Unkovich TanyaFAIR TRADING (GIFT CARD EXPIRY) AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingDebate resumed from 29 May.TANYA UNKOVICH (NZ First): Thank you Madam Speaker. I stand on behalf of New Zealand First to support this bill the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill. I'd like to acknowledge the member in the House who is my colleague from the select committee Dan Bidois for bringing this bill to the House. I think he was actually the second member wasn't he? It was originally the Hon Melissa Lee. So I just want to acknowledge you both.Now I must admit on a personal note it would be a very rare day that I would personally allow a gift card to expire. The accountant in me never lets a penny go astray or wasted and I must say nothing has changed. Last month I was notified that I had a small voucher at a company and off I went very quickly to redeem it. Also I must admit it's not something that I would normally give as a gift. So learning about all of these processes and what actually does go on was quite an eye-opener for me. My mother on the other hand was addicted to gift cards. Being the one who would always go and do the Christmas shopping for her I was always the one who was left to wrap them. So I must admit that I was kind of relieved when she discovered gift cards and I got the instructions: Tanya you go to Farmers"—or DEKA in those days I think it was—"and get 10 times"—oh I don't think the clock's going Madam Speaker; that's fine. Oh there we go. It is going. There we go.DEPUTY SPEAKER: It blinked.TANYA UNKOVICH: It blinked it did.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Carry on.TANYA UNKOVICH: Power outage.So the big learning curve for me actually was that not everyone's like me. In the select committee I discovered that not having an expiry date was actually quite a big issue and that there were many consumers who are often left on the back foot when they realise that they have lost their card they cannot redeem it or anything like that. I then discovered that they needed to be protected.Now according to a Consumer New Zealand campaign to end unfair gift card expiry dates evidence was shown that one in five gift card holders have actually been stuck with an expired gift card. Now the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill seeks to prohibit the sale of gift cards with an expiry date of less than three years after the initial sale date. Now some people may think "Gosh that is a really long time." It was one of the issues that we looked at during the select committee on what a reasonable period of time would be and we decided and fell on the three-year mark. So in doing this this will now give any recipient of a gift card this reasonable period of time in which to spend it and use it.Now this bill will have to amend the Fair Trading Act 1986. That is where the rules for gift cards are currently stipulated. The new section 24A will prohibit the selling of gift cards with an expiry date of less than three years. So 24A also defines the terms "expiry date" and also defines "gift card"—believe it or not this does have to be stipulated in the bill.It also sets out in the bill that there are a number of cards and vouchers that are excluded from this definition of "gift cards". So whilst I won't go into all of them I'll just give you a few examples of what will be excluded. The first one is a gift card supplied through a customer loyalty programme—so for example if you get a New World gift card which is purchased with Fly Buys; now I don't know if you can do that at the moment; things may be changing there as well. That is an example that is excluded. Also excluded will be a gift card or a voucher for a time-limited event—so an example would be a festival or a concert something like that often which happens during the summer period. Another example of an exclusion something that is not defined as a gift card is a card which is used to pay for transport and utilities. So that would be a pre-paid card for public transport or electricity or gas or something like that.So other issues that we discussed during the committee process was to actually have the word "exp"—shortened expiry—on the card so that people didn't miss it. It's very easy to see a few numbers there and not actually realise what it is. So in order to avoid that confusion we decided to have the word "exp" on the card then with the numbers that would be the expiry date. So one could easily be confused or if you don't have your glasses on miss it completely. So that was one thing we decided on during the select committee process.Now another thing that needed to be decided on was the transition period. When does this kick in? We decided that there did need to be a transition period. Now this would be in order to give businesses—small businesses especially—a bit of time to adjust for especially their accounting processes. This is something that New Zealand First were very agreed on that this had to be done. The reason being is that revenue recognition is often very different for gift cards. While someone might go in and buy a card they exchange money the sale is up front but it doesn't actually qualify for revenue recognition because no goods or services have actually been exchanged yet. So it sits on the balance sheet as a liability for the business owner. Then once the gift card is redeemed that is when it is recorded as a sale in the books.So as you can understand business owners would need a bit of time in order for them to perhaps make some adjustments to their accounting processes or even to simply understand what is going on. Some may have to engage a professional in order to assist them during this transformation period. Now there could be other issues that could come up—data entry I'm not sure if there would be any changes to GST reporting there could be potential cash-flow implications. So this all needs to be taken into account in order to give businesses a good period of time in order to adjust. I believe it was 18 months actually that we fell on as a period of time.So as mentioned before look it would be a rare day that I would allow a card to expire but the truth is that it does happen. Many people forget they've been given one and many people forget where it was. Just reading through my notes a little while ago it reminded me that after my late-mother passed away I was going through her things and inside a birthday card was a gift voucher that she had not used and had expired. So on that note I would like to on behalf of New Zealand First commend this bill to the House.DEPUTY SPEAKER: This call is a split call. I call Ricardo Menéndez March."