As I understand it, in NSW, for instance, a tenant must be offered at least one way to pay the rent for which the tenant does not incur a cost and that is “reasonably available to the tenant“.
So for instance, if an agent offers you to pay by chq and does not place a surcharge on such pmts, then it would seem that he is complying with the law.
If you don’t have a cheque account, it could be argued that the agent is being reasonable asking you to get one given they cost no more to have than non chq transaction accounts.