State parliament to consider legislation to protect businesses suffering in COVID-19 pandemic

Commercial tenants and businesses will be able to negotiate rent waivers and deferrals if new legislation set to hit state parliament today gets the tick.

THE Greens will push to extend protections being offered to commercial tenants to also cover home renters.

State parliament will today consider urgent government legislation to protect businesses hit by the downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Greens leader Cassy O’Connor signalled her party also would be moving amendments to make the same rules apply for both business and residential tenants.

“As a basic principle in a pandemic, you have to provide the same level of protection to residential tenants as you do to commercial tenants,” she said.

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“You need to be able, for example, to allow landlords and residential tenants to negotiate a waiver of their rent. At the moment, what we have is some landlords negotiating deferrals with tenants, and, at the end of the emergency period, they will be left with huge debts.

“We have flagged them in good faith and, to his credit, the Premier has also said he would go away and seek a briefing with the Residential Tenancy Commissioner on what other protections might need to be enacted for residential tenants.”

Premier Peter Gutwein said the COVID-19 Disease Emergency (Commercial Leases Code) Bill 2020 would give effect to the Code of Conduct for commercial tenancies agreed by the national cabinet last month: “The code prevents termination for unpaid rent, provides for rent freezes and contract extensions, and allows for the proportional sharing of lost revenue by tenants through rent waivers and deferrals,” he said.