Carter John: Consumer Protection (Definitions of Goods and Services) Bill — In Committee 
Carter John: Consumer Protection (Definitions of Goods and Services) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:609;Page:6889] 
JOHN CARTER (NZ National—Northland) 
: I am sorry; I should have allowed my colleague Tony Ryall to continue. I want to make a contribution on Part 2 because I am concerned about some parts of it. The Hon Tony Ryall has made a number of points and has given me a number of papers about the issue of water supply; I am sure he will want to come back and comment about those parts but I want to talk about the issue of telecommunications signals. 
Darren Hughes 
: They are included. 
JOHN CARTER 
: No they are excluded. That is the fascinating part. I ask the Minister of Consumer Affairs why they are excluded. I find it quite remarkable. The bill includes computer software as a good and the definition of “services” in section 2(1) in clause 6 includes telecommunications. It talks about “a contract for or in relation to the supply of electricity gas and telecommunications”. But telecommunications signals are not included as a good. I find that fascinating. Perhaps the Minister will take a call to give an explanation as to why the signals are not included. I cannot understand that. 
Darren Hughes 
: It’s in the select committee report. 
JOHN CARTER 
: It is mentioned in the commentary? Well it fascinates me. 
Stephen Franks 
: They cannot guarantee the quality of the porn sites. They dropped signals because they can’t guarantee they can live up to it. 
JOHN CARTER 
: That is the problem is it not? I thought this bill was about consumer protection and about guarantees. If the Government is saying that we have to legislate to guarantee supplies then why does it pick out the easy bits and not the tough bits? I assume that the need for the consumer to be protected is the principle behind the bill. I do not necessarily agree with that; I think that far too often now in this Parliament in this country we pass unnecessary legislation. 
Let me digress for a minute. Here we are talking about water supplies. I would like someone to stand up and tell me how many people over the last year 2 years or 10 years have died because of contaminated water. I do not know of any; I have not heard of any but there may have been one. We are going to have up to $750 million of ratepayers’ money spent on protecting people against something that they do not need to be protected against because it has not happened! Well that is part of what is happening in this country. We are so hell-bent on passing legislation to protect everybody from anything that we will end up putting people in cotton wool. 
I go back to the issue of telecommunications signals. Because it is too hard because the Government cannot guarantee the quality of them it is leaving them out of the bill. What sort of consistency is that? If that is what is actually happening if that is the reason behind excluding them what in the world are we talking about? If we are saying that electricity companies have to guarantee a consistent supply and that water companies have to guarantee not just a supply of water but a supply of water of a certain quality and standard why are we not saying that telecommunications suppliers have to supply signals? In this world today we survive on telecommunications signals. We are saying that if a telecommunications signal affects an aeroplane that is trying to land and it fails to land that is all right; it does not matter if 300 people on board are killed because the Government is not able to protect them. But for everything else it is easy to provide guarantees. There might be some cost to it; it might cost $750 million of ratepayers’ money. But that is all right; that is OK. We can do that but we will not try to do the hard stuff. 
Well I say to the Government that that is not good enough if it is going to legislate. I say to it seriously that it should not legislate because we in this country are so legislated for now that it is crazy. When we become the Government after the next election the whole lot of this garbage will go. If I have my way the Human Rights Commission the Privacy Act and the whole damn lot will go in the bucket. However I do not think we will go as far as that. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: Excuse me have you forgotten who brought in the Privacy Act? 
JOHN CARTER 
: Yes I would chuck the whole bloody lot out! Most of the country would not even notice quite honestly—but that is just me. 
I seriously say to the Minister that if she is going to legislate then she should do it properly. She should not sit there and not even take a call and leave out the tough stuff. I want to know when I am in the middle of doing something on my computer and I am connected into telecommunications that the signal will be OK.