Ryall Tony: Fair Trading Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
Ryall Tony: Fair Trading Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
[Volume:609;Page:6859] 
Hon TONY RYALL (NZ National—Bay of Plenty) 
: Thank you Mr Chairperson. It is good that you have done that because Part 2 includes the substance of the bill and if we are to try to provide positive suggestions to the Government we need some opportunities to talk about them. We have a number of amendments to the bill that I would like to talk about. 
The first is that we want to limit the ability of the Commerce Commission to require companies to provide documents that do not exist. The law gives the Commerce Commission substantial powers to enter seize and demand information and documents. That will extend to requiring information and documents that do not exist within accounting systems or cannot be readily produced. There will be a significant compliance cost for business. Business New Zealand told the Commerce Committee of a recent case where a company had to produce reports that were not in its accounting system nor in its records. It did comply at a considerable cost of time and money and then the commission found that there was no case to answer. There is no compensation for that private business which had to spend thousands of its own dollars in doing that. 
Secondly we have put an amendment to stop the Commerce Commission and this Government from removing the basic right of New Zealanders to seek redress for suffering damages as a result of another person’s actions. This bill will allow the Commerce Commission to seek an injunction with no cognisance of the cost that the business may incur. The commission can go to court and require a business to stop trading but the commission does not have to compensate the business if it finds that there was no illegal activity. That is anti-business and just does not make sense. The Minister of Consumer Affairs should explain. 
We have also put amendments to the limitation period to try to improve the bill. The bill proposes that in relation to for example claims made in advertising companies are liable 3 years after a breach is discovered rather than when it actually happened. The commercial consequence of that— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: That’ll scare the hell out of used-car dealers. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Mr Duynhoven said that will scare them. The commercial consequence of that is a number of businesses will have to carry quite significant contingent liabilities because businesses cannot be sure that the claims will come to an end. Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith made the point that this legislation is quite unclear whether that provision will apply retrospectively. The Government states in the commentary on the bill that it will not but if one reads the bill one sees that it is quite unclear how it will be prevented. So we have put amendments and we ask the Government to consider those. 
We are also concerned about the 100 percent increase in the fines. There is no justification of why that level of fine should happen. The Government says that the courts are not fining enough. Its response is to double the fines— 
Stephen Franks 
: Then not collect them. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Then not collect them! Its response is to double the fines and hope the judges will lift the amounts they are fining. I have proposed an amendment that uses the Government’s own words in the sentencing guideline in the Sentencing Act. My amendment suggests to judges that in the worst cases they use the full range of the penalty that can be applied. Those are the Government’s own words and I am asking the Minister to consider supporting those amendments. 
The National Party has been prepared to support this bill up until now because we thought that the Government would look upon our amendments as providing positive solutions to concerns that have been raised. But the Government has not even given us the courtesy of a response. The Minister said earlier on in the debate that she would respond at the appropriate time. This could very well be— 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: The third reading is the appropriate time. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Rubbish! If that Minister wants to continue having multiparty support for this bill she should take a call. When one goes through the weaknesses in this bill one becomes quite convinced that this bill should not go any further.