Smith DamienDAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Before I start this speech—Mr Nash and Mr O'Connor might be able to relate to me—but the Encyclopaedia Britannica was a very useful tool for the four kids that were in my family and actually it's where I first saw a picture of New Zealand. So I think we shouldn't really defame the pre-internet literature that was available to us at the time and it served us well. Mr Strange made a very strange speech and there's some very strange behaviour going on this evening. I think the last committee and this committee probably failed to define unconscionable conduct" in a way that gives confidence to consumers and business. We need to ensure that there's a well-functioning market—you know you can't just go to a tribunal or to the court for any old reason at all. There are some examples in the press today about a painter with a $16000 quote for a two-bedroom house deemed outrageous by the disputes tribunal and it would be classified as four statements: outrageous not unconscionable but potentially unfair. So this is the sort of area and zone that we're in. We'd love to support this bill; we just can't see how the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee has actually done the job of defining what is accurate around unconscionable conduct. We don't think it's sufficiently formed to provide clarification. Even the Citizens Advice Bureau have said that they think it's unnecessary and that unfair or bad conduct is deemed as acceptable in terms of the types of cases that even they see. So we should all look at this and maybe send it back to the select committee and just be sensible about it. I know there's obviously a massive majority on the other side but maybe this is one where we actually go: "Right. Let's just take this back and do a bit more work." I'm sure Mr Webb would agree with me. The one thing about New Zealand is that it does in the Commerce Act have a web of protection already for contract terms and conduct around various Acts. There are several tests there that actually protect both a consumer and a business relationship and a business to consumer relationship. So we're sort of reinventing the wheel a little bit here. Even when the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment sought submissions around this there were only about 50 percent of businesses that actually thought it was an issue that was sufficient enough to want to change the law. It is going to cause confusion and a lot of court time—a lot of resolutions that will have various different opinions. Now I've actually got a definition from the Australian consumer commission which we could use tomorrow but it still isn't applicable in some contexts to the New Zealand marketplace. But one exists and I don't understand why it's not actually in the bill. Surely that should be one of the precursors of doing that.So the elements of the bill "unconscionable conduct"—the other big area that I think we're all missing is just on the small contract terms. The transport industry made a very good point in the submissions that $250000 wasn't actually enough to help them given the nature and size of their contracts and they recommended that $500000 be the best-case scenario. I think we should really take that into consideration because the size of transactions by various industries does vary. But given the fact that transport and haulage is such a major issue in this country a load in the back of a truck or some dispute has a significance more than some of the monetary sums that are in this bill. So we'd like to get the officials to consider that the threshold to define "unconscionable conduct"—you know when you compare it to "unjust" or "unfair" it'll take a large effect on what is happening in terms of harmful conduct and the lawyers will have a field day. So the financial markets the Citizens Advice Bureau the supermarkets everyone is challenging the reason for this and we need to do I think a better job around this bill. So we can't impose this on business dealings. Let's be sensible. We don't want to create chaos in the market. We don't want to actually do something that distorts day-to-day relationships with people who enter into contracts together. And we don't need to put any natural bias into what is something that the commerce Acts already protect. So I'd like to recommend that we go hand in hand with industry with consumers and take New Zealand with us on this one because I think we're sort of imposing as politicians something that's overly dramatic. We'd like the bill to go back to the select committee and then we'd like to review. And if the bill is needed or not needed we should get it right. But at the moment the status quo would probably be a preferable option to what is being proposed at the moment.So we'd like to offer a comparison to the Australian market which hasn't seemed to have been done particularly well. And just to put it into context we're not talking about massive transactions here; you know it could be a rental lease it could be a franchise condition it could be something that does involve door-to-door selling but let's be honest the amount of door-to-door selling that's going on is very little now and there are probably more problems actually on the internet. I also think that with regards to direct selling there is nothing wrong with that industry. It has a set of rules around it and people make a living that way. So in that sense ACT can't support the bill as it stands at the moment but we'd certainly be open to review at such a time as the definition was more clear. Thank you Madam Speaker."