Catchpole Brent: Consumer Protection (Definitions of Goods and Services) Bill — Second Reading 
Catchpole Brent: Consumer Protection (Definitions of Goods and Services) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4710] 
BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on this bill. This bill came about as a result of a 1998 High Court decision in a case brought by the Electricity Supply Association against the Commerce Commission challenging its ruling that electricity was covered by the Consumer Guarantees Act. During the select committee’s deliberation there was some concern about the inclusion of electricity in the principal Act as goods. Because that definition already exists in the Fair Trading Act and the Commerce Act it seemed natural to extend that definition to consumer protection legislation. The bill also inserts the supply of electricity line function services into the definition of all three Acts. 
Including electricity as goods as well as services in the principal Act will create incentives for all suppliers to take reasonable steps to avoid failure of supply. I notice that the Minister mentioned that it also reminds people of the climate changes and climate issues associated with electricity supplies. But what she did not mention was the mismanagement of generation under those circumstances. If a generation company is allowed to mismanage the supply then there will be ramifications all the way down the line regardless of whether there will be a shortage of water or other supply. 
So the inclusion of electricity as both goods and services may actually create a problem under the looming electricity shortages that appear to be threatening for this winter. If that is the case when we consider the inclusion of electricity as such there is an attached agreement that electricity is of acceptable quality. However will this bill affect supply if we begin to experience blackouts and even brownouts? We will need to watch this issue because it could well open up supply companies to legal ramifications. 
With reference to telecommunications signals as goods we acknowledge that there are difficulties in separating the content of the telecommunications signal from the actual product. As a result telecommunications is treated as a service only which means that consumers of telecommunications services have more limited rights under consumer protection legislation than consumers of other utilities. That is unfortunate—however we can see the difficulties in classifying telecommunications as a good. The implications of making intermediary service providers such as Internet service providers responsible for the content of the communication is certainly not desirable. 
The inclusion of water as a good and service during the select committee stage caused some concern that this bill could force local authorities to incur huge costs in upgrading the pipelines of supply when the water supply dropped below the acceptable standards. This would result in some drastic rates increases to cover these huge capital outlays and to avoid the possible legal ramifications of challenges to the supply. 
Software companies are also very difficult to legislate for because in fact consumers are buying only a licence and not the product itself. They are buying only the licence to use that product and do not actually receive the product as a commodity. So it is very difficult to cover that issue but this bill makes an attempt to do that reasonably well. In general New Zealand First supports this bill but noting our concerns and the comments I have just made.