Summerset Mt Denby residents Maria Vuletich (centre) and Shirley Mellsop met with Whangārei MP Shane Reti. Photo / S Curtis
A recording leaked last Thursday of National MP Sam Uffindell recognising Labour MP Ingrid Leary’s Retirement Villages (Fairer Repayments) Amendment Bill as a smart political move, has intensified pressure on his party to follow suit - and quickly.
The next day, Whangārei MP Shane Reti faced a delegation of members from the local branch of the Retirement Village Residents Association (RVResidents Assoc), who urged him and his colleagues to give the same urgent priority as Leary to a review of the Retirement Villages Act 2003 - before next year’s general election.
Although the meeting had been scheduled weeks earlier, Summerset Mt Denby retirement village residents Shirley Mellsop and Maria Vuletich said their concerns were underscored by a 1News report the night before of Uffindell’s leaked remarks.
In the recording, Uffindell was heard praising Leary’s “cunning” in crafting the bill and her “savvy” for having garnered a lot of attention for it around retirement villages.
He said the Government needed to respond - and quickly.
He urged National to adopt the bill’s workable elements before the end of the parliamentary term, warning: “We’re going to have a whole bunch of disgruntled people in retirement villages who all vote and all talk to each other and who’ll say National hasn’t actually delivered and Labour was going to do this”.
Mellsop and Vuletich told the Northern Advocate their 30-minute meeting focused on the bill’s core provision: requiring retirement villages to repay 10% of the capital sum within five days of a resident moving to higher care or passing away, and the remainder within three months.
They also raised concerns about operators – not residents – being responsible for repairs and maintenance, the need for an independent complaints process and registering salespeople under real estate legislation to ensure transparency.
They reminded Reti there were about 55,000 retirees living in retirement villages and more than 1.2 million voters aged 60 and over.
They said Reti was attentive and sympathetic to the issues they raised but they couldn’t tell whether he supported an urgent review of the act.
Reti, who has previously warned that aged residential care is “the next sector that’s going to break”, has not publicly endorsed the bill.
He told the Northern Advocate he would share Mellsop and Vuletich’s concerns with Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka, who had received several briefings on the issue and intends to introduce a bill next year.
Public consultation for a review of the act, led by Te Tūāpapa Kura Kāinga / Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MHUD), began in 2023.
During October 2024, MHUD announced a more focused review with three priorities: maintenance and repairs of operator-owned chattels and fixtures, complaints and disputes, and options for incentivising or requiring earlier capital repayments when residents move out of a village.
MHUD initially said “any amendment bill will likely be introduced in the next parliamentary term” but in March, this year, it updated its website to say the timeline had been brought forward, with a bill potentially introduced in July, next year.
RV Residents Association of NZ national president Brian Peat believes that would be too late to see it enacted next year, especially with a general election looming.
Peat said retirement village residents wanted to see operators subject to a mandatory repayment programme – not “options for incentivising” repayments - and they wanted it within this current parliamentary term.
Peat warned the issue would continue to drag on if it wasn’t dealt with urgently and retirement village residents will likely vote accordingly.
Residents were aware and National needed to take heed that if Leary could secure six bipartisan votes, her bill could be fast-tracked and enacted before the 2026 general election.
Leary has reportedly responded to news of Uffindell’s leaked remarks by saying National MPs should support the bill “because it’s the right thing to do, not just because it’s politically expedient”.
She emphasised the emotional toll on residents and families waiting for repayments and called for swift legislative action.
Uffindell, the MP for Tauranga, told TVNZ the Retirement Villages Act review was a “really big concern” for retirement village residents in Tauranga, and the Government was “open to all good ideas” as it worked to “get the legislation right”.
Sarah Curtis is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate, focusing on a wide range of issues. She has nearly 20 years’ experience in journalism, most of which she spent court reporting in Gisborne and on the East Coast.