doesn't serve as any kind of alternative to good regulation. So I'll still be fighting for that, even if these 2 guys that had the matched schools visible to consumers

to remove them, or make them more opaque.

Some of my research challenges, which I just thought I'd mentioned is that there are very few news cases. Consumers don't know that this is happening.

Tenancy services and advocates have much more urgent challenges to deal with a lot of the time. I'll let Justin and Rachel speak to that. But ultimately they're dealing with people who are being evicted urgently and need homes. So

a lot a lot of my work is also about educating people in the sector who might not have heard about this. The proprietary algorithms are deliberately opaque, and a lot of my research, therefore, is largely speculative, but there is still value in that by because I think there's a role in preempting

the these technologies coming onto the market and doing more damage.

Some of the work that I do with the Tenant Union as well as I try to engage them in the development of some of my

some of the policies that I'm putting forward in my research.

Educating them about some of the maths that is behind some of these algorithms, testing some frameworks and sharing research findings so that we can leverage all of their expertise working on the front line that I absolutely don't have as someone who doesn't work directly with clients.

and making sure that we're doing something mutually beneficial in that exchange of information.

And finally, I just wanted to share with you the direction that I'm going in for some of my proposed reforms.

So some of the things that I'm looking at in terms of suggesting changes to the sector is limiting what information can be used to assess prospective tenants.

So I think that would be a really good way to say "What can we actually ask for?" "What is legally able to be requested in order for someone to apply for a property?"

Prohibiting the use of opaque algorithms to screen score rates and rank applicants. That's a more complex conversation in a line with broader discussions around AI regulation

Empowering regulators to inspect algorithms and to assess better use to assess rental applications.

Preventing companies in the private rental sector from using algorithms that use information illegally or unfairly.

Provide improved redress things for conceivers in the private rental sector. So if you make a complaint about one of these services, what what are you ultimately going to achieve? It's very, very unlikely that you're going to be able to come back and say, all right the tribunal found that the application was unfair. I'll

just take that property that you least to someone 6 months ago. There's no favorable outcome for renters it needs to be practical, and there needs to be better better redress schemes.

Preventing companies from asking consumers to pay for background checks, and if that isn't allowed, or if that's not favorable with the governments that are looking at these reforms to at least cap the cost of any necessary background checks

and to require agents to accept paper applications. So i'm going to stop there.

Renata Grossi: Thank you so much how

rich those presentations were. So I we now have some time for discussion, so I'd like to open up for questions whether you want to ask them on the chat or put up your hand

to sorry I'll just do that so I can see everybody's hands going up.

Perhaps, while everybody is thinking of a question

if I may begin. This is kind of a a comment as well as a question to all three of you.

As you were kind of speaking, you know, agents came up a number of times, and

I'm just wondering, You know there's different ways to tackle all of these problems, but is one of them

regulating agents, real estate agents more than we do?

Or is that something that has? You know? What what do you think of that as an as a kind of a general idea?

This is to all of you.

Justin Abi-Daher: I mean, yeah.

Agents are regulated by fair trading. They are bound by codes of conduct and rules under the Property Stocks Business Agents Act.

But

there's always room for a bit more tight regulation of agents in terms of licensing. Maybe a similar system to building licenses that fair trading does where they issue warnings and put warnings online and say when someone's been given notices of breach and suspension of license for

periods of time. Might

make some agents think we'll second guess before they

send the emails or do certain actions towards tenants. It's possible. Yeah.

Renata Grossi: OK

Linda Przhedetsky: I think, that the burden is really on tenants at the moment in all cases. So, for example, to apply to a tribunal. I really like the ACTs idea that if the

agent wants to increase the rent by a certain amount that they have to apply, if it exceeds a certain threshold that's actually something tangible, but would require them to have to prove that their actions are necessary

just to another personal anecdote. The house I'm renting currently has just been sold by the landlord and we, as a tenants, have lease, and one of, and one of the most challenging things, was actually proving sorry, actually

being able to use our renters right during the sale process.

So this was something that you know you would think that I'm well placed to do with someone who is exploring and researching in this area, and it's very passionate about. And yet, I still have the selling agent harassing me, calling me, telling me that my rights were not actually my rights, and that he needed to do something very different, and that I was being very, very difficult.

It was a horrendous process, and ultimately the burden is on me to then either shoulder that directly, or to prove him wrong, and to

seek assistance, or to make a complaint, and that is a really challenging place to be in for people who have a lot less

power and fewer resources than I do.

Renata Grossi: Rachael do you want to?

Rachael Polt-Cai: I mean I agree completely and particularly with what Justin said that if we do regulate real estate agents it, and kind of bring in what Linda said too it really is still down to the tenant. There really is that power in balance where it relies on a tenant taking action

but also knowing that while they do have these rights, for example, to the Residential Tenancies Act, it's often the case that the

practical outcome might be that they face no grounds, evictions, or something similar, and that often is a disincentive for them to take any action or whatever it might be.

Renata Grossi: Yeah.

I guess i'm just thinking in any other kind of interaction, you know, in a in a service provisioning interaction. I mean, of course, there's always the you know the can get into by a way you need to, you know you need to do some of your own research and all the rest of it. But I think

there's some assumption that the people you are dealing with are more or less following the law.

But in the tenants context it seems to me that the assumption is always that the agent is not following the law, and I really your story that really resonates with some of the stories that I have

That it seems to me you know, that you think you, when you're dealing with an agent, you're dealing with a professional organisation, and at the very least you expect them to be following basic laws. But that's not always the case, and

I guess i'm just wondering if that's just my own perception, or you know, why do we accept that in this particular marketplace, you know, we we tolerate these high levels of

law breaking?

Rachael Polt-Cai: I think it comes down to the fact that again, that imbalance of power where tenants come in without any necessary training or anything like that that real estate agents are supposed to have, and so they come in, being in a professional space where their job really is to then exercise their.

you know, rights, obligations, whatever it might be, as an agent, whereas tenants, as I said, don't really have that understanding. So they kind of go in blind. For example, the first time renter, unless you've read something online, essentially, what would normally happen with a lot of people is they'll walk up and say, okay, what do I need to do? I just sign this agreement.

So that assumption is there.

Unfortunately, it's just that there is nothing to really address it, and that imbalance of power is going to stay, unless perhaps, there is better regulation or better guidance for renters coming into that space. Yeah. Interesting.

Renata Grossi: Okay.

everybody. I can't I, If I'm missing any hands, please, just start, oh here they are, Isabel Luchko, my co-director.

Isabella Luchko: Yeah, so just another more broad question I guess which isn't so much directed to anyone in particular, but just I guess we've covered a lot of the like current issues surrounding like the rental crisis, but it's someone who still hasn't entered the

that market. What exactly would you say is the you know, the future of yeah, just the the rental market, and whether or not it's as dire? as like mainstream media would have us believe.

Justin Abi-Daher: I I think, entering the market as a young person

as Rachel's talking about these mixed agreements, these new age providers, essentially

commercial businesses, operating and giving you agreements that don't say tenancy agreements. They have all different sorts of labels from occupancy, agreements to new age boarding house agreements to

license agreements. It's it's that kind of stuff you want to be careful of, because when a dispute does arise,

the starting point is that your status is clear, so agents can take advantage from that point, whereas if you're a tenant, at least the starting point is you do have some rights. Usually it's just a matter of getting advice and enforcing them, so I think

it is pretty dire out there, but we only he here at Marrickville hear the worst cases, because people are calling us in distress, so can't comment as to the whole market, but from what we're seeing it's a unique period in tenancy, and I've been in tenancy for around 10 years. It's pretty.

I haven't had a period like this in that period. Yeah.

Renata Grossi: Gosh, Linda.

Linda Przhedetsky: Yeah, I but I mean that's such an interesting question. I think this goes back to what I was saying at the start of my presentation is that it's not inevitable, and governments can make choices about how to handle this. So you know you do see other like you hear about

Germany, and you know places where people have decades long rent, and you know but that's a that's a change in the market that's a government saying we are changing the status quo, because at the moment it's also very

easy if you've got accumulated wealth to become an investor for that to be favorable for you as well. So I think that it does require policy change.

From the corporate landlords perspective that Justin brought up as well. One of the emerging issues that I'm hearing, too, is

for example, if you have a corporate landlord that is building to rent, so essentially building so a block of apartments say there are 50 apartments, the other thing that I'm kind of concerned about is

they're sort of curating communities, and who gets to live where. They might be choosing certain types of people, and that might

well it for me that doesn't that doesn't feel right, that doesn't sit right. So we do need to, I guess, keep an eye to the future and that's why I do think it's important to look at some of the worst case scenarios. At the end of the day I also think that

you know, if

it is important to keep advocating in this area. For me, I'm still renting my partner and I just got a dog, because that's something that we want in our life that is going to make our lives more complicated when we have to move house. But

you know, at the end of the day. We also need to trust that hopefully there'll be a place for us that will accept a gigantic puppy.

Yes.

Rachael Polt-Cai: I just wanted to add on this on a sort of grassroots level. If you're just moving into the rental space if your first time renter, it's always important to do your homework in a way, and it's probably not something you want to do, but having a good read through fair tradings website has some general guidance, but a really good one is the Tenants Union.

So Linda mentioned them earlier, and they're a lovely organisation that has a lot of fact sheets, a lot of sample letters

on there that can be very helpful as to general guidance. So having a look through there can just be really good if you're not too sure where to start. You can also contact your local community legal center, such as Marrickville Legal center if you fall out catchment. But there's other legal centers as well, that can offer some tenancy advice

as well as hotlines through the Tenants Union, and fair trading 2 does have one, if need be. So there are options in places you can start.

Renata Grossi: Okay. We had a question from Michael. Michael. Do you still want to ask your question?

Michael Mazengarb: Oh, I just sort of had question sort of like a practical one, which is about um you know, if we're looking at things like renting increases and if the the level of a renting increased is assessed against

the market rate in terms of whether it's going to be excessive or not.

Is there sort of sources of information that we can look at, to try and get a sense of what the market rate is, to sort of have a bit of a an evidence base to go back to an agent and say, "this rent increases, you know double what the market is is increasing" and I'm just not sure about.

Yeah, are those sources sources of information exist?

Justin Abi-Daher - Marrickville Legal Centre: So that

yes, other than your own research Tenants Union has a rent tracker tool that you can use to kind of produce that evidence in your discussions with your real estate.

The biggest issue with the rent tracker at the moment is that a recent tribunal decision gave it almost no weight in its decision making, unfortunately. So you have to do separate research around the generate market level general market level of rents. A comparable

premises in comparable suburbs with very similar services and facilities on your own accord. Yeah, thanks, Linda. It's in that rent increased fact sheet. There's a huge bunch of resources on how to prepare an excessive rent case.

Yes, but the rent trackers a good tool for kind of you can use it in the tribunal, but really for private negotiations as well. It tends to

have a bit of an impact.

Okay.

Renata Grossi: Just looking. I'm not missing anybody.

Okay? Well, why people are thinking I might throw in another question then, actually, Linda, while you were presenting all your apps, they just all sounds so evil, and I want to do with any of them.

But I did start to think.

are they any that actually help tenants? Like you know, are they rate my agent? and you know how many times as this agent ended up in a tribunal? or how many times you know this property? How many tenants have you, you know, have been evicted from this property like?

Could we use these apps for the good and not just the evil?

Linda Przhedetsky: That's such a good question. So I take a positive view of technology, and I think it's important to emphasise that discrimination exists

with or without technology. Bad things happen. This is just a you know third parties inserting them into the process

to get a bit more money, you know, make things more efficient. Sometimes I do make things more efficient. Sure. But at what cost is my question. I think ultimately, if someone went in to design a technology to be less discriminatory, it it could actually be possible.

But at the moment it doesn't seem that many people are trying to do that, and to try and do that from in a way that serves renters as as opposed to serve landlords. So firstly, that's the biggest issue. I think that some of the most um

there is the rate my agent. I don't know how effective it is. Because again, when you're talking about a really competitive rental market, are you really in a position to be choosy? So it's really the market dynamics that dictate

if that's effective. I have seen in some Facebook groups people warning others about which houses they've moved out of. I've seen people sharing. For example, I moved out of this address.

They've just painted over the mold which calls me a respiratory issue, and the property is back on the market. But someone's going to rent that property because they won't have same seen that post so

that only goes so far. It is a little bit helpful. But ultimately I think that just better standards or minimum standards are the best form of protection.

Renata Grossi: Jacinta has just

posted that there's a great chat bot for tenants having trouble with their landlords Jacinta do you want to tell us a bit more about that chat bot?

Not to put you on the spot.

No.

Okay. So oh, sorry, my mic isn't working hang on a sec, so maybe Jacinta will come. But does anybody else have any information about that chatbot in Victoria?

No.

Justin Abi-Daher: Not sure. Our website has a chatbot, but it

mainly takes down information, gives out some fact sheets and then sends

intakes to relevant services in the network.

Renata Grossi: Right, right. So look are they any other questions?

I feel that I've kind of asked my share.

All right. Well, oh, here we go good Sacha.

Sacha Molitorisz: Well, it's not so much of a question, but I guess just listening. You know Sydney and Australia we're so property obsessed right?

And you know this conversation is

really important and very sad. You know that it's almost like.

you know there's ventures or a different category of people, and aren't treated with nearly the respect that that they deserve. And they considered basically it's less of people than

owners and those people involved in that property market and that seems to be Sydney's obsession in particular. So it's kind of a I guess it's just general question, and I know at the Marrickville Legal Center you do a lot of work, tenancy kind of a real focus of yours and and for all 3 of you this is clearly your area of expertise but I just wondered if

you had any of that, any response to that kind of high level observation, and if that's something you've been counted, and

you know what

what do we do? I guess. How do we get? How do we start getting renters is treated as people

Rachael Polt-Cai: Yeah, that's a pretty broad, almost human rights based question there and we think you know one of our aims at Marrickville Legal Centre, is that access to justice and social justice so definitely one of the good things that we think people can

or the government can focus on is funding to areas like this, so our legal center or funding to other legal centers and tenancy services is always at least giving people help when they need it, but that's quite reactionary, so that general reform probably to some of the sections that we mentioned today

would be a good start in allowing people to at least change that balance of power to be able to access their rights more so no grounds evictions being one where

people have chosen to forego enforcing their rights in favor of just trying to make sure that they don't have any repercussions. So those kinds of reforms are just to start at changing that balance of power and then, hopefully as well

like you said the perspective in general it is unique to housing.

Justin Abi-Daher: I think

we controversial, but the whole kind of act itself and how it operates probably needs a whole fresh change starting from international law and the right to shelter and going downwards and you're right in that

yeah, it's great to work hard for using using

patch up an area of the act, which is one section to, you know, address a certain issue, but that doesn't really resolve the broader

imbalance of powers, you know, the Australian, especially New South Wales kind of legislation between renters and tenants. Linda was doing about Germany, even other countries like my aunt, she's in Lebanon and she's been in her property for 40 years, and to get rid of her they need to pay her 30% of the value of the apartment so

well I think Australia needs to look broadly at the rest of the world and say, well, I think we're very behind in tendency and housing rights, and we're not applying that

right to shelter to tenants very

effectively.

Linda Przhedetsky: Yeah, I'd have to agree. I think so with some countries. I think Spain has tested the human right to housing.

That's still at the moment a bit of a niche

issue and a niche legal argument which Sacha as my supervisor, you will get a written chapter at some point, but I think that ultimately we why I like to talk about housing as an essential services, is because it takes it out of the discourse of being

a commodity or good that can be traded and valued. When we talk about essential services we talk about telecommunications, we talk about energy. Things that people need to survive and live. Even in Estonia the Internet is a human. Is an essential service. I believe they conceptualise it as a right.

But housing is the bare minimum. When you frame it as something essential and something necessary I feel like that's a starting point from which everyone can agree. So, even though that's more of a question of

discourse, I still think that that's a valid starting point, and I feel like that's why we're getting some traction as well

from different political parties around no grounds, evictions. So we saw Greens, Liberals, and Labor make some move to stop no grounds evictions in their election commitments which they haven't done yet, but we want to see people move in that direction increasingly.

Renata Grossi: Okay. So um Jacinta has got some sound and she's going to talk to us about the app.

Jacinta Grace: I just wanted to um I recently actually heard about this app

and it's a piece of legal technology that has won some awards, I think in 2019 it started

and essentially what you do is you answer 10 questions with a chatbot

and it asks you just basic details and your situation and as a output it could produce, for example, an email to your landlord

that doesn't, you know you don't have to

do any substantial editing on it

and it gives tenants a sort of starting point, based on the law, according to their particular situation, and then following that, and this is all free by the way, it's not a paid service.

And then, following that, they get paralegals within the

Anika workplace.

Call these tenants and discuss their situation, and then, if further advice is needed. They give it. I think what's also really cool about Anika Legal is that they it's

the paralegals are actually law students as well. So it's an opportunity for Victorian law students to get involved

in like a really really good

technology service. So yeah, I think it's I think it's been really helpful so far, because I had a presentation with

the two, I think the co-founders they seemed really passionate about it as well, so that was really nice.

Renata Grossi: Okay, that's interesting, Linda. I see you noding. Are you familiar with this?

I'm not familiar with that so specifically, but what I really like in terms of the description of that intervention is ultimately

it's a really simple thing to set-up and then replicate it. Something that's really scalable. Which I think is a great intervention. It might not necessarily fix all of the problems at once, but it is something that can give people a tool in that they can immediately access, which I think is a brilliant intervention.

Renata Grossi: Hmm.

Okay. Interesting.

Okay. So look any final questions.

All right. Well look. I might now briefly hand over to my co-director, Isabella Luchko, who will thank our speakers and wrap up the night.

Isabella Luchko: Yep, so, on behalf of the Faculty of Law and all the students present here tonight I'll just like to thank our panelists, Rachel, Justin and Linda for taking the time out of their no doubt very busy schedules to discuss tenancy rights with us today.

and in considering the current rental crisis, as well as all the gaps and loopholes that exist within the legislation, this discussion was extremely relevant in this current context, and reinforces the need for not only law reform, but also a more broadly a justice based perspective when it comes to addressing the right to housing.

And so, just before we head off, iId like to remind all our students to keep an eye out for our next justice talk which will be held on the third of May by Zoom, we will be discussing the the question of what is justice. So yeah, so thank you everyone for attending and hope to see you then.

Sacha Molitorisz: Thank you.

Linda Przhedetsky: Bye.