Clark David: Consumer Law Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Consumer Law Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 03 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15179. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I rise to speak to the Consumer Law Reform Bill. I note from the start that Labour will be supporting this bill through the House. We are looking forward to it passing and we are wondering why it has taken so long. We are scratching our heads. We are still waiting for that bit of advice from the Attorney-General that Mr Cosgrove sought and we might be waiting for some time by the look of things.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Another 4 years.Dr DAVID CLARK: It may be another 4 years before he gets back to us. And who knows how long this bill will languish on the Order Paper before it makes its way through its stages.There is no doubt that we need strong consumer law in New Zealand. We need protections in place. Mojo Mathers has just referred to the example of the vacuum cleaner. We heard other examples earlier in the debate. There have been several in my local situation that I have heard of recently. TheOtago Daily Timesrecently reported a scam in Central Otago involving workmen coming to lay driveway entries doing incredibly poor workmanship overcharging and then disappearing into the mist. This is all too common sadly. In Brockville in my electorate—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Where?Dr DAVID CLARK: Brockville. It is a great suburb in Dunedin North. I invite the member Clayton Cosgrove to come to visit Brockville. It is a fantastic suburb in the Dunedin North electorate. It is a very wise suburb that knows how to cast its votes in the right direction. There are excellent constituents in that suburb I would have to say. One unfortunate thing that seems to be happening there to one or two families as was reported to me recently when I attended the opening of the community orchard is that pay-day lenders are making their way into that suburb. They have specific families that they visit that they pick on. They wait outside until the family member whom they are trying to enforce a debt with comes home.That kind of behaviour should never be allowed. It happens because of slack law in New Zealand. It happens because this Government has not prioritised consumer protection. Quite frankly it is a disgrace. That kind of abuse that kind of lending that is allowed in New Zealand that is permitted that kind of scamming that goes on is something that the Labour Party stands up against very strongly. It is often those who are the most vulnerable who are picked on. They are at their wit’s end. They are caught off guard by a knock at the door when they are trying to manage children. They are trying to work out where the next dollar is coming from and they are caught in a vulnerable moment with a product that looks attractive at first blush. They are sold on that product and then taken advantage of. They do not have the representation they might have to represent their interests and the law is not strong enough to give them an easy response.I want to ask a few questions about the nature of unconscionable conduct which my colleague Clayton Cosgrove raised. He noted that unconscionability applies when courts consider it unfair or inequitable or against good conscience to allow a party to enforce its contractual rights against a party who is detrimentally affected by an impressive bargain. He raised the question really of whether and where it might exactly apply. He raised the issue of John Archibald Banks and the ability to apply it in a legal case. Of course he did not discuss the matters about which Mr Banks is appearing before the courts because that is something that cannot be discussed in this House. His previous prosecution can be but not the current one. I was wondering to what extent it applies and whether if a party negotiated a deal where they had themselves over a barrel—for example they purchased a product and negotiated that the product was to supply a service and that service was not delivered properly but they had got rid of all the comebacks they might have—that would be unconscionable conduct and could be enforced.I guess I am thinking here of the example of the Skycity deal the casino deal which has been debated often in this House where the Government put itself over a barrel and got itself into a situation where Skycity was the only bidder involved. The Government made political promises that it felt it must deliver on and essentially gave Skycity an open cheque in that it said: “We will not have any comeback if the facility is not runproperly. We won’t have any compensation for GDP loss. We won’t have any compensation for loss of income tax. We will open up the cheque book if it runs over in the planning stages and looks like it’s going to cost a whole lot more. We’ll pay for the whole thing off the back of problem gambling and we will have only 18 jobs for New Zealand as a consequence.” That is the Skycity deal the casino deal that this Government has done. Is the law enforceable in a way that the Government can then ask whether it is protected after putting itself in such a stupid position in the first place? Can the Government ask whether it has negotiated itself into a position where consumer law ought to protect it? I do not think that it can in the case of this law. I do not think that this law is designed to protect Governments from their own stupid decisions. If it only could that would be a good thing.It is exactly the kind of thing we see played out on a grand scale. We saw the Government give $30 million out to Rio Tinto and get absolutely nothing for that. We would have thought that it might ask for a jobs guarantee or some kind of future certainty. Maybe it got a little tilt in the price of the asset sales deal it was trying to get through as a result of shelling out $30 million to a corporate in New Zealand. Likewise with the Skycity deal maybe that got the political promise over the line. But again the Government has put taxpayers in such a devastatingly poor position that you have got to wonder whether it has some rights having put itself in a position where a contract ought not to be able to be applied in good conscience because it is such a bad deal for the Crown.This bill is making its way through the House as I have said incredibly slowly. Inequalities in New Zealand continue to widen. This Government has overseen the greatest level of inequality that New Zealand has had since records began. We had tax cuts in 2010 that saw the wealthiest 10 percent get 40 percent of the value of those tax cuts and the—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!Dr DAVID CLARK: —most hard-up 20 percent get just—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!Dr DAVID CLARK: —2 percent of the value of those tax cuts. The kind of inequality that has gone on is something that this bill is trying to protect against. It is trying to make sure that those who are most vulnerable are protected and we compliment the Government for the small measure that is being taken here. It often seems so distracted by ideological agendas asset sales and the interests of the big end of town. Here we have some consumer law.Paul Goldsmith: Repetitive.Dr DAVID CLARK: It is going through very slowly but at least it is offering some protections for those people. I petition Mr Goldsmith at the back there to try to do what he can as a now highly rankedTrans Tasman MP to make sure that he is also looking out for the little guy. He tells me that—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Who? Lindsay?Dr DAVID CLARK: No no Mr Goldsmith at the back there. He tells me that he is very interested in right-wing politics but I petition him to—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Wasn’t he John Banks’ biographer?Dr DAVID CLARK: He was John Banks’ biographer and you remind me of the unconscionable conduct earlier but—Phil Twyford: Hagiographer please.Dr DAVID CLARK: We are not on hagiography yet I do not think.Paul Goldsmith: I take no responsibility for the subject.Dr DAVID CLARK: Well let us not get into that debate. Let us move away from that and come back to the debate at hand. I petition Mr Goldsmith to do what he can tomake sure that markets are fair in New Zealand and do not advantage just the big players through unlevel playing fields.This legislation which does take some steps forward for the average consumer is a bill that is really a major win for Consumer New Zealand. Consumer New Zealand and itsConsumer magazine highlighted in February last year that delays in consumer reform were really leaving Kiwis a lot worse off than the Aussies who have progressed their legislation much more rapidly. That petitioning together with work from Labour and public support from Labour has meant that this bill has wriggled along a little bit but we would really strongly implore the people who sit opposite us in Government to up the pace at this stage. A snail’s pace is not good enough for consumer protections. We actually need to get this legislation through to make sure that those who are most vulnerable are protected and that we have sensible laws so that people know when they are investing in a product that it is what it should be and that they have a fair comeback if it is not what it should be or what it claims to be.