Radio New Zealand has a story about a supposed deal between Labour and NZ First over commercial rent relief:
Tenants unable to pay rent on commercial leases have been given a lifeline after almost two months of negotiations between Labour and New Zealand First.
If tenants and landlords can’t reach agreement on a fair rent reduction they will have to enter compulsory arbitration.
The rent dispute process is for businesses with 20 or fewer fulltime employees which can prove a loss of revenue as a result of Covid-19.
However, where businesses and landlords have already been able to reach agreement in response to Covid-19, they will not be able to use this new process that applies from today.
The change is a temporary amendment to the Property Law Act, which means if tenants and landlords can’t agree on a fair rent price, they’ll have to enter taxpayer-subsidised compulsory arbitration.
New Zealand First and Labour have been negotiating a deal for nearly two months and Justice Minister Andrew Little said he regretted that for some landlords and tenants it would be too late.
“I genuinely regret that those circumstances have arisen. I know that there will be some parties which will have reached agreements that at least one side won’t be happy with, but they felt compelled to enter that sort of agreement and this package won’t resolve it for them.
“We’ve always taken the view that in a situation like this, everybody’s got a share of the burden, everybody should share the pain,” he said.
“This package does that. It’s not about the government throwing more money at people to fix it, it is about providing the means for parties in a commercial situation to come up with a sensible solution to deal with a difficult problem. It is a pity it has taken this long.”
Little said the process announced today would provide guidance on how parties can negotiate “a fair proportion of rent and outgoings that would cease to be paid”.
Sources say that Winston Peters thinks this is an good compromise solution, but when he finds out he was stitched up by an unholy alliance of David Parker, Andrew Little and corporate lobbyist and former political staffer Neale Jones he may actually rethink his agreement.
Labour folks, especially Neale Jones, have been running around gloating and claiming that Winston was stitched up in a deal that favours Neale Jone’s clients, large multi-national and big box companies, over small commercial land lords. That doesn’t sound like a good compromise to me.
Jones has been lobbying intensely and worked with Little and Parker to put in place the 20 staff limit that Winston Peters thinks is a good compromise.
While the prime minister, finance minister and Little have been pushing for a more compulsory arrangement, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters told RNZ last week he wouldn’t play a part in breaking the sanctity of contracts.
In most commercial cases the imbalance of power sides with the landlord but Little said he had heard complaints from both parties.
Some large commercial tenants have declared they will refuse to pay any rent for several months to smaller landlords, while landlords have also demanded full rent from smaller retailers who have been unable to trade at all under alert level 4 and in some cases level three restrictions.
The original Cabinet paper presented to ministers nearly two months ago had no cap on the number of employees per business site, but as a result of negotiations it is now capped at 20.
Except it means a suburban McDonalds with less than 20 staff can now give a big rent haircut to the Mum and Dad commercial landlord. There are many, many examples like that.
David Parker and Andrew Little have sided with the big end of town against small local commercial landlords.
Winston Peters really needs to go back to his original position. Contracts are contracts and being stitched up by Andrew Little, David Parker and Neale Jones shouldn’t change that.
It beggar’s belief that the Government will side with multi-nationals against local commercial landlords.
It is ironic that Neale Jones with a good union pedigree alongside Andrew Little the former head of New Zealand’s biggest union would conspire together to shaft local businesses in favour of multi-nationals.