Today in Parliament, Abigail supported a Greens disallowance motion, condemning the Government’s quiet rollback of evidence requirements for evictions under the guise of “significant renovations,” which undermines last year’s no-grounds eviction reforms, criticising Labor’s backflip, lack of consultation with renters’ advocates and alignment with developer and real estate interests.

Abigail said:

I support the disallowance motion. I note the Hon. Tania Mihailuk's reference to an "unholy alliance" between the Liberal Party and The Greens. It is a talking point that gets trotted out a lot but there is only one unholy alliance in Australian politics, and that is between Labor and the Coalition, who vote together on most things, most of the time. It is the voice of the crossbench that is working to try to hold both of them to account. It is true that occasionally on the crossbench we have certain things where we cross over with each other. Sometimes the principles or policy platforms of those on the right of the crossbench and those on the left of the crossbench overlap and lead to a moment when we agree. So too it is with The Greens and the Liberals. It is convenient to call it an unholy alliance rather than to look at the principles and the policy on which we are moving this disallowance motion.

I also note that the Hon. Tania Mihailuk called us the party of anarchy. I do not think she was talking about the actual economic system. I would love to explain in great detail what "anarchy" means in that context. I think the member was probably talking about some form of chaos. I note that The Greens is the only party in this place that has a set of policy principles agreed to by our members that we are obliged to stick to. It makes us the most predictable party here. If members want to know how we are going to vote on an issue, just look at the policies that are on our website. They do not change at every election and have been pretty much the same for years and years. As the party of consistency, we obviously support this disallowance motion, which would bring this legislation back in line with our policy platform of no‑grounds evictions campaign that we have been running for over a decade.

I thank the member for Newtown, Jenny Leong, for her incredible work on advancing renters' rights in New South Wales. Unfortunately, this regulation waters down those reforms. That is what it does. No-grounds evictions ended when legislation was passed with multipartisan support in October 2024. Now the Government has done a backflip. That is all that it is. The reforms passed in October 2024 were passed on the understanding that certain evidence requirements would have to be met by landlords wishing to claim a specific ground for termination. That was our understanding. We took it on good faith, but we did not actually see those regulations until April of this year. However, based on The Greens' discussions with the Minister's office last year, we understood that landlords wanting to evict a tenant on the grounds of significant renovations or repairs to premises would need to supply evidence like a development consent or a quote or contract from a licensed contractor.

There are rules around tradespeople quoting for work before going ahead with it, but I will put that to one side. That understanding was reflected in the regulations that came into effect on 19 May this year. Section 23D required a landlord wanting to evict a tenant on the grounds of significant renovations or repairs to provide two things: one, a written statement stating the proposed start date of works and why the renovations or repairs are significant and require the property to be vacant; and two, a written quotation or contract from a qualified builder or tradesperson for the works or an owner-builder permit authorising the landlord to carry out those works themselves, proof of purchase of materials related to the works, a development consent, a written approval from the owners' corporation, strata committee or strata managing agent, or a development control order requiring the work to be carried out.

To sum that section up, it requires evidence that a landlord is genuinely doing something that would allow them to evict a tenant. The grounds for no-grounds evictions cannot simply be that the landlord wants to do so. That is the opposite of the purpose of the legislation that members thought we were voting in. In her second reading speech, the Minister for Housing, and Minister for Homelessness described the evidence requirements as a way to:

… deter landlords or agents from using a termination ground that is not genuine, and will provide renters with confidence that the termination provisions are being used appropriately.

That sounded very sensible. When the evidence requirements finally came into force on 19 May—nearly seven months after the legislation was passed—the Government made a big song and dance about it, as it loves to do. It held a press conference just around the corner from the Tenants' Union of NSW's own presser down in Martin Place. The then Acting Minister for Better Regulation and Fair Trading, Paul Scully, said:

The implementation of these reforms creates a fairer, more balanced rental market that gives tenants greater security while making sure owners have clear and transparent processes to follow.

We've listened to renters, owners, and industry experts to shape these changes, and have worked closely with stakeholders to ensure the transition is smooth and well understood.

The Premier took to Instagram, as he is wont to do, to boast of entering "a new era of renting". There was significantly less fanfare on 20 June when, just over a month after those regulations came into effect, the Government quietly removed the requirement for a second piece of evidence. Now a landlord who wants to evict a tenant on the grounds of repairs or renovations just needs to write a statement—not even sign a statutory declaration—claiming that they will undertake works, and that will be legally enough to evict someone from their home. That is the exact opposite of the legislation that members all voted through last year. What could possibly go wrong? The Greens do not consider a statement of that nature to be evidence. We consider it to be a statement of intent and nothing more.

I note that the evidence requirements for other grounds for eviction—like actual sale or demolition of premises—include documentation from a third party other than a landlord, such as a copy of agreement between a landlord and an agent for the sale of a premises, or a contract for the demolition works. Why should the evidence requirements for this ground be any different? It is completely unclear. Members are yet to be given any valid reason. From what The Greens can tell, the Minister did not consult with anyone, certainly not any of the stakeholders that The Greens speak to. The Greens, who helped shepherd the reform over many years, were certainly not consulted or told with any form of explanation as to why the change was suddenly required. I remind the House that it was a bill from The Greens, and an inquiry that a member of The Greens chaired, that led to the Government finally delivering the reform.

It also does not sound like the Opposition was consulted. The Tenants' Union of New South Wales was not consulted either. On 19 July it published a joint statement signed by 32 civil society organisations opposing the changes and calling on the New South Wales Government to:

1. Amend the Residential Tenancies Regulation to reinstate all the evidence requirements for landlords seeking to issue a notice of termination due to significant repairs or renovations

2. Monitor complaints and investigate any misuse of the significant repair or renovations termination grounds

3. Commit to following a transparent consultative process for any future changes to rental laws in NSW

Signatories to that statement included Homelessness NSW, Shelter NSW, the NSW Council of Social Service, Mission Australia, Vinnies and Unions NSW. If the New South Wales Labor Government was not consulting with those stakeholders and listening to their concerns in rolling out the change, who was it listening to? We are left to assume that Government members were lobbied by their mates in the real estate and property industries. Or was the plan always to wind back the evidence requirements as a concession to landlords once the dust had settled on banning no-grounds evictions and the media attention was elsewhere? It is virtually impossible for there to be an evidence base behind the changes. The 32 days between the original regulations coming into force and then being watered down was hardly enough time for a statistically significant number of evictions on the grounds of renovations or repairs, let alone to assess whether the two-part evidence requirements were unnecessarily onerous for landlords.

When members debated the legislation back in October last year, The Greens moved an amendment that would have established a legislative requirement for evidence to be provided with every termination notice, rather than leaving it to the regulations. At the time the Government did not support the amendment, saying that the requirement would appear in regulations. It appears that The Greens' faith in the Minister's intentions was completely misplaced. The exact scenario that The Greens were trying to safeguard against is now taking place. The Greens therefore find themselves in the bizarre political position of siding with the Opposition in an unholy alliance, as some would say, of people with a policy position based on sense and evidence.

The Greens will continue to be the only party in this place that consistently and unapologetically fights for renters, in line with its published policies, regardless of whether they are the hot topic of the month for the major parties or if it is politically inconvenient to do so. The Greens are incredibly disturbed by the way in which the Labor Party is cosying up to developers in this State. We will continue to call that out and to uncover evidence that so many of these things are done by captain's call after the Premier has had a chat with the good friend and suddenly decided how things will be. I commend the disallowance motion to the House.

Read the debate in Hansard here.

21 October 2025