Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Thank you Madam Speaker. The Green Party is very pleased to support the Fair Trading Amendment Bill. I am puzzled by that last speech and that the party which purports to be the party of business is speaking so strongly against this bill. I am puzzled by the speech that Melissa Lee gave because in the work that the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment has done in terms of its survey of businesses 45 percent of businesses surveyed indicated that they had been offered one or more contract terms that they considered to be unfair in the past year when this research was done in 2018. Fifty-nine percent had been offered unfair terms that limited the liability of their supplier or business customer. Forty-seven percent had been offered unfair terms that allowed their supply or business customer to unilaterally vary the terms of the contract. There is a problem. This bill aims to fix that problem to ensure that the way in which business is conducted particularly for small businesses is fair.The bill as other speakers have noted applies to contracts which have a value of less than $250000. It is aiming to support small and medium businesses which are the heart of our economy in New Zealand. So it beggars belief that National is opposing the bill. I can already see the misleading Facebook ad that they will put up about this bill because an earlier speaker claimed that the provisions around uninvited direct sale might apply to people like Girl Guides. They had failed to read the bill. There is an explicit provision in it which specifically exempts any visits by charitable organisations—and also by political parties for those of us who will be doing doorknocking this year to ensure that we get another term in Government to continue promoting fairness and equity not just in the business sector but throughout our economy. So National is opposing it typically because they are negative. I would encourage them to read the bill.There's been a lot of debate on the Opposition side about the absence of a definition of unconscionable" in the bill. For those who weren't listening to Deborah Russell she clearly went through that. If members go to the bill look at clause 6 and look at the provisions that the bill puts in the new section 8 inserted by clause 6 which are the factors that the court has to consider in determining whether unconscionable conduct has occurred. There is a page of factors that enables the courts to build good case law around this. It ensures that we don't put in the legislation a limited definition. It allows it to be built through case law but there has been a lot of thought on the factors that the court will take into account. I am heartened by the comments of the honourable Jonathan Young that the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee under his chairmanship is going to do a professional job. Look closely at those terms. I think they have been well drafted. They aim to ensure that "unconscionable" doesn't have an excessive extent and that it will be determined by the court.The National Party has also failed to take account of the work that has been done in Australia where there has been some thought to what constitutes "unconscionable": it is serious misconduct by reference to the norms of society.This bill is about fairness. It is about ensuring that smaller businesses—recognising that they often have a limited power to negotiate in relation to larger companies. It is evening the scales. They don't often have the resources to engage in litigation they don't have the bargaining power and what this bill is doing is ensuring that there is a much better standard of conduct by this unconscionable conduct test. It is protecting households against people like mobile traders who go and harass households and the vulnerable and persuade them to buy things that they don't want.This Government is about fairness. National can claim that it's the party of business but it's not interested in fair business. It's interested in laissez-faire capitalism and leaving people just to survive as they can."