Power Simon: Motor Vehicle Sales Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Power Simon: Motor Vehicle Sales Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:607;Page:4770] 
SIMON POWER (NZ National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I am still struggling to recover given that the only part of the bill that one can agree with is the title. I learn something every day that I am here in Parliament. [ 
Interruption 
] Are the members sure about that? 
Peter Brown 
: Absolutely! The title is the only good part about it. 
SIMON POWER 
: OK. Part 2 relating to motor vehicle trading contains a number of prohibitive clauses initially clauses 11 through to 13 which I will deal with briefly. I will then talk about car fairs which are caught up in clause 14(2) and then the old bona fide purchaser and clear title issue in clause 15(1). That is the sort of stuff that haunts third-year law students dealing with security interests as to whether dealers are registered or not. Clause 15(1)(b) is a very interesting clause which we will look at in the next 4 minutes and 30 seconds. 
Clauses 11 12 and 13 deal with persons banned from participating in the business of motor vehicle trading. I put this issue to my ACT colleagues. Clause 11 states: “A person must not participate in the business of motor vehicle trading if that person is a banned person.”—or what? What is the fine for doing that? What happens if a person is a banned person and he or she does participate in the business of motor vehicle trading? 
This legislation is appallingly drafted. We have four-wheel drive vehicles going around corners too quickly and turning into motorbikes. We have odometers being tampered with and we know that the actual distance in relation to a motor vehicle’s odometer means the distance that would otherwise have been recorded had the odometer not been tampered with. That will go down well in court! Clause 13 is my favourite though. It is headed “Tampering with odometers prohibited” and it states: “A person must not tamper with a motor vehicle’s odometer.”—or what? There is no clause in the bill that states what will happen. There is no clause stating what penalty will be incurred for that. There is no clause stating what that person will face. That clause states that a person must not tamper with a motor vehicle’s odometer—or what? [ 
Interruption 
] That is very good Minister! People should not do that—or what? What sort of clause is that? How can anybody take that provision or those preceding it seriously? We are told that we are not allowed to do that. That is fine; we are quite happy with that. But what happens if we do so? We are not sure of that; one just has to take that chance at the time that one does it. That is really poor slack drafting. 
I will move on now because I know my colleague David Carter intends to dwell on clauses 11 through to 13 in his 5-minute contribution. However I do want to raise the question that I raised in my contribution on the title about the difference between the sale of a motor vehicle and its trade. Clause 14(2) captures the car fair—the good old car fair on the side of the road where one used to be able to bowl up park one’s car on the road slap a notice on the front and say one was keen to sell it to anyone for $1500—to any buyer or the best bidder in the room. Now that particular activity is caught under clause 14(2) where a motor vehicle trader who is a car market operator—not a car consultant but a car market operator—must ensure that a consumer selling a vehicle through that trader attaches the notice to the vehicle. When we look at the provisions of the notice we see it is regulation gone mad. That is a situation where a person wakes up on a Saturday and says he or she needs a quick $1000 so he or she will go down to the car fair sell a car and be on his or her way. That person will not be able to do that because under clause 15(1) a person has to attach a notice pursuant to section 58 of the Personal Property Securities Act in a prominent place. 
Sandra Goudie 
: I have many in my kitchen drawer. 
SIMON POWER 
: That is right. The buyer or lessee of a motor vehicle only takes the vehicle free of a security interest in the event that subparagraphs (a) through to (c)(i) of that section are passed. We know how difficult legal transactions are when a security interest attaches to a motor vehicle.