Ms Issy Petrie:

I can touch on a couple of points.

We published a report with Threshold a couple of years ago, which sets out our priorities in this area. Obviously at this time we are incredibly aware of the situation in the private rental sector and the associated sensitivities. Our priorities are the extension of free upgrades to tenants who receive the housing assistance payment conditional on a long-term lease, and the supports that are available to landlords. The latter is a priority because we recognise the situation for smaller landlords for whom doing a retrofit is a significant investment. One of the things we would like to see is a private rent-ready one-stop-shop that caters for landlords. An extension of free energy upgrades to HAP tenants would also touch on the carbon tax issue, as would the equitable mitigation of the impacts of the carbon tax and how far that reaches into private rental tenants. Extending the upgrades to private rental tenants in receipt of HAP would go some way to mitigating the carbon tax for those tenants.

On prepay meters in the private rental sector, I am not aware of figures that show how that overlaps. Obviously many private rental tenants have prepay meters. Sometimes prepay meters are pre-installed in a private rental house so it is not a choice for the tenant. Even if it is not a hardship meter, the tenant is exposed to the risks associated with a prepay meter. It is not his or her choice to have a prepay meter but I am not aware of any figures on that.