Minister says Nats ‘bowed’ to minority

Press, 28 July 1987, Page 8

Minister says Nats ‘bowed’ to minority

The National Party has bowed to minority pressure with its vow to destroy the Tenancy Bond Division, says the Minister of Housing, Mr Goff. Mr Goff slated the Opposition’s plan to axe the division and cut other Housing Corporation functions.

“Clearly this system has worked and in promising to destroy it the National Party is bowing to pressure from a small and unrepresentative minority of landlords. The vast majority welcome and accept the assistance offered by the division and the Residential Tenancies Act,” he said.

National’s housing policy promises to “remove the State from the tenant-landlord relationship.” National’s spokesman on housing, Mr Roger McClay, said, “We respect the private sector who are saying it’s not the State’s business to be involved in

this way. “We would not interfere between landlord and tenant. We will ask all — landlord property investors and tenants — to take part in a review of the act.

“And quite frankly, because of the act investors have got out of property so fast it’s not funny. They object to bonds being held.

“We also don’t believe it’s fair or equitable for the landlord to have to give 90 days notice to quit the tenancy and the tenant just 21. It’s also not fair on the tenant to have to front up with four weeks bond and another two weeks rent in advance — that’s more than $lOOO in some cases. “The T.B.D. is just another bureaucracy that’s not needed,” Mr McClay said.

National’s alternative was to get the Small Claims Court to handle any disputes that may arise from tenancy agree-

ments. This would be more cost effective, because the division had hoped to raise $4O million nationally to pay its costs. It had raised only $l3 million to date, said Mr McClay and the interest on that would barely pay the staff’s wages. Mr McClay labelled as “rubbish” Mr Goff’s assertions that National’s policy would remove the protection afforded by the division to 300,000 families.

Landlords were “hostile” towards the division and the Government, he said.

Mr Peter Cook, president of the Real Estate Institute, said the institute was “very supportive of the act and the T.8.D.” He said that there had been little disinvestment from rental property by landlords because of the act — “if there has been it’s because of misinformation, or more attractive forms of investment like the stock market.”