Parliamentary Committees

Select Committee on a Review of the Retirement Villages Act 1987

Adjourned debate on motion of Dr McFetridge:

That the report of the committee be noted.

(Continued from 2 July 2014.)

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (11:56): I think this speech will be a speech in three parts, after my fantastic three-minute contribution about two to three months ago. I would like to move on to some of the committee findings in the report and give my opinion on them. I would like to highlight in the committee findings overview a paragraph that I found quite telling, and that is:

It was clear to the Committee that the majority of issues arose from a lack of clarity in residence contracts and an insufficient understanding by both residents and their family members, of the contractual arrangements which were being entered into.

The Committee received numerous submissions that the complexity in length of retirement village contracts made it difficult for residents and prospective residents to understand these agreements.

The recommendations I found overall to be very sensible. In my previous life, having looked at 50, 60, 70 retail leases, a lot of what is talked about here has parallels with the commercial leases act, and in that light a lot of them are extremely sensible.

Recommendation 4 talks about introducing a standard disclosure document, and this is, again, very sensible and some of it has existed within the commercial leases act for a long time and is something that many small business operators, when entering into a lease, use to give themselves a summary of the important information that is contained in often a long and legalistic document. That is a recommendation that I think is extremely important and something that is very worthwhile to pursue. Recommendation 5 states:

…an administering authority must continue to provide a prospective resident with a premises condition report as part of entering into a resident's contract.

More information in this area, I think, helps to make better decisions. Given that we are talking about people at a different stage of life—and there are sensitivities around that—more information and clearer information is extremely important, so recommendation 5 is quite laudable. I will move on to recommendation 10, which states:

That a unique 'retirement village' CPI be developed.

Increases of recurrent charges above this percentage should be approved by residents.

Again, this is about better, clearer and more accurate information that would more accurately reflect the cost of those who are otherwise locked into long-term contracts. For those who do not have the flexibility to be able to just move from retirement village to retirement village, we need mechanisms by which those residents can be protected from unfair increases in cost, so I think the recommendation on that basis is extremely worthwhile. Recommendation 11 states:

That guidelines are developed through consultation with stake-holders…as to what are reasonable actions in various circumstances.

Again, this is a broad motion about consultation which I think is very worthwhile and something which should be looked at. Recommendation 12 states:

That the Act be amended to provide greater transparency in relation to management fees or head office costs charged to a village.

The recommendation goes on to say other things, but, again, this is common practice within the commercial leases act. Again, in this case greater transparency in relation to the way fees are charged would be very much a good thing. Deputy Speaker, I seek leave to continue my remarks at some indeterminate time and date.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.