Tisch Lindsay: Fair Trading Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
Tisch Lindsay: Fair Trading Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
[Volume:609;Page:6857] 
LINDSAY TISCH (NZ National—Piako) 
:  
Before the dinner break my colleagues Tony Ryall Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith and Pansy Wong were going through Part 2 and speaking about its importance. In essence this part is the most important part in the bill. In it we find all the nitty-gritty of what this bill is about. We agree with some of the clauses. Clause 4 “Trading stamp schemes prohibited” is one that makes sense and we have no difficulty with it. 
However we certainly have some difficulty—and I have mentioned this in previous contributions—with what is happening in new section 40(3) inserted by clause 8(3) which states that “proceedings under this section may be commenced at any time within 3 years after the matter giving rise to the contravention was discovered or ought reasonably to have been discovered.” That is open-ended which concerns us. What happens in a business environment if something is found to have been in contravention of the legislation a couple of years ago? There is and can be a contingent liability on that business. Who is to say at this stage that there is a liability? This clause makes the situation open-ended because as I said there will be or could be a liability on a business. We are concerned about that and have discussed it at some length. 
We are also concerned about clause 10 “Injunctions may be granted by Court for contravention of Part 1 Part II Part III and Part IV”. That clause gives huge powers to the Commerce Commission—powers that we think could be abused. Previous speakers have said that the impact of those powers could mean that businesses will close down. That is our major concern about clause 10. 
Clause 14 “Power to search” gives huge powers of access. In fact the powers of access under that clause are powers that even the Inland Revenue Department does not have and that is not right. There needs to be some conformity between this legislation and what other departments are involved in. Certainly in the case of the Commerce Commission huge powers are given in new section 47(1) which states: “The Commission may from time to time authorise an employee of the Commission to search under a warrant issued under subsection (2) any place named in the warrant for any of the purposes set out in that subsection.” We regard that as being open to abuse. We do not think such huge powers are acceptable. Although we have said all along that we will support this bill because it moves in the right direction I make those points very clearly. 
Clause 8 doubles the fines that can be imposed. New section 40(1A) in subclause (2) states: “Every person who contravenes section 24 commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $200000.” The current fine is $100000. Why are we talking about a doubling of a fine to $200000? The fines regimes for many businesses vary and we have argued as we did in the debate on the commencement date that we should have a review of all of the fines regimes. Some people would be paying $10000 and other figures for other offences but more important in relation to this bill we see there is a doubling of the fines from $100000 to $200000. As I quoted earlier the consumer price index has only gone up by 54 percent since 1986. So why are we talking about a doubling of the fines?