Hipkins Chris: Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Hipkins Chris: Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 When we were finishing before lunchtime I congratulated Heather Roy on the very comprehensive speech that she gave on the third reading of this bill the Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill. I contrasted her speech with the speech delivered by Minister John Boscawen who is in charge of the bill and who seemed to have barely a grasp on what the House was debating. He stuck entirely to the scripted notes provided to him by his department. I wondered whether Heather Roy had written the speech herself before she was given the chop from the job and whether John Boscawen had simply come along to the House and delivered her speech. He did not seem to have any grasp of the bill that is being debated. He took only one call at the very beginning of the Committee stage of the bill. That was the only contribution from the Government during the Committee stage. There was a very short call from John Boscawen at the beginning and nothing— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: What’d he say? 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I do not know what he said; it was not all that impressive. He did not really say much. There was no mention of the emissions trading scheme which was quite a milestone for him. I think it was the only speech that he has ever delivered in the House that did not mention the emissions trading scheme. He did not demonstrate any knowledge of the bill which he is charge of. He demonstrated that he had no idea about what he will do in the consumer affairs portfolio which makes one wonder why he is the Minister of Consumer Affairs. What was wrong with the last one? She seemed to be doing an OK job. 
The Committee stage of this debate did throw up some interesting pieces of knowledge. Moana Mackey shared with us that she chooses which car to purchase by the number of cup holders it has. It has to be a white car or a silver car and it has to have a cup holder. We also found out that Moana Mackey made the mistake of choosing a car that did not have a petrol light. She discovered the hard way what that meant. Moana confided to me at lunchtime that she continued to drive the car with no petrol and discovered that it did not have a petrol light only when the car stopped— 
Moana Mackey 
: I’m a scientist! 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: So Moana Mackey—the scientist—thought that providing the petrol light was not on the car must still have petrol even though the needle was on empty. She thought that if there was no light blinking at her the car must still have petrol. That goes to show that even scientists can get it wrong which is why it is so important that good-quality consumer information is available to consumers purchasing second-hand motor vehicles. That is one of the reasons why the consumer information notices provided when second-hand cars are being sold are really important. 
One of the things this bill does is to remove the obligation to provide consumer information notices in the case where a car is being sold privately. However as I pointed out during the Committee stage of the debate a number of cheap cars are sold privately. The majority of cheap cars are sold privately therefore the removal of that obligation is quite a significant issue for young people. Most young people buy cheap cars. They will not go to a car yard and spend five grand or more. They will spend $500 picking up something off TradeMe or off the sale and exchange classified advertisements in a newspaper. So they will need to be very wary of what they purchase. 
If there is one message that we need to get through to those who buy cars privately it is buyer beware. People will not necessarily be given information on whether a person whom they are purchasing a car from still owes somebody else money for the car. If that person still owes somebody else money then the purchaser could well find themselves facing a liability they were not aware of. People who privately buy cars need to be very cautious. There is definitely a case of buyer beware. But if they purchase a car from a licensed motor vehicle dealer the dealer needs to provide a consumer information notice stating whether somebody still owes money on that vehicle. That is a very positive thing. 
We are here debating this legislation under urgency again. We had the first reading debate when the House needed to go into urgency about a year and a bit ago but it took over a year for the bill to suddenly become urgent again. Now we are back under urgency debating the Committee stage and the third reading of it. It was not really urgent in the first place; it is still not really urgent. It is simply poor organisation on the part of the Government which is absolutely abusing parliamentary process in my view in the way that it is handling this bill as it has with so many others. 
The handling of this bill says something however about the Government’s sense of priorities. At this time when it has absolutely no economic plan whatsoever to tell New Zealanders about it thinks that the single most important priority the House should give its attention to is a bill to reduce compliance costs for used-car salesmen. That is the National Party’s economic plan at this point in time—to reduce compliance costs for used-car salesmen. It does not have anything more important or more urgent to bring before Parliament. Despite the fact that we were here until midnight last night there is still no economic plan from the Government still nothing that will close the wage gap with Australia and still nothing that will put hard-working Kiwis back into jobs. Instead there are thousands of people lining up outside supermarkets applying for relatively low-wage jobs and the Government thinks the most important thing that it can do for the New Zealand people is to reduce compliance costs for used-car salesmen. I think that says something about the Government’s priorities. 
Finally on the topic of consumer information notices I have to say that I hope they have a little bit more credibility and integrity than the voter information notice the National Party distributed before the last election otherwise known as its pledge card. We know that the voters could not believe a word of it because National has already broken nearly half of the promises on its pledge card. If that was a consumer information notice there would be a fair trading case to take on the basis that National broke its promises and that that notice meant nothing. With those comments I conclude. Thank you very much.