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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-12-01 Daily Xml
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REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS (15:34): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Consumer Affairs a question about the real estate industry.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS: As I stated in my recent question to the minister, it has now been about 12 months since this government's new real estate laws have been in effect. The opposition has received a great deal of feedback about the legislation. One of the new laws has introduced a measure whereby every consumer attending an open inspection be offered a government prescribed form known as R3. Form R3 gives consumers information about issues they should consider before purchasing a property. This form is required to be given when the contract of sale is executed and is attached to the vendor's disclosure statement.

This means the form will be offered on three separate occasions and, given the number of open inspections consumers usually visit, one can see that consumers are given the form an inordinate number of times. The feedback we received from agents is that it is an added and unnecessary cost for them and that consumers are annoyed by the number of times they must receive the form, often blaming the agent for wasting paper. This appears to be just bad drafting and, surely, given this government's false claim of green credentials, the whole requirement is a waste of paper. My question to the minister is: given the negative feedback about this requirement, will the minister review it immediately?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for State/Local Government Relations, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises, Minister Assisting the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Energy) (15:36): It is like a broken old record. They have obviously run out of original questions. I am happy to take the opportunity to put on record yet again the very successful reforms overall that this government has put into the real estate sector.

Since last year's introduction of sweeping changes to laws concerning the real estate industry, the Office of Consumer and Business Affairs has been conducting an intensive compliance monitoring program to ensure and assess compliance with these laws. I am happy to say, yet again in this place, that the vast majority of real estate agents and salespeople have been complying with these new requirements. In the past 11 months OCBA officers have attended 556 open inspections and 162 auctions, checked in excess of 900 advertisements and examined files at around 22 agents' premises.

In particular, officers were looking for evidence of outlawed practices, including dummy bidding. Do members remember dummy bidding, which occurred at almost every auction? It is almost a thing of the past since this government actively put in place laws to take up and respond to the concerns of people wanting to enter into auctions. Remember the under quoting of prices to attract buyers? Thankfully during this evaluation no evidence of such was found. However, a number of warnings were put in place and officers did use that monitoring opportunity to ensure that the real estate industry was well informed of the new changes.

In relation to the R4 form, to which the honourable member refers yet again, like a broken old record—he cannot come into this place with an original question. He blows the dust off old questions and brings them in here and reads them, like a broken old record. The R4 forms—

The Hon. T.J. Stephens: It's an R3.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I can talk about R3 forms—you mentioned R4, but I am happy to talk about the R3, which is the buyers information notice. This form ensures that appropriate information is made available to potential buyers. I have put on record in this place before that this government has put in place a process not only to monitor what is going on but also to review how these things are going.

We have committed to a two-year review and I have met with the industry representatives a number of times to talk to them about these proposals and they have indicated that they want the opportunity to deal with some matters earlier than that. I have said, 'My door is always open, feel free to come in if there are matters that need to be addressed prior to the two-year review and there is a good reason to address them—I am happy to look at them.' I am awaiting the industry's response.

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