On behalf of Family First I speak to the motion to disallow a clause of the Retirement Villages Regulation 2009. The purpose of the motion is to disallow clause 5 (1) (a) of the Retirement Villages Regulation 2009, which deals with the split of costs for capital maintenance between residents and operators of retirement villages. I note that the regulation has not yet been laid on the table in the Parliament but was published on the Office of Fair Trading website on 18 December 2009. Implementation of the regulation is currently set by the Government for 1 March 2010. When the former Minister for Fair Trading, the Hon. Linda Burney, introduced the retirement villages legislation she stated:<\/p>\n
Unquestionably the most significant changes in the bill involve the treatment of capital maintenance and capital replacement All sides agree that the present approach, which makes residents responsible for maintenance and operators liable for replacing capital items, is not working.<\/p>\n
Certainly it is not working now, and it is the cause of a great deal of unrest and unhappiness among residents. Governments owe a duty of care to those who have contributed to the development of our society. This duty of care does not stop with the provision of the physical structure of housing. It must extend to protecting the consumer rights of the elderly, and the impact on their health and wellbeing that can result from anxiety and the feeling of powerlessness when faced with complex, and sometimes unconscionable, terms and conditions which would be unacceptable to the community at large. The core principle in any policy concerning retirement villages should be to keep simple any legislation or contracts employed, and within the capacity of older people to understand and deal with their requirements.<\/p>\n
In a former life—and now for over 38 years—I had been responsible for the retirement villages being constructed and leased throughout Victoria and New South Wales, which involved the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars by a not-for-profit organisation in the provision of retirement villages for the aged. I can say from not only having been responsible for working in matters of design and development but also from having worked with many hundreds, now running into thousands, of residents that this is a very complex issue. It seems to me, with the limited discussions I have had with the various Ministers and also with public servants in their departments, that they simply do not understand some of the basic principles involved.<\/p>\n
As part of my early life I was appointed an expert mediator to judge conflicts between owners and residents of a number of independent retirement villages. I was quite amazed, for example, in my first experience as a moderator in conflict to discover that—in spite of what was said in a rather disparaging way by a previous speaker on behalf of the Government—among the residents there were people with extreme abilities and competence. Indeed, in one meeting I had several High Court judges, a retired Supreme Court judge, and a number of senior lawyers and accountants, who had nothing else to do but work through the legislation word by word. Without question they knew far more than anybody from the Office of Fair Trading, including the bureaucrats and the Minister concerned.<\/p>\n
A second principle that I believe should be understood is that an endeavour should always be made to strike a balance between the expectations of the owner-operators and the aspirations of residents, which while divergent are not irreconcilable, to redress the existing inequality not just in financial terms but also in the power relationship between those two major stakeholders in the retirement villages sector. But the reality is that maintenance costs have in recent days clearly shifted onto residents unfairly. The Retirement Village Association, representing village owners and operators, many of whom are simply building companies—who are interested in making significant profits in the building of retirement villages, rather than in the operating of them and providing care for the residents—said in a rather disgusting memorandum and press release that the Hon. Penny Sharpe just made reference to: “The amendments are estimated to provide savings to the industry in New South Wales of approximately $70 million per annum”.<\/p>\n
The Hon. Penny Sharpe indicated she has no evidence as to whether this figure is accurate, and the department has no idea whether or not it is true, which is bypassing the entire point. The owners claim they will be making an extra $70 million. Obviously the residents consider that $70 million can only come from one place: through their weekly, fortnightly or monthly costs, or upon their leaving their units. The Retirement Village Residents Association is deeply concerned that despite several attempts the legislative provisions governing the operation of the industry continue to be weighted heavily in favour of owners-operators of retirement villages to the financial detriment and, consequently, the detriment to the general health and wellbeing of residents.<\/p>\n
The association is also deeply concerned about the unnecessary complexity and onerous financial and other terms and conditions that operators apply to contracts that a retiree signs in return for what is really temporary residence rights to a dwelling. I ask honourable members to consider this: most residents are either whole-of-life lessees or they rent their dwelling units. As such they do not share in the capital appreciation of the value of their dwelling, which obviously rises year by year. All capital appreciation value belongs only in one centre: the owners of the property. Consequently the owners, not the lessee or the people renting, should pay for capital costs for the rehabilitation or replacement of their dwellings.<\/p>\n
Further, there is a lack of opportunity for residents to provide input into, and participate in, the decision-making that affects their lives, and in the management and day-today operation of their villages. I am quite aware of the regular meetings that residents are entitled to have and of annual general meetings and such where the issues discussed are usually those concerning the recurrent fee on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis about costs for gardening et cetera, and very rarely is mention ever made of ongoing heavy maintenance costs.<\/p>\n
According to the Retirement Village Residents Association, capital maintenance is arguably the most central and important issue of the lengthy updating of retirement village legislation. I believe this has been mishandled, even though I have personally been to the Minister and met with representatives of her Office of Fair Trading. Residents believe that all costs involved in preserving a village’s assets, which includes all the dwellings, roads, drainage, kerbing and guttering, roofing, brickwork et cetera, should be met entirely by the person or the entity that owns the village assets. If residents have strata title ownership of their dwellings and village, and therefore participate in profits from capital appreciation, they should meet part or a share of such costs. Similarly, if the village owner is the operator who leases or licenses the dwellings within to residents then the operator who leases or licenses the dwellings within to residents must legally be required to meet costs. Interestingly, this exact viewpoint is shared by the findings of the Review of the NSW <\/span>Retirement Villages Act 1999 by the Office of Fair Trading in 2005, which stated:<\/p>\n Maintenance, replacement or improvement of capital items within a village, other than within premises owned by a resident—<\/p>\n things such as refrigerators, carpets, stoves, painting et cetera—<\/p>\n should be the responsibility of operators. This is in line with the laws applying to landlords of other premises.<\/p>\n For example, if I were to rent a unit at Newtown and I found cracks in the walls, doors out of plumb and windows that did not operate it would be the responsibility of the owner of the property from whom I rented it; it is not my responsibility as the person who pays weekly rent. The Office of Fair Trading admits that in its own statement, which I have just read on to the Hansard. The Retirement Villages Act 1999 was introduced by the Government to modify the excesses of some operators—usually building companies that move into the field to make a profit on the building of the centres.<\/p>\n The Government makes no attempt to control the prices charged by the operators as it is argued that market forces should be the determinant of prices. Many residents entering villages have only a vague understanding of the contracts that they have executed or signed. The amendments to Retirement Villages Act in 2008, and the supporting regulations, have failed to correct the imbalances that retirement village residents have experienced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On behalf of Family First I speak to the motion to disallow a clause of the Retirement Villages Regulation 2009. The purpose of the motion is to disallow clause 5 (1) (a) of the Retirement Villages Regulation 2009, which deals with the split of costs for capital maintenance between residents and operators of retirement villages. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-361428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}