Real Estate Agents Bill
Second Reading, In Committee, Third Reading
Advance Copy - Subject to minor change before inclusion in Bound Volume.
NATHAN GUY (National) : Well, after 5½ hours of debate today on the Real Estate Agents Bill we have finally heard from the Minister. What a lot of piffle we have heard! The Government has had to put the House into urgency—we are sitting till midnight this evening, and having 13 hours of debate—to get through this bill.
This Minister could have had a chance of reforming this Act, but what a shambles! I cannot believe that he actually took a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, as my colleague Kate Wilkinson described this Minister doing in her very, very good address. This Minister had the opportunity to win over 18,000 to 20,000 real estate agents’ votes for this election. But do members know what? Labour will not get any of those votes, because it has made an absolute shambles of this legislation. We are seeing that here today, with the Government having to move the House into urgency to get this bill passed. It is just so interesting that the Minister had the opportunity to get this legislation right. One of my constituents presented a submission to the Justice and Electoral Committee—and I acknowledge the good work of Christopher Finlayson, Kate Wilkinson, and Chris Auchinvole on the select committee. My constituent went home and rang me that night, and said that he had presented a pretty good submission, but that it seemed to be just the National members who had their heads around the bill. He said that the members of the select committee who are sitting on the other side of the House did not have a clue.
Christopher Finlayson: What did he say about Lynne Pillay?
NATHAN GUY: Which one is Lynne Pillay? I want to talk about Part 4, because that is all about complaints and discipline. All of the real estate agents from the region where I live, Horowhenua and Kapiti, have a complaint for the Government. They have a complaint about the reform of this legislation—that the Government should have got it right. This process is not right, and the House needs to acknowledge that today. This part is so bureaucratic. Is that not typical of this Government? The way to correct things is to have more bureaucracy—just put more bureaucracy in the way of trying to correct the complaints and discipline procedure. It will not do it. What it will do, in my opinion, is encourage a culture of more complaints, and that is where we have a real concern about this part.
I think the Government had a wonderful opportunity to get this reform right. The industry wanted it and the sector wanted it, but it is not right. We have some real concerns about this legislation. This part addresses the nub of the issue, which is the Government creating more and more bureaucracy to try to address the problem—a sledgehammer that is cracking just a walnut.
It is an embarrassment that the Labour Government is ramming this Clark-Peters legislation through in urgency tonight—we are debating through to midnight. We are coming to the end of the term of this dying Government. It just shows that the Government has had to put the House into urgency to rattle through the legislation, when it could have done it a lot sooner if it had been able to get the numbers. The Government has managed just now to do a deal with New Zealand First to get its support through Parliament.
We have some real concerns about Part 4, “Complaints and discipline”, and about how there will be this wonderful panel of 20 persons who will try to administer the complaints procedure. I heard Chris Finlayson talk about clause 97. He made some wonderful contributions on the establishment of the Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal, which in part we are supporting. But fundamentally we have a real issue with this legislation this afternoon, and with the House being in urgency to yet again create more bureaucracy.
NATHAN GUY (National) : We are speaking to the Real Estate Agents Bill under urgency. It is a bill that the Government wants to ram through the House. At present we are debating the title and the commencement date.
I have been thinking about appropriate names for the bill, which is overseen by the Hon Clayton Cosgrove. I wondered whether it should be called the “Cosgrove Sledgehammer Bill” or, indeed, the “Cosgrove Hates Real Estate Agents Bill”—that is another option—or the “Cosgrove Calls Them Land Sharks Bill”. I have heard several interviews with the Minister where he has berated real estate agents in public and called them land sharks and shonky crooks. I cannot believe he would belittle people in our community who are actually doing their best.
This bill is all about Clayton Cosgrove wanting to make a name for himself. The Labour Party list has just come out. It is interesting to see the literature that has come into my hands. In the past, Clayton Cosgrove has wanted the people of Waimakariri to elect him to Parliament, but I see that that member, who is overseeing this bill, is now reliant on his placing on the list. It is ironic how things change when one puts one’s finger in the air. The member overseeing this bill is now reliant on his placing on the list. How times have changed! I am sure that when we are on the campaign trail the good people of Waimakariri will be reminded that that member says one thing, then delivers another.
I think an appropriate comment on this bill would be whether, although some in the industry support reform, its commencement date just 14 months from now gives sufficient time. It is a fairly big reform of the industry. National members would have thought that an appropriate commencement date would be in about 2 years’ time, and in our minority report we put that recommendation. It is good that the Minister has acknowledged it, but he has moved the date by only a little bit—about 2 months. It is also good to have on the record that the Minister and his officials believe that the date gives sufficient time for the measures to be implemented.
The National Party has some real concerns about this bill, about the commencement date, and about whether the wording of the title is appropriate, and I have commented on those concerns this afternoon. I look forward to making even greater remarks when we move to the third reading this evening, under urgency. The Government will be ramming legislation through the House for 13 hours today—we will sit until midnight—and I look forward to my colleagues making some very good contributions in the third reading. We believe that this item is significant for the real estate industry, and that the Government is being too bureaucratic. It has got it wrong. That was conveyed during the select committee process, which attracted hundreds of submissions. It has taken the Government a long time to get the numbers to have this bill go through the House under urgency this evening. I look forward to the third reading, which will probably be after the dinner break, when we can make some further contributions.