Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): Mr Chair I just want to acknowledge the member Nicola Willis who's just resumed her seat. The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Bill has been a bill that has gone through the Social Services and Community Committee and actually had a number of extensions applied to it. I've been privy to extensive correspondence between the member Nicola Willis and the Minister the Hon Poto Williams—there has been a huge amount of work. I also want to acknowledge the officials for their going through extensive and very detailed—and oftentimes contradictory—submissions from certain submitters.I think it is really important that I continue to bang the drum of the three key issues that I raised at select committee which will come as no surprise to members on both sides of the House. In fact they were raised as recently as last night with both the member in charge Nicola Willis and the Minister's office. Those three key issues as put forward in the select committee report—in what we used to call the Minority view" but I believe is now called a "Differing view" of the Green Party of Aotearoa—centred around firstly proxies; secondly the disclosure regime; and thirdly around the potential for professionalisation of body corporate managers. Mr Chair you'll see that there are two Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) on the table related to proxies and I want to acknowledge the fact that the member in charge Nicola Willis originally drafted this SOP that is now in the name of Chris Bishop. It is somewhat more nuanced than the one as put forward by myself. But none the less we will continue to progress with that I think really importantly to make the points that this is something that is necessary for there to be some form of limitation on. To that effect we've heard and we saw reflected in the select committee report and we've heard from the Labour Party in particular that they believe that e-voting resolves the issue of potential for proxy votes to be abused. However I would raise the argument—as put to me and also in personal experience—that there is in fact no consistency with the way that online meetings of bodies corporate currently occur. I can reflect even actually on my own recent experience in my own body corporate where we held a hybrid meeting—those of us who were joining from a distance doing so via a kind of Zoom link and those who were in the room couldn't hear each other. These are the kinds of teething problems that we are going to experience as we implement things like this e-voting. I'd also like to raise that there is still a profound problem in the inconsistency and the power imbalance when it comes to access to information for access to those proxies. This is something which many constituents have raised with me because it is the case that those who currently sit on the body corporate have access to that information of who owns those titles within those apartment blocks whereas those who may perhaps be seeking to put forward a different proposal than the incumbents on the body corporate do not have access to that information and therefore are not able to drum up the same level of support that those who have that incumbency bias do. To that extent it is still an issue that there needs to be some form of proxy limit. So to that effect the Greens are putting forward our own SOP but we of course will also be supporting the elegant solution as proposed by the member in charge. Secondly with regard to disclosure regimes I want to acknowledge the Minister and her officials' work on putting forward a quite comprehensive SOP. But in engaging with stakeholders in here I particularly want to acknowledge Tim Jones from the Body Corporate Chairs' Group; and also the City Centre Residents' Group (CCRG) who have done a huge amount of work in working through these SOPs as put forward. There are still substantive issues that they are identifying with the feasibility and workability of that disclosure regime and some potential headaches for lawyers further down the track. This is something which we don't want to see occur so it is unfortunate that it appears as though the Government's SOP only in periphery addresses some of these issues and doesn't at this point seem to go to the heart of it. To that effect I want to acknowledge the other SOP in the name of Chris Bishop—which I know that the member Nicola Willis has had a lot to do with—which goes towards that issue of disclosure. To that effect in speaking with the member last night the Greens withdrew our SOP on long-term maintenance plans because we believe that in working towards some kind of congruence and some kind of compromise and trying to make it as feasible and workable as possible that is the best solution moving forward. But none the less we retain those fears that there are still some unworkable provisions that we had hoped would have been addressed in the Government's SOP with access to those officials but none the less we continue to push ahead because we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the better.I finally just want to speak to the issue of body corporate managers and professionalism which is my final SOP Mr Chair if I may take another call. On the issue of body corporate managers this is one which I think the Greens and I stand alone on—it is a bit of a hobby horse I know for some who are engaged in this sector and know it quite well. So body corporate managers are not currently required to belong to any kind of professional body. This was something which was originally required in the original draft of the bill as put forward by the Hon Judith Collins and the Hon Nikki Kaye my forebear in Auckland Central and as progressed and put forward by the member Nicola Willis. However it was taken out at the select committee stage based on the advice of officials and a number of submissions which spoke to the lack of an identifiable problem presently existing. To that effect I'd like to just ask our Parliament to reflect on how frequently it is the case that select committee processes are not only incredibly daunting but also something which is not necessarily particularly accessible to the average Joe. They are therefore quite self-selecting in the people who end up coming forward: those who have the time and obviously the specific interest in the issues that are before our Parliament and therefore also have these issues on their radar. It is the case that those who are currently engaged and involved in these kinds of conflicts around their body corporate tables who have come to me as their local MP have raised that there are still some substantial issues with that lack of consistency in professionalism and standards for body corporate managers—some of whom I might add are dealing with budgets that are in excess of millions and millions of dollars. The arguments that we've heard around there not being an identifiable problem and therefore there's not necessarily something that we have to fix I would say is the opportunity for us to proactively prevent further problems popping up further down the track. I'll just allude to a really similar situation that we saw in this Parliament and through select committees—the Justice Committee in particular—in 2008 when the Justice Committee identified that there was a gap in the updated legislation to the Real Estate Agents Act whereby property managers should be included. This is back in 2008. We then had the incoming National Government's Associate Minister of Justice Nathan Guy turn around and say "Don't worry guys this can all be sorted in Tenancy Tribunals because none of the cases seem to largely be in excess of $15000. So nothing to see here; don't worry about it." Nearly 15 years down the track we're now going back and looking to regulate property managers with a report from the Minister's office which reflects on the fact that 15 years later we don't know if there's 2000 or 7000 property managers in the country. I'd say that there was a relatively analogous situation when it comes to body corporate managers and the opportunity here to prevent these issues appearing in the future. I however also want to acknowledge the concerns that have been raised by members both from the Labour Party and from the National Party who I understand might not necessarily be in support of this being reinstated their reasons being that there is currently not a high-quality well-established potential entity for which these body corporate managers could belong. To that extent I just say that's a matter of creating that entity and creating those professional standards—again these things can be done and they should be done to prevent future issues arising. So in summation I want to acknowledge the member Nicola Willis for the immense amount of work that she's done and for being incredibly receptive to my late-night phone calls over the past few months and the Minister as well for keeping me privy to that correspondence. I also think it is really important to acknowledge the dogged work of particularly Tim Jones who has been available for us whenever we've needed to check in with him about whether something was feasible or workable and he in turn tapping in to his networks. Also Noelene in particular from CCRG who I have had on the blower as recently as yesterday too just double-checking that these are really important things that we should continue to press. Because at the very least if we cannot make these improvements right now then they serve as a trail of breadcrumbs for future legislators to do the right thing and to get this right in the future—hopefully not 15 years down the track as we're now doing with property managers but in a time period far sooner than that noting that the Minister in her correspondence with the member in charge has indicated that she intends to do a fulsome review of this area of the law. So the Greens will be voting in favour of the two SOPs as put forward by the National Party we will be voting in favour of the SOP as put forward by the Minister and the Government and of course we will be voting in favour of the two SOPs in my name. Kia ora."