Current e-Petitions for the Legislative Council

End no grounds evictions, and give renters a fair go

Eligibility : Residents of Western Australia Only

To the President and Members of the Legislative Council of the Parliament of Western Australia in Parliament assembled. We the undersigned ...

note the recent rental reform announcement by the Cook government and call upon the Premier and the Minister for Commerce to remove no grounds evictions from the Residential Tenancies Act (WA) 1987.
WA is facing a housing crisis, with some of the lowest rates of rental availability in Australia, which is making it very difficult for renters to find suitable accommodation. Given the lack of rental availability and the power imbalance that exists between renters and landlords, many renters don’t feel they can exercise their rights under the Residential Tenancies Act for fear of being evicted without a legitimate reason and face homelessness as a result.
Removing no grounds evictions ensures that landlords can still exercise their rights to evict tenants who don’t pay rent, damage the property or behave in an antisocial way under the existing grounds, while also ensuring tenants aren’t evicted by landlords who wish to side step tenant protections and impose an excessive rent increase or ignore legitimate repair requests. This reform would provide greater certainty and protection for consumers alike.
WA is the only Australian state that hasn’t removed or committed to removing no grounds evictions, with every other state acknowledging that this practice must go.
Recent polling shows that the majority of renters and the majority of West Australians support the removal of no grounds evictions, which is only used in a small number of evictions in WA.
Therefore, we request that the Legislative Council urge the Premier and the Minister for Commerce to remove this outdated provision and provide certainty and security to almost a third of the population that rent in WA.

And your petitioners as in duty bound, will ever pray.