Bennett Glen; Meager James; Bidois DanGLEN BENNETT (Labour): Kia ora Madam Chair. Yeah I don't want to prosecute too much more because obviously we're in almost all agreement across the House. But I have got some amendments on the table so I thought I'd just quickly address them just to sort of check in because you know I mean we're probably towards the end of litigating—we're repeating ourselves a lot.So I just thought what I would—firstly the member mentioned around the 18-month time frame. I have an amendment to replace 18 months with 12 months just to like what I see is most people are ready to go and it's actually not a lot that needs to be done to change the systems. So why would it be 18 months? Why can't it just be 12 months? I know you had conversations in the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee about this.Secondly this is around clause 1 the title. Currently it's the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill. I thought we could replace gift card expiry" and there's a few options I've put on the table. "Gift Cards Consumer Protection" is one I thought was you know sort of said more about what this is actually about. The second one I had was "Consumer Rights for Gift Cards" or the "Gift Card Expiry Protection" or "Fair Gift Card Expiry". The reason I'm using these words is really—and I did hear earlier from across the floor—it's around fairness. It's actually around fairness. It's around the consumer in terms of its—this is money we're talking about. We're actually just talking about cash in different forms. So I guess I have those on the table I don't want to go on too much longer because I think we can kind of come to agreement on that.But I sort of think I really want to put on the table to you the 12 months—why not? And then the title potentially just so it's actually you know it's a powerful statement when you talk about fairness when you talk about protection and when you talk about consumer rights. So those are my amendments on the table. I look forward to hearing from the member.JAMES MEAGER (National—Rangitata): Thank you Madam Chair. Well Glen Bennett's stolen my thunder because I was going to talk about this exact same Amendment Paper. He's actually cut himself short because there's 10 full amendments on this paper and he's only read out a few of them. One of my favourite ones is the "Gift Card Extended Expiry for Forgetful People" the title. Now I thought that's quite harsh. And I think that's a direct attack on Cameron Brewer I think that is.But I wanted to ask some questions around how this particular Amendment Paper would actually work. Because I know in the past when you put a number of amendments up they can be tested one by one to a point to get a sample of whether or not the House is in favour of the particular amendment or not. And I know Mr Bennett has listed 10 amendments here. So the question I think and this is probably a question for the presiding officer rather than the member in charge is whether or not we get the opportunity to consider those all one by one or perhaps at the end we'll take one at a time or whether this is an entire amendment on one Amendment Paper. Because if you read it literally—if you read this amendment literally—what you're asking to do is you're asking to delete the words "Gift Card Expiry" and then replace it with 10 different titles. I'm not quite sure how that works as one amendment on one paper and whether or not we have to put these on 10 different Amendment Papers. It's been a long time since I've done one of these but I wanted to just raise that as a point that the member didn't actually manage to address and get to. I won't read through all 10 of his very exceptional amendments that we'll hopefully get to consider later on but maybe some other members would like to address them as well.I just wanted to congratulate the member in charge of the bill. I was speaking to him earlier today and he said "This is"—and he literally said this—"the third best day" of his life. You know birth of his child marriage to his wife committee stage reading of the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill. And look I tell you what what better gift on a wedding day or for the birth of your first-born child than a gift card? I'm not sure—I don't have any children—I'm not sure where you would go shopping for a delightful cot or a pram or children's clothing. But what about just the fundamental go-to gift card of a Prezzy Card? You know the catch-all. What do you get mum for her birthday when she's over in Australia on a cruise and when she gets back you want her to spend her money here in New Zealand. What about a Prezzy Card? Hey that's the one thing that people can rely on. Then lo and behold you give your mum the Prezzy Card for her birthday on 7 August and then it gets to 8 August 2025. She looks in her wallet her pocket and all of a sudden the $150 gift card that I've generously given to my mother for her 60th birthday—unable to be used. This is the problem that this bill is trying to solve.It's the problem of lost Prezzy Cards lost Mitre 10 cards and it's the problem that the member in charge of the bill has so successfully prosecuted today. CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): And does the member have a question?JAMES MEAGER: Oh a question to the member. Well I was getting so carried away. So I guess the question to the member is well first of all does the member consider any of Glen Bennett's amendments as something worth considering by him by the committee of the whole House? I know he's the member in charge of the bill and I think generally we should defer to what the member in charge of the bill would like the bill to be called. But in terms of the amendments put forward by Mr Bennett I'd be interested to know what the member's thoughts are on that.And then of course we've got the second amendment which was the 18 months or 12 months. I would like to know why we need 18 months to get this in place. I mean it might have something to do with the fact that most gift cards are expiring at 12 months and so you need that little bit of lead in time afterwards. So I'd be interested to know about that.And I actually have something to disagree with the member in charge of the bill. He mentioned a couple of calls ago that you know this bill won't solve climate change. I think that's selling this bill a little short because can you think of the tens of thousands of plastic petrochemical-derived gift cards that are floating around in the world that have to be renewed year after year printed and developed year after year after year filling up our landfills filling up our waste sites. What this bill may do surely it's going to reduce the number of plastic gift cards by at least two-thirds if my maths is correct. And actually I don't know if the maths is correct there. So let's not sell this bill short. It may go some way to reducing the impacts of climate change by reducing our reliance on plastic gift cards.And finally I'm surprised to hear that Canada has an unlimited gift card expiry in their system. Those crazy Canucks eh? But I wonder you know if we were to ever enter into a purely free-trade agreement with Canada what implications would that have? What if I brought a gift card in New Zealand which could be used over in Canada? What's the expiry date there? How does these gift card expiry rules transgress international boundaries? If it's unlimited expiry in Canada can I send my Prezzy Card over to my brother who's studying over in Canada get him to hold on to it and have the expiry be unlimited until I want to spend it on some goods and products to bring back to New Zealand? So there's a number of questions there for the member that I'd be very interested in as we just get started on this debate this afternoon.DAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): Madam Chair thank you and thank you to the members for your questions. With respect to the transition time yes I think the bill as it was introduced to the House had a 12-month transition time. The feedback from the select committee and in fact there were several submitters in that select committee process that specifically asked for longer particularly if Prezzy Cards were going to be included as part of the definition of a "gift card". That is in part because of the volume of gift cards as member James Meager from Rangitata mentioned the volume of gift cards that are in circulation. There's a lot of gift cards that are actually about the 12-month expiry date so in fact an 18-month deadline gives the chance for businesses to clear the backlog of those that are in circulation and then begin issuing new ones with the expiry date. But it's also really for making sure that the businesses have the systems in place that they also have the training in place for staff to be able to actually go ahead and deal with this change.So it was actually on the basis of that that the select committee chose to extend the transition period for this bill from 12 months to 18 months. Believe it or not there are businesses out there that issue gift cards that would prefer to have slightly longer. So I think that this is about the right balance to get this bill right. It is about fairness. It is about striking the right balance between consumers and also businesses. And in a cost of living crisis where everything matters we want to make sure that consumers have full opportunity to take advantage of those gift cards and also that businesses can minimise the cost of actually transitioning to such a new arrangement. So I think we've got the right balance there for that.In terms of the member Glen Bennett's proposed changes to the name of the bill I think the name of the bill is a fair representation of the intent of the bill which is gift card expiry. So certainly my view is that that is the appropriate name of such a bill."