Twyford Phil: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Twyford Phil: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 07 July 2011. Volume:673;Page:19928. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 I will speak to Supplementary Order Paper 252 on the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill. The owners of dwellings in multi-unit complexes are one of the big groups of homeowners who will not benefit under this package. There are two main reasons. The first is that because of the Unit Titles Act requiring there be a 75 percent majority before a decision can be made by a body corporate—for instance to enter into an agreement under the financial assistance package—it will be very difficult practically speaking for apartment dwellers to reach the 75 percent threshold. The other reason is that banks will not lend to bodies corporate because bodies corporate under the Unit Titles Act cannot mortgage that collective property. About 24 percent I think according to PricewaterhouseCoopers of the population of affected homeowners will not be able to benefit from this package. That is about 5500 dwellings. So a really significant group of affected homeowners will not benefit. 
Supplementary Order Paper 252 proposes to insert new section 125G(2) to allow the Crown to provide an indemnity or a Crown guarantee which would open the door for banks to lend to bodies corporate. With respect to the Minister in the chair the Minister for Building and Construction it is not enough to say: “Well bodies corporate can do this anyway; apartment dwellers are covered by this.” The practical reality is that they are not actually. Most apartment dwellers will not be able to benefit from this legislation because the practical reality of getting the 75 percent majority of members in the body corporate to agree and to put up the money to do this will not happen. It will be almost impossible as well to get the banks to lend. This Supplementary Order Paper would extend the Government guarantee to allow banks to lend to bodies corporate. I do not know why I did not really hear a substantive explanation from the Minister about why he has chosen to reject this amendment. He says it is not necessary and that the Government could provide what it proposes under the existing bill. I am not sure that that is the case. That certainly was not what we heard from officials at the Local Government and Environment Committee. 
It is not enough to say that apartment dwellers will have access to the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service. If that was enough why bring this bill to the House and launch a whole new initiative? I think the Government should think again and give thought to this amendment. Maybe the amendment has been rejected because the budget parameters of the initiative have already been set. Maybe it is because of the ginormous eye-watering cost of the package that the Minister has been telling us about. But if that is the case well then tell the Committee. Otherwise we are needlessly excluding about one-quarter of affected homeowners and I think we deserve a better explanation. 
I want to move on to my amendment to add to new section 125B. The Minister said he lauds the intent of it but does not agree with the substance. Well one of the concerns we have had about the package is that it extends a 50 percent subsidy—25 percent from the Government and 25 percent from the local authority—to a speculator who may have picked up a leaky home at a knock-down price gets the 50 percent subsidy from the ratepayer and the taxpayer does a quick do-up job then flicks it on and pockets a windfall profit which is really courtesy of the ratepayer and the taxpayer. Given how great the unmet need is and how many homeowners who are grappling with this problem are excluded from this package it makes no sense to us on this side of the Chamber that we are dishing out this generous subsidy to property speculators. The Minister said it was not practical to accept this amendment because it would be excluding people who had in good faith purchased a leaky home in the knowledge that it was a leaky home. Well the very point of that is if they bought the house knowing it was a leaky home then presumably that price would have been heavily discounted so as to recognise the reduced value caused by the defect and the damage. I would have thought there was no need in that case for a 50 percent subsidy from the ratepayer and the taxpayer to go into the pockets of those people. The Minister has said in the past “Look we’re just interested in getting these homes fixed. It does not matter who does them.” Well there are so many people who are excluded from this package who will continue to suffer without the assistance this package offers that I would have thought it made a lot of sense to exclude property speculators from it. 
The next issue I want to address and I respond to the Minister’s earlier comments is about Crown immunity. The whole purpose of this bill is to legislate for Crown immunity. If it was not for that I do not think we would need the legislation at all; it could all be done by policy and regulation— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: And local authorities. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: —OK and through the role of local authorities. The Minister makes the point that the Crown does not have to come to the table. It does not have to put hundreds of millions of dollars on the table because there is no established legal liability in this case. Well that may be so but the real point here is we are talking about the immunity that this bill gives to assessors from the Department of Building and Housing who thanks to this bill are relieved of their common law obligation to exercise a duty of care. If the homeowner finds that the quality of work of the Department of Building and Housing’s assessors is substandard—heaven forbid that that would be the case—or the assessment of agreed repairs was defective and because of that the homeowner cops a further liability he or she will have no comeback. The Crown will not be held accountable for that. The Minister’s own officials in the Department of Building and Housing advised him against this provision giving immunity to the assessors but he has made a political judgment. I see the Minister querying this but it is in the regulatory impact statement. The advice in the regulatory impact statement in black and white is that giving immunity to the Department of Building and Housing assessors is not necessary and is not justifiable. 
Furthermore by giving those assessors immunity it further exposes the builders the architects and the designers who will be required to do the remediation work. I think the Minister himself has alluded to the fact that there is some doubt actually that there will be many builders particularly in light of the looming skills shortage who will want to do this work at all because the local authority will be indemnified the Department of Building and Housing will be indemnified and that leaves only the builders and architects to carry the can if something goes wrong in the remediation work. I am yet to hear from the Minister a convincing explanation for this immunity other than that the Government just does not want to do it. I invite the Minister to take a call in the remaining time and tell us whether there is a reason for Crown immunity. I will leave it there and I will speak to my third Supplementary Order Paper later.