Scott Lynda: Retirement Villages Bill — Second Reading 
Scott Lynda: Retirement Villages Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:7020] 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (NZ National—Kaikoura) 
: The National Party will be supporting this bill for several reasons. Before I entered Parliament as a geriatrician I had worked extensively with older people. Retirement villages have been a huge growth industry in New Zealand over the last 10 or 15 years. During that time we have seen quite marked changes: people no longer drove to the door of rest homes in their car; they usually arrived in ambulances. People stayed at home over the 1990s because National had put a lot of money into home support services. But for a growing number of older people the opportunity to move into a retirement village which took away some of the stresses and strains of life—not having to do upkeep on their building any more not having to look after the grounds and having companionship and people of like mind around them—became a very attractive option. We now have 300 villages but the Law Commission work which was reported on in 1999 stated that there needed to be one legal system that retirement villages operated under. 
When I came to Parliament I developed a member’s bill on this topic. That is the one thing that as an individual MP one can do. That bill was in the ballot and it did put pressure on this Government to get ahead of the game and to develop this bill. That is actually why we are here tonight and are able to debate this matter. It would have been very embarrassing after all the promises the Government had made if my bill had been drawn out of the ballot first. So we have seen this legislation which Lianne Dalziel admitted needed to be quite markedly altered during the work done in the Justice and Electoral Committee. 
I would like to thank Simon Power Lindsay Tisch and Richard Worth all of whom the Minister forgot to mention when she said how hard the committee had worked on this bill. 
Richard Worth 
: It was uncharitable. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: It was very uncharitable of her. Stephen Franks also put in a great deal of work. I do not think that the committee as it was first comprised grappled with the bill particularly well but with the addition to the committee of some excellent members from the Opposition side of the House we have ended up with a fairly comprehensive bill that will solve some of the problems within the sector. 
Most retirement villages are excellent. They run a very good service and supply a great standard and lifestyle for their residents. But when I first put my member’s bill into the ballot and it attracted some television exposure a huge number of people wrote to me with their concerns. I remember the case of one 92-year-old gentleman who had moved into a village and was very unhappy there. He found it extremely difficult to get out. If it had not been that his family was able to buy another property for him to move into he would not have been able to move from what he found to be a pretty intolerable situation. Disputes that can cause major problems for residents happen not only with the people who own and operate the villages but also with other residents so a disputes resolution process is something that is needed. 
The Retirement Villages Association has done an excellent job. Cliff Cook has put a lot of work into this legislation. The members of that association have excellent standards. They have statutory supervision and they ensure they have disputes resolution processes and prudential supervision as well. It is only those villages that stand outside the actual— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Aren’t you a member? will you declare your conflict of interest? 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: No I am not. The Minister needs to be better informed; she continually makes chipping comments about things that she knows nothing about. She should get herself informed. The Retirement Villages Association has done a very good job. The problems have occurred only with the maybe 5 percent of villages that operate outside the association. 
I remember a case where a person who had developed a Wellington village moved into the village when the residents became unhappy. He actually took over the residents committee so that he could complain to himself—or not complain to himself as the case may be. That was an abuse of his position and his power and the residents came to me to debate the issues. They needed legislation to work under. 
When people buy into a village they often do not understand the situation. They are not buying an independent unit down the road; they are buying basically a lifestyle. They are buying a licence to occupy and the lifestyle that the village offers with its increased security its protection the lack of worry about maintenance and the upkeep of the grounds and the companionship of other residents. Those are the things that people are buying when they buy into a retirement village as opposed to buying an independent freehold unit down the road. There has been a lot of confusion about that when somebody has wanted to leave a village and that is where most of the problems have occurred. There are quite large financial penalties if a person wants to leave after a short time. One of the things this bill does is to provide for a cooling-off period of 15 working days. 
I remember that one gentleman whose wife had died moved into a village once the funeral was over. He was quite a fit extremely active 74-year-old—that happens to be the average age at which people move into retirement villages—but he was very disturbed by the death of his wife and was feeling very low at the time. Moving into a retirement village was not really the right thing for him to do and when he recovered and got over the stress and the grief—he was an extremely active person—he found it quite difficult to make the decision to leave the village because he was penalised financially by the clauses he had signed up to. In some cases lawyers have not given people a full understanding of what they are buying into. Consequently there has been a lot of confusion. 
One of the things the bill requires is that retirement villages supply a disclosure statement which is supposed to be in plain language so that anybody buying into such a village actually knows what they are buying into and how it will work. Also the villages are required to have statutory supervision because sometimes people have not understood that although the individual’s interests and rights need to be protected the village as a whole needs to be considered as well. It is important that the village can survive financially as a whole and while one individual may want certain things that wider issue needs to be taken into account. There was a lot of debate from Grey Power in particular about what happens when people leave a village—about who can sell a unit and how long the ongoing costs have to be paid by the estate of somebody who has died. Those issues have been taken into account in this bill. The bill sets up a disputes resolution process and a code of rights for villages. 
I have been somewhat concerned that the bill defines retirement villages as premises containing two or more residential units. There will be increased costs associated with this legislation. I think it will impose some quite significant costs on the smaller villages and that that should have been taken into account. I certainly would have liked to see villages with up to six units—often they are attached to church properties—being exempt under this legislation but that has not happened. 
Also some retirement villages have residential care facilities within them—rest homes and geriatric hospitals. There has been quite a lot of cross-subsidisation because this Government has not increased by one dollar the amount of money that goes to geriatric hospitals which give the highest level of care to our elderly. A lot of retirement villages are making some money from that particular part of their operations. They have been able to cross-subsidise the hospital and rest home sector which is unfortunate because that sector should be funded adequately to be able to provide that level of care. I remember many years ago my grandmother went into a retirement village then the rest home and then the hospital. It was excellent for her not to have to leave an environment that she knew. 
We support this bill and are pleased to see it in the House tonight.