Thursday, 6 February 2025

Bills

Retirement Villages Amendment Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Gabrielle Williams:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Tim McCURDY (Ovens Valley) (10:40): I am delighted to rise and make a contribution on the Retirement Villages Amendment Bill 2024. I do want to begin my contribution by thanking the many retirees and operators who have spoken to us and reached out to me and my colleagues to provide feedback on the bill, certainly those over the last few months but those that have been engaged in this process for the many, many years since 2016 when this process started. In fact it is the culmination of nine years of work, and in the words of many in the industry, it is finally reaching the conclusion of a long and drawn-out process. When we met with stakeholders over the past few months to discuss the bill, the feedback was overwhelmingly that the government had taken forever to get this bill to Parliament, but in the end it ended up with a very rushed conclusion. One resident suggested this bill had a longer run-up than Dennis Lillee in his prime. We started in 2016–17 with a committee and then went off to an options paper in 2021, a draft exposure in 2022 and then in the last month of 2024 had a mad rush to get this bill through.

This rush ended up with a bill that really does not answer or resolve a lot of the issues for either the retirement village operators or for the residents, of which there are many. I am grateful for the massive amount of feedback that we have had, which has been drawn into formulating our position, from people like Les Scobie out of Wangaratta. Les, bless his cotton socks, has sent me no more than 43 emails over the last few months, the last one being only 11 minutes ago. Mr Scobie is very passionate about this bill and wants to see the lives of residents improved wherever he possibly can. I commend Les Scobie for the work that he has done, as well as Lawrie Robertson, past president of the Residents of Retirement Villages Victoria – he has been a wealth of knowledge and strong support to help us appreciate what needed to be changed in the course of this bill – and of course COTA, the Council on the Ageing, and Seniors Rights Victoria have all made excellent contributions to this response along the pathway.

For the most part, people living in retirement villages and people thinking about moving to retirement villages are people who do not want to fight. They do not want to fight and they do not want 100 pages of reading; they just want to have a straightforward contract with straightforward conditions and exit conditions. They want it well documented and easy to understand. Pretty much people who are moving to that stage in their life, as I say, do not want complications; they just want it to be pretty straightforward.

To describe retirement villages in Victoria, I can break them into metro and regional retirement villages. I am being very general here. The metro retirement villages are always well maintained, with a short or a long list of people wanting to access this accommodation. They usually have a list of people ready to come in, so they are very vibrant and profitable and there are great opportunities. In regional retirement villages again they are well maintained. We have got the larger centres like Shepparton, Wangaratta, Wodonga, Warrnambool and those sorts of places that have the retirement villages and of course the smaller towns like, in my patch, Yarrawonga and Cobram. Places like Rushworth and Heathcote are other examples. In our larger centres the larger operators usually have many rooms and have many types of retirement accommodation.

In places like Cobram – I live there, so I know it better than others –Cobram Regional Care, which used to be Ottrey Homes, provide excellent facilities but a limited choice. When we talk about choice of retirement villages, in metro Melbourne you can choose one of many that might be within a stone’s throw of where you live or where your children may live, and you have many choices. When you are in a town like Cobram with 6000 people, you have a choice of one. This is not a criticism of the smaller towns, I am just saying that if you want to retire in the town that you live in or the region that you have been involved with for the last 10, 20, 30 years or longer, you really only have a choice of one, unless you want to move out of town, which most people do not want to do. That is why the contracts, the offerings and the exit fees must be fair, because in these instances there really is not a choice unless you leave town.

Often people say if you do not like something, just go somewhere else. It is not as simple as that in the retirement villages sector. As I say, if you have been in the Yarrawonga area for decades, you generally want to retire in the Yarrawonga region so the choices are limited. That is all the more reason to make sure that it is fair.

Retirement villages in our smaller communities do not always have a list of people knocking on the door to fill the vacancies, so when rooms are vacated by choice or because there is a need for a higher level of care or because of a passing, finding enough money to pay out families in a timely fashion is not always easy. There may be an exodus of three or four people in one week and finding payout cash can be challenging. There are challenges on both sides, and I am just trying to paint the picture. There are different types of operators, different levels of operators, and obviously the residents demand that their services are top-notch. I certainly support both of them in this respect.

One of the key components to retirement villages is the exit fees and the packages. I will address this a bit later on, but the message was loud and clear to me that in the circumstances of a loved family member passing away there is a fairly straightforward pathway to squaring up the payments – the fees, the charges. Sometimes there might be a minor dispute about how did it end up that the figure looks like it does. Sometimes that is because mum or dad has been helped into this retirement village by one child and another family member, upon their passing, takes a greater interest and all of a sudden starts questioning. “How do we end up with this figure? I thought we were going to get this when Mum or Dad passed away.’ Again, they like to do that retrospectively, and we know how that goes.

Where the real problems come with retirement villages is when people want to change, when they are not happy in the retirement village they are in and they might want to change to another retirement village or they might want to go and live with somebody else, a son or a daughter. If you are moving to another retirement village, you obviously need the cash to get in to the retirement village, and there is a delay sometimes when somebody wants to exit one retirement village and move to another. There is this gap between when they get paid out for the first village they are in and when they can pay the deposit. If the retirement villages are a bit tardy, it sometimes makes it very difficult for these people when they want to make that transition. It is not always the fault of the retirement village. Sometimes it is the fault of the resident. There are two sides to every story. That is an area that this bill is trying to remedy. Let us hope that we come to a conclusion.

But as I said earlier, the bill seemed to be rushed at the end. In terms of exits and exit fees, it does not appear that the retirement village sector is completely happy with where we have got to in this bill, nor are the residents. Residents are saying up to 12 months is too long, and I will go to that in a moment. Why would the department be instructed to rush through a half-cooked bill when they could have waited a few more months and got it right? As I say, it was a long run-up to start with, and we know the minister is still getting his feet under the desk in this portfolio. Despite multiple requests from stakeholders to delay the bill and work with amendments, the government is pushing ahead with the bill.

With that said, the Liberals and Nationals will not be opposing their bill in the Assembly, but we will be seeking to work with the government and the crossbench in the Council to move some important amendments and improve the quality of the bill for the industry and the residents at the same time. I feel that we could have done better if the bill was withdrawn and redrafted, so with that I would like to move a reasoned amendment. I move:

That all the words after ‘That’ be omitted and replaced with the words ‘this bill be withdrawn and redrafted to address the concerns of residents and operators in the retirement sector.’

With that said, I will move on to some of the analysis of this bill. Despite the indifference of the minister to the concerns of the industry and retirees and the many concerns we have with the bill, there are still plenty of major changes that are good. Some are good, some are okay and others are terrible. That is why we are saying that if we can have that discussion either between houses or in the Legislative Council, it would be appreciated.

If we run through the bill in chronological order, we see division 1, which amends the principal act and inserts a new section and the principles on which operators should provide service to residents, which when you read through them seem like basic things that already exist in some form, just not legislation. They presume that residents should be treated with dignity and respect, that residents will be respected, and that the conditions should be safe and the village should be maintained in a state of repair. A variety of new definitions are also inserted into the bill, some of which are new additions whereas others are updating existing definitions within the act.

Some of the questions raised by the sector were around the inclusion of capital gains and losses and that definition, when the type of lease is not technically a traditional capital gain or loss, as well as concerns around the definition of maintenance charges, exit entitlements and management disputes, and I further note that despite submissions around the confusing term ‘adjusted maintenance change’ there does not appear to be an updated definition in the bill that I can find.

It alarms me that the government refuses to make the language in a highly complex and technical area easier for elderly Victorians to understand. In its current form the bill implies that there is a maintenance charge and an additional adjusted maintenance charge, not that the adjusted maintenance charge is the benchmark for increases to the maintenance charge. Accordingly, we will be looking to fix this in the Council. We have worked with both operators and residents to try and find a definition that suits everybody better.

Clause 8 of the bill expands the eligibility for exemptions to the act from religious and charitable operators to all operators regardless of their business style. Some residents have raised concerns that this could be abused by operators, and I certainly take that on board, in order to circumvent the requirements of the act. Whilst we would think that only operators with a genuine need would be granted an exemption, the option is still there.

Division 4 of the bill makes changes to a variety of definitions and penalties, notably introducing new section 3A to the act, addressing the termination of a residence contract. We know that in the retirement village sector the termination of a contract is not something that occurs often and that when it does occur the impact to the resident can be huge given their age and life situation. It is imperative that when a breach of contract occurs it is handled by the operator in a sensitive and respectful manner. New section 3A ensures that operators consider a variety of factors, including the health and wellbeing of the resident, whether termination is proportionate and reasonable to the breach of contract that has occurred and that the safety of other residents is always duly considered during the making of a decision, which sounds fairly straightforward and commonsense, and we certainly support that.

Division 5 of the bill amends part 4 of the act and introduces a variety of substantive changes to the obligations of operators, especially around finances and compliance. It is in this section that we first see the requirements for operators to use prescribed contracts – a good thing – and information statements, which are designed to improve the ability of residents or potential residents to compare the offerings of two different villages or contracts. We all know that saying ‘Comparing apples with apples’, and hence the reason to try to make sure that with prescribed contracts that residents can have a better chance of comparing retirement village A with retirement village B, because they can actually compare the two. Whilst there is support for this all round the industry, there is still a need to clarify a lot of complex language used in contracts, and there is also a concern that such change will restrict competition and innovation and will also unintentionally increase the length of contracts as there will need to be clauses included for optional extras that will actually make these contracts longer not shorter and maybe more complex. I understand how that happens, but again, we are always trying to make sure that for the retirees, for the residents, they fully understand the contract they are going in with and can understand it regardless of their age.

We will wait and see how this turns out. As the intention is good, the execution largely comes down to the details to be decided in regulation. Once again Labor are asking us to trust that they will sort it out and it will all be sorted in regulation, but we have not seen that regulation or how that will actually work out. Quite often we just have to be careful by saying, ‘Yes, we understand what you’re trying to achieve; we don’t know the detail in the regulation, and we need to see that as soon as we possibly can,’ because we do not want to stand here and say, ‘Yes, everything in the bill is terrific,’ to find that when the regulation kicks in it actually bites somebody on the backside. So we just need to be a bit careful, and I am sure the government understands that.

Whilst flexibility is necessary for contracts, we are living in hope that the government will properly consult with the stakeholders. According to many stakeholders that I have spoken to, in their opinion, the government has not spoken to them enough. Having said that, I have found that retirees do have a lot of time on their hands and are very, very keen to come forward with their message and talk to us about this bill because as retirees they have a keen interest in making sure that their future is solid, and they certainly do have time to make sure that they can approach us.

Division 5 concerns contract checks for residents. The requirement is for operators to provide a written contract check for every resident on an annual basis. We see this as a bit of overkill. We certainly want to make sure that residents do have access to a check on an annual basis if they decide they want to check or if a family member wants to check on what is the state of play. As I described before, somebody may go into a retirement village and 20 years later they have never looked at a contract, have no idea, and all of a sudden when they depart, whether they go to God or they move somewhere else, all of a sudden there is this discussion about, ‘Oh, gee, I thought we were going to get more than that. How come the payback for us is only this?’ This will certainly resolve that, having annual written details for people to know, but I just think that could be requested rather than the operator having to mandatorily do this every year. I will talk about that in a moment too.

Most residents are happy with their contracts and they do not necessarily need to see an updated one every year unless they request it. As a result we will be looking to take this requirement out and ensure that operators provide checks to residents upon request. That could be capped at one per year, for example, to make sure that if a resident wants to see that, they can see one per year, but not necessarily put that impost on retirement villages, particularly the smaller ones. Again, as I said, they are not heavy on having people in their offices to do all this paperwork. Of course they need to be accountable – I get that – and they need to produce those documents if required, but producing one every year is maybe a bit of overkill. It will reduce the burden on the operators to have legal representation checking the contracts each year, particularly in a large retirement village. But as I say, for the smaller ones it will be somewhat of a burden, although we never want to get away from that transparency if the operator needs to or a resident requests.

We also note that in this division new section 26X deals with the cooling-off period for a new contract, defining it as a surprisingly short three business days. When we have spoken to stakeholders they have advised that other states are implementing both seven and 14 days as cooling-off periods and that seven days has been an ideal median – not too long, not too short. Some are very concerned that three days is too short, and we will be looking to make a change to that to ensure that residents are not under undue pressure when it comes to such a substantial decision and that operators will not be waiting an excessive period of time, particularly if they need to re-advertise that unit. It is baffling that for such a major decision the government opted to have such a short cooling-off period when we are talking about residents who will often see out their final years in these homes. We want to get that decision right, not rushed.

Division 7 of the bill is an interesting inclusion. I cannot foresee it impacting many residents given the nature of the proposed sections and of a village contract, but nonetheless it will ensure that a resident is free to sell their unit without the interference of the operator unless they specifically request the operator to handle the sale. As most units and contracts include a form of buyback clause, these situations seem to be somewhat uncommon but may be used depending on the set-up of that particular village.

Division 8 has proven to be one of the most interesting and contentious changes being rolled out as part of these reforms. It is apparent there is a lot of unhappiness from residents about the changes not applying to existing contracts, and operators are concerned about the financial cost if ‘vacant possession’ is not clearly defined and outlined. The bill clearly outlines a requirement for operators to pay an exit entitlement in almost all circumstances, which the act is currently unclear on. It outlines that the entitlement must be paid by the earliest of these three options: number one, such date as specified in the contract; number two, as agreed between the resident or their representative and the operator; or three, 12 months after the day the unit has been permanently vacated. The third option has caused the most angst amongst residents. I understand that 12 months is way too long to be waiting to get an exit payment after someone has departed a retirement village. The payment statement must be included as part of a payment by the operator to a resident or the estate of a deceased.

As I noted, this section has drawn a lot of feedback from a wide range of stakeholders. Retirement villages which have contacted us and that we have consulted with are all concerned that there is still no definition of vacant possession, so I ask: is vacant possession when a resident issues the notice to leave or is it when a resident cleans out their property? Is vacant possession when a resident physically moves out, or is vacant possession when probate is granted? All of these options make for a very grey area about when the exit fees and payment need to be made by the operator to a resident or their family members. It can be a very long period sometimes. If a resident passes and probate has not been granted or an executor has not been officially appointed, they cannot get in and make the changes to that unit that they may need to do, whether it is a refurbishment or just a coat of paint or whatever it might need. It could be three or four months from the time a resident passes or moves somewhere else.

There is a concern about when vacant possession actually starts. Obviously all retirement villages like to get a unit back into the marketplace as soon as practicable, and most are more than happy to pay out a resident or a resident’s family members as quickly as possible provided they are also going down that path of getting the property ready to be reused – re-let or sold to somebody else. Residents are saying that the 12 months maximum period is too long, and I agree it is too long. But when is it too long from? That is when vacant possession is deemed to be in a retirement village. That is the answer that needs to be resolved. That would solve a lot of the angst. Retirees are still asking me, ‘Why have we got to wait up to 12 months?’ We say, ‘It is up to 12 months’, but some may use that and milk it to the nth degree and wait 12 months, which is not right. Again, we have to work out the vacant possession and when that kicks in.

As I said, the answer to that is not provided in the bill. A firm definition of ‘vacant possession’ and a firm timetable could be stipulated. For example, if vacant possession was defined as being 30 days after probate is granted, many retirement villages would be happy to complete all the payments within, say, 90 days in that case. If we know when vacant possession actually occurs, we might be able to relate that to three months, 90 days, for example. But as I said, we have to be careful as there is always an obstructionist in every area. We have got to make sure that one person cannot just turn this into being a very difficult situation. We will work with the government between houses to resolve some of our concerns.

There are things in some of the discussions that I would like to raise. The bill will replace any and all reference to adjusted maintenance charge with a benchmark fee. They are the types of things that need some clarity – the maintenance charge and the adjusted maintenance charge. Many who know their paperwork better than most say to us that this is still very confusing for those who do not know their paperwork that well, which is probably the majority to be honest. For the majority, once they are in they are happy to be there and want to live out their days relaxing and enjoying life and not going through the detail. But those who do know the detail say this is very confusing.

The intention of this amendment is to provide greater clarity to residents about the role and the meaning of the adjusted maintenance charges, and that clarity is needed.

The meeting quorum requirements – I do not think this bill has sufficiently addressed quorums. At this stage 50 per cent of residents need to be present for a quorum. If you have got a retirement village with 300 people in there, it is very difficult to get 150 people plus one to a meeting. I do know that there can be inducements. Free lunch and morning tea will always bring people out to a meeting. It even brings politicians out in some cases. That will bring them out to a meeting when it suits the retirement village to say, ‘We’ve got something we want to get through.’ But if a resident says, ‘I’d like to call a meeting because I’m not happy with these particular circumstances,’ it is much harder for that resident to get 150 people to that meeting. We think changes could be made just to make that easier and fairer – ‘fairer’ I suppose is probably the word. At the moment I think the quorum of 50 per cent is probably in the favour of the retirement village operator. As I said, it is difficult to get 50 per cent of the people in those larger ones in particular.

The definition of ‘vacant possession’ I have spoken about before. That is an area where I think retirement village operators would be very, very keen to reel in that 12-month period as a maximum of payout if they can get a firm definition and understanding of when vacant possession occurs, because that will change the landscape greatly for retirement operators. As I said, if this occurs, I am sure that 12-month figure could get reeled in, and we do not need to have the 12-month figure. People have been coming to me with concerns recently, saying, ‘Gee, why should I have to wait 12 months?’ The answer is: you do not have to wait 12 months. It can be done before that, so we will be looking to clean that up.

The written contract checks – as I said before, the fact that a written check needs to be given out by each retirement village again is hard work for the retirement village, and that increases the cost. There is obviously somebody who has got to do that. It has got to get checked over. I think it would be more commonsense that each resident could actually on request get one per year, but it would not necessarily be mandatory to have one per year.

Notice-to-vacate requirements we have been through. Legal protections for residents committees – concerns were raised by the residents about the legal protections afforded to residents committees by the bill and the lack thereof, and these concerns extended to the question of best practice and legal liability for the actions or financial actions of such a committee. It is noted that most community groups, which operate in somewhat of a similar nature – incorporated associations – offer legal protection for individual members when acting on behalf of the committees. It was further noted in South Australia that their Retirement Villages Act 2016 provides for protection of committee members when acting in good faith, and such an amendment is recommended to be included in this bill.

Auditing of accounts – again the bill changes the requirement for operators to have their accounts audited. The cooling-off period I have discussed. Certainly we think the three days should be seven days. It is realistic, just like New South Wales. I know Queensland has a cooling-off period of 14 days, but we think three days is a very rough situation for our older demographic who are trying to come to terms with this. As I said, we do not want to see them pushed into circumstances unduly. We think seven days would have been a better number, and so do the residents. I did not get any comment from the providers about where three days sits, but I know the residents would be happier with seven days.

This bill has been a long time coming, and we want to make the best possible changes for our retirees as always. But at the end of the day we absolutely need retirement village operators. We always want to make it fair. We cannot make life too difficult for retirement village operators, because we will not have any otherwise. Let us face it, government does not need to be in this industry of retirement villages. It is best off in the private sector where possible, and we want to encourage that. We do not want to make life too difficult for them.

For a bill that has been so long in the making, it has not resolved many concerns. As I said, both residents and retirement village operators still feel a little bit short-changed, and the operators still feel concerned that this has not solved many of their problems. I think a little bit more time – although it was nine years, I think, nearing the end of the bill – and some more consultation might have helped. We hope that the new minister is prepared to listen and work with us between the houses for a more satisfactory result, because we want to make this a better place with easier contracts and better contracts and an opportunity for those in the retirement villages sector to live happily ever after and enjoy what they have got, not squabble over a contract that they are not sure about, as some family members may do into the future.

Daniela DE MARTINO (Monbulk) (11:10): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the Retirement Villages Amendment Bill 2024, and it is also pleasing to hear that the opposition will not be opposing this bill. Victoria’s population is expected to reach over 10 million in the next quarter of a century. As our state’s population grows, so too will our older population, with estimates that one in four Victorians will be aged 60 years and over by 2046. I will not be 60 then, but I will be knocking on the door. As we get older, for many the desire to downsize and live in a community with others in a similar situation becomes really, really appealing, but the industry has absolutely had some serious issues. I have to state that despite egregious behaviour conducted by some operators, not all have been in the same boat. I would like to call out a beautiful retirement village in my area called Sylvan Glades, which is non-profit and a registered charity. It does not have bells and whistles, and it is not staffed, but it is a gorgeous acreage with just under 30 units on flat land – never underestimate how rare and wonderful flat land is in the hills.

I think it is only fair to state that not all retirement villages have been problematic but many absolutely have. I actually recall the first time I learned about the problems and the pitfalls of retirement villages back in 2017 when the ABC was investigating. It was Aveo, a couple of the operators’ villages they had down here in Victoria. It was actually really shocking to watch the report and to read about it afterwards, and it left a bit of an indelible mark for me, because my children’s primary school was co-located on a site where an Aveo retirement village was. You would drive up the hill and see all the houses set out, all the units set out, and it looked idyllic. I always thought, ‘Gee, this would be a great place, maybe, for Mum and Dad to go to.’ At the top of the hill was my children’s primary school, so every day at drop off and pick up I saw Aveo. There was the big billboard, the shining happy couple looking wonderful, radiant, healthy and glowing, and I thought, ‘Fabulous.’ Then I watched that investigation and I read about it, and it was shocking to see how some of the most vulnerable members of our community were treated by this company.

I am really, really pleased that since then we have actually tackled some of those issues. I am very pleased that we have introduced this bill here today to amend the act, because there is much more that needs to be done. I know that there has been quite a process involved in this. There has been extensive, extensive consultation over several years. We had an inquiry into this issue, and following that inquiry there were recommendations made. The government decided to approve many of those recommendations and go forward with them, and here we are today, several years down the track.

I am really proud to speak on this bill, because the changes that will be made through this legislation will have a real impact on people’s lives; it will make a difference. That is what Labor governments do – we take care of those most vulnerable and we offer them protections from being exploited. It is literally our reason for being. Our government has committed to making living in a retirement village a fairer and more comfortable choice for older Victorians. You should not have to worry if you are going to be fleeced by exit fees or opaque service costs that grow in the background over time. This bill is about transparency, and that is something to be celebrated. It introduces a regulatory framework that provides stronger consumer protections to support residents to age in place while still enabling growth and innovation in the sector.

As I was saying before, just looking at the images of the advertising – and if you jump on a website, you see what is portrayed – that this is a great place to age. Many retirement villages market themselves as places where health and longevity are improved, but our parliamentary inquiry several years ago revealed many concerns about how some of the operators actually conducted their business, making significant profits at the expense of residents who were unaware of the mounting fees and costs of living there. The feedback was clear when we held a review of that act, and we were told by many that there was a need to reform and clarify the rights and obligations of both residents and operators, that dispute resolution required improvement and that the complexity and variety of retirement village contracts made it incredibly difficult for people to compare villages and understand obligations and costs. That review that we held clearly struck a chord, because hundreds of submissions were received and about 90 per cent of those submissions came from residents, their families and residents committees.

I would like to thank all who participated in that and took the time to contribute, because their voices have been heard. That is the whole purpose of a review and consultation. It is vital. I would also like to pay particular thanks to Gerard Mansour, the former commissioner for senior Victorians, for his strong advocacy for the rights of senior Victorians and his interest in the issues this bill works to address.

I am really proud of new protections contained in this bill. They are some of the strongest in the nation. This is the largest reform of the Retirement Villages Act 1986 since it was introduced nearly 40 years ago. It will be reviewed again within five years to assess the impact of the reforms and whether further changes need to be made to continue meeting the needs of residents and the sector. It is absolutely critical that we ensure the retirement housing sector provides safe and secure housing for residents and supports them to age well with dignity and comfort and to not be fleeced whilst doing so.

What does this bill actually do? It introduces five guiding principles, and I think they are wonderful principles, to sit within the act. They are overarching, so all considerations need to look at these principles. The first one is that a resident’s preference to remain in a retirement village should be respected. Then, all residents should be treated with dignity and respect. Thirdly, decisions about a resident’s personal life, financial affairs and property should be made consistently with the will of the resident or, if the resident has appointed one, an attorney or a person appointed to make decisions on their behalf. The retirement village should be kept safe and maintained in a reasonable state of repair and finally residents should have quiet enjoyment of their premises in the retirement village. I think that is something that everyone would be able to support.

The bill also establishes a code of practice which will require operators to participate in the scheme in good faith and comply with any agreements reached during conciliation. Non-compliance will have an effect. It may result in regulatory action by the director of Consumer Affairs Victoria. The code will be developed by the director of Consumer Affairs Victoria and approved by the Minister for Consumer Affairs to enshrine mandatory professional conduct obligations and provide guidance for operators of retirement villages.

This bill also ensures that more timely exit entitlement payments and better disclosure of exit fees occur. It proposes to consolidate and clarify requirements relating to the payment of exit entitlements. This is important, because this is where so many people have been captured and have been, for want of a better term, exploited and their finances shrunken so significantly because of exit fees and because of the opacity of some of these contracts. This bill introduces changes which will require operators to pay an exit entitlement to a vacating resident within a specified period. It will allow a vacating resident to go to VCAT to get an order for the payment of an exit entitlement by an operator if it has not been paid in the specified period. It will require an operator to give a vacating resident a statement setting out the amount of their exit entitlement and how it was calculated. There are no ethereal calculations occurring in the background; it needs stipulate how this has been derived. And it will require an operator to make an aged care payment or alternative accommodation payment within prescribed periods after a resident makes a request.

These changes that are being proposed in this bill, as I said before, will have an impact on people’s lives, because when someone enters a retirement village they are entering because they have hopes and dreams for a wonderful way to age in place. They want to do so with dignity and they want to do so where it feels safe and where they have a community. All of us want to find our community. We want to find our village of people, and that is what people who enter retirement villages are seeking.

They should be able to do so without fear that they are going to be charged, that they are going to lose significant money or that they are somehow going to be manipulated into parting ways with their finances, because when some people in the past have left, the diminishing return of their initial investment is eye-watering. I am sure many of us have heard the stories and we know the stories. So this bill introduces a fairer way forward for those entering retirement villages. There may be some of us in this chamber who find ourselves one day wanting to enter a nice one, and I sincerely hope for all Victorians that when we do, it will be on fair and just terms.

Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (11:20): I too rise to contribute today on the Retirement Villages Amendment Bill 2024. This is of course a really important topic for Parliament to be keeping abreast of. Probably most people in this chamber, I would say, have dealt immediately with either their own parents, their grandparents or close family members in this space. It can be a difficult time for many people making the choice. I know of some elderly people that rush to get into a retirement village. It is their idea of, ‘I don’t have to mow the lawns. I don’t have to think too much about the maintenance and care of my property, and I can get on and enjoy my friends and enjoy the environment of a retirement village.’ Of course for others it is a very traumatic time. They go with great resistance. They do not want to go. Poor health, the death of a partner or other circumstances have forced them to think about this choice in life.

It is a very tumultuous time for many elderly people and their families when we get to talk about retirement villages, so this comes with some disappointment. I know in my own electorate I have many, many retirement homes. There are the beautiful ones along the coast in Torquay, and then in my own home town of Colac there are a couple. They are throughout. They have been a very mixed experience for many people. Smaller regional country town retirement villages of course are often poorly funded. They are in small numbers and are often at risk of maintaining accreditation and contemporariness into the product that they put forward. It is always a difficult time for the management, and they are often not-for-profit agencies that run these – Lions clubs and others that provide these types of accommodations. For those in high-demand areas such as Torquay, of course running larger retirement villages is somewhat easier. It is a very important part of the housing solution.

Why there is disappointment is because this government has had it on the books since about 2019 to bring this to the Parliament. It is disappointing that it takes nearly six years to deal with such an important issue, particularly when I refer to it as Shadow Minister for Housing. At the same time that this has dragged out, I will put it for the record of the house that for elderly people waiting for public housing – these are people who if they had their own resources could go to retirement home but need to rely on state-provided housing – it is disappointing to see that just in the 12 months to September last year, which is the most recent figures the government has, more than 200 elderly people have been added to the waiting list, which has now some 1788 people in couples waiting urgently for housing. For elderly singles the figure is even worse – it is nearly 1000 extra older single people waiting for state-provided housing.

A really important area in the state is to get housing for elderly people right, and unfortunately, because of the nature of it, there are many and varied capacities. It appears that when a dispute or a concern arises it can sometimes be through a decision made by an elderly person who perhaps has not been abreast of all the issues and the legalities, so it is important that this legislation is attempting to streamline the legal side and the contractual obligations of both the occupier and the provider. So we welcome that.

However, some of the issues in it you would think the government would have really nailed considering they have taken six years to bring this to the Parliament. As I referenced earlier, I have dealt with quite a few retirement home advocates in my own electorate – sadly, two of them have passed since bringing this to my attention some three or four years ago – who continually lobbied to see when the government was coming. They had been actively engaged in trying to help feed back. I imagine across the state there have probably been many people who have attempted to contribute to a better retirement home legislative framework that, unfortunately, will not get to see this bill come to fruition because of the slowness with which it has come here. You would think with that slowness that you would have both resident groups and residential housing providers more on the same ticket, but there seems to be quite a list of dissatisfactions still with this bill.

I will just reference a couple of those issues. One is the importance of a residents group. I happened to be facilitating a retirement village residents group recently when there was great dissatisfaction with the maintenance obligations of the retirement home and how well they were doing with that. One of the concerns that came from that was that the residents felt that they were not being supported at all by the retirement home provider, so much so that they held clandestine meetings at the nearby RSL club. Many people in a retirement home are not always fit and able and of capacity to go some distance away from the retirement village to attend, so maintaining a very high quorum could be seen as being quite advantageous to a retirement home provider who is perhaps not so keen to have a voice from the residents. It is a shame that the government did not have a figure that was more accommodating to the frailties of the residents group. I know from hosting about four meetings over winter into spring that there are many times when elderly people are conscious of cold and flu and in recent times COVID and so are very cautious about gathering with their friends and others in those types of forums, not to mention all the other ailments that can afflict an older person at times. A very high quorum of 50 per cent is something that the government should have put more thought and understanding into as to how practical a provision like that would be in order to effect change.

From my own experience the residents group were quite activated about simple things like how their wheelie bins were being taken out to be collected each week. Many of them are unable to navigate the new world that we live in where households have up to four wheelie bins. It all gets a bit much for old people on Zimmer frames. We had the very unfortunate situation at the same time where an elderly lady woke up in her unit one night to find a guy who had staggered home from the pub had made himself at home in a bed like Goldilocks in her flat, only to have the local law enforcement agency say that they could not do anything about that type of home invasion, because the elderly lady failed to snib her door correctly, therefore it was not a criminal offence for a man from Melbourne to park his car drunk out the front and end up asleep in a bed in her spare room in her retirement home. I think elderly people go to retirement homes mainly for the sense of safety, so that was of great concern as to how issues like that would be managed and who was responsible. In fact I found myself it was quite an ordeal advocating them to get someone to take responsibility on that, so to have an addition of getting 50 per cent of the residents to turn up to a meeting to help support that would be difficult.

The other issue that is of great concern to smaller rural retirement villages is the payout figures and the payout times. This component of the legislation could be more accommodating for the different ranges of ownership. Large corporate entities are in a much better position to pay quickly, but if you get a dose of death in a small residential community, perhaps only 20 or 30 units, three or four people within a very short time frame can put unnecessary stress on a Lions club or other not-for-profit agency that is running it. The difficulties around that could be easily identified at the outset and managed for the benefit of not only the residents but future residents, because the ongoing viability of retirement villages is critical in the housing mix.

With the minute I have left I will say this bill has been welcomed by the industry and residents. They have been waiting a long time for it. There are definite improvements that the government could make. Hence we are supporting a reasoned amendment that seeks to withdraw this bill and to redraft some very basic concerns, and I have touched on some of those this morning. With that in mind, this comes at a time when the government is failing elderly people in public housing. As I said, waiting lists have grown. We do not want to fail people in the private aged care retirement market as well. It is important that we get the mix right and that we govern in this area for everybody for the sustainability of the system.

Paul MERCURIO (Hastings) (11:30): I rise to give my contribution on the Retirement Villages Amendment Bill 2024. It has come at a good time, this bill, obviously, but for me personally, I spent my new year taking my mum around aged care facilities. I understand aged care facilities and lifestyle villages are different contractually to retirement villages, but they certainly have a lot of similarities in the fact of how people feel leaving their family home to go to these places, the contracts and the difficulty of understanding some of the terms. I will talk a little bit more about my mum’s journey and my journey with her a little bit later on.

This bill follows the retirement villages review, which highlighted that the complexity and variety of retirement village contracts make it difficult for people to compare villages and to understand their obligations and costs in both getting into a village and, possibly more importantly, getting out of a retirement village. In my view that is the most important aspect: to empower people, consumers and customers, to be able to shop around and find the most appropriate future residence for their physical, emotional and financial wellbeing. To that end this bill seeks to amend the Retirement Villages Act 1986, specifically to enhance consumer protections for residents of retirement villages. This will be done by strengthening the process and criteria for exemptions from compliance with the act, giving new enforcement powers to Consumer Affairs Victoria, making new and increased penalties for offences and noncompliance with the act and other things as well.

Additionally, this bill will allow residents of retirement villages to make better and informed decisions when it comes to precontractual disclosure and annual contract checks, which will clearly set out the requirements and a reasonable estimate of payments that the residents may have to pay upon exiting a retirement village. I have had people come into my office quite a few times, stunned with the fact of how much they need to pay to exit a village. Obviously the contracts really were unclear, and they felt quite trapped that they were slowly going broke and in fact could not even afford actually to exit the village. This bill is certainly going to go a long way to help those people.

Furthermore, this bill will support residents in their efforts to resolve disputes fairly and effectively. This will be done by enhancing internal dispute resolution processes, establishing a new scheme for free conciliation and providing additional powers to the Minister for Consumer Affairs to approve a mandatory retirement villages code of practice that will impose professional conduct obligations on all retirement village operators in this state. I know it has been said that there are a lot of retirement villages that are doing the right thing, but I think it is great to bring all of the retirement villages into line.

I might just say that the work done on this bill has been ongoing since a recommendation was made in a 2017 parliamentary inquiry into the retirement housing sector. Since that recommendation there have been a considerable amount of consultation, submissions and responses and more public consultation, and now we have this bill before us. It is the biggest reform that the Retirement Villages Act has seen since its inception in 1986, and for good reason. Back then in 1986 the population of Victoria was just over 2½ million. Today it sits at just over 7 million, and by 2051 it is estimated to rise to over 10 million, so it is pretty important that we get this bill right and working. That means we will have more older Victorians and more of them needing secure and affordable housing and a place to live that shows them dignity and care, which is why we want to make it easier for those Victorians to downsize and easier for them to understand their obligations when moving into a retirement village. If they have issues within the village, they will know they have a process in place to resolve disputes and give them the confidence they need to be sure that the government is looking out for them.

And they need that confidence. Making this leap is not easy. It is not an easy thing to do emotionally, physically or financially. I have seen this recently with my mum. As I said, I know we are looking at aged care, but I think for a couple or a single person moving into a retirement village, that process of disconnecting from where they have lived for quite a number of years is incredibly difficult and painful and frightening. Moving into a new village, a new environment with new people, is confronting, especially I think as you get a little bit older. I know my mum likes her space and can be a bit finicky about different people at times, so it is a massive task to actually go into a whole new environment.

I think also with contracts today, I do not know anyone in this chamber that reads every bit of a contract right down to the very end where they tick and say, ‘Yes, I read everything and I understand it.’ Hands up – anyone? No.

Matt Fregon interjected.

Paul MERCURIO: Oh, okay, one. I always thought you were weird. But people do not –

The ACTING SPEAKER (Juliana Addison): You were not reflecting on the Chair, I assume?

Paul MERCURIO: No, Acting Speaker. I do apologise. But people generally do not, and for our elderly people, contracts are now on computers and all those sorts of things, so there are a lot of logistics, there is a lot of stress and there is a lot of fear. I think this bill is going to go a long way to helping those people and supporting people who are leaving home, a very safe environment, and moving into a retirement village.

This bill will also establish a code of practice for retirement village operators developed by the director of Consumer Affairs Victoria and approved by the Minister for Consumer Affairs, creating mandatory professional conduct obligations whilst providing guidance for village operators. The code will also undergo consultation with industry stakeholders, which includes representatives of retirement villages, village residents, operators and proprietors and ensures the code is balanced, fair, and done correctly the first time.

When I was reading through this bill and the changes in the bill, I was a little bit shocked to see that emergency evacuation plans were not required for villages. Honestly, to think that there is no requirement for a retirement village to have a plan in place for when things go wrong is pretty crazy. I am sure there are plenty of villages that do have proper evacuation and emergency plans, but they all should have them. Undoubtedly you need more time to evacuate these places. People use wheelchairs, residents possibly are not very mobile and vehicle access for emergency services is needed and is often pretty tight. It is just stuff that you would think would have been taken care of, which is why we are making sure that residents and families have the trust and confidence that if things do go wrong, which I am hoping they never do, there is a plan in place to get people out safely. It is a commonsense plan, and I am very glad to see it in there. It is very long overdue.

I am also happy to see changes being made to the decision-making within retirement villages, especially regarding residents committees. I am not here to disparage any one residents committee, but I do hear stories about committees that do not properly respond to resident concerns or issues, and there is not any real recourse for the resident with an issue to take it any further. This bill will make sure that disputes are settled with an independent mediator if needed. These committees should instil confidence in residents that if they have concerns, they can bring them up and that they will be sufficiently dealt with and that they have been listened to. Providing model rules, a process to make changes to village by-laws and not allowing operators to attend committee meetings unless they have been invited to will give confidence back to the residents of retirement villages that they have some say in what goes on where they live and that they will not be intimidated by operators.

I am also happy to see that the bill clarifies requirements for the operator to pay exit entitlements to residents within 12 months after the resident has delivered vacant possession, and I know a couple of the speakers before me, the member for Ovens Valley and the member for Polwarth, talked about the idea of when a property is vacant. Yes, it would be great to possibly clarify that a little bit better, but the fact is that payments will be made within 12 months.

I am very happy to see that there are plans and processes put in place for departing owner residents who transition into aged care to receive aged care payments and for non-owner or owner residents to receive alternative accommodation payments from their village operator to cover costs between the resident vacating and the sale of their home or residence. Basically, what this means is they will not be left in the lurch with no money waiting for the proceeds of their sale to come to them when they are actually moving in, possibly to aged care places or whatnot.

These are very important changes. There is lots in this bill. I think it is great that it has finally come about. I think people should feel safer and more cared for going into retirement villages, and I recommend the bill to the house.

Matthew GUY (Bulleen) (11:40): This is a fairly complex bill, and I know a lot of the speakers have gone through many detailed parts of it. My interest in this piece of legislation is as the member for the oldest electorate by average age in metropolitan Melbourne. I have a lot of retirement village living in my electorate and a lot of interest in the upgrade of particularly dispute resolution when it comes to both residents with each other and residents with providers. The previous speaker did make some good points, particularly around people getting out of retirement living, not just getting into it, which is a real issue and has been raised a number of times with me as well, and people who have come into retirement living wanting either to change or to move or to go back to family and feeling like they have been trapped and are unable to get out of where they are.

The member for Ovens Valley, who is our shadow minister, has recommended a reasoned amendment and some changes, and I support those because we do want to make sure we get this right. It has taken some time I know – in fact six years – to bring this bill to Parliament, which is a long time; I understand that. But I do not want to focus on that. I want to focus on the outcome, which should be, as I said with my interest, around dispute resolution.

I have some very large retirement living villages in my seat. People have this view when you say ‘retirement village’ and ‘retirement living’ that is kind of, I think, a very dated view of what they may be. But nowadays particularly Applewood in Doncaster is very, very big and has got such different and disparate levels of accommodation types in the village itself, with hundreds of residents, from high density in a tower that is there to freestanding homes to townhouses, and it is quite a community in itself. They go on holidays together, people come out together, they drink together – yes, they do – they catch up together. It really is a great little community, and it is not alone. I should not say ‘little community’; Applewood is quite large.

There are Applewood, Levande, Roseville, Bolton Clarke, Domainé in Doncaster, Mercy Place, Kings, Templestowe Grove, Willowbrae and MannaCare. MannaCare is a very well known institution locally. It is probably at a different end of the scale, like Doncaster Manor. I say a different end of the scale because of the level of people’s care that can be provided in certain villages. But they all have similar challenges, and as I said, my issue is around dispute resolution.

A number of times I have been particularly through Applewood and other aged care and retirement living villages, and the committees have said to me they need to have an ombudsman or a body that has teeth, that has power, that has the ability to intervene and solve a number of the issues that they are facing, particularly with providers. I note in the bill that we are looking at – and I do not want to be overly critical for the sake of it, because we have got a long way to go and we do want to do something rather than nothing – the internal disputes and resolutions mechanism. I went through it – it is part 6E – and it concludes that the agreements are not binding. Once you have agreed with both parties, in five business days it is not binding. I do think there needs to be a mechanism in the longer term where there is a body that has the power to make agreements binding, particularly between operators and residents and families of residents, so there can be a definitive outcome. If they are not binding, then you are not going to have those outcomes that are either adhered to or given any weight in the discussion. It has been a key point that has been raised a number of times with me by residents, particularly from the larger communities, where they are obviously going to have a number of issues, whether it is residents to residents and the provider does not want to intervene or cannot intervene or just has not got the ability to intervene, or, as I think the previous speaker said, people wanting to get out and wanting to have a discussion with the provider, which has gone awry between two parties.

My view is that there does need to be some form of formal process that is specific to the retirement living industry that will govern and be able to provide a formal and deliberate outcome that both parties have to abide by. If there are no teeth to it, it will just be considered a talkfest, and I do not think it should be. We all know this. Every single one of us in this chamber knows that our community is ageing, and a lot of people want to move into retirement living. Some of them are really good and offer a great lifestyle and some people are moving in earlier than I would have thought. We all age, we all go the one way and at the end of the latter period of our life we do not want to be sitting in a bed watching TV all day. If we have got the energy to get out, we want to be able to get out. I see the member for Sunbury furiously nodding. I do not know why; you are a lot younger than me. I am a lot closer to the one than you are, mate – do not worry about it – and I am not that close.

Wayne Farnham: I qualify for one.

Matthew GUY: Says the member for Narracan. My electorate is one of the oldest in the state, certainly the oldest in metro Melbourne. But all our seats are getting these villages, which are springing up, and they are great places for our older Victorians to be. We are all coming from the same angle, which is how we make their lives in those villages better and give them more options. Again, my key issue is – and I will repeat it over and over again because I have heard it so many times, particularly when I go to not just Willowbrae but Applewood as well – that there does need to be something that gives them the ability to govern where they are through some form of mandatory outcome.

I notice there is still a bit of dissatisfaction with the bill, as I think the member for Polwarth mentioned, from some of the operators. I understand why. We are seeking, through the member for Ovens Valley’s reasoned amendment, to be constructive in what we get as the outcome for this, because at the end of the day after a long period we are trying to get to a stage where the retirement living sector, through this bill, gives people some kind of better outcome. It is done with the right intent.

In certain parts of the bill, particularly division 6, there is a need for greater consultation. I say that knowing it has been a long road, but there does need to be greater engagement with those who run the homes, not the owners but those who run the retirement living industry more so than just the owners. I think those who are running it, who are on the ground and who are doing the work and managing those facilities have a unique insight. I have had discussions with residents, owners and the people running these facilities. The people running facilities, as you can imagine, are the people in the middle, so they are the ones who see the perspective from both sides and have, in my view, the best input into what could make what we are debating today in the bill a far better outcome than what necessarily any of us in here could do or indeed any of our departments.

The regulation of the retirement villages I notice is in the purpose. I think it is important to make those changes in the purpose to what the purpose of the bill would be and of course through clause 1(c), which is around providing consumer protection and additional mechanisms. I think I have spoken a bit about that.

I do not really have other points to make. I wanted to put that on record, particularly for those who I have spent many years talking with and had many cups of tea with and attended many committee hearings talking about ombudsmen and the processes to make life easier for those who want to get in and those who have disputes and then potentially want to get out. I think that is very important, and I have put those concerns and those points of view on record, particularly noting that at the last two elections my side of the chamber has advocated policy to have the mechanism of an ombudsman put in place. I thank the house for its indulgence.

Josh BULL (Sunbury) (11:50): I am pleased to have the opportunity on what is still Thursday morning to make a contribution on the Retirement Villages Amendment Bill 2024 and follow on from the member for Bulleen. It is fair to say we do not agree on a whole range of different matters in this place, but I will acknowledge what was a very measured contribution on this bill – as were the contributions from the member for Monbulk and member for Hastings – around the need for and importance of protections, provisions and the safeguarding of what is now indeed a growing style of living. In the previous member’s contribution he spoke about what really has evolved into retirement village living and what, if you reflect over the past number of decades, has indeed changed in the way the communities come together. That is for a whole range of different reasons, and they have been touched on by other members in their contributions.

There are those that come together in local communities to live in retirement villages, and it is our responsibility both as a government and as a Parliament to ensure that the provisions, the code of practice that is within this bill before the house and the way in which management treats both our older Victorians and those who choose to live in retirement villages are done in an appropriate way. What I think is important to note, and all speakers have made this point, is that there are so many across the state who work very hard to create community to make sure that retirement villages can be great places. All of the benefits that have been mentioned by previous speakers need to be acknowledged. But what we also need to do in that acknowledgement – and I think this has been done by others – is identify and recognise the fact that we need to ensure that both legislation and regulation are maintained so that we can get for residents the very best of retirement village living that we can. That is why this bill with the five guiding principles, the code of practice, the better regs that I spoke about, the better governance and safety and course a fairer model is very important.

I heard the member for Monbulk speak about Gerard Mansour and his contribution to this state in this space. I had the opportunity to work with Gerard for quite some time when I was Parliamentary Secretary for Carers and Volunteers. The work that he has done in this space was acknowledged by the fantastic member for Monbulk, but what is indeed important is of course to listen to those like Gerard and many others with experience who have their ear to the ground that work very hard to listen and to learn and capture those ideas in what is I believe an important piece of legislation that comes before the house.

I also want to mention my late nan, Dorothy Hansen, who lived in a retirement village in Werribee in her later stages of life. The transition from a detached home where she had previously lived for decades in Ascot Vale to retirement village living – I am sure in many ways this may happen to a number of us – was a big transition. But what is important is the support within the village itself and making sure that for our loved ones and for any Victorian – anyone in our community – all of those provisions and the safeguards are in place from a social point of view but also a financial point of view. Like any move, particularly I am sure as you move through later stages in your life, that can be onerous. It can be for many a big transition. I know that for my nan it was.

Having the support of family and friends is important, but having a system that puts the resident first is the most important thing, and that is why this bill is very important. Previous speakers have gone through various changes around the guiding principles, the five overarching principles that are intended to be used as a guide to the interpretation of the Retirement Villages Act 1986 and the proposed principles.

I mentioned earlier the code of practice for retirement village operators. The bill includes a regulation-making power enabling the establishment of a code of practice which will require operators to participate in the scheme in good faith and comply with agreements reached during conciliation. Noncompliance with the code may result in regulatory action by the director. The provision that was spoken about at length by the member for Monbulk, the member for Bulleen and others around exit entitlement payments and better disclosure of exit fees goes to making sure that there is a robust system in place that is up-front and that is transparent. That is really important because it goes to being exactly that, transparent and up-front, and people understanding what are getting into before they sign and then having opportunities to transition or tailor that style of living in another way.

What we want to make sure we are doing is embedding fairness within that process. Nobody in this house or the other place needs reminding of why that is so important, because for any family, friends or loved ones we want the very best, and the measures of those things are incredibly important. That is why the bill proposes to consolidate and clarify requirements relating to the payment of exit entitlements. Specifically, these changes will require operators to pay an exit entitlement to a vacating resident within a specified period, which would be the earliest of the time determined under the retirement village’s contract, the time agreed between the parties or 12 months after the resident gives vacant possession of their unit.

Further provisions go to clearer and more consistent contracts. The review that was undertaken heard that the variety and technical nature of retirement contracts make it difficult for residents to compare villages and to understand their obligations and costs. I take the point made earlier around those who read contracts in their entirety, and it would be fair to say that for many contracts the vast majority of people do not read them in their entirety. There is often a lot of complex and legal language in those contracts, which may catch people out inadvertently. What is most important to acknowledge, as I mentioned before, is fairness and the opportunity for those to move to various arrangements. The framework which this legislation sets up is something that I think goes to fairness and opportunities for those living within retirement villages. But the work is important, and the work needs to continue.

This builds on a series of reforms. This is important because it goes to fairness and it goes to all of those matters that I mentioned earlier across those guiding principles, the code of practice and so much more. But what we know and understand is that providing for the very best framework around retirement village living is something that we will continue to work towards. It is not just work within this space, but it is right across government. I am more than happy to move for an extension of time, but I do not think it will be granted. I commend the bill to the house.

Chris COUZENS (Geelong) (12:00): I am pleased to rise to contribute to the Retirement Villages Amendment Bill 2024. I am really pleased to see this bill before the house. I have had many conversations with people in my electorate who have been really concerned about those in retirement villages who have been poorly treated, particularly after the ABC coverage on a number of older people who had appalling experiences in retirement villages and their concern for those people and for themselves going forward. We know we have an ageing population. We have quite a number of retirement villages in the Geelong region, all of which as far as I am aware do the right thing and are very good. People living in those retirement homes are very happy with the way they are treated. But I think it is important that we ensure that there is legislation in place and protections to ensure that people living in retirement homes are not experiencing some of these things that other people have where they have been unfairly treated and that we provide them with the support and respect that they deserve.

Many people go into retirement homes because they are downsizing. They want a better lifestyle. They do not want to have to be mowing the lawns or dealing with major maintenance, and they go into these retirement villages to spend the rest of their life there. Unfortunately, for some people, when they sign these contracts it is not clear what they are actually signing. To have these protections in place is really important, and as I said, I have spoken to many in my electorate – not necessary people who have been impacted but people who are very concerned, whether it is about their own parents or about themselves and what might happen to them if they sign up to retirement home.

This is important legislation. I am really pleased that we have moved to introduce this bill. This bill has been introduced after extensive consultation. Many people were consulted about what is in this bill. As I said, it is important for all Victorians to feel safe and protected in the environments that they are living in. This bill introduces five overarching principles that are intended to be used to guide the interpretation of the Retirement Villages Act 1986. Proposed principles include that a resident’s preference to remain in a retirement village should be respected and that all residents should be treated with dignity and respect. That is what we all expect. We do not expect to feel really vulnerable and uncertain of our futures because of what we have been signed up to.

The bill includes regulation-making powers enabling the establishment of a code of practice which will require operators to participate in the scheme in good faith and comply with any agreements reached during conciliation. The development of the code will be subject to consultation with industry stakeholders, including representatives of retirement villages, proprietors, operators and residents. I think it is really important that the development of that code is done with extensive consultation to ensure all issues are identified, discussed and addressed through that code.

The bill proposes to consolidate and clarify requirements relating to the payment of exit entitlements. Specifically these changes will require operators to pay an exit entitlement to a vacating resident within a specified period, which would be the earliest of: the time determined under the retirement village contract, the time agreed between the parties or 12 months after the resident gives vacant possession of their unit, allowing a vacating resident to go to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to get an order for the payment of an exit entitlement by an operator if it has not been paid in the specified period.

It will require an operator to give a vacating resident a statement setting out the amount of their exit entitlement and how it was calculated and require an operator to make an aged care payment or alternative accommodation payment within the prescribed period after a resident makes a request. The bill includes requirements for how deferred management fees must be calculated with reference to residents’ entry payments and detail on how that fee will increase annually. It is common for the deferred management fee to accrue annually, and the bill requires this to be clearly stipulated. It is also common for operators to provide a gap on deferred management fees; for example, if a resident has resided in a property for five to 10 years, their fees may be capped at 20 to 40 per cent of their entry payment. The bill does not intend to limit or interfere with this contractual practice.

The review we undertook heard that the variety and technical nature of retirement village contracts make it difficult for residents to compare villages and to understand their obligations and overall costs. I think this is a really important point. In many of the cases that I have heard about there is confusion about what people signed up to, and I think it is important that it is put to them in a very clear, understandable way so that they actually know what they are signing. I know not all older people are more vulnerable, but there are those that are quite vulnerable. They may not have the capacity to understand what it is they are going into and do not necessarily have someone standing with them to ensure that they understand what they are signing up to, so this is really important. When drafting the regulations the government will work with stakeholders and residents to meaningfully design standard-form contracts that are expressed in plain English and are easy to understand. The bill includes a requirement that residents’ contracts and management contracts must be in a standard form. The prescribed form for these contracts is proposed to be set out in regulations to the Retirement Villages Act. The development of regulations will be subject to further public consultation. That is another important point in this bill, that further consultation will continue as we move forward.

The contracts will need to outline how exit entitlements are calculated and explain the new requirements regarding settling-in periods. The bill establishes offences and penalties for operators who use contracts that are not in the prescribed form, for failing to give a copy of a resident’s contract to a resident and for contracts that contain prohibited terms. Some of the stories that have been out there certainly identify that these are issues that need to be dealt with, and I think this bill actually starts to address those issues that have been raised in the media in recent times.

The bill will clarify the process to end a retirement village contract and support residents to remain in the retirement village. The new arrangements to terminate contracts will allow an operator to end a non-owner resident’s contract on two grounds: a substantial breach of the contract by the resident or health and safety reasons. The changes proposed in the bill are intended to prevent an operator from giving a resident notice to end their contract unless it is reasonable and proportionate in the circumstances to do so. As such, a new reasonable and proportionate test will be applied to all contract terminations.

Issues around maintenance have also been raised. The bill will clarify village operators’ responsibilities to maintain and replace capital items and allow residents to carry out urgent works where an operator has not acted. If the operator wants to impose a maintenance charge that is higher than the adjusted maintenance charge they must obtain the residents’ approval. Again, it is about dealing with some of these issues that have been raised in the past that have been impacting on older people living in retirement villages and ensuring that they have the protections there, particularly around some of these things around maintenance which we have heard about. I commend the bill to the house.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Wayne Farnham): Member for Gippsland East, it is nice of you to join us.

Tim BULL (Gippsland East) (12:10): Thank you, Acting Speaker. I was at a very important event and came rushing back but did not quite make it. However, I am very pleased to be here now to make a contribution on the Retirement Villages Amendment Bill 2024. This bill has been a long time getting here, and it is a bill that could still do with a little bit of work. As has been pointed out, it follows, initially, a 2017 inquiry, then a 2019 discussion paper six years ago, then four years ago we had an options paper, then we had an exposure draft three years ago and then we had an updated exposure draft two years ago. This amount of time has caused residents considerable frustration, and that is also, in some cases, a frustration that is applied to the operators of retirement villages as well. There are still some improvements to be made, and that is why we are supporting the reasoned amendment moved by the member for Ovens Valley.

This bill attempts to strike a balance between protecting residents and ensuring operators are not overly burdened by cumbersome administration, but it does fall short in a few areas that I would like to touch on. The first is around exit entitlements. This is always going to be an area where you are walking a bit of a tightrope. Operators are seeking a longer time frame because having to have settlement up-front creates financial strain on them and unit sales often exceed nine months – 12 months has been mandated here – but residents are arguing for a quicker turnaround to prevent financial hardship on them. Obviously this was an area of the review that created quite a bit of conjecture, but the sticking point here is the time from what is termed vacant possession. I understand that operators have asked the government for a very clear-cut, concise definition of what vacant possession is. Is that when the resident passes? Is it when the accommodation place is cleared out? Is it when probate is settled? All this impacts on timelines and needs to be sorted. The feedback that we had from the sector is that they need a clear definition around this. I would hope that one has been provided by now given we have the bill in the chamber, but that was the initial feedback that was received by the shadow minister.

Of more concern, and another area that needs attention, is the cooling-off period. The current three-day cooling-off period for contracts is quite simply insufficient. I am not sure who came up with this timeline, but it is just not right. Compare it to Queensland, which has 14 days – that would be a little bit more acceptable. We are talking about senior citizens here – I think the average age is 76 for our senior citizens in retirement villages – who are possibly making the most important decision in their latter life, and we give them a three-day cooling-off period. It is simply not enough. At the very minimum, as our shadow minister has proposed, that should be extended to at least a seven-day cooling-off period, which would put us in line with New South Wales. It would give our senior citizens a chance to talk to close friends and family about the decision they are about to make.

Operators warned that over-regulation can drive up costs, reducing investment in village services and amenities. Any reforms that are being made must consider the sustainability of retirement villages, because the impact of costs that are incurred and then passed on to residents obviously drives up the cost to our senior citizens of a place in these facilities. These are just a few areas that our lead speaker pointed out, but there are several more here. He had a bit longer to talk on them than I do, so I will move on, but he did a good job elaborating on some of those issues.

There are changes that can be made that will, with amendment, better reflect the views of both residents and operators.

It is hoped that if the reasoned amendment is defeated – and we have not had a good track record with those in the current term – we can get some improvements in these areas between houses, because the job of the Parliament is to listen and debate, and if it is working effectively it can make positive changes in the areas that affect our constituents. Hopefully, between houses the right thing can be done and we can get some of these changes that have been suggested implemented, but if we can get the reasoned amendment over the line, even better.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a reform that has been coming for quite some time. I think it has been six or seven years since the process started, maybe even longer. While no doubt there are competing interests between retirement village operators and tenants, these are the obvious issues that need to be addressed. The reason it needs to be got right is that the scale of the change that is proposed in this bill has very wide ramifications for our senior Victorians but also the providers, who in some cases are religious organisations who operate retirement villages. So the rationale and the reasoning to get this right and accurate on both counts is critically important. I mentioned that the average age of those in our retirement villages is 76. We need to provide the structure that allows them to make rational and sensible decisions in the latter stages of their lives.

I would like to – and I know that the shadow minister is considering this should we get into government – such is the scale of this reform, sit back and have a look at these changes after two to three years, depending on the final version that goes through the upper house, to indeed make sure that we have dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s and got things right.

There are some areas of this bill of course we agree on, and I have had few come across my desk as the Shadow Minister for Disability, Ageing, Carers and Volunteers. I am pleased to see that it makes it an offence to provide false information to a resident when it is known to be false or misleading. It also makes it a further offence for an operator to refuse to provide a contract upon request in the prescribed form or for a contract to contain prohibited terms.

Division 3 of the bill provides for a requirement that contracts address the method of calculating exit entitlements. Exit entitlements has been an area of great concern to families of retirement village occupants, because when an occupant unfortunately passes away, the exit entitlements are often left to the families to negotiate as part of probate and settlement, and these can be quite complex and difficult to manage. The provision in this bill is one that I am sure has bipartisan support. It is getting some clarity in there to make that process much easier.

Division 4 provides for contract checks, allowing for residents to get a written review or ask oral questions about their contract. Such a check must be provided to the resident within 30 days of the request. Listed is the information that must be included in the check as well as reasonable estimates of fees and charges and estimates of sale prices. This has been a problem in the past: residents being able to get timely answers to those details out of retirement village providers. This will now give them a clear timeframe and hold them to account to provide that information at the appropriate time. A lot were good – just like every industry in every sector – some were not and needed a bit of a smarten up, and that clause will do it.

There is also clarity with modifications and renovations being undertaken, including who is responsible and for what cost. That is another area where clarity is needed, and this bill provides it. Not only is there clarity around the maintenance costs, but many of the changes will alleviate the disputes that occur over maintenance costs, exit packages and the like. It puts in some very, very clearly defined parameters.

In relation to those areas that I have just mentioned, our senior citizens will welcome those elements of the bill that provide clarity in those areas. They are areas that have caused them stress and concern, and those elements of the bill we do support. So there are positive moves in this bill, but there are areas that do need to be tidied up and areas that do need to be made a bit better. I would certainly like the cooling-off period to be given priority between houses. I do not how under anyone’s understanding three days can be considered appropriate for such a big decision. I am hoping if the reasoned amendment does not get up that at least that area can be addressed between houses.

Steve McGHIE (Melton) (12:20): I rise to contribute to the Retirement Villages Amendment Bill 2024. This is an amendment to an act from 1986, which was a fantastic year because the mighty Michael Tuck led the fantastic Hawks to a premiership over Carlton that year. I am certainly not one to read into things too much about why I was elevated in our speaking list, but it is probably because I had a taste of retirement a few years ago. There was an earlier speaker that said retirees have plenty of time on their hands. Let me tell you, they do not. I was never so busy as being in retirement. I only lasted three months, and I will remind Daniel Andrews, even though he has retired from politics, about the phone call that he made in October 2018, three weeks out from the state election. He dragged me out of retirement, and ever since, the caravan has been in mothballs. Although we have stepped on; we have moved on to a motorhome now. Hopefully we will get to use it bit more. Retirement villages are a thing that I need to think about at my stage of life. I have raised it with my wife, and she said I would have to be kidding to think about moving to a retirement village. It would be very difficult for us at this stage because we have got too many animals. I do not think they could house our horses and dogs and cats and birds and all the other things that we have got at our place.

It is an honour to speak on this piece of reformative work by the Minister for Consumer Affairs. I want to thank the former minister, the member for Dandenong, and her office for the previous work that they did on this bill before our new Minister for Consumer Affairs was appointed, my good friend the member for Bentleigh. I look forward to working with him in his new role. The bill represents a crucial step forward in how we regulate retirement villages. It is one that goes to ensuring fairness, security and dignity for residents now and into the future, and that is what we are working towards. We hope that people in the later stages of their lives are not burdened by the pressures of unfairness and insecurity and also financial insecurity when they have worked hard all their lives and got to their retirement and. Unfortunately in some cases we have seen unscrupulous retirement village operators, for want of a better term, try to rip some retirees off. That is what we are trying to avoid through this amendment to the legislation. It certainly strengthens consumer protections, and it improves support for the diverse needs of our ageing Australians. It establishes some clear mechanisms for resolving any disputes that arise. Again, these are things that we want to avoid for retirees – that is, to end up in lengthy legal battles over their rights and entitlements and their financial situation and financial security, let alone having a roof over their head and how important that is for them.

I know earlier the member for Geelong raised in her contribution that many, many of these residents are in retirement villages for a range of reasons, but a lot of them are in retirement villages because they want to downsize from the properties where they have been, whether they have been on the land, on farms or whether they have been on a residential property that has become too big and they do not need a property that size or a house that size. Some of these retirement villages – or most of them, hopefully – have fantastic modern facilities and a greater range of facilities for retirees to access than they could in their previous residence. The bill also looks ahead, creating a regulatory framework that can adapt to the growth and innovation of this sector. We all know that our community is living longer. Many more of us will be housed in retirement villages as the population grows. As we are getting older there will be a greater percentage of our community and our population ending up in retirement villages – by choice, hopefully, and that is what we are working towards.

It safeguards the rights and interests of both current and future residents, including those transitioning out of retirement villages, and we have heard previous speakers contribute along that way. It is interesting that I have been seeing retirement lifestyle advertisements on the television recently – which is a worry, that I notice those sorts of advertisements. I referred to raising these issues with my wife, and she was a bit shocked that I thought that we should consider thinking about those things in the future. Hopefully I am at a stage where, if we do make a decision like that, I am capable of making that decision and not a bit pickled in the head or something like that. Anyway, we will worry about that as time rolls on.

The review of the Retirement Villages Act 1986 made clear that residents and operators need greater clarity around their rights and responsibilities, improved dispute resolution and simpler and more transparent contracts. That is what we are hopeful for – that it is not too complicated, confusing and difficult for people to manage. It is a direct response to those concerns, following a comprehensive review. I know some contributors today have referred to how long this has taken. While it might have taken quite some time – I think the reference was back to 2017 – my preference is we want to get this right and we want to make it make it better for retirees in these villages and to have simpler, more secure, better outcomes for them if they do engage in these contractual arrangements and move in to these facilities. Throughout the consultation process the government received hundreds of submissions. I think 90 per cent of submissions were from residents, some of their family members and representatives of residents committees at some of the villages. They all demonstrated a strong desire to have some change and improvement, and I congratulate everyone that submitted their submissions in regard to trying to improve the terms and conditions around people entering into the contractual arrangements and entering into a retirement village situation. Congratulations to all those that contributed to the outcome here. Hopefully this delivers on what they were seeking.

As a result these reforms mark the most significant overhaul of the Retirement Villages Act since its introduction back in 1986, setting some of the strongest protections in the country. Consumer Affairs Victoria will now have greater enforcement powers, ensuring operators provide clearer information and there are stronger consumer protections. It reinforces our commitment to making retirement villages a fairer, more transparent and more secure choice for older Victorians.

As I said before, with the population being projected to 10.3 million by 2051 and one in four Victorians expected to be over 60 – 60 years of age is not old. That is coming from a 66-year old. Sixty years of age is just a great start in life, I can tell you, but many more people from 60 years of age are engaging with retirement villages because, as I said, a lot of them are starting to downsize and looking at the facilities that are available to them and the services that are available to them through some of these villages. One in four Victorians are expected to be over 60 by 2046. The sector is evolving rapidly. We have to be aware of that, and we have to make sure that is safe, secure, transparent and somewhere where people want to go to rather than be forced to and engaged in contracts that they do not wish to be engaged in.

The bill introduces five overarching principles which will guide the interpretation of the Retirement Villages Act, with proposed principles to include that a resident’s preference to remain in a retirement village should be respected and all residents should be treated with dignity and respect. I think they are two key areas in regard to our elderly community. They need to have dignity. They deserve dignity and they deserve respect given their contribution to our community over many, many years. It is not rocket science. This is an important bill, and I commend the bill to the house.

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (12:30): The Retirement Villages Amendment Bill 2024 that we have before us is one of the more voluminous bills that we have seen in the Parliament probably in the last 12 months or so. I was interested to hear the member for Melton say, ‘It’s not rocket science.’ Well, given that there are a number of things that have not quite hit the mark, I am glad it is not rocket science, because even something much lower than that has not quite hit the mark. I think the government have still got a little bit of thinking to do in this space and about this bill.

We have got a problem, and we would all be aware as members of Parliament of the problems that we see day to day when people come into our offices with queries. Retirement living is appealing to many. As you get older you move into an area with other like-minded people. That community living is safer. You have got people around you all the time who are at home more if they are all retired. A lot of people downsize. You might decide that you are going to enter into an independent unit or perhaps even a serviced apartment, because we have both being catered for. But for way too long there have been problems with this sector, and as MPs we hear about it: the administrative arrangements; the rights, especially when leaving; disputes – if they have got issues, what do they do? Often they will come to their MP to ask, ‘What are our options? How do we do this? Do I really have to do that or don’t I have to do that?’ With the payments I can think of multiple people that have come to see me. I have a number of retirement villages across my electorate – a lot more in Healesville and the Yarra Valley, and there is one quite large one in Mansfield as well. We hear always about the complex and varied resident contracts. Contracts are difficult for people to look at and understand. When you are looking at where you are going to enter, to try and contrast and compare three different retirement villages can be really quite challenging for people at the best of times, and to try and understand in that contrasting and comparing the obligations about what they have to do as a resident there and the costs. I know that certainly as the coalition we have gone to elections with policies around dispute resolution and protections of finance previously.

The background here is extensive. This is the longest run-up for a bill for quite some time – 2017 – and look where we are now. We are nearly to 2027. We are not that far off a decade. In those eight years or so the Legal and Social Issues Committee looked into the operation and regulation of retirement housing, and there was a recommendation put forward at the time to better regulate the sector and improve innovation, growth and consumer protection. So here we are. It was 2017, and we are now in 2025. The government have been very slow on their delivery of this bill and what we have got now. There was an issues paper in 2019, where there was some feedback followed by community forums; in 2021, an options paper; in 2022, an exposure draft – but that was around about caretaker time, so there was only a small period of feedback; in April 2023, almost two years ago, there was an updated exposure draft; and in November 2024 the bill finally hit the tables of the Assembly. Because that is such an extended period of time there was a high degree of frustration among residents and operators, who were keen to see these changes. Given that the average stay in independent living units is just over eight years, a lot of those people that were driving some of these changes in the early stages would have perhaps moved on to somewhere else in the meantime.

We have ended up with a bill that is a mixed bag. It has got some things that are quite okay and some areas where it does not hit the mark. Our reasoned amendment is about the areas that do not hit the mark. We are not going to hold the bill up, but we do think that there are some important areas that need to be focused on a little bit more. It is a fairly wholesale reform, and it is important. I think the shadow minister, the member for Ovens Valley, did a really great job in his half-hour of highlighting the issues in depth of what is good and where the challenges are. It appears as though it was rushed at the end despite such a long run-up, because there is some drafting that is questionable and some ambiguity as well. He spoke to many, many groups and individuals in the consultation about this.

It is really important that we understand that these amendments have to be well balanced. We hear always from the retirees about the challenges, but at the same time we have to have the environment such that the operators want to stay. We do not want all the operators exiting because it is too hard, because we do need retirement villages, so there is a bit of quid pro quo here that we have to make work. There are 63 operators across Australia and over 862 villages, so you can see from that there are a lot of large operators in this field. The Property Council of Australia in 2023 said that there were 80,000 units within those villages. The average age of entry is about 76, and residents stay for over eight years in an independent living unit and less than five in serviced apartments.

The bill does make motherhood statements and talks about making retirement villages fairer for older Victorians. That is something that we would all agree with, but there are a number of things that I do want to raise that we have concerns with, and we will be continuing to talk to the government and looking at the procedures through the upper house. As I said, we need to balance the resident and operator interests. The bill has been in development for quite some time now, and it has been very frustrating.

The exit entitlements still remain a bit too contentious. When we think about people who have entered into a retirement village, they have put their nest eggs for their retirement there. For some people that will mean downsizing and they may have those finances, but they are still very protective of their finances because it is a very large investment. Sometimes you might want to move retirement villages. You might want to move closer to family, you might not like the retirement village or you might find one up the road and think, ‘Oh, actually that’s got a swimming pool and tennis court or half-court tennis or something and I might like to move to there.’ It makes it very difficult at the moment for people to move, and we need to really make sure that that is streamlined and can work as well as possible for everybody. Because whilst you want your nest egg back and to be able to move quickly to put a deposit on another one, the operators say they need some time, depending on the arrangements of the contract, to fix up the kitchen or to update the bathroom. If you have been there for eight years, it might need tidying up, as we might call it, and they have got to have some time to do that, so there becomes a little bit of a battle about the release of the money. We need to get that right because it is important. At the same time as we are looking after everybody, the retirees, we need to keep the operators there, because this is an important industry. The mandated 12-month period for operators to pay exit entitlements could create some financial strain as sales often exceed nine months, but the residents argue that a six-month period to prevent financial hardship is better for them. This is something we would like to see reviewed.

As I said, this is a big investment. But it is not just an investment, it is a big lifestyle change to move into a retirement village, and you have got a three-day cooling-off period. I think that is insufficient. They have got 14 days in Queensland. If we had seven days, it would align Victoria with New South Wales, and we have got a lot of villages up on the Murray River on the border where that might be really important.

We need to ensure the viability of essential services. Operators warn over-regulation could drive up costs. We do not want to drive up the costs and reduce the investment in the services and amenities. We want to keep that manageable, especially with the cost of living. Any reforms must consider the sustainability, while focusing on that resident protection I have mentioned.

The quorum for decision-making is interesting because the quorum requirement is not workable at the moment and it risks stalling necessary decisions. Getting 50 per cent of people, or 10 residents depending on the size, to a meeting is really difficult. Anyone here who has an apartment with a body corporate would know how many people do not turn up to meetings which are important. We thought perhaps a fairer threshold might be 20 per cent of residents or 10 residents whichever is the greater.

There are needs for amendments. The bill is imperfect, but it is certainly workable with amendments that will better reflect the views of residents and operators. We will continue to work with this through the upper house through amendments that we will be proposing to look at addressing further our concerns. We have our reasoned amendment, which I am supporting, but certainly we will be letting it go through beyond that point.

Matt FREGON (Ashwood) (12:40): I also rise to make a small contribution on the Retirement Villages Amendment Bill 2024. From the offset, welcome back, everybody. This bill is making changes to the Retirement Villages Act 1986. I am a little bit younger than our friend from Melton, but I am old enough to remember 1986. It was around that time that my grandmother moved into a retirement village in Knox. They were a relatively new thing then, if I recall, and there was a lot of development in that area. I am sure the act at the time was a response to changes in the economy and retirement living.

I note some of the comments from colleagues. Probably not to quote exactly, one of the colleagues on the other side said that there was a long run-up to this bill, which there was. I think the quote was ‘longer than Dennis Lillee’. I note that Dennis Lillee was not known for his spin, but there is a bit in this house sometimes. Once Mr Lillee reached the crease the ball came down pretty quickly if I remember, so I do not think it is something that government has to apologise for that, following serious and lengthy consultation, an options paper and a draft bill, we are bringing this bill to the house which makes significant changes to a sector that affects a significant and important part of our society.

I am a little bit similar to our friend from Melton. I had the luxury of turning 55 last year, which does not quite put me in retirement village territory just yet, but I am reliably informed I can now get seniors insurance. That is something I might want to have a look into.

Members interjecting.

Matt FREGON: That is right. Apia, watch out, here I come. I will be watching morning TV on Channel 10 next and checking the ads. But this is an important bill making important changes, and the guiding principles of this bill are intended to guide the interpretation of the Retirement Villages Act. The proposed principles include a resident’s preference to remain in a retirement village and that all residents should be treated with dignity and respect. Those things no-one would disagree with, and I am happy to hear that the opposition are not opposing the bill, even though they have a reasoned amendment. We will see what happens with that.

I have had a number of discussions with constituents last term and this term on retirement village living. If I recall, back in 2021 the member for Albert Park, who was in the upper house last term, the former member for Hawthorn and I went to a retirement village, Manningtree village, I believe, to discuss with members of that village what would have been the options paper, I think, at that stage and what this bill would mean for them and to get their feedback one on one. When we were with the former member for Hawthorn Mr Kennedy, there was a man who was speaking about retirement villages from lived experience. I think it is worth us noting his contribution to this house in the last term and his contribution to the bill that we are hopefully turning into an act today.

I want to also mention something that the lead opposition speaker the member for Ovens Valley mentioned about the part of the bill that tells providers that they must inform residents of their entitlements or payments on a yearly basis. The member for Ovens Valley seemed to think that this could be onerous to some providers, mostly small providers.

I understand where he is coming from, but I would have thought that in regard to a business – a retirement village is a business, like any other – and their obligations to residents, surely in just standing accounting practices they would have a fairly good idea, you would hope, of what money is attributable to their clients and what money they are expecting to get back. Their assets and liabilities would surely be in their balance sheet, which would obviously get updated on a yearly basis. I would presume – well, you would hope – that villages, even the smaller ones, have a good idea of what their financial position is. Therefore it should be relatively easy to share that information on a personal basis to those residents.

A shout-out to – I think the Lions Club was mentioned earlier – the good people of the Mount Waverley and Ashwood Lions Club, of which I am a member, who have a retirement village in Ashwood in my area where we meet and have our Lions Club meetings. Now that is a small village. There are 20-odd units there. Whilst I understand the logic from the member for Ovens Valley, I do not think that having to do a little bit of extra work, which you probably already have the numbers for, is a reason not to share information with residents. I think if we go back to the principles of the bill, the purpose of this bill is obviously to assist the business side to understand the regulations and their obligations, but it is mostly for the people who live in the villages.

Residents knowing what they are up for or what they are expected to have is very important, because especially as you get older, you never know when you may need a higher level of care. This is part of the problem that we have seen in the sector, when it takes a lengthy period of time to get your money that is owed to you rightly should you need to leave. Now, whether you own the property outright and you have to sell it or whether you have got a long-term lease, you need to get your entitlements paid and your exit fees sorted out. In the position where someone goes from a level of care where they are independent to a level of care where they are no longer able to live independently, those decisions are usually made without a whole lot of planning. It might be a fall or it might be a stroke; there might be myriad other reasons, but it is not uncommon for people to have to make those decisions in a hurry.

It is about having an understanding, for the resident who lives there or the families around that resident, of where they are financially. You probably will not look at it too much in your inbox when it comes in, right? You might think, ‘Yes, that’s interesting.’ But should the occasion arise where all of a sudden you need to go into higher level of care, I am sure that is one of the first things that the family would go to look for to go, ‘Well, how are we going to organise this?’ We have all seen this in our families, I have no doubt. I think it is a really important addition to our laws that gives information to people who need it. They might not need it on the day they get it, but they may need it immediately a month later, two months later or four months later. Whilst I understand what the member for Ovens Valley was saying – I owned a small business myself – that, yes, regulations mean you have to do some extra work sometimes, I do not see it as being onerous, and I think the advantages for the residents of the retirement village may be very important on the day they need them.

I would also like to quickly refer to the dispute resolution inclusion. There has been some call from some, and it is a fair suggestion and wish, for an ombudsman in this area. That is not part of this bill, but what is part of this bill is the dispute resolution process through the Department of Government Services and the Minister for Consumer Affairs to also approve a mandatory retirement villages code of practice. I have had some experience recently with consumer affairs dispute resolution with a couple of constituents. I do not have time to go into it in detail, but I will give my praise to the former Minister for Consumer Affairs and the new Minister for Consumer Affairs because the department has been overwhelmingly helpful for my constituents. I thank them very much. I commend the bill to the house.

Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (12:50): I rise to speak on the Retirement Villages Amendment Bill 2024. This bill is one of the largest reforms we have seen to the Retirement Villages Act 1986 since 2004, so over 20 years. It improves the regulation of retirement villages – or that is the aim of the bill – to provide for the needs of the ageing and diverse residents of retirement villages and to provide regulation that anticipates the future and innovative needs of retirement villages and the sector, because this is a very important part of providing homes in Victoria to different parts of the community. The ageing community needs more from the government to work out how we can transition effectively at home hopefully rather than ending up making decisions rapidly and not being prepared, so it is a really important piece of legislation.

This legislation has been in the making since 2019. Before the member for Ovens Valley was the Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs, I was the consumer affairs shadow minister. I spent a fair bit of time working on this as well, and I am quite disappointed that we are here two years into the 60th Parliament and only debating it now. Retirees spent a lot of time contributing their work and their energy to the options paper way before the end of the last Parliament. Many of these retirees come from industries where they had expertise which they offered to the government to feed into the process. I do not think there would be another bill that would have had such cooperation and assistance from a group of people who had an interest in making sure this was done well. I have to say I am quite disappointed that this is happening two years into this Parliament when it should have been done at the very least at the end of the last Parliament, and done properly.

But not only that, I am really disappointed that it is still an imperfect bill that both sides – the providers and the residents – are not happy with. But there are some good things that have ended up in this bill that probably came from that options paper and that the retirees are quite happy with – it was at the end of 2021, I think. We will not be opposing the bill, but I do support my Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs in his reasoned amendment and hope that the government will in good faith look at some of these changes that we are proposing that will improve the bill and that come from the retirees themselves as recommendations and will work quite well when balanced for both the providers and the residents.

My Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs has outlined some of these challenges that face people going into retirement villages: things like making sure that contracts are not onerous but are simple and easy to understand in a legal sense, that fees and charges are sorted and more uniform and more transparent and reasonable, that services that are promised are provided and available, that the dispute resolution process works so that when people are not happy they are listened to and able to resolve the challenges that they are faced with, or if people want to leave, that they are able to do so with the resources that enable them to move somewhere else if they have got an unhappy situation that cannot be resolved. I did see in Warrnambool we had a situation where an aged care facility failed. It was a shocking situation. Part of that aged care facility had an investment as a retirement village. There were people that were not happy, and I facilitated meetings with them to try and help with that situation, but there was one couple who did want to move and the ability for them to access their funds to be able to do it was a real issue for them. These are the sorts of things that really do need to be sorted out.

If the Parliament will indulge me just for a moment, during that Lyndoch period I spent a lot of time with Valmai and Andrew Coffee, who are residents there – dear friends who are very good members of the Liberal Party. Valmae passed away last week, so if I could pass on my condolences to Andrew, Valmae’s husband, and the family and wish them all the very best at this time, which is very, very difficult, remembering the lovely Valmae and the wonderful memories she has left with them.

During this time when the government finds themselves in a housing crisis, there is really no better time to get this right. There is actually a market failure when we have got people not able to get into homes. We are seeing elderly people trying to get into the public housing market – 1000 people on the waiting list. We do have solutions, and getting this right is one of them.

Another thing that happened as a result of the aged-care facility in Warrnambool, Lyndoch, failing was that the May Noonan aged-care facility in Terang actually was sold, and that meant there was a big loss of aged-care beds in Terang, so Terang have a desperate need for some new facilities.

While we are discussing the Retirement Villages Amendment Bill 2024, I would like to take the opportunity to raise Terang’s plight and the needs of the government to work with the Terang community to solve this issue. As a first step, the community actually want the government to provide more aged-care residential beds at the Terang hospital, for obvious reasons. But there is also an overwhelming need for greater aged-care support and a strong desire to bring a retirement village to Terang. The community, led by the Terang Aged Care Future committee, have identified a two-stage approach, and the first is to build a new retirement village, and then a residential aged-care facility. The plan to build the retirement village includes 60 to 70 two-bedroom units, each including disability-friendly design and assisted technology and supports.

For the village, though, to come to fruition the Terang community need land allocated, they need funds raised and they need to attract a suitable developer and operator. But I really commend the community for getting together and doing this. They did it when they set up May Noonan. So they know they can solve their own problems, they just need assistance. Ideally a retirement village would be located within the town boundaries so that residents can access local services and businesses. It is really important to stay in your local community of interest and continue to live the life you have loved. But I urge the Labor government to work with the Terang Aged Care Future committee to create positive solutions to fix the need for more aged-care services in Terang. We should congratulate committee, members, like Chris O’Connor, Eve Black, Ken McSween and others, as well as Cr Geraldine Conheady, a former deputy mayor of Corangamite, who understands Terang well and is a terrific advocate. These are people who are proactively working on solutions to fill a community need and to attract investment to Terang.

If we can provide accommodation solutions for our elderly citizens, they might opt to downsize and move into these facilities, because this in turn allows family homes to come onto the market, which helps alleviate the housing crisis. You cannot get a rental property in Terang; it is impossible. The elderly cannot downsize from their homes unless there is somewhere attractive to move to.

I actually raised this in the Parliament last year and was shocked with the response I got from the government. They suggested that the elderly of Terang should move to Cobden, 40 minutes away, or Warrnambool, 40 minutes away again, to access the retirement facilities. I reckon it is pretty ordinary that the government made the suggestion. There is negligible public transport, the roads are dangerous and their lives are being built in Terang, and they want to stay in Terang and live their lives in Terang. It is so isolating to suggest that elderly people move to another town for the last chapter of their lives when they have built friendships and relationships over their lifetime. They go to the Lions Club and the CWA, and I have enjoyed many evenings at the Rotary Club in Terang. It just shows that the Labor government is out of touch with how Victorians live, and this bill provides the opportunity to get it right.

As I say, I urge the government to work with small towns like Terang, who want to solve their own aged-care facility problems. I recommend the bill not be opposed but we do put the reasoned amendment, because after six years of a government working on a problem that could be solved, with all the assistance they had from all the retirees, I am quite disappointed that it has taken this long to get to this point. Hence why it does need to go through some of the things that have been put in and that the retirees recommendations do happen. But to improve it is just about the government respectfully considering some of the amendments we are suggesting. Let us make the changes that need to happen so people can live out their retirement without the challenges or fights, or fears of things going terribly wrong.

Sitting suspended 1:00 pm until 2:02 pm.

Business interrupted under standing orders.