BETTER REGULATION LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (MISCELLANEOUS) BILL 2021

Second Reading Debate

Ms JODIE HARRISON (Charlestown) (12:26): I contribute to debate on the Better Regulation Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill 2021. In particular, I draw the House's attention to the proposed amendments to the Retirement Villages Act and regulation. The proposed amendments to the Act and regulation, if adopted in their current form, will have the following effects: First, they will create an offence for retirement village operators who fail to provide residents with prescribed information relating to the sale of premises; secondly, they will clarify that a former occupant of a retirement village may apply for an exit entitlement order only at the end of the prescribed period, and may make an additional application at the end of a further six- or 12‑month period; and thirdly, the proposed amendments will enable the Minister to delegate functions to the department in order to promote efficiency in the administration of the law.

The devil is most certainly in the detail when it comes to the proposed amendments. I will speak on the particular amendment that clarifies that a former occupant of a retirement village may apply for an exit entitlement order only at the end of the prescribed period, and may make an additional application at the end of a further six- or 12‑month period and the application of that amendment. People living in a retirement village in Newcastle will be able to apply for an exit entitlement order at the end of six months if their property fails to sell within that time. However, people living in a retirement village in Lake Macquarie or the Central Coast will have to wait 12 months before they can apply for an exit entitlement order simply because Lake Macquarie and the Central Coast were removed from the list of prescribed local government areas [LGAs]. Initially both LGAs were included in the list in the September 2020 retirement village reforms consultation papers.

I have spoken before in this place about the tale of two cities that the Government has inflicted on Newcastle and Lake Macquarie. It has created an artificial division between those two local government areas by naming Lake Macquarie a regional LGA and leaving Newcastle out of both the regional and metropolitan classifications. That division has a long and truly bizarre history of creating distinctions between Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, two LGAs that stand side by side and share suburbs and even streets. Lake Macquarie residents are able to access the regional seniors travel card, for instance, while Newcastle residents—some who live just across the road from their Lake Macquarie neighbours—cannot. Lake Macquarie sporting groups are able to access regional grants, but the teams they play against in Newcastle cannot.

The changes to the Retirement Villages Act and regulation proposed by the bill will only deepen that division, further entrenching the tale of two cities the Government has been telling for years now. Dozens of constituents—residents of retirement villages in my electorate—have been in contact with me about the proposed amendments. They have raised their concerns, particularly on the matter of exit entitlements and recurrent charges. In March I wrote to the Minister expressing these concerns, and I acknowledge my colleagues the shadow Minister for Consumer Protection, the member for Granville and the member for the Entrance, who also wrote to the Minister raising these issues.

Thanks to our beautiful local environment and relaxed way of life, Lake Macquarie has an active retirement village market and a large population of retirement village residents. All of them have every right to feel let down by the Government's approach to this issue. I recognise that, prior to the 2019 election, those opposite committed to introducing time limits on when retirement villages could charge for general services and when they must sell or buy back a unit after the departure of an occupant. As I mentioned previously, Lake Macquarie was initially included within the greater metropolitan area, meaning exiting residents would be paid their entitlements by the operator within six months.

The decision to remove Lake Macquarie from schedule 5A is baffling to me and to retirement village residents in Lake Macquarie. Residents leaving retirement villages in Lake Macquarie should not have to wait twice as long to be paid as other people in the same situation in Newcastle. It does not make sense that people from places like Eleebana are treated differently from those less than five kilometres away in the Newcastle LGA. They are in exactly the same property market. This amounts to nothing less than a betrayal of Lake Macquarie retirement village residents. One retiree at Eleebana Shores wrote to me:

This is an onerous imposition on those in retirement, many of whom are on a pension, as should this stand, we would have to wait a year before the application of the exit entitlement.

Based on the September 2020 discussion paper issued by Fair Trading, residents had no reason to doubt that Lake Macquarie and, indeed, the Central Coast would be classified as metropolitan areas as the City of Newcastle and the City of Wollongong have been. When I wrote to the Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation asking him to explain why Lake Macquarie had been left off schedule 5A, he informed me that the Government elected to use the Department for Regional NSW's classifications to decide which areas would be defined as regional and which as metropolitan. If that is the case, then the Department of Regional NSW's definition of regional and metropolitan is arbitrary and applied inconsistently. It seems strange. If Fair Trading had been using that definition from the outset, why would Lake Macquarie have been included in the discussion paper gazetted in September last year?

This speech was part of a debate on the Better Regulation Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill 2021, which you can learn more about here. You can read the rest of the debate on Hansard.

Jodie also spoke in support of an amendment to the Bill:

Ms JODIE HARRISON (Charlestown) (18:43): I speak in favour of the amendment, which includes the Central Coast and Lake Macquarie local government areas in the six‑month exit entitlement period. There has been a considerable amount of concern and angst in relation to this from certain people who own residential units in my electorate. They were of the understanding that they would be treated in exactly the same way as people in the Newcastle and Sydney local government areas. These people are in the same kind of property market as people in the Newcastle local government area. I spoke in the debate on the bill earlier today. We are talking about five kilometres distance. A person who lives in the Newcastle local government area, which is five kilometres away from Eleebana in the Lake Macquarie local government area, is somehow entitled to a six‑month exit entitlement but people in Lake Macquarie are not. It is unfair, and it is nonsensical. I do not think we should be allowing unfair and nonsensical legislation in this place. I wholeheartedly support the amendment moved by the Shadow Minister.