Yan Yean MLA Danielle Green has used State Parliament to hit back at critics of her being a tenant in her private life.

Ms Green said a real estate agent had leaked information to the press about the condition of the property that she rented.

Ms Green disputed the claims, and says she won back her bond, after fighting the matter at a Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal hearing.

“It is unruly to take up interjections, but the member for Euroa has just made a comment about me going before VCAT,” Ms Green told the Legislative Assembly.

“Well, yes, I did go to VCAT, and I got every cent of my bond
back because it was a vicious attack on my credibility.

“It was a politically motivated attack, and those responsible for it are still making a whispering campaign, trying to make mischief about the fact that I am a tenant.

“I choose at this stage in my life to be a tenant. The member for Northcote earlier quoted many economists that actually say it is an economically rational position for many people to determine to be tenants.

“So that is why tenants rights are particularly important.

“I want to actually tell the house about one of the particularly odious attacks that were made on me and my credibility.

“One of the bases on which the landlord whose property I was living in until January of this year wanted to keep my bond, and all of my bond, was that I had a dog in the premises that they had not agreed to.

“My American staffy dog Bella had been very much accepted, and accepted in writing, when we had moved into the property some two years earlier.

“In August last year we, my staff and I, had the horror of witnessing a terrible altercation between my dog and a kangaroo.

“They fought for 40 minutes, and both animals had to be put down. It was one of the most horrific things I have seen. “My husband and I were deeply traumatised by this, as were my staff. Three days later I had an opportunity.

“A local rescue drew to my attention another beautiful staffy cross dog in Bailey.

“He had lost his owner and had slept beside her body for three days until she was discovered by police—a beautiful, loyal dog, grieving as we were.

“So one of the bases of the politically motivated attack on me as a tenant was that I had a male staffy dog and in fact they had agreed that I could have a female staffy dog.

“That was one of the spurious and disgraceful attacks on me in addition to insisting that they could come into my property whenever they liked and that I did not have to be there for inspections. They would say they would be there between 9 and 5.

“They would not even give me a two-hour window, so I or my husband would have to take time off work, or otherwise they said they would come in anyway.

“And when they would come in they would take photographs. They took photographs of our bed. They took photographs of many other personal things.

“I reported that our water had degraded, and it turned out—a plumber friend of ours said—that the hot-water service had blown up.

“I had had rust on the tiles for some weeks and had not realised. I thought it was a problem with the water itself and had been scrubbing it down.

“ I deliberately left it in that situation to show the agents, and then they wrote us a rectification request and said that we had not kept the premises in a clean condition.

“These matters were leaked to the press and were the subject of a Herald Sun article.

“I am a member of Parliament, and I have been able to push back. I was not going to be bullied and have $3000 extracted from me under threat of being publicly outed.

“Unfortunately I was publicly outed, and I thought,
‘Well, I’m on a hiding to nothing here. I’m going to go to VCAT’.

“My political enemies made sure that there was a photographer outside the VCAT hearing, and there were numerous leaks about that.

“The member hearing the case could not believe what they were hearing.

“One of the things that I had supposedly done was that there were knife marks on a chopping board. Goodness me—a chopping board used as a chopping board.

“That was one example of the supposed terrible damage that my husband and I had done to this property, which was totally untrue.

“We got our bond back, and I am glad that I went public around that. I hope that that is a lesson to landlords and agents. “With this sort of behaviour, if they treated me in that way, what do they do to single-parent casual workers?

“So I am glad I stood up for that. I am glad that there are proposals in this bill that will allow reasonable circumstances for being able to have your pet as a member of your family and also provide greater protections to tenants.

“I commend the bill to the house, and I thank members for listening to my personal experience,” Ms Green said.