It is very annoying as I actually blame the agents as much as the tenants but we have to be nice to the agents
You don't *have* to be nice to the agents. You can change, or threaten to change. Last place we rented in Melbourne, the landlord changed agents; we hadn't been inspected for 18 months, we never returned the condition report (we thought we'd wait for a reminder call, but it never came) and they were charging waaay less than market value for our place - basically, they were terrible from a landlord's perspective. SO the landlord changed to a different one.

Good luck!!