Family Responsibilities Commission

The Family Responsibilities Commission is an independent statutory authority developed in partnership with 5 Aboriginal communities in Cape York and the Australian Government.

The Commission links families with support services to help strengthen family roles and makes recommendations for families based on the best interests of their children.

This page outlines our obligations under the Family Responsibilities Commission Act 2008 and how they affect you.

Your role as a tenant

Your role as tenant is to:

• pay your rent on time
• keep your rent account up to date
• keep your home and garden clean and tidy
• consider your neighbours and respect their right not to be disturbed
• ensure your household members and visitors behave appropriately
• understand your rights and responsibilities as a tenant.

Our role as housing tenancy managers

We (the Department of Housing and Public Works) must notify the Commission if you don’t meet the conditions of your tenancy agreement under the Family Responsibilities Commission Act.

We must also notify the Commission if you have not remedied a ‘Notice to remedy breach’ by the expiry of the notice and give them details about:

• your tenancy agreement
• the conditions of your agreement that you haven’t met
• what we’ve done to help you fix the problem
• your role in fixing the problem.

The Commission may ask for more information to make a recommendation.

Tenancy agreements

The tenancy agreement is a legal contract between us or Council and you as a tenant.

The tenancy agreement describes your and our rights and responsibilities.

Notice to remedy breach

If you break the conditions of your tenancy agreement, we may send you a ‘Notice to remedy breach’.

This notice gives you:

• options on how you may fix the problem
• a date when you need to do this.

We may send you a ‘Notice to remedy breach’ if:

• you’re behind in your rent and haven’t arranged with us to repay any outstanding rent arrears
• you haven’t complied with an agreement with us to repay outstanding rent arrears
• you haven’t kept your house clean and tidy, or you’ve damaged the house
• you’ve disturbed the peace, comfort and privacy of your neighbours
• you’re using your house for illegal purposes.

How this affects you as a tenant

This is no change to the conditions of your tenancy agreement. We still manage your tenancy agreement as required under the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act 2008.

We only let the Commission know if you break the conditions of your tenancy agreement.

For more information about our obligations under the Family Responsibilities Commission Act, contact your Housing office.