I am so proud to be able to stand here and talk about it because this bill addresses issues and challenges and is now providing the solutions and opportunities for folks not just in the Laverton electorate but right across Victoria. I would like to say ‘seniors’, or those just a little bit older and wiser than myself – it is really the people 55 years and over who are living in residential parks. This is a wonderful opportunity for folks in this house to talk about some of the many, many challenges these residents have been facing. This bill is going to address them and solve so many of those challenges, and I am going to talk about that today.

I want members in the chamber to imagine for a second that they are in their late 50s – here is the minister here. You may not be far off being in your late 50s. Maybe you are in your early 60s and you are looking to downsize your home. Maybe your kids have moved out of the house – they have flown the nest, as they say – and they no longer need you to have that really big home you have been living in. Maybe you are a renter and you have saved up some money to move into a residential park unit. Or maybe you have retired and you are looking for a place that has that wonderful sense of community, with fabulous people who want to do things with you in those later years of your life. That is what residential parks can be about, and it is what attracts so many people across this great state to live in them.

In my electorate of Laverton I happen to have two of these residential parks. There is Palm Lake Resort in Truganina, which I have been to on many occasions – so many I have lost count. There are great people living there. Each time I go there I am absolutely amazed by the warm welcome I receive from residents. There are awesome residents, and I am going to name two of my faves: Neil and Carmel. I know that they will be listening to this speech. This is to name just two that are in Trug and that watched just a few weeks ago when I spoke about our government’s proposed reforms, of which this bill acquits just a few. There is also Ingenia Federation village in Albion, just along Ballarat Road. Since becoming the member for Laverton I have got to know the folks living in that residential park and heard about their experiences and their passion for their community and the Albion community. These are amazing people. They are mums and dads; they are our mums and dads.

After speaking with both communities, it quickly became clear to me some years ago that there were things amiss. I was starting to hear some pretty terrible things, some issues that we are going to tackle in this bill, and they were common – they were shared across the residential parks and shared by residents who lived, let us face it, on either side of my electorate. These issues included things about how rent was calculated. In many, many instances I was told that residents were paying up to half or even more than half of their pensions to cover the rental costs. There were maintenance issues – things like rails and ramps that require residents to basically hound their managers just to get fixed. Rails and ramps may not be an issue when you are 55, 56, 57 when you move in, but if you are staying there well into your 60s and 70s and 80s and hopefully beyond, they become things that enable you to get out and about in the local area and do all the fun stuff that you moved into the residential park for in the first place.

We are talking about things like exit fees. If you are a resident, you cannot just leave if you do not like the way the park is run. You have to pay a percentage of the value of that demountable home in order to leave – you cannot just leave.

What that means is that residents often find themselves effectively trapped in their own homes because they must pay for the privilege of leaving. These are just some of the issues that have been raised with me when it comes to living in these residential parks. Some of the conduct of managers and these companies running them is absolutely unconscionable, which is exactly why we are here in this place today talking about reforms in this bill that will change the way things operate.

You would be forgiven for thinking that these parks are retirement villages. I have walked into them and thought, ‘My God, I would love to live somewhere like here when retiring with my husband Scott. This is fabulous. Some of them have cinemas. They have spas, they have pools; they would be great places to retire to.’ But since I have been scratching beneath the surface I have found that sometimes they are not great places to retire to, and we need them to be. We want them to be great places for folks to live in and spend the later part of their lives doing all the things they imagine themselves being able to do. They deserve to do that, and that is what this bill is about.

We did a lot of incredible work in reforming the Retirement Villages Act 1986 to give better protections to elderly residents who live within these communities. But residential parks are not retirement villages, and under the current legislation they are actually classified, can you believe it and shockingly, in the same category as caravan parks. We have got the member for Melton over there; I know he is an avid caravaner, or I should say motorhomer, now. And as a camper I should say these are not caravan parks. Palm Lake and Ingenia Federation retirement villages are not caravan parks.

I want to acknowledge the most incredible woman, and I know that there are many members of the house who will do so today, because she has advocated tirelessly for some of the most vulnerable Victorians right across the country who are living in these situations, and that is Judith Duff. I know Judy, and I know she will be listening today. I want to give you a big shout-out, Judy. You are an incredible woman, absolutely incredible. This bill is before the house and there are members on both sides of this chamber talking about these important changes today because of you, Judy. You have done good – you have done real good. Judy heads up the Manufactured Home Owners Association Victoria, and we have had many, many, many discussions about the challenges folks are facing. Judy has been instrumental in going around and talking to other members in this place about the parks in their electorates. She has gone out across Victoria and talked to folks about the situation that is happening in their parks and about what is going on – I do not like saying that they are caravan parks, because people do not consider them as parks; they consider them their home. These conversations and your advocacy, Judy, have been listened to. When I heard a few weeks ago the minister announce that we would be tackling these issues by introducing much-needed reforms for residential parks, I was so happy and so satisfied. I know, Judy, that you will be over the moon. You will have been at home having a cup of tea listening to the whole debate this morning and this afternoon.

I note that the opposition will not be opposing this bill. The changes we make here today will be absolutely life-changing for the residents who are out there listening. As a result of this work the minister has commissioned the commissioner for residential tenancies to go and partner with the Consumer Policy Research Centre to review this sector so that we can continue, importantly, to strengthen protections for residents who live in these parks. We are not waiting for this review to make the change, and that is what is most important. There are things that we know are not working, and they can be fixed right now. That is why they are before the house today in this bill.

In my eagerness to talk about this, I have run out of a lot of time for the changes in the bill. I know my colleagues who have met with Judy are going to talk about some of those changes.

I do want to give a huge shout-out to the minister, who has expedited the reforms in this space and brought the bill before the house today. The minister has been an absolutely fabulous friend to the likes of Judy and the many hundreds, if not thousands, of vulnerable Victorians that she has been representing. The minister has listened, and she has gone ahead and found some solutions and opportunities for change and legislative change that will make people’s lives in these residential parks so much better. So I do want to give a big shout-out to the minister. It has been a long time coming. Judy, I am going to end by saying a big thankyou to you. I commend the bill to the house.