McGowan Government’s Airbnb, short-stay accommodation regulations slammed by Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA

The West Australian
A luxury Airbnb home in Ascot.
A luxury Airbnb home in Ascot. Credit: Airbnb

That is the view of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA, which this morning lashed out at “onerous and unnecessary” McGowan Government plans to regulate the industry.

“The State Government appears set on embracing calls for increased red tape in the sharing economy, which will only remove choice for visitors, make accommodation more expensive and deter visitors to our state,” CCIWA chief executive Chris Rodwell said.

“Changes proposed by the State Government’s Inquiry into Short-Stay Accommodation would render existing, legitimate short-stay hosts non-compliant, putting them at risk of large fines and significant legal penalties.

“In some areas, un-hosted short-stay accommodation may be disallowed completely.”

The McGowan Government yesterday announced plans to introduce minimum standards, draw a distinction between “hosted” and “un-hosted” accommodation and create a state-wide register of approved listings.

Opposition Leader Liza Harvey echoed CCIWA’s concerns, saying her party would carefully consider the proposed changes and that any regulation would “need to be very light touch”.

“My concern with Airbnb is you’ve got quite a few mums and dads and families who rely on that income as part of the household income and at the moment, with cost of living pressures being so extreme, I’d be reluctant to introduce anything that would interrupt the flow of funds into our households,” she said.

Mrs Harvey also questioned the requirement for minimum standards.

“Thousands of people stay in Airbnb in WA every year. If the place is not up to standard, if it is not clean and if it is not what they think they’ve purchased, the (Airbnb) gets incredibly bad reviews and they don’t get further and repeat business.”

Tourism Minister Paul Papilla said Airbnb was accepting of “most” of the recommendations from the inquiry and that the current unregulated environment was unfair on traditional hotels and motels that faced a much higher compliance burden.

Minister for Planning Rita Saffioti, who is now consulting with local governments about the final form of the laws, said the government did not want to create too much regulation but needed to set minimum transparency measures and have more of a level playing field for the accommodation sector.