Constructive Opposition

The Herald reports:

Two Opposition MPs want law changes to clean up New Zealand’s $50 billion apartment sector, dogged by disputes, power struggles, lax governance, lack of pre-purchase disclosure, poor maintenance and management plans and financial issues.

Auckland Central MP Nikki Kaye and housing and urban development spokeswoman Judith Collins have met Housing Minister Phil Twyford with Kaye saying that as a result, they hope changes will be underway soon.

A nice reminder that not everything is adversarial. Kaye has been working on this issue for some years, and while there has been a change of Government, she’s still pursuing it with the relevant Ministers.

“Judith Collins and I recently met with the Minister of Housing. We committed – if we were in government – to have a unit titles reform bill introduced into Parliament by Christmas last year. The minister has said he is interested in progressing the reform that the last government was progressing but that it may take until the latter part of this year to draft a reform bill.

“Judith and I are working with some sector representatives to try and progress the drafting of a member’s bill so we can move quicker on this. The final details of a bill would need to be agreed by the National caucus but we hope to have something ready in the next two months,” Kaye said.

So we may get a Government bill by year’s end, or a members’ bill earlier.