Power Simon: Real Estate Agents Bill — First Reading 
Power Simon: Real Estate Agents Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:644;Page:13816] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I thank the Minister Clayton Cosgrove for his opening comments in respect of the first reading of the Real Estate Agents Bill and I will address some of the comments he made during the course of the debate. The Minister is right: the Real Estate Agents Act of 1976 does need reform. The legislation does need to provide transparent and accountable governing bodies and disciplinary tribunals. All of those things are true. He quoted a letter from the chief executive officer of Bayleys Real Estate towards the conclusion of his remarks where the chief executive said that this was an important opportunity to bring positive change. 
Unfortunately National does not believe that the way this bill has been handled brings positive change. The Minister had an opportunity to deal with this issue in a rational and considered way. In my view and in the view of the National Party Mr Cosgrove in his capacity as the Minister in charge of this bill has overshot somewhat in the way that he has dealt with this particular legislation. In fact from recollection this reform has been announced more times than even the economic transformation we are still waiting for from the Government. 
We know for example that the most common phrase Mr Cosgrove has uttered since he first announced this change in May of this year is “land shark” which is a phrase he uses at every opportunity. Unfortunately that type of approach has actually vilified thousands of land agents who have never done anything other than to go about their business selling properties on behalf of customers—vendors who are satisfied with the process who have paid their commission and who have got on with their lives. 
National agrees with the Minister that an independent authority to deal with complaints and disciplinary issues is needed. We are in favour of transparency and accountability but we are not in favour of the vilification of an entire industry off the back of some scattered examples the Minister has used. The Minister came to the House today and started talking about the “honest folk” in the real estate industry but unfortunately since May of this year that is not a phrase that has carried the same amount of mentions as the phrase “land shark”. 
What worries me most about this particular piece of reform is that it is actually a missed opportunity because there is need for reform and on that I agree with the Hon Clayton Cosgrove. But here we are going to miss the opportunity to found a system that is based on the customer—on the consumer and on his or her right to be treated fairly. Rather the opportunity is being taken to pound an industry into submission. When the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill came to the House we trusted the lawyers to come up with some suggestions that would make their industry more user-friendly. I suggest that the rational calm approach adopted in that instance would have been a good model to use in this instance. 
I tell members that on this side of the House we are concerned about several things. First bureaucratising is not the answer and we have seen that with the Department of Building and Housing. That particular department was an answer to a problem that could have been solved in quite a different way and we need to be convinced that the costs associated with the new process the Minister has described this evening are not going to be passed on to the very consumers the Minister purports to protect with the introduction of this legislation. I have followed this debate very carefully for the last 8 or 9 months as the Minister knows and one of my favourite things that I found very interesting in the original discussion document which was tucked away in the middle of the document under an innocuous bullet point was the issue of changing the employment status of real estate agents from independent contractors to employees and all the legislative implications that that would have for that industry. Of course the Minister backed off that suggestion once people said to hang on; they began to ask: “Where’s the evil?” “Where’s the harm?” and “What is it that the legislation is trying to address?”. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: A listening Government. 
SIMON POWER 
: The Minister says he is part of a listening Government. It is a pity he was not in the Chamber for the Committee stage of the Electoral Finance Bill. But what I can say is that to impose in legislation a 5-year review of the employment status of 20000 New Zealanders is to hang the sword of Damocles over those particular individuals so that the Minister whoever that may be at the time retains the power and the authority simply to change the employment status of a group of people at whim. It is unacceptable to leave an industry in an uncertain state for that entire 5-year period; all those prospective agents who like the freedom of being independent contractors and who do not put demands on their employers with legislative requirements now do not know what their employment status could be in 5 years’ time. That is a bad way to draft law. It lacks certainty and it lacks clarity. It is not a good way to propose to deal with that issue. 
I tell members of the House that I have read through this debate and I cannot in fact understand why if the Minister is so determined to reform the negatives in the real estate industry property management is excluded from this legislation. Why is an industry that holds trust account moneys on behalf of clients excluded from this legislative framework? Why are residential tenancies excluded? Who is not being protected in those two instances? It is the consumer who is not being protected yet the Minister comes to the House and says that this bill has nothing to do with promoting his own political prospects; this bill is all about the consumer. Well actually if it were about the consumer property managers and the like would be included. 
A first read of the bill reveals that it also fails to remedy an oddity under the Auctioneers Act: a real estate agent cannot hire the services of a registered auctioneer unless that real estate agent is also a registered auctioneer. That situation is not addressed in this wide-sweeping reform with which the Minister proposes to protect the consumer. So I say to the Minister that we come at this issue determined to see accountability and transparency and an independent body put in place. What we will not agree to—and the reason that we will not be voting for this legislation today—is a half-baked effort with truly poor work having been done on legislation that is to protect consumers. 
We are going to hear more rhetoric from the Minister over the next short while and he should bear this in mind: every time he opens his mouth to promote himself and his so-called destruction of land sharks he should think of those thousands of land agents who have done nothing wrong and of the entire industry that is at risk of being vilified by a piece of legislation not comprehensive enough to deal with many of the proper issues it should be dealing with—many of the issues that in fact National members agree should be dealt with.