Fears over rental law changes are much ado about nothing

Most importantly, people who rent will no longer have to suffer as many slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The changes mean that renters can more easily modify their homes, or have pets. It will be harder for landlords to impose major rent increases, and unfair break lease fees will be dialled back.

On modifications, it will now be easier for people who rent to make changes to their home: landlords will be able to refuse modifications only on reasonable grounds.

Instead of being woken up by "what light over yonder window breaks", renters will have stronger rights to adapt their home to suit their needs, like installing curtains. Consent will still be required, and tenants can be required to make good at the end of their lease.

Thus, landlords have nothing to fear here. Far from "what’s done cannot be undone", landlords still have the right to make sure their property is returned in the same state they let it out.

The changes are similar with pets. While landlords can still refuse a pet, they need reasonable grounds to do so. No more arbitrary discrimination against a potential pet owner just because they don’t own a home. Of course, tenants remain liable for any damage caused by a pet, and landlords can impose reasonable conditions. So if a dog leaves any marks on the carpet, the landlord is still entitled to insist "out, damned spot".

The context for these changes is that more people are renting, and renting for longer. Renting is no longer something you do in between moving out of home and buying a house. For a lot of people, it may be all they know until they shuffle off this "mortal coil".

This growing cohort of long-term renters deserves to be able to make a home, to raise a family, to settle down in a community. That’s why these laws needed to change.

Sadly though, these changes don’t usher in a "brave new world" of rental perfection. The government voted against amendments from Caroline Le Couteur that would have ended unfair evictions.

This means that a landlord can still terminate a lease without having to provide any reason. This will make people who rent afraid to ask for repairs, or oppose a rent increase, knowing that they could lose their home.

The government also failed to act on minimum standards for rental properties. This means more delays on improving living conditions for a huge number of renters living in properties that are virtually uninhabitable in a summer heatwave or a cold Canberra winter. Something to keep in mind in a few months’ time when we renters face "the winter of our discontent".

The changes that did pass are sensible, incremental changes that will bring a bit of balance to the Canberra rental market. But you wouldn’t know that from the hyperbolic reaction. Opponents made prognostications of widespread homelessness and the collapse of the rental market, as if the only thing standing between a property investor and financial ruin is the ability to stop a tenant from owning a cat. Such claims are "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

Better Renting is proud to have worked with the Tenants’ Union ACT and others to make sure that the voices and experiences of people who rent were acknowledged as part of this process. These changes are a small step in the right direction. But there’s more work to do. It seems that renters will have to go "once more unto the breach".

In Shakespeare’s As You Like It, the traveller Touchstone laments: "when I was at home, I was in a better place". The Bard knew the importance of a home. And people renting in Canberra do too. Renting should be a genuine alternative to home ownership. These recent changes haven’t made this happen yet. But they bring us a little closer.

Joel Dignam is the executive director of Better Renting, a member of the Make Renting Fair CBR Alliance.