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Preamble

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : Members should consider the history of this matter. The Waitangi Tribunal reported on this issue in 1992. Between 1992 and 2005 the tribe and the Crown were engaged in periodic negotiations. Then on 20 December 2004 the party signed an agreement in principle. In 2005, shortly before Christmas, Te Rōroa ratified the Crown’s initial settlement offer and entered into a deed of settlement. Then on 14 February 2007 the bill was introduced, and on 1 March 2007 we had the first reading and the referral to the Māori Affairs Committee.
 
 
Preamble

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : I endorse everything my friend Mrs te Heuheu said, and I believe we could move very quickly through the Committee stage and third reading of Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill if we had some answers. But I will make a few preliminary points. First, I join Mr Henare in what he said about Mr Paraone. We have been receiving volcanic emails from the One New Zealand Foundation. That is not helpful, and I think that what the foundation did to him was totally unacceptable. It is a source of some regret that there are people in this country who do that sort of thing.
 
 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : Minister Clayton Cosgrove is certainly not Theodore Roosevelt, who used to say that he would walk softly and carry a big stick. This Minister yells and screams, but in the end carries a twig, because Supplementary Order Paper 243 indicates there will be many changes to this bill that will water it down and change it. I must say that many of the changes proposed make quite a lot of sense.
 
 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : Mr Assistant Speaker—[Interruption] I do not think I need a lecture on being awake from the member for Rongotai.
 
 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : I am delighted to take a brief call in the third reading stage, when we analyse the legislation as it has emerged from the Committee stage. The Committee stage tonight was fairly brief, but it is worth mentioning just one or two things.
 
 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : National will support the first reading of this bill. As the Minister said, it meets various obligations that are required before New Zealand can accede to the first and second protocols to the 1954 Hague convention, and, as the Minister said, we ratified the convention on 24 July 2008.
 
 
Part 2 Real Estate Agents Authority

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : I want to ask the Minister a couple of questions about Part 2, several clauses of which, as the Hon David Carter said, will come into effect the day after the date on which the legislation receives the Royal assent. That particularly relates to the establishment of the authority to which members have been referring, with the exception of the Rt Hon Winston Peters, who was really addressing the organisations in Part 4.
 
Third Readings 09/02/2008
 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : As Dr Hutchison said, National supports the third readings of this legislation. I have not taken part in the Committee stage, but I have followed this legislation very closely, because I think it raises a number of very important issues, and I want to make just a brief contribution on a couple of them.
 
 
Part 1 Interpretation and application

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : As the minority report of the National Party makes clear, we support the timely reform of the real estate industry. Indeed, we go so far as to say that the Real Estate Agents Act 1976 is well overdue for reform. We also say that the purposes of the Real Estate Agents Bill are well spelt out in clause 3, which is the first clause of Part 1.
 
 
Part 3 Licensing

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : I will deal with several aspects of Part 3, “Licensing”. I endorse the comments Mr David Carter has made, because a key person in this licensing regime will be the registrar, and in the part that we have just dealt with, clause 31A provides that the authority is to appoint the registrar. So it is extremely important that the body that appoints the registrar is made up of competent people and that it is not a pay-off for simply leaving Parliament.

But I come to Mr Dunne’s proposed amendments, because I submit that they are very good indeed. He says that he would make three changes to clause 34, and they are designed to ensure that the authority will have broad and full criteria on which to make the decision on the granting and retaining of licences. Again, this is intended to ensure that the consumer is properly protected. Clause 34(1) deals with the entitlement to a licence as an agent or a branch manager, and an individual must satisfy the registrar that he or she meets the criteria set out in that subclause.

One of those criteria is that the person is to be a fit and proper person to hold a licence. Mr Dunne is suggesting in the first of his proposed amendments that before the words “is a fit”, we should insert the phrase “in the interests of the public”. I fail to see how there could be any objection to that proposal. It emphasises the fact that it must be consumer protection legislation. Ultimately, it is in the interests of the public, and to spell that out very carefully causes no harm whatsoever.

The second proposal relates to clause 34(1)(e), which deals with the experience that the proposed agent or branch manager must have had before appointment. Mr Dunne’s suggestion is that instead of having 2 years’ experience within the 10 years preceding the application, this person must have had, during the preceding 5 years, at least 3 years’ practical experience working full-time or working primarily, and predominantly, in real estate agency work. Again I suggest that as this is supposedly consumer protection legislation the Dunne formula is to be preferred.

The third, and final, change is to clause 34(2), which provides that an individual may be licensed as a sales person if the individual satisfies the registrar of various matters. The critical one for current purposes is clause 34(2)(c), and again it is the fit and proper person test, and Mr Dunne has suggested, again, the insertion of the phrase: “in the interests of the public”. I suggest to the Committee that these changes are sensible. They make the clause that much better, and I certainly support them.

The other point I wish to address concerns clause 50. This is another backdown by the Minister. There was extensive debate in the Justice and Electoral Committee about the desirability of this clause, and whether the chief executive of the Ministry of Justice should report to the Minister as to whether clause 49, which deals with the employment status of a salesperson, should continue to be appropriate. There was considerable debate. The Labour members were adamant that clause 50 should be retained, but it is very interesting to observe that the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 243 proposes to omit this clause—another win for the National Party, which had argued the clause was inappropriate and did not sit happily in consumer protection legislation, and if it was to be retained it should be in employment legislation, and the person doing the review should be the chief executive of the Department of Labour. So having adopted a stubborn approach to clause 50, and having had his minions argue the case strongly for the retention of clause 50 in the select committee, the Minister has cut them off at the knee caps because clause 50 is to go.