Kedgley Sue: Consumer Guarantees Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Kedgley Sue: Consumer Guarantees Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 21 July 2010. Volume:665;Page:12572. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 We have very weak consumer protection law in New Zealand and the Green Party supports anything that will strengthen consumer protection help to protect consumers and keep them well informed when they are buying goods. So we are very pleased to support the Consumer Guarantees Amendment Bill which helps to protect consumers in two small but important ways and we congratulate Jackie Blue on this bill. It gets rid of the loophole that means that if consumers buy something through a competitive online auction they are not covered by the Consumer Guarantees Act. Obviously when there are 15000 businesses selling online every week this is an important issue. There is no doubt that some unscrupulous operators are deliberating exploiting the loophole. Jackie Blue reported that the Motor Trade Association actively advises car salespeople to make use of the loophole to dispose of older and less reliable cars before the loophole is closed through legislation like this. This is shocking and the sooner that we close the loophole the better it will be. The sooner that we pass this legislation the better it will be. 
The second issue is that extended warranties are sometimes being offered by retailers at considerable cost when in fact the extended warranty provides little or no greater protection than that which already exists under the Act. We think that addressing that issue is a very good initiative because it will mean that consumers will have to be informed about whether an extended warranty that they are considering purchasing provides any benefit any right or any convenience greater than that provided for under the Act. The warranty will have to include more information about what it really means and this is important because many people do not really have any idea what an extended warranty might or might not entitle them to. 
The provisions that address both those matters will assist consumers to make informed decisions about purchasing but the underlying problem is that most consumers in New Zealand have never heard of the Act. If they have heard of it they have absolutely no idea what it means for them. I note that the Minister of Consumer Affairs is doing a reform of consumer law. She may like to carry out a survey. I am sure she would find that the overwhelming majority of consumers have no idea that the Act means that retailers are obliged to guarantee that the products they sell are of an acceptable quality and are fit for their purpose. This means that most products should perform well for many years and if they do not then the retailer must be prepared to have them repaired or replaced. Most consumers have no idea of that and I think it would be useful to consider requiring retailers to refer to this right in any pamphlet in which they advertise their product. If consumers knew of the existence of this Act if they knew that everything that they were buying needed to be of an acceptable quality and fit for its purpose and if they knew that the retailer must take it back if it fell apart—as many consumer goods do these days—then I think that retailers would not be able to con consumers with extended warranties and consumers would be much better informed. 
The other point I make is that all of these amendments are intended to help consumers to make informed decisions about purchases. Consumers are not exactly clamouring for these amendments to be made but they will be helpful. Yet what consumers are clamouring for and what would help them to make informed decisions is the right to know where a product especially food comes from. It is ironic that the Government claims that it is supporting this bill because it supports the consumer’s right to know what he or she is buying but it refuses to allow mandatory country-of-origin labelling so that we can find out what we are buying. Nor has anyone ever explained—perhaps the Minister of Consumer Affairs could explain this in this debate—why it is mandatory to know where our clothes and our footwear come from but nothing else including our food. 
It is also ironic that the Government will not support consumer legislation to protect consumers from exorbitant interest rates and loan sharks—a bill on which is coming before this House straight after this debate—yet it puts forward this bill as being a great piece of consumer protection. One of the key objectives of the whole Ministry of Consumer Affairs is to enable consumers—