Bradford Sue: Unit Titles Bill — First Reading 
Bradford Sue: Unit Titles Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1719] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 On behalf of the Green Party I will make a brief call in support of this bill. We are pleased to see the bill finally come back to the House. When Labour originally introduced the bill last year we were delighted to support it then and we are really pleased that National has picked it up. 
It is certainly high time for this as the original Unit Titles Act 1972 is of course some 37 years old. I am sure that all the key stakeholders in this area will be relieved that this legislation has been given some priority in the new Parliament. It is also good to see that the original review process involved a lot of the key groups involved in the sector—for example bodies corporate themselves local and regional authorities developers surveyors people like the Law Society building surveyors the Insurance Council and the Real Estate Institute. There have already been some 148 submissions that were received as part of the review process that formed this legislation so I hope that this bill will be a sound reflection of a whole lot of work that has already happened. 
In terms of the actual content of the bill as far as we can ascertain at this stage we are in support of all the key provisions. One provision we are particularly pleased about is that the need for unanimous body corporate decisions will be removed so that in future only 75 percent agreement will be needed by those who vote at body corporate meetings. One is particularly put in mind of the leaky buildings situation where people are desperate to try to get a decision so that they can make progress on solving leaky building problems. Where people are holding out on that it has a detrimental impact on everybody involved in the building. At the moment it takes only one person to hold out for a whole process to be stopped. So that provision is really good though I note also that John Gray from the group that has done a lot of work on leaky buildings does have a few concerns that at times in terms of the people holding out it has been beneficial in relation to what needs to happen. I am sure that the select committee will look at that. 
Another area we are pleased about is the shifting of adjudication from the courts to the Tenancy Tribunal. This is really good in the context of access to justice but it does need to be accompanied by an amendment to the Residential Tenancies Act to permit representation for those who are taking cases to the tribunal. Apartment owners will not always have the expertise needed to present their own case and this is certainly similar to changes that we had hoped to see in the residential tenancies amending legislation but which I believe National is planning to take out. We believe that anyone going to the Tenancy Tribunal should have the right to qualified representation because in most cases tenants—and in this case unit title owners—do not have the legal expertise or background to be able to present their cases adequately. I am certainly hopeful that during the select committee process this will again be something that we can look at. 
The whole question of unit titles has become a lot more urgent in recent years with the huge increase in developments. About a year ago there were over 95000 units. Of course many of these were in Auckland where ever-growing numbers of people live in this way. So it has become a critical issue that we change the laws so that people are protected at all stages of the transaction and we do not see some of the unfortunate situations that have arisen in the past. The Green Party will be supporting this legislation.