Hipkins Chris: Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Hipkins Chris: Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:655;Page:4692] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I am happy to sum up the comments I was making last night on the Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill and my main point related to the question of priorities. At a time when 1100 people every week are losing their jobs the most important thing this Government wants to bring before the House is a bill that reduces the compliance costs for used-car salesmen. That is more important to the Government than a plan to create jobs it is more important to the Government than a plan to make sure people can pay their mortgages and it is more important to the Government than any plan to close the wage gap with Australia which was one of the centrepieces of the National Party’s pre-election rhetoric. Instead Government members think the most important thing the House should be giving its attention to this afternoon is a bill to reduce the compliance costs for used-car salesmen. As I said last night that sums up the National Government. 
There is a heck of a lot in common between dodgy used-car salesmen and the National’s approach. Dodgy used-car salesmen will tell people whatever they want to hear and make all sorts of false promises in order to make the deal even if they do not intend to keep any of them after the sale. It is a lot like National’s pre-election rhetoric. National members went around the country making all sorts of promises that they had no intention of keeping. They promised tax cuts and they legislated for tax cuts under urgency. They then went back into urgency and undid them all. They are a lot like a dodgy used-car salesman. They knowingly gave the public of New Zealand false information about the product they were asking them to buy with no intention of actually delivering it. 
One of the things this bill does is remove the requirement for someone who is privately selling a used car to have a consumer information notice. I think that is probably quite a sensible change and it is one of the reasons why the Labour Party will support this bill. But is it not interesting that the National Government wants to do away with that requirement? Once again we can draw an analogy between the consumer information notices on used cars and the National Party’s pledge card at the last election. The reliability of the information is probably about the same. We could not necessarily trust the consumer information notice on somebody’s car to know what we are buying just like we could not trust the National Party’s pledge card. Three of the promises on its pledge card have already been broken. After only 6 months in Government three of the National Party’s key pledges at the last election have already been broken. It is kind of symbolic that here we are doing away with the requirement for someone selling a used car to provide information about exactly what it is he or she is selling just like the way Government members do not seem to think it is very important that they stick to the promises they made at the last election to the public of New Zealand. 
The public voted for National on the promise that a National Government would deliver on those 11 pledges including the tax cuts but that was a broken promise. The pledge to cap the number of public servants was a broken promise because the Government is sacking them. The pledge to keep the age of eligibility for New Zealand superannuation at 65 and increase the amount of superannuation paid to people is another broken promise.