Shanks Katrina: Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Shanks Katrina: Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:655;Page:4698] 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to stand tonight and speak to the Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill. I say “Hello” to all those commuters in Wellington going home in their cars to the Ohariu electorate and I thank them for tuning in to Parliament tonight. The purpose of this bill is to amend the Motor Vehicle Sales Act 2003 to improve its workability and transparency. The Motor Vehicle Sales Act promotes and protects consumers’ interests and seeks to create an environment of confidence and informed choice. It makes vehicle traders accountable and provides consumers with redress through the Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal. 
I was looking at the review of the Act. Section 163 of the Act requires the Minister of Consumer Affairs to conduct a review of the Act following 2 years of its operation and the review report was tabled in the House on 22 March 2006. This review of the operation of the Motor Vehicle Sales Act gave the basis for the amendments in the bill that we are looking at now and was presented in March 2006 as per the legislation. I was having a read of the review to find out why some of the decisions were made and I came to an interesting section that I would like to quote. It is from the “Market Context” section of the review. It is slightly out of date and I apologise to the House for that. The review covers statistics only to 2005 but it puts into context how important the motor vehicle trade is in New Zealand and how big it is. 
The review states that “The MVSA is an important piece of consumer legislation as New Zealand has one of the highest rates of car ownership in the world. In June 2004 the total fleet size for New Zealand vehicles was 3668577.” Going back 5 years that is a significant number of vehicles in New Zealand. The review continues: “Car ownership is highest in Auckland at 33 percent of total licensed cars in the country. The second highest is Christchurch and Wellington third at 9 percent.” I apologise again for going back so far in history but that is when the review was based. It continues: “In 2004 New Zealand Customs reported 236096 imported motor vehicles to New Zealand: 67 percent were used cars and 33 percent new. There were 815252 cars sold and 38.35 percent of these were purchased from a motor vehicle trader.” That gives us a feel for the size and volume of car sales we are talking about and how big the motor vehicle trader industry was in New Zealand and it would have grown. 
According to the review “In the first 11 months of 2005 there were 151512 used cars imported and 77375 new cars … Statistics New Zealand reports that in 2003/2004 weekly household expenditure on motor vehicles was $49.20 compared to $37.40 in 2000/2001. The $49.20 includes $44.40 for the purchase of motor vehicles and $4.80 on credit costs which relate to the purchase of the vehicle.” I will give some final facts even though I know they are going back to 2004: “In 2004 there were 228787 first time car registrations on the Motor Vehicle Register. For the first half of 2005 there were 114908 registrations”. We know that the registrations have increased significantly since the review which the legislation was based on. If anybody speaking on the bill after me has some up-to-date statistics it would be really interesting to hear how much the sector has grown and how important this legislation is when we look at the volumes going through New Zealand. We have one of the highest rates of car ownership in the world. That is pretty significant. 
I cannot wait for the bill to get to the select committee process. The motor vehicle industry is going through very hard times and we are in a recession. It is one of the sectors that have been hit the hardest. There are some flow-on effects from the legislation that will affect the sector. I hope when the bill gets to the select committee—hopefully next week—and when we go to our consultation phase we go out very far and wide and touch the motor vehicle industry individual dealers and consumers so that we get a good balance coming in and so that the industry is well represented in the select committee process and we can hear their voices. The bill has significant flow-on effects into the sector. 
Part of the legislation is good. Some of it is about reducing costs for motor vehicle traders and by doing that it will be amending the process for traders renewing their annual registration and reducing compliance costs associated with making annual statutory declarations as part of the registration renewal process. That is a good thing. A controversial area will be removing requirements for private sellers at car markets to display a consumer information notice. I know that motor vehicle traders out there who are registered as Sue Kedgley said previously have to sell seven cars in a year— 
Sue Kedgley 
: Six or seven. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: —six or seven to have to be registered to sell vehicles. I know there is a huge market out there on TradeMe and a huge market for the sellers on the side of the road. Going round and talking to the dealers—and I have spoken to a lot of dealers over the last year—I learnt that one of their biggest concerns in the sector outside of the recession itself and the impact of it on their sector is about those who are selling private cars under the table in effect—dozens at a time on different informal lots around the cities. They are very concerned about that situation and about the impact of TradeMe with people repeatedly turning over cars on TradeMe and not being registered as motor vehicle traders. 
In the bill we are removing the requirement for private sellers at car markets to display a consumer information notice. That places the onus on those who are doing bulk selling under the table to not declare as much as they should be about the cars they are selling. That will be interesting. At the same time we do not want to take away the right of an individual who has a family car and who wants to upgrade to put it on TradeMe or sell it on the side of the road. It will be interesting to get feedback about that issue in the select committee when it comes. The bill also eliminates unnecessary compliance costs by removing the requirement for transactions between traders or between traders and wreckers to display a consumer information notice. Once again that is reducing compliance costs which is a good thing for car wreckers. Sue Kedgley who spoke before me raised the issue of how some car wreckers will sell over six cars a year but I suppose we will always get that. We are trying to reduce the compliance cost of those who are genuine traders and who are trading within the law and between each other and not onselling the cars at the end. 
The two other things I will talk about are increasing the financial limit at which cases may be heard by the Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal from $50000 to $100000 which will be fantastic for the consumer and allowing the tribunal to award costs for non-attendance of either party to the dispute and allowing it to publish its decisions. That will give accountability to the process and a bit of responsibility because there will be a consequence if either party does not turn up. It will also put a bit of transparency out there for those people who continually break the law. I look forward to the bill coming to the select committee. Thank you very much Mr Deputy Speaker.