Brown Peter: Motor Vehicle Sales Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Brown Peter: Motor Vehicle Sales Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:607;Page:4762] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I want to start my address by imploring somebody from the Government to stand up and tell us what this bill is about. New Zealand First was not on the Commerce Committee. I heard my good colleagues from the National Party—I think Simon Power said so when he started his speech—say that they are to support this bill but they have not found a thing that is right with it yet. 
Simon Power 
: No I didn’t say that. 
PETER BROWN 
: I was almost certain that the member said he would support this bill. 
I must be a bit more serious. Clause 3 outlines the purpose of the bill. It states: “The purpose of this Act is to promote and protect the interests of consumers in relation to motor vehicle sales.” This bill falls well short of that. We need a Government member to stand up and explain how this legislation will deliver on that. The bill removes the fidelity fund. If members talk to members of the public who buy cars they will hear that the public is concerned about that. Maybe the dealers are not very concerned about it but members of the public who buy cars— 
Hon David Carter 
: Name one. 
PETER BROWN 
: The list would be so long that it would take me all night and half of tomorrow to read it. 
Hon David Carter 
: I will get you an extension of time—until 1 o’clock in the morning if you like. 
PETER BROWN 
: Oh yeah. 
Rodney Hide 
: I don’t think there’s any. 
PETER BROWN 
: Mr Hide should read the report. The select committee said it had looked at a number of alternatives to the fidelity fund including indemnity insurance but it put that in the too-hard basket. It looked at a bond system and again it put that in the too-hard basket. It looked at insurance schemes with ministerial approval and they were most definitely in the too-hard basket. Nevertheless the fidelity fund is to go. 
Another question that should arise is who will police this system? The Government is setting up a structure but who will police it? And if that is too tough a question Government members should answer this one which may be even harder: how will they police it? By reading Supplementary Order Paper 30 in the name of the Minister which is nearly a tenth of the size of the bill—a Supplementary Order Paper that will not be scrutinised by the select committee—we see towards the end Clause 146 “Review of operation of Act”. Not that ACT I hope. Clause 146 states “(1) The Ministry must no later than 2 years from the date of commencement of this Act— (a) review the operation of this Act since its commencement; and (b) prepare for the Minister a report of the review that includes recommendations on whether any amendments to this Act are necessary or desirable.” That really sounds like a Government that has confidence in this legislation! 
I know the Minister in the chair is a sound-thinking member and I invite her to stand up and tell us what this bill is all about and whether it will be to the benefit of the consumers as the purpose clause illustrates it is meant to be. There is some real concern out there on the part of the public. To my mind and I might be totally wrong on this this legislation opens the door to any unscrupulous person who wants to get involved in selling cars—anybody at all. The policing of that is vague to say the least. The bill states somewhere that a car salesperson is someone who sells more than six cars a year. Who will keep a check on that? How will a check be kept on that? I understand it will be administered from a central office in Auckland and I want to know how that will work. 
As I said New Zealand First was not on the select committee at the time of its consideration of this bill so we did not play any role at all in the way that it has been compiled. We are concerned to see a Supplementary Order Paper of significant size relative to that of the bill coming to the Committee and further a one-page proposed amendment from the Minister. We believe there are some genuine questions to be answered and we believe this Committee should be entitled to the answers before this bill progresses too much further down the track. 
Hon David Carter 
: You won’t be able to go to one o’clock if you can’t do better than that. 
PETER BROWN 
: I do not intend to go to 1 o’clock for the information of the good member. I am trying to raise the seriousness of this debate. We have a bill here— 
John Carter 
: When are you going to start? 
PETER BROWN 
: I have been trying to do so for 5 minutes. I thought I was doing very well. We have a bill here that really opens the door to people who are prepared to be unscrupulous in selling vehicles. I think the intention of this bill is admirable but the Government has not made it a reality.