Thursday, 20 February 2020

Owners Corporations and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2019

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms KAIROUZ:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Mr STAIKOS (Bentleigh) (10:11): It is a pleasure to rise to continue my contribution on the Owners Corporations and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2019. Prior to the adjournment last night I was talking about how the issue of problems with owners corporations and indeed owners corporation managers is something that has come up very, very regularly in my electorate, particularly from older constituents. I did say prior to the adjournment that throughout my contribution I would be referring to two of those constituents in particular, two older women. One of those ladies, someone who is in her 80s, bought into a large apartment building as an investment. When she came to see me, she had two large bags full of documentation, mainly financial statements and invoices that requested large sums of money for unscheduled maintenance—things that she did not expect would happen, invoices that she did not expect would be received by her. This bill addresses her concerns because it creates a new five-tier system based on owners corporations’ size. Larger owners corporations, such as the one that this particular constituent is a member of, will be subject to a greater number of requirements with regard to committees, annual financial statements and others, whilst smaller ones will be subject to less stringent regulations.

The new tiers included in the bill are tier one, more than 100 occupiable lots; tier two, 51 to 100 occupiable lots; tier three, 10 to 50 occupiable lots; tier four, three to nine; and tier five, a two-lot subdivision or services-only owners corporation. For a tier one or a tier two, as is the case for this particular constituent, the bill requires those owners corporations to prepare and to prove a maintenance plan for the property. Currently only prescribed owners corporations are required to prepare a maintenance plan. This will mean that a maintenance plan will be mandatory, and those owners corporations will be required to ensure fees are deposited into the maintenance fund and are adequate to fund the approved maintenance plan. In doing so you will minimise the sorts of surprises and, frankly, shocks that this particular constituent had to experience.

The other constituent I did want to briefly mention, a lady in her 70s, had a very different situation to the previous constituent. She is on a block of just three units, so it is a small owners corporation. Her problem was around transparency and fees for various things that they were being charged for. Explanations for charges were vague. For instance, statements that she brought in to me had things like miscellaneous repairs—I found that a lot, but there was no explanation as to what those repairs were—or accountancy fees or legal expenses. When this particular constituent raised these concerns with Consumer Affairs Victoria and Consumer Affairs subsequently made contact with the owners corporation manager, my constituent was even charged for the phone call from Consumer Affairs to the owners corporation manager.

I think it is just a disgrace, and I think that it is not before time that we have decided to have this review and that we have decided to bring in this legislation, because owners corporation legislation has not been amended in this state for 13 or 14 years. It is a positive step forward. It is wideranging, and it will provide transparency for the more than 1.5 million Victorians who are in some way associated with an owners corporation. It will certainly mean a lot of comfort for older constituents of my electorate who are part of owners corporations and who just want to know that they are not being cheated and just want to be comfortable that they are not being ripped off. I commend the bill to the house, and I wish it a speedy passage.

Mr FOWLES (Burwood) (10:15): It is indeed my pleasure to rise to make a contribution on the Owners Corporations and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2019. It has been inferred by some members, perhaps on both sides of the chamber, that this is not a particularly exciting bit of legislation, but I beg to differ because the simple fact is 1.5 million Victorians have some sort of relationship with an owners corporation—and I would hazard a guess that not many of them would characterise that relationship as interesting or happy or efficient or expedient. I am very grateful that the minister has taken the opportunity to bring a number of reforms to this chamber to improve the totality of the experience that Victorians have with their owners corporations.

There are a number of matters that are addressed in this bill before us, but I wanted to focus on a couple of things particularly. The first of those, and perhaps one matter that has not received quite as much attention in this debate, is the reform that the bill delivers via amendments to the Retirement Villages Act 1986. This enables residents of a retirement village to elect a residents committee irrespective of whether there is an owners corporation in place. We know that there are numerous models of ownership for retirement villages, that there are varying degrees of care, that there are strata models and that there are bonded models where you pay a capital sum when you enter a village but you are precontracted, if you like, to receive just that sum and no capital appreciation upon exit. There are lots of complications in this sector, but it is absolutely critical to be able to have your say as a retirement village resident.

These reforms brought forward by the minister give residents more power. They give residents more ability to speak up on the issues that are affecting them. They also ensure that the power imbalance between owners and managers of retirement villages is addressed. We all know, probably from our own family’s and our own experiences, that the people living in retirement villages tend to be older, and we also know that older members of our community might be subject to undue influence. It is important that we set up decision-making mechanisms that do not subject those more vulnerable members of our community to that undue influence and that we give them greater power over their lives and their living circumstances and greater power over decisions that are made that affect them each and every day when living in these communities.

Those reforms control the way in which those meetings occur, including limiting the ability of owners corporations to be at those meetings unless it is agreed by the residents. So rather than having the default position of the owners and managers being in the room influencing decisions, applying pressure either implicitly or explicitly, we actually remove them from the decision-making forum, put the power back in the hands of the residents and ensure that they are able to make their decisions and come to a collective view without undue influence from the people who are quite clearly managing a set of conflicts—the conflict between offering residents the very best experience in the facility they are managing and their other duty, which is to provide a return to their shareholders. Clearly there are going to be circumstances where those matters come into conflict, and it is appropriate then to protect the ability of the residents committees to make those decisions and to make those recommendations to management in an environment that is free of that undue influence.

These reforms also prevent those owner-managers from being able to use their majority power to just ram through changes. I think that is very important as well, that owners who control the numbers—to use the sort of political language—on these committees cannot just ram through changes that are politically expedient or commercially useful for them.

The other thing it does is it stops a majority owners corporation owner or a close associate of the owner from increasing the cost of living without the retirement village residents’ consent. I think this is important. We all know that cost-of-living pressures are acutely felt by older members of our community. There are struggles each and every day, with increased costs of living, with a pension scheme that is not keeping up with those costs of living, and the ability to exploit those matters is felt acutely by many of these residents. I think it is entirely appropriate to make sure that there is that explicit protection around cost-of-living changes.

By removing owners and managers from the debate, by removing them from the voting decisions, it does not mean that they are excluded in totality from the management of their facilities. They can call meetings, of course, to discuss changes they would like to make. That is entirely appropriate. There are going to be changes that need to be made inside these facilities; it is entirely appropriate they get to call the meeting in order to be able to do that. What is not appropriate is staying in the room and then using their influence, their relationships with those residents, to unduly influence an outcome.

The other reform that I think is important in this space is that there will be created a residents committee whether there is an owners corporation or not. Previously an owners corporation, if it existed, would have the power of a residents committee. This amendment removes that ability. It gives greater power to all retirement village residents to have a group to represent their interests that exists separately from any owners corporation. That is an important power. It is important to enshrine the views and enshrine the power and the ability of those residents to bring forward the matters of most concern to them and have a formal designation for that via this residents committee. Ensuring that residents control the rules over the use of the village facilities and that that is not undermined by village operators who control the owners corporation is in effect what these amendments achieve.

It is important to note that the Andrews government is also conducting a review of the Retirement Villages Act 1986. We engaged in community consultation around that last year, and I have no doubt that the minister will be bringing forward some changes in that space. It is undoubtedly a contested part of the universe. I am aware that in other jurisdictions—in Queensland in particular—they have a dedicated arm of their civil disputes mechanism that deals exclusively with residents’ disputes in the many high-rise apartment buildings on the Gold Coast and the like. With the greatest of respect to the practitioners who fulfil these roles, I could not think of a worse job in the world than being the disputes arbitrator between grumpy old people on the Gold Coast, inside their strata-titled office buildings. However, it is important that we always protect the ability for people who are being treated unfairly to bring the appropriate action.

I know that the minister is live to the amount of traffic that is generated out of owners corporations disputes through to VCAT. I know that there are enforcement mechanisms available to owners corporations where you have perhaps one owner in a building who is refusing to make their contribution to, for example, an important maintenance matter or an upgrade. One of the things we are doing as part of this bill is making sure that the funding model changes. We are allowing owners corporations to require the deposit of sufficient fees into their maintenance funds to implement any approved maintenance plan. That hopefully will over time smooth the contributions required by individual lot owners and therefore decrease the financial hardship that will undoubtedly be felt by some of those lot owners.

Other changes—and this will just about bring my contribution to its conclusion—are some requirements around the professional standards of those managers, requiring them to hold professional indemnity insurance. Staggeringly, that was not a requirement already in the act. That is a very important reform, I think a reform that very few people would argue against, because we know that owners corporations managers can make decisions that do not necessarily but can result in significant harm to members of that owners corporation. I thank the minister for bringing these important reforms forward and look forward to the bill’s speedy passage at the conclusion of the debate.

Mr FREGON (Mount Waverley) (10:25): I rise very happily to speak on the Owners Corporations and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2019. I thank the member for Burwood, my learned colleague, for his fantastic contribution. I agree, it is an exciting bill. It is not as boring as some would say. And I think that is best portrayed when we consider the member for Bentleigh’s contribution about a wonderful example—what a fantastic local member the member for Bentleigh is—concerning the matter of a senior owner who was being basically bullied systematically by the owners corporation into paying bills that she possibly should not have been paying, and of her being bamboozled. I believe the member for Bentleigh said that word, and let us put that in Hansard a few times. They just thought they could get away with it. They even—and this was the highlight of the member for Bentleigh’s contribution—charged this lady for the call when Consumer Affairs Victoria called them to complain. How is the cheek on that?

That is what we are trying to stop today and what this bill will do. This bill will implement recommendations from the consumer property law review, which I believe was undertaken in August 2015. Who would have brought that in? That would have been us; we do some good stuff. It was undertaken by, yes, the Andrews Labor government. The law review conducted an assessment of the existing consumer property legislation: the Estate Agents Act 1980; the Owners Corporation Act 2006, which we are amending today; the Conveyancers Act 2006; and the Sale of Land Act 1962. This review included a review of the conduct of owners corporation managers and the functions and management of owners corporations. As I said before, I think there are a number of aspects of the conduct that we have heard about before that definitely needed to be reviewed and changed for the future.

Since the Owners Corporation Act was passed in 2006, apartment and unit living has grown exponentially across our state, especially in Glen Waverley. We have two very large buildings going up right now, one on top of the Glen shopping centre and one next door; I think they are 16 and 18 storeys. All those people will be subject to the owners corporations of those buildings. With this growth in medium- and high-density living comes a wide range of people with diverse goals, interests and expectations. It is also worthy to note that this bill will assist owners in retirement villages in regard to the operation of their owners corporations as well. My district is also home to a number of existing and soon-to-be-built retirement villages, some quite large.

We have over 1.5 million Victorians—a quarter of us—who own or live in apartments. These properties are managed by over 85 000 active owners corporations. This incredible growth over 13 years requires us to review and modernise the existing legislation governing the conduct of these owners corporations. Legislation has not really kept pace with the changes, and so that is why we are addressing this today. The more than 100 submissions in response to the opinion paper in November 2016 are the best evidence, I think, for this much-needed reform.

This bill will modernise the Owners Corporation Act in several ways. It will introduce a new, more structured system, where the size of the owners corporation will determine what requirements these committees will face. This structured system will be spread across five tiers. Larger owners corporations will be subject to a greater number of requirements, while smaller corporations—I believe the last tier is for two flats, for instance—will be subject to less stringent regulation.

The bill will also double the existing required public liability insurance from $10 million to $20 million for any one claim. This is required because it really reflects the growth in medical expenses, repair costs and personal injury compensation-type claims—those sorts of things. Moreover, the amendments will also correct existing anomalies in this legislation. These changes will ensure that owners corporations insure all buildings in multibuilding subdivisions so that every building is covered. Further, it will allow smaller owners corporations in single-building subdivisions to decide to allow owners to take individual responsibility for such insurance but only under a unanimous resolution from the owners themselves. These changes sensibly ensure that adequate insurance is preserved across large, multibuilding complexes without blame-shifting or needless bureaucracy while also giving greater power to owners of smaller units with common property.

The proposed bill will also strengthen the protection of owners corporations from mismanagement and corruption. Developers will be prohibited from appointing themselves or their associates as managers of owners corporations and from voting on resolutions relating to building defects. We have all heard some shocking stories about some of the things that developers do, recently. I will not comment any further than that. Developers will, further, be required to disclose any beneficial relationship with current owners corporation managers, and unethical practices such as enticing buyers with lower budgets or allocating common property as private lots to increase their voting power will be made illegal.

This bill also ensures that people who have been convicted of certain criminal offences will not be able to be registered as managers without the consent of the Business Licensing Authority, and managers will be required to hold professional indemnity insurance at all times.

I am sure that we can agree that most owners corporations and their managers act suitably. Most look after their owners and their residents and do the right thing. But these changes make sure that in the worst of cases—some we have heard in the house—and in the example of the Dodgy Brothers and Co., the fox can no longer be in charge of the henhouse. That is what this bill does.

Equity between lot owners will also be enhanced by this important bill. The ability of majority lot owners to prevent an application to VCAT for changes to these settings will also be removed where all other lot owners have consented to that change, balancing the power between the big investors and everyday property-owning Victorians. Again, we are looking after the everyday Victorian, just like we were doing on the Justice Legislation Miscellaneous Amendments Bill 2019 only yesterday. This is just another way of delivering for all Victorians.

The bill will implement several reforms to improve the governance and financial administration of owners corps, including expanding the duty of committee members to ensure they act in the best interest of the owners corporation itself. The bill will also prohibit contractual limitations on lot owners voting rights, allowing owners corporations to make rules to control smoke drift from private lots and permitting owners corporations to separately levy lot owners for costs directly attributable to the particular use of certain lots.

This bill will also strengthen the oversight of the owners corporations in retirement villages. These changes will align the powers of the village operators who control owners corps in retirement villages with the aims of the Retirement Villages Act 1986. As my colleague from Burwood said, there is also a review going on at the moment into the Retirement Villages Act 1986. I believe there is an options paper due in around about June or July, so I would encourage all retirement village residents to get involved in that and to give their submissions after the options paper. I am sure, as the member for Burwood said, we will be seeing some legislation in due course, and I look forward to the minister putting that before us.

Just a quick shout-out while I am thinking about retirement villages: recently Ms Terpstra from the other place and I went to a local retirement village, Oak Tree Hill. We had a fantastic morning tea with the residents down at Oak Tree Hill, and they asked us questions about everything. It was great to get that insight as a local member from the seniors in my community, and I hope to do that again very soon. So a quick shout-out to Stephen Wilson from Aveo down there for organising the day, and all the residents. It was a wonderful morning.

In conclusion our owners corporations and their managers will be more responsible to the owners and/or residents that they represent, and in turn these properties will be better maintained for both owners and tenants alike. I think, as we started off, it is an exciting bill because it helps the residents and the Victorians that we all serve. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (10:35): It is a pleasure rise and speak on the Owners Corporations and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2019 following my good friend the member for Mount Waverley, who I will also refer to as learned. Indeed it was a great summary and contribution on this bill.

This is important legislative reform. This is reform years in the making. When we think about the changing dynamics of Melbourne and Victoria, and indeed our regional communities as they grow, and the changing ways in which we live amongst our communities, the growth that we see and the smaller amounts of land that people are living on, particularly in my community in the Mordialloc electorate, owners corporations continue to expand and grow. They fulfil an important role when we think of bringing people together, living in close spaces and management of various lands and common property. How do we ensure their protection? How do we ensure their rights going forward?

I want to take two opportunities: one to reflect on a strata group that is based in my electorate and who I have interacted with on a number of occasions, Ace Body Corporate Management—and I will talk a little bit about them soon; but also going down the theme that the member for Mount Waverley and the member for Bentleigh did—the protection of residents’ rights. I want to reflect on both owners corporations and retirement villages, which have been a significant issue facing our communities.

But on Ace Body Corporate, I had the pleasure, I think, back in 2015 of celebrating and launching the event for the 20-year anniversary. Stephen Raff and his wife, Binnie, have been running that company for two decades—25 years now, in fact—and it was interesting to be there to reflect on the journey over that time, the expansion of owners corporations, how significant and fundamental they are to our property ownership nowadays and also in the retirement sector and then how significant Ace Body Corporate’s representation is across Victoria. In preparing for this bill I looked back through some of the evolution of the work they do and some of the significant challenges and stresses that are faced by residents and how owners corporations and their management bring together that greater support and collaboration. As was reflected on by some members, like any industry and like any sector we look towards reforming and improving those practices and taking the industry with us through time, and after more than a decade it is time to make sure that we strengthen those protections and those reforms and protect people’s rights into the future.

So this bill is significant in the context of 70 per cent of growth being confined to infill council areas. In my role in the education space we see a lot of pressure on government resources in that space, but we also see significant pressure on how we deal with that growth and development. When you look at communities like Mentone and like Cheltenham in my electorate and when you see the changes in Mordialloc and indeed Chelsea, you are seeing a lot of owners corporations established and a lot of apartments coming in. It is really important that for some of those first home buyers that might be going in or people who are downsizing and maybe changing their living arrangements and moving into retirement, and the mixture of different uses that all form the story and narrative around owners corporations, we ensure that they get the best and most appropriate protections.

So this bill will improve the regulation of owners corporations in several ways, and there are five points that I would like to take the house through and reflect on. That five-tier system, depending on the owners corporation’s size, will be introduced, and so those larger owners corporations will be subject to a greater number of requirements. Also in regard to their committees there will be better scrutiny and protection of annual financial statements, while those smaller ones will have less stringent regulations, acknowledging the burden that might be placed on those that are smaller organisations and not, I guess, constricting them with compliance and undermining their purpose—that is, to serve the owners and the residents that they support and protect.

The protections around the requirement for the deposit of sufficient fees into their maintenance funds to improve the approval of maintenance plans is really important. The stories that we hear as members of Parliament across our patch—you get examples of residents coming to us or an interaction with Consumer Affairs Victoria and you hear a horror story of a fee coming forward and someone not being able to pay it and being worried that they might be presented to VCAT and that they might be a subject of legal proceedings. This is a really important reform to ensure that there is always that safety net and there is always that cushion of funding and support to protect those interests going forward and into the future. Those unexpected fees could be drastic when you are trying to manage a household budget. If it is your first home and you are trying to meet your owners corporations fees as well as your rates as well as balancing all those requirements and issues, this is a really fundamental and important thing.

The third point I want to reflect on are that the changes will also improve the quality of owners corporation managers. People who have been a subject of criminal proceedings and offences will not be able to be registered as managers. I think this sets a standard of integrity in the people that we want in this industry and in stratas to ensure that they are of a fit and proper nature when dealing with something as substantial as the roof over someone’s head, their livelihood and their assets. So that is another important standard in integrity and something that my community—and indeed I reckon all Victorians—would greatly welcome as well. This is one of the absolutely fundamental reforms that goes to the heart of the challenges that we face in my electorate.

Developers will be prohibited from appointing themselves or their associates as owners corporation managers and from voting on any resolution related to building defects. Now, I will not name the organisation where this is present, but there is an example of this in Parkdale where the associates of the developers of a retirement complex there, under an owners corporation, have done everything possible to drive residents into the ground on this, whether it is fees for maintenance, return of a property to a particular level or ridiculous fees relating to a percentage of the property ownership that are unconscionable. The notion that the associates of developers or developers sit on that organisation is absolutely unconscionable. Work has been done in a bipartisan manner locally to call that out. Work has been done on committees to ensure the protection of people who would take advantage of those that are vulnerable. These are people who have worked all their life, paid their taxes throughout, raised a family, contributed to our community, and in their retirement and in their later years are having to front up and confront owners corporation meetings, facing associates of developers, pleading for these unreasonable and draconian fees to not proceed, including when they are trying to sell their property—some pretty horrendous practices.

So I think this bill sends a signal that it is not just about making the money and developing and the like, but there is a social contract with communities—that you ensure that you protect those people whom you are serving. The government and indeed the industry is sending a signal to those that would profiteer or take advantage of vulnerable people that it will not be accepted, and with that reform we will be closely monitoring that implementation and how that works through.

The bill will also implement several reforms to improve the governance and financial administration of owners corporations. I think the member for Bentleigh covered that off well, including the integrity around those accounts, people having access to it. This includes expanding the duty of committee members to ensure they act in the owners corporation’s best interests, restricting proxy farming and committee proxies and prohibiting contractual limitations on lot owners’ voting rights. I think this is really important. I think the best interests test goes to the point I made around the developer representation, but also that there is a best interests test that is the objective standard that we set in ensuring that owners corporations are managed appropriately.

This is reform that has been well over a decade in the making. It did not quite get through the 58th Parliament. We are now proceeding with this in the 59th Parliament—some really important reforms as we enter the new decade, as we modernise the owners corporations bill and legislation into the future. I welcome the contributions of those opposite and the members of the government, and hopefully this bill has a speedy passage through the house.

Mr J BULL (Sunbury) (10:45): I am delighted to have the opportunity this morning to contribute to debate on the Owners Corporations and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2019 and to follow the fantastic, hardworking member for Mordialloc, who I think just time and time again comes into this place and continues to deliver those outstanding bill speeches. He has a sound understanding of legislation before the house and works very hard in his local community, so hopefully that has earned me a coffee or a beer.

It is a real privilege to have the opportunity to speak on this bill before the house. This bill, like of course many before it from the Andrews Labor government, is about fairness and about modernising those arrangements across those four pieces of legislation within the Victorian property sector. A number of members have mentioned both this morning and yesterday afternoon local examples of why this bill is so important and why this bill is needed, in particular the member for Bentleigh’s story around a local resident who was certainly experiencing some hard times and needed some additional support, which was not at the time provided—and full marks to the member for Bentleigh for providing assistance there. This bill is an important one that goes to fairness and goes to the treatment of so many Victorians that live in these existing arrangements—over 1.5 million, as we have heard. This is a significant piece of legislation.

What we know of course is that in this state right now we are rapidly expanding. We are the fastest growing state in the nation, and this significant population growth not only creates additional jobs and opportunities for so many Victorians, but it also creates an increase in diversity within the housing market, within the housing sector. Of course we know that about 130 000 new residents called Victoria home last year.

The Andrews Labor government understands that it is continually important that we are modernising legislation; that we are reviewing those current initiatives, projects, acts and arrangements that are in place to ensure that everybody is treated fairly and to the standards that I think we all expect for ourselves and of course our families. But what is important within this legislation is levelling the balance, making sure that we are supporting those who need it when they need it, and the changes to reform within this piece of legislation that is before the house this morning certainly do that.

Residents need to be supported and looked after. They need to be heard, they need their concerns listened to, and this bill works to support those who may raise particular issues with existing arrangements. As I mentioned, there are certainly a number of members who have spoken about existing living arrangements within their local communities. It is certainly a great thrill as a local member to visit retirement villages, communities where there are a number of residents living within apartment dwellings. In the southern part of my electorate—in the Gowanbrae, Gladstone Park, Tullamarine area—there are some terrific local villages where you can catch up with residents for a cup of tea and a chat. It is a wonderful opportunity to hear the concerns of them and their families.

We know that 1.5 million is a significant amount of people, and we know that this bill is so important in terms of providing that framework that modernises the arrangements that govern the way that they live each and every day. As others have mentioned this morning, the Owners Corporations and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2019 includes a package of 36 reforms that will streamline the regulation of owners corporations, improve the quality of owners corporation managers, enhance protections for owners corporations, expand and improve developer duties to the corporations they create and enhance those protections for corporations. It will of course improve the governance, financial administration and regulation of owners corporations within retirement villages.

This is a piece of legislation that, as other members have mentioned, has arisen due to a considerable amount of work. We know that the Owners Corporations Act 2006 has not been subject to substantial reform since December 2007. Thirteen years is certainly a significant amount of time, and as others have mentioned, there has been so much that has happened in this state over 13 years time, not just when we look at growth, but when we look at the diversity of the market. Given the way the state is changing and evolving, it is certainly important that this piece of legislation is before the house.

In 2016 Consumer Affairs Victoria reviewed the acts as part of the consumer property law review, which examined those four key pieces of Victorian property-related legislation. The review aimed to identify opportunities to modernise and improve the legislation, taking into account stakeholders experiences and industry developments since the Owners Corporation Act came into operation. It aimed to examine whether the legislation efficiently and effectively regulates the conduct of the management of owners corporations and recommended changes to improve the way the legislation operates. This is a significant reform, as I mentioned, on the back of a range of work that has gone into making sure that this bill is well drafted, is before the house and is able to be passed in a manner that is going to make a genuine difference to the lives of those 1.5 million Victorians who will be affected by this.

The new five-tier system, as other members have mentioned, is based on an owners corporation’s size. Larger owners corporations will be subject to a greater number of requirements with regard to committees and annual financial statements, while smaller ones will be subject to less stringent regulations. So there is some flexibility, which is needed within the framework and within the legislation to be able to make sure that we land exactly in the right place.

Owners corporations will be required to deposit sufficient fees into their maintenance funds to implement the approved maintenance plan and to reduce the need for significant and unexpected fee increases, which can cause financial hardship for some lot owners. That is a point that should not be missed. Those additional financial burdens, if you like, that are placed on those within these dwellings are significant. Whether it is cost-of-living pressures or whether it is issues with all sorts of payments that those people face each and every day within their communities, it is particularly important that there is no unnecessary financial burden on residents and that it is making it easier each and every day. The changes, as I have mentioned, will improve the quality of owners corporations managers so that those that need to be supported are supported. This is an important step. As others have mentioned both yesterday afternoon and this morning, this government is committed to fairness and to ensuring that the legislation that goes through this house and the house next door is continually modernised and continually looked at to ensure that the very best opportunities are provided to each and every Victorian.

We know that this legislation, although it may not necessarily grab all the headlines, has a direct benefit to those who rely on it. Each and every day we on this side of the house need to make sure that we are continuing to support as many Victorians as we can, any way we can, and the range of arrangements that are put in place to ensure that these living arrangements for our Victorians—those that we represent, those people that we come in here and fight for—are at the forefront of the legislation that is being drafted and developed. I am very pleased to commend the bill to the house. The Owners Corporations and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2019 will indeed make a significant difference, not just to my community but to communities right across the state. I happily commend the bill to the house.

Ms HALFPENNY (Thomastown) (10:55): I also rise to speak on the Owners Corporations and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2019. I am very pleased to speak on this bill, along with many of the members on this side of the house. Of course this is really a piece of legislation that has been debated very thoroughly over yesterday and today, and it is hard to find some additional points, but I guess I will be repeating and confirming the thoughts and views of those on this side of the chamber who have spoken before me, all very eloquently, including the members for Sunbury and Mordialloc.

To start off, this legislation is really a good example of how we need to ensure that laws change and are responsive to the way we live our lives and the way society changes over time. If we look back at home ownership, where people lived and their types of accommodation, in the past it was the quarter-acre block with one dwelling on it, one house, and that was really what all people aspired to. But with increases in population and with the massive increases in the price of land in Melbourne and Victoria generally, people have had to look at the way they live and the accommodation they live in, and that has led to high-rise apartments and it has led to lots of units. Particularly when I look at the Thomastown electorate, probably over the last 10 years there has been an enormous increase in the number of units that are being built, knocking down an old house on a block and then building two or even three or four units on that block to replace that one house.

This legislation is about addressing what happens when people are living on common land and how they work with their neighbours and ensure that everyone is treated in a fair and equitable way. Of course the Andrews Labor government is all about equity, progressiveness, fairness and responding to the needs of the people of Victoria.

In terms of this legislation we are looking at changes to and a revamping of the owners corporation laws and requirements as well as some smaller changes to the Retirement Villages Act 1986. Again, there is a need to ensure people have proper rights and protections in order for people to live closely together in harmony and without the stress that you often hear about when things do not go right in retirement villages and the owners or managers of these places are not doing the right thing by residents.

Firstly, I will talk a little bit about retirement villages. A big shout-out goes to Michael Bradley, who is the president of the residents association at Lifestyle Lyndarum in Wollert. I have to say this really is a fantastic model in terms of retirement villages. Everyone gets on really well, it has a really nice calm and tranquil feeling as you walk in the front door and the caretaker couple at the property certainly do a really good job in making sure that residents are all well looked after and provided with lots of information. I go up there regularly and talk to them about new bus routes and what is going on in the area. They certainly are a very important part of the community of Wollert and do make some really valuable contributions in the area.

Going back to the bill, when we look at the history of the making of this legislation, it has really been part of a consumer property law review that was announced a number of years ago, in the last term—

Business interrupted under sessional orders.