Power Simon: Real Estate Agents Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Power Simon: Real Estate Agents Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:649;Page:18386] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I make myself available to the Committee after undertaking other business this morning to make a contribution on the Real Estate Agents Bill which I have taken a long and personal interest in since it was introduced into the House by the Minister the Hon Clayton Cosgrove. I decidedly recall the Minister saying to me across the Chamber that the National Opposition’s decision to oppose the bill because of seven or eight things we were concerned about would be a major problem for us in coming months. The problem for him was that it was not and we have seen from the Minister—and I am sure my colleagues alluded to this during the second reading debate—a major back-down on several of the matters we raised right at the first reading of the bill. 
The Minister quite rightly was initially concerned—this relates to the purpose clause by the way—about people whose decisions on savings and the purchase and sale of real estate were not receiving the type of service that the country would expect from real estate agents. The problem in addressing that of course was that instead of taking an approach that could have been considered to be thoughtful and forward-looking the Minister chose to take the opportunity to make a few political statements around the place. I thought the Minister’s choice of phrase was interesting. I have to remind the Committee of the fact that the Minister announced six times at the last count he was going to review and rejig the real estate industry before we saw a bill. 
We finally got the bill and found the curious thing was that clause 3(1) states “The purpose of this Act is to promote and protect the interests of consumers”. No one has ever argued with that; National has always said that should be a paramount issue. Whether we have to legislate is another issue but the fact is that the bill’s purpose is to promote and protect the interests of consumers. The most extraordinary addition to clause 3 is this: “… and to promote public confidence in the performance of real estate agency work.” That makes sense too as the Minister has been knocking the industry about the head and face—metaphorically of course—for the last 6 or 7 months. I now see that at the last moment the Minister and his officials have decided to flip the coin completely and promote public confidence. I tell the Minister that the easiest way to do that is to talk about the industry in a positive way and suggest legislation that could help to craft such positivity and such consumer confidence over the years to come. 
I am staggered after all the newspaper column inches I have read about the Real Estate Institute and how appalling the industry is that the Minster then decided to put forward Supplementary Order Paper 243 in his name—yesterday I believe or maybe the day before. Many of the proposed amendments on it were contained in National’s minority report on the bill. There are three areas of the Supplementary Order Paper where we would take exception with the Minister and those are around the experience matters which the Minister has changed the transitional period which by my reading of it he has increased by only a couple of months and of course the elusive issue of the non-inclusion of property management. 
I know that the Minister will argue as we have heard that property management could be seen to be outside the scope of the bill but as we know that matter could easily be addressed by leave of the Committee of the whole House. I would be interested to know from the Minister who is sitting there quietly and thoughtfully—it is a pity he did not do that 6 months ago—whether he would be prepared to put that leave and see whether we could indeed by the will of the Committee include property management in the bill at this point in time. I know many of the political parties represented here this afternoon would be prepared to help officials to draft an amendment to that effect so we should test the Committee in order to see its will on that point. 
I said during the first reading debate on this bill that had the Minister adopted the approach that his colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel did in dealing with the financial advisers legislation and the matters surrounding those reviews this bill could have been dealt with I would imagine cross-party in a pretty constructive and deliberate way. There would have been disagreements on some things but overall there was no need for us to have such a fiery first start to this legislation. We will be working our way through the Committee stage in a part by part debate unless the Minister is of a mind to do so clause by clause. Either way the National Party will be here to address the issues throughout the afternoon and evening. I think the important thing is that the Minister is convinced as we go through the bill part by part that the amendments he is now proposing—having rejected them initially—are up to scratch and will do the job he wants to do. 
I am just signalling as part of the debate on the purpose clause that we are ready to have quite a detailed discussion with the Minister during the debate on the remaining parts of this bill. I have no doubt that he is up to the task but I want to know from him—and I would be grateful if he took the next call—whether he thinks the new Supplementary Order Paper 243 could be further worked to ensure that the amendments present and needed for this legislation to work properly—those proposed by National in its minority report—are considered as part of this process. I would also be interested to know whether the Minister is prepared to seek the leave of the Committee to include property management as part of this bill. If he is then again in the interests of progressing matters we are happy to put the offer to the Minister to draft something for him this afternoon and tonight. I am sure he would be happy if he agrees to that to make his officials available to give us a hand with that so we will move to try to test the Minister on that issue later today. 
Ultimately what has occurred here is that the Minister decided he would dig in and take some political opportunities 6 or 7 months ago. To be fair to him he held fast for a very long time. Then it became clearly obvious that what National had been saying at the first reading of the bill and what other parties had mentioned not only in the first reading but also during the select committee process in the Justice and Electoral Committee was that the bill as proposed simply was not doing the business not just for the industry—which to be fair is a major player in this legislation—but also more particularly for the consumers who use the industry to buy or sell real estate. 
I was not able to be there all of the time during the select committee process but I did enjoy the odd visit when the discussions on this bill were being undertaken and in fairness I acknowledge that members of the committee from the Labour side were interested in having detailed discussions about how the clauses in the bill would work. I felt a bit sorry for the officials because they were moving around a bit in the dark early on in the sense that it was not clear whether the institute or anybody else who had been consulted prior to the first reading was being consulted during the course of the bill being before the select committee. If the Minister can help us with regard to that point it would certainly help to clear that issue up once and for all. 
I am signalling that it is worth saying to the officials involved in this process that their efforts were not unnoticed. They did the best they could do with something that people tried to make into a political hot potato. In the end it really just did not fly because legislatively— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Potatoes don’t fly. 
SIMON POWER 
: It depends on whether one throws them I say to the Minister. Legislatively there was always going to be a difficulty with the acceptability and practicality of this legislation given that it deals not just with the industry but also with consumers and its relevance to their buying and selling of real estate. Those issues of course meant that complex questions around the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act and the financial advisers legislation had to be taken into account when coming up with this bill and its purpose which is contained in Part 1. I know that Gerry Brownlee Lindsay Tisch Christopher Finlayson Kate Wilkinson and others will be talking about this matter in some detail. 
I want to finish by saying this to the promoter of this bill: it is not too late; we can still fix the bill. I know that the Minister has made a substantial shift in producing Supplementary Order Paper 243. If he had just gone a step further I am sure the bill would be moving at a much faster pace than it will be moving at this afternoon and this evening.