Unit Titles Amendment Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeUnit Titles Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:15049. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Unit Titles Amendment BillIn CommitteeLOUISE UPSTON (Senior Whip—National): I seek leave for the Unit Titles Amendment Bill to be taken as one debate.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Leave is sought that there be one debate. Is anyone opposed to that course of action? There appears to be none. Leave is granted.Clauses 1 and 2 and 142 to 163Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): This is a bill that was split off from the Statutes Amendment Bill. It was taken out by the Government Administration Committee on the basis that there was more in it than was appropriate for a Statutes Amendment Bill. Traditionally statutes amendment legislation amends one two or three clauses of the substantive Acts. In this particular case there are 21 clauses of thesubstantive Act amended. None of them are that controversial other than the fact that they drew attention to the very slow progress on a substantive reform of the unit titles legislation which the Government has been promising for the last 5 years.There are very minor changes around utility interests around alterations of plans and around the timing of the annual general meetings. There are some very minor changes to the duties of the body corporate especially around maintenance. There are some requirements about what has to be disclosed to buyers. Any of these individually or as a group of two or three would have been fine for a Statutes Amendment Bill but they were in the view of the committee too substantive. Because we are not opposed to them we are quite happy for them to go through on this relatively fast-track arrangement based on the assurance that we received in the committee. It is going to be interesting because we were going to get a substantive amendment bill in the House on the unit titles question later this year.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I hope I did not push in front of the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister of Justice. He is welcome to take the call. It is usual for the Minister in the chair to take a call first up in debates in this situation but he does not seem to want to. So I am happy to wait and it will be worth waiting for I am sure. As my colleague the Hon Trevor Mallard has just explained the Unit Titles Amendment Bill is the part that was taken out of the Statutes Amendment Bill when it was first referred to the Government Administration Committee some time ago not because there was anything in it that did not have unanimous support in terms of policy across all members of Parliament but because the number of amendments that it sought to make to the Unit Titles Act was not appropriate for a Statutes Amendment bill. So on that basis we not only took it out of the Statutes Amendment Bill but gave our commitment to ensuring that it was progressed in a speedy fashion.That was in May of this year—quite early in May at the start of the second week in May—and it is now nearly the end of November. I want to know what the Government has been doing between May and November that caused it to not progress a bill that has the support of every single member of Parliament and that was taken out of the Statutes Amendment Bill and why it now rams this through all its stages under urgency. There is clearly no consideration of what urgency does and of what should be in an urgency motion let alone an explanation of how the incompetence of the Leader of the House in terms of House management could possibly justify our putting a bill like this through under urgency. So I want the Minister to explain why this bill is being put through under urgency when our committee representing three parties—and I am sure that we had the understanding from other parties as well—had agreed that it was fit in content for a Statutes Amendment bill? Why would the Government not see fit to progress this bill in our normal extended sitting time on a Thursday morning rather than under urgency?The other point that I want to make is that our understanding was that for the last 5 years the Government has been working on a substantial housing package including a reform of the Unit Titles Act. I would like to know how much longer New Zealanders have to wait to get something of substance out of this Government in a pretty critical area the housing area. I know that we in Canterbury are used to waiting. The very Minister who is responsible for the incompetent management of the House Gerry Brownlee promised my constituents that the zoning decisions would be announced before Christmas 2012 and guess what? Eleven months later we are still waiting for those decisions. People’s lives have been put on hold. They have no ability to do repairs or a rebuild of their house while the zoning decisions are still not determined. So in terms of this Unit Titles Amendment Bill being put aside since May and now being put through under urgency I am not at all surprised. So with frustration over theincompetent management of the timetable of the House we support the substance of this bill.Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Associate Minister of Justice): I seek leave to have all questions heard as one.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Leave is sought for all questions to be put. Is anyone opposed to that course of action? Leave is granted. That does simplify matters. [Interruption] Oh we have just done that.The question was put that the amendment to clause 150 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 358 in the name of the Hon Chester Borrows be agreed to.Amendment agreed to.Clauses 1 and 2 and 142 to 163 as amended agreed to.Bill reported without amendment.Report adopted.Third ReadingHon CHESTER BORROWS (Associate Minister of Justice): I moveThat the Unit Titles Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill formerly constituted Part 27 of the Statutes Amendment Bill which the House has just considered. Although the Government Administration Committee considered that the amendments to the Unit Titles Act 2010 were minor and technical there were so many of them that it was appropriate for them to be contained in a separate bill. Therefore the committee resolved to divide the Statutes Amendment Bill so that Part 27 became a separate bill known as the Unit Titles Amendment Bill which the House is now considering.The Unit Titles Act 2010 has been in force since June 2011. Its purpose is to allow bodies corporate which comprise all unit owners in a development to operate and manage unit title developments. The Act provides guidance to bodies corporate and unit owners to assist them in managing their property. In 2011 Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment officials and industry stakeholders identified several minor and technical issues with the Act such as incorrect cross-references for terminology and the Unit Titles Amendment Bill corrects these minor drafting errors. Although the proposed amendments are minor they are important because they affect the day-to-day administration of property affairs by bodies corporate and unit owners.The following amendments are examples of how the bill will clarify the original intent of Parliament when the Act was drafted. The bill simplifies disclosure when buying a unit by allowing buyers to choose from a list of relevant information from the seller rather than receiving all material as is currently the case. This will help both parties to the transaction. It clarifies that a body corporate can seek to recover unpaid levies through the Tenancy Tribunal enabling bodies corporate to recover unpaid levies quicker and it clarifies the types of general orders that the Tenancy Tribunal may make to resolve unit title disputes. This will assist with the resolution of more disputes.I wish to thank all stakeholders for their input into the amendments in this bill and I also acknowledge the support of my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith the Minister of Housing on the bill. I commend the bill to the House.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I think that some people will probably be puzzled when listening to Parliament debating this morning. It is probably not an unusual situation actually that people would be puzzled listening to our debate but it is not common that we have a bill going through all stages under urgency when there is the complete agreement of every single member of Parliament on it. So just to explain that a little more to people this bill that we are debating the Unit Titles AmendmentBill originally came into Parliament as part of the Statutes Amendment Bill which is a vehicle for making technical changes to bills that do not change the policy but where there has clearly been an error in the original drafting or a lack of clarity about the intent and every member of Parliament has to agree to the provisions of a Statutes Amendment Bill.When our select committee the Government Administration Committee was given this bill to consider we looked at the provisions in Part 27 which covered the Unit Titles Act amendments and said that there were too many. None of them on their own constituted a breach of the statutes amendment regime in that none of them changed policy—they were just clarifications of the original intent—but there were so many of them that we considered that they should come out of the Statutes Amendment Bill and be considered as a stand-alone bill. We agreed that we would support its speedy progress because we understood the desire for better clarity in the unit titles legislation so we said that we would support it going through the House in you know a reasonable fashion. We did that in May of this year. Nothing was further from our imaginations than thinking that our commitment to having this bill progressed would then mean that it would be put through all its stages under urgency It is just incompetent House time management that this is where this bill has ended up. I just want to put on the record the fact that it is very expensive for taxpayers to have Parliament sitting under urgency. In my view the term “urgency” should have some relationship with the urgent need of the matter that is before Parliament and this clearly has no such need.The other point I want to make is that we have now been waiting—New Zealanders have now been waiting—for 5 years for the Government to take some substantive action in terms of the housing issues that we face. In Canterbury as a result of the considerable population movement because of the earthquakes and the damage and the influx of a large number of people from outside Canterbury—indeed from outside New Zealand—to help with the rebuild we have a housing crisis. People are literally not able to afford rental property in their own communities and that has caused a lot of anxiety. But the Government has not done a single thing towards addressing what I am sure the whole of Parliament would love to hear about: what the Government will do to address the serious and genuine housing needs that we have in our country. So we have silence from the Government on the substantive needs of New Zealanders and here a bill that is totally agreed on by every single member is being put through under urgency. It smacks of incompetence it smacks of arrogance and it smacks of a total dislocation of this Government from the real needs of New Zealanders.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I rise to also support the Unit Titles Amendment Bill and associate myself with the comments made by my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson. This was part of the Statutes Amendment Bill. Unlike most other parts of the Statutes Amendment Bill it did attract a number of submissions and well-reasoned submissions. Unfortunately the vast majority of those submissions were outside the scope of the relatively minor changes that were being made as part of the Statutes Amendment Bill.I do want to reiterate that there has been a commitment to a substantive change in unit titles legislation. We had a minor change in 2010. It became apparent in 2011 that there were at least 21 minor errors to the minor legislation and some major errors to that and some areas that needed to be looked at. Unfortunately despite the commitments that were made to the Government Administration Committee by officials and by the then Associate Minister of Justice there has not been any progress—although I can be proven wrong. There might be a Unit Titles Act amendment bill introduced in the next couple of weeks. We did have an undertaking that we would have something back before the end of the year that dealt with the substantive matters thatwere raised with the select committee but we had to tell the people making the submissions: “Sorry this is a Unit Titles Amendment Bill but it is not wide enough.” It was not wide enough to encompass and to deal with the very real issues that are causing harm to people who own or want to develop unit title properties or who want to convert properties into unit titles.I do say to members opposite to you know think about Auckland a little bit and think about some of the intensification that needs to occur. To do it properly one of the answers—it is only one of the answers—is to have decent working unit titles legislation. It is important if people are going to feel safe putting what is often their biggest investment—for most New Zealanders their biggest investment is their property the home that they live in. If people are going to feel safe about having unit titles there has got to be good legislation and there has got to be appropriate legislation and we have not got that yet despite the promises of various Ministers including Maurice Williamson and Nick Smith over a period of time.As has been indicated this makes 21 amendments all of them minor to a minor bill that was enacted by Parliament under the National Government in 2010. The idea that the Government can make 21 mistakes in a relatively small bit of legislation does go to the lack of focus on detail and the lack of care of its Ministers and the fact that they do not work their Cabinet committee and the select committee process well. In most countries making 21 errors in a relatively minor bill and having to come back to Parliament to get it fixed up a year or so later would be a source of outrage but unfortunately that is the level of competence we have come to expect from the National Government. The bill comes to the Opposition and the only reason we are supporting it is that it does a little bit of good for some people who have got unit titles.Bill read a third time.