Wednesday, 29 July 2026

 Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (15:32): Acting Speaker O’Keeffe, it is lovely to have you in the chair. Whilst I have the pleasure of having 30 minutes to respond on this bill – I know it will be a challenge for me to speak for 30 minutes – I do want to congratulate you on your career and wish you well in your next endeavour.

Gabrielle Williams interjected.

Jade BENHAM: I note that the interjections from the Deputy Premier are only going to entertain me some more as I go through this bill. This is actually a very important bill. It is huge. I tell you what, given that I do have the 30 minutes, buckle up, because I love to tell a story. There are 178 clauses, 13 ‍parts and amendments touching 11 principal acts, two of which touch on professions that are arguably – I said ‘arguably’, but perhaps it cannot be argued with. Real estate agents and used car salespeople are professions that are reportedly less trusted than politicians. However, they all are part of the economic circle of life, and of course this bill is about consumer protections. What should have been the first protection was consultation with the industries and the stakeholders instead of, again, as is habit with this Labor government regardless of who is the jockey at the time, the pattern of behaviour of consultelling stakeholders and those on the ground. But this is an enormous omnibus bill, like I said, with 178 clauses which reach into the purchase of a home for Victorians, the sale of a car, the rights of renters, the finances of owners corporations, the security of older Victorians, particularly those who live in residential land lease parks or part 4A parks, the regulation of conveyancers and estate agents and the never-ending fight against illicit tobacco.

There are parts to this bill which of course we support – of course we support consumer protections. But there is also evidence, as you read through this bill, that it is what I have called a Swiss cheese bill. It is full of holes everywhere. The size of the bill is not evidence of its strength; it is still full of holes. There are serious failures, and there would be serious unintended consequences if this bill was to go through as it is. I will say from the outset we will not oppose this bill in the Assembly, in this place, but there are some amendments that will need to take place in the upper house. I must say that working with the Minister for Consumer Affairs and his staff has been constructive to this point. However, I am still going to kick the government, because this bill is poorly written, poorly drafted and it is a Swiss cheese bill full of holes that will have unintended consequences for Victorians, some of which will make it longer and harder for people to purchase a home.

It will see the decimation of Victoria’s auctions and the real estate market, particularly in Melbourne. The disintegration of auctions in this state started about 10 years ago. I will get to my first story time. I know the member for Point Cook loves my stories. I am not going to talk about more Swiss cheese because that would require wine at this point of the day. Maybe I am a bit strange, but the fact is when I was a much younger city dweller – I lived in the city for six years or so – it was kind of a sport for us as young women to go to the odd auction of a weekend. We would quite often spend Saturday mornings going to auctions. Mind you, my best friend was and still is a conveyancer, so there was an interest there. But the amount of things that you learned about auctions and the property market was remarkable, and we made quite an event out of it. It was a bit of a sport, and we quite enjoyed it. That is something that is not unique to Victoria or to Melbourne. Other jurisdictions do not have as many. In WA, as an example, Perth might have one or two auctions a week. It used to be something that was part of the fabric of living in Melbourne, those weekend auctions. The amendments that are made in this bill could quite possibly kill that once and for all. It has certainly died off a lot since we used to consider it a sport 10 years ago.

I will get to it in more detail in a little while, but when we talk about consumer protections, we know there are bad actors within the real estate industry and within the motor industry. There are bad actors in every industry. I often say, rather than just keep bringing in regulations and more legislation, what about enforcing the rules that are already there? Because that certainly does not appear to be happening at the moment. That would be one way to weed out the bad actors. The unintended consequences in this bill could certainly empower bad actors within the real estate industry in particular.

In consumer law the layers should be strong consultation – absent here – and careful drafting. A lot of this, like I said, has holes in it. The drafting leaves a lot up to interpretation and is vague. It also should stand up to proper parliamentary scrutiny. There should be clear regulations, capable enforcement and a realistic understanding of how people on the ground and markets will respond. I have little faith that there is that understanding of how the market will respond. People will respond later, but the market will respond immediately, because this bill is being looked at by the industries that it affects very, very, very closely.

I have done the consultation. I have had six weeks to consult with stakeholders within industries that this bill affects. There have certainly been patterns and concerns that have formed a consistent view, particularly across the real estate industry, which includes conveyancers. I am not sure if you know this, but seldom do real estate agents and conveyancers see eye to eye, but they seem to on this, which is odd, which tells me that there is a big gap here.

It would be lovely if it was a utopian solution, but that is never going to happen. One hole within this bill might be manageable, two maybe repairable, but when there are so many, it is the home buyer, the renter, the older resident, the apartment owner who is part of an owners corporation, the person buying a family car – these are the people that are going to fall through those holes. Yesterday I observed that changing the face of a government does not change the problems that Victoria is facing, and the same principle applies here. You cannot change the label on a bill to consumer protection when it does not fill the holes in the design.

As I said, the Liberals and the Nationals certainly will not oppose this bill in the Assembly. There are important protections in it, and we will not stand in the way of that, but neither will we pretend that good intentions make defective legislation safe. We support the objective, but we challenge the architecture which this has been built on. So in the other place we will certainly be seeking to move some targeted amendments that will protect consumers but also close some of the holes that this government has left open and has a history of doing so and then having to go back and fix up its issues a little bit later on. As I often say, if we are going to do something, can we do it right the first time and make life easier in fact for Victorians instead of making it harder or choking industries with bureaucratic red tape and regulation?

I was going to say, ‘I will start,’ but I have been going 10 minutes. The Minister for Consumer Affairs has walked into the chamber now, so I can share my thoughts with him, although I have shared a fair amount already. Let me be clear: of course we support consumer protections. This is not an argument against that. We support stronger protections, obviously, for victim-survivors of family and personal violence, and this bill prohibits discrimination in access to rental accommodation. It strengthens the capacity of VCAT to assign liability to perpetrators and improves protections across residential rentals, rooming houses and those part 4A parks, which I could go to in much more detail, but the remaining 20-odd minutes may not be enough if I go into that kind of detail.

There are all sorts of consumer protections in there that we do support, of course. We support stronger trust account oversights for conveyancers and estate agents, but we do not support the repeal of section ‍27. Section 27 offers benefits to particularly buyers to be able to buy a new house. I could go into a lot more detail here.

Paul Edbrooke interjected.

Jade BENHAM: Okay, I will. Section 27, as I would hope the minister knows but I cannot be sure, allows for the early release of deposit funds. Those deposit funds could be used to put towards the deposit on a new property should the vendors of the property that was sold need to move instead of going to get bridging finance. It makes things much easier. It also allows for the early release of real estate or marketing fees and the real estate agent’s commission if in fact the vendor agrees to all of those things. It allows for that, so it is beneficial. Conveyancers, yes, have many issues with it. But again, if there are bad actors using section 27 inappropriately, enforce the protections that are already there, and we will get to that with reserve price quoting as well. We support stronger trust account oversight for conveyancers and estate agents.

We obviously support modernising odometer offences so that they capture digital as well. However, there have been concerns raised with me, particularly from, again, another body, the Australian Automotive Dealer Association, who are very concerned. The unintended consequences of making used car sales difficult is that it will potentially move used car sales to unregulated spaces like Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree and all of those wonderfully entertaining spaces with no regulation, meanwhile making it so hard for licensed motor car traders in Victoria to do business. Business is already hard enough in this state. We understand that. We need to find a balance.

We also of course strongly support decisive action against illicit tobacco and the organised criminal networks behind it. We have long maintained that. I know those on the other side flip and flop about what they want to do about organised crime in this state – but we will wait and see. Victorians have seen firebombings. They have seen alleged extortion, intimidation and all sorts of violence linked to this illegal trade. A black market emerges by necessity a lot of the time. The excise on tobacco in this country – and it was a health solution, we understand that – has priced cigarettes out of the affordability really of the smoker. And to be fair, depending on which data you look at, has it worked? Yes, we would have thought early on it worked. It has now gone too far that way and has created and allowed space for a black market to emerge. There are solutions, but that is federal jurisdiction, so I am not going to spend too long on that. But in this bill police and Tobacco Licensing Victoria need practical powers to close unlawful premises and deal safely with seized stock, so there are some issues there that we will have to look at carefully in the other place as well. There are some sensible technical provisions dealing with seized unsafe goods and serious misconduct in debt collection, domestic building contract variations, retirement village entry payments and access to VCAT. Like I said, there are 178 clauses, so this was a doozy for my first bill to present as Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs.

I did say that the first productive layer of any bill should be consultation with stakeholders and with those who understand how these amendments will impact the market and how they will impact the people on the ground. It should be consultative of the people who work within these systems every single day and understand them intricately, because they do not have a veto over reform. In fact if you speak to these stakeholders – and I have spoken to many. The Real Estate Institute of Victoria have been very insightful. In fact your local real estate agents, whether they are a member of the REIV or not, whether they are large independent firms, whether they are part of a huge network like Ray White or whether they are sole operators, all have an understanding of how it works and how changes will impact the market. A lot of them want to see change and have things tidied up. For example, section ‍32 statements – in this bill we need to have a section 32 with the buyer for 14 days. The solution is obviously to make the section 32 available before the campaign launches. That solves that problem; it cleans it up. This has come about from consultation with not only the REIV but, again, independent and sole operator real estate agents who are not members of the REIV. They agree it would be a much more streamlined process if that section 32 was available before campaign launch. It tidies the whole thing up. That is not what this bill does. It makes it much more convoluted and drags out the whole process for another two weeks.

I have spoken about section 27 already. I will speak about the reserve price. This is one of those things. I will die on this hill, Minister, because, as I said earlier, attending auctions used to be a sport. In fact it still is, but it is a lot harder to find auctions on a Saturday morning these days.

Paul Edbrooke: Why is that?

Jade BENHAM: Because the changes that have been made thus far have meant that a lot of properties, both metro and in the regions, are being sold off market or are being sold by expression of interest, which is what this will do here.

A price guide is already a requirement anyway, but the publication of a reserve price and the inability to change that reserve price within that seven days does not allow the vendor – and the vendor should be the owner of this auction process – to react to the market on any given day. Anyone that knows anything about real estate or auctions understands that on any given day the market can do anything. Sometimes that reserve price will be well under what the property actually sells for, because a property ‍– or anything – is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. So if the vendor cannot react to the market on any given day – for example, if it is very clear on auction day that that reserve will not be met – the vendor then cannot adjust their reserve price to a lower reserve price. They have to pass it in at auction, and most of the time you do not want to pass it in at auction; you want it to sell that day. But the vendor then cannot adjust their reserve price downward or upward, they have to go away for seven days and then come back. They are never going to go back to auction, and this is what I am talking about, empowering those bad actors within the industry to do things behind closed doors.

There are many benefits of an auction, and for the government to say that we do not want people attending an auction if they clearly cannot afford it – there is a price guide there, and you should know what your budget is. If you have done your due diligence, you should know what your budget is. So the price guide is already there. The benefit of an auction is that when you are there, you can see your competition. You can physically eyeball your competition. You understand how many competitors you might have, which is handy because some of those bad actors or real estate agents – who are less trusted than politicians – if they are not at an auction and if you make an offer on a property before or within that seven-day period, they can say, ‘Oh, but hang on, I’ve got six other people who are going to offer 10 grand above that,’ and how are you to know? Unless you have a remarkable BS filter like I do you are not to know, because you cannot see your competition.

What an auction allows is that you can physically see if there are any other registered bidders. You can physically see your competition and what their reaction is to the market on any given day. That is one of the –

Members interjecting.

Jade BENHAM: The member for Morwell is entirely convinced; I am convinced of that. But you have visibility over your competition and you can understand where things are at. Also, if it does not reach the reserve price or if it is passed in at auction, you can then go in and make a conditional offer, unlike an unconditional sale within an auction. But it gives you visibility.

What will happen here, I have no doubt, is that rather than going through the rigmarole that this bill will implement into legislation and having to publish that reserve price –

Paul Edbrooke interjected.

Jade BENHAM: Well, transparency comes with the price guide. What will happen here is a complete lack of transparency. What will happen is real estate agents will move behind closed doors, they will do all those negotiations and everything will move to an expression of interest sale. Auctions in Melbourne will end, and like I said, the auction industry has been dying in Melbourne for about 10 ‍years now, so this will be the final nail in the coffin. I honestly think a better consumer protection is actual transparency, where you can see your competition at a sale, not moving it behind closed doors to boardroom auctions or to expressions of interest. And I will die on that hill. Anyone within the industry and anyone that has an interest in the property market can see this happening from a long, long way away.

I had better get to some other points as well, but this is just one of those things that I talk about, with unintended consequences of a big omnibus bill. And like I said, there are a lot of points in here – rental protections, protections of those going through family violence et cetera that we support, but there are a lot of holes that need to be filled. That is one of those. Section 27 is another one.

Section 32 is an easy fix. In fact I was talking about the part 4A parks today and land lease communities, gated communities. They could be parks. There is a bit of inconsistency within various parts of legislation. Planning is another one where there are inconsistencies, whether it is titled a park or a site, and this could ultimately increase the cost of affordable housing for particularly older Victorians who are living in some of these parks or who have their dwellings on the land. Let me explain what a land lease residential community is for you. The minister should be interested; it is his bill. Essentially the owner of the dwelling or the person living in the house owns that building, but they lease the land that it is on. I understand this, again, intricately because we have something in Mildura called college lease, which was set up by the Chaffey brothers when Mildura was settled. It was supposed to fund an ag college. We never got that – now SuniTAFE actually pay rent to the college lease. But it does help our schools in the region boost up some of that government funding that they do not get. A lot of people in Mildura are very thankful for college lease, but there are farms on college lease and there are houses, and in fact a lot of the health precinct in Mildura is built on college lease land. So you do not actually own the land or anything underneath it; you own everything on top of it. That is what a part 4A park or residence is. Did I get that pretty well right? The minister does not know. There you go. This is why we are in the situation that we are in and why I had a 15-page bill report on this bill.

Paul Edbrooke interjected.

Jade BENHAM: See – he does not understand. Do I need to make any more points? No. Do you want me to draw a picture? I even have pictures, Minister. I even drew little diagrams because I know ‍– the member for Narracan is not here; the member for Morwell might appreciate this, though. There are different issues with that. There will be some technical amendments coming in the other place. There are all sorts of issues here, but the bill contains, like I said, a large majority of measures that we can support, so opposing here would not help anyone. It would not help any of those consumer protections, I appreciate that, and I can compromise, Minister. I am not above compromise.

But it also will make it longer and harder for Victorians to purchase a home should they want to, and then the consequence of that is that it will push rents up. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics and real estate data, after the last 10 years and the population growth and 150 residential tenancy reforms, rents have gone up 40 per cent. The population increase has then also meant that the vacancy rate in Victoria has plummeted. This is basic supply and demand. Because of the increased costs that have been put on property owners, lumped on one after the other after the other – and some we supported; everyone wants to see homes kept in good order, and there are some minimal standards of course that should be met – with land tax, increasing council rates and every other cost that goes on to a rental provider, that means that rents have increased. It is as simple as that. It is basic supply and demand. Then when the population is increasing, there are less rentals available. Obviously it means rents increase. The data from the last 10 years paints a very clear picture that rents have gone up, the population has gone up and the vacancy rate has gone down, so there are less rentals available. People have taken them off the market because, particularly for mum-and-dad investors that might have one home that they rent out on the long-term rental market, it has got too hard for them.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.