Carter John: Retirement Villages Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Carter John: Retirement Villages Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:612;Page:9427] 
JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) 
: 
 I want to make a contribution to the bill for a couple of reasons. One is that I am a trustee of the Kerikeri Village Trust and I have taken a bit of an interest in this legislation. I want to make one or two comments. First I would like to compliment the Justice and Electoral Committee on the work it has done on this bill. I have observed the bill going through and note that the select committee has addressed a number of issues that were initially of concern. I congratulate the Minister the select committee and indeed Parliament on the work they have done in addressing some of those concerns. 
An issue that has been addressed already is that this bill—and there is no way to avoid it—will impose compliance costs that will obviously impact on the viability of retirement villages and the like. That is unfortunate and I am sure better minds than mine have endeavoured to find a way to achieve what the bill is trying to achieve without adding costs. Unfortunately I cannot see a way around that. Imposing a regime that will put on some costs is one of those conundrums we get into in trying to lift standards or in trying to make sure that there are consistent standards. 
The issue I want to talk about in particular is the matter that appears on pages 16 and 17 of the commentary on the bill with regard to the sale and disposal of units. It is not specifically in the bill itself but I understand it will be part of a code that will be drafted up. One of the issues talked about is the steps that can be taken if a person wants to sell his or her unit for whatever reason. There is a 3-month step a 6-month step and a 9-month step but I understand that after the 9-month step the disputes panel depending on how the code is drafted might well have the right to insist that the retirement village purchases back the property. Someone who is more familiar with the bill than I am may correct me if that is wrong. 
I can understand why we might put that in the bill but there is a dilemma in it. For example the Kerikeri Village Trust is a community trust not a profit-making organisation—it puts all its resources back into the trust. It has a bare minimum of charges just so it can survive and be viable. If it is likely that a retirement village has to buy back the property we might well end up putting at risk community enterprises such as the Kerikeri Village Trust. Perhaps the Minister can indicate whether that is so because I can sit down if it is not. I do not want to carry on debating the matter but I just urge caution: if the disputes panel has the authority to force an organisation such as the Kerikeri Village Trust to buy property when it might not be able to financially then that will cause the trust some difficulty in operating because it does not have that flexibility in terms of the way it has structured its finances. Our whole purpose is to provide a service for the community. We do it for the community we are a non-profit-making organisation and the system we have works. We do not have a slush fund with which to buy a whole lot of property. 
Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. 
JOHN CARTER 
: Over lunch I had the opportunity to discuss with the Minister the matter I was debating. She told me that the code that will be put in place with regard to the sale of property will not be compulsory in the sense that retirement villages will not be forced to sell although— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: The disputes panel will have the power. 
JOHN CARTER 
: Yes the disputes panel will have the power under certain circumstances to require retirement villages to purchase but—[ 
Interruption 
] The Minister explained to me there are things like if they had not been intending to sell etc. and obviously we will need to go into those details. But there was also an understanding of the pressures that could be put on a place like the Kerikeri Village Trust. One makes the assumption that the code will be flexible enough not to put at risk the likes of the Kerikeri Village Trust. But in a case where the owner of a retirement village is not playing his or her part of the game then it might well be that we see the compulsion invoked.