Curran Clare: Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Curran Clare: Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 Following on from that very— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Erudite. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: —erudite and articulate speech from my colleague Chris Hipkins who raised a number of important points about the Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill I will reinforce a number of the points that he made particularly around the fact that this bill is being heard under urgency. I know that we considered a number of alternative names for this bill in earlier speeches in the Committee stage. Given that almost every speech that I have given on this bill has been under urgency yet my speeches have been several months apart it raises questions about just how urgent this bill actually is—or how much of a fill-in it is. 
One of the main topics of discussion that we had in the Committee stage was a very important conversation on the importance of the vehicle purchasing decision that people make. When they make the decision to buy a house or a car particularly when they do so in an online environment there are a number of issues attached to that decision. That is why it is so important that the legislation is being updated to take account of all the dangers that can occur. One of the discussions that we had was on the vehicle purchasing decisions that people made when they bought their first car. We heard a lot about the various decisions that people had made. Those people included the Hon Lianne Dalziel who has never purchased a vehicle online and my colleague Moana Mackey who leaves a little to be desired in terms of her knowledge about vehicle purchasing. Maybe she could do with a bit of assistance next time that she buys one but she had the courage to admit it. What we were really after though was information on the decision made by the new incoming Minister when he purchased his first vehicle. That question was put to him but unfortunately it was never answered. 
In my previous speech I referred to the Labour Party blog Red Alert. It ran a piece on this matter a few months ago and had a lot of responses. Today in another short post it has received a lot more responses. There was a very helpful and interesting comment from a member of the public guessing about the ACT Party members’ choice of their first vehicle. I thought I would share it with the House. The guess was that the current Minister John Boscawen chose a coal-powered vehicle and helpfully the person provided suggestions on what other ACT Party members had as their first vehicle. The person suggested that David Garrett’s choice was a horse that responded well to a good whipping; that Rodney Hide’s choice was a bulldozer; that Heather Roy the previous Minister probably had an Alfa Romeo which is attractive but temperamental and does not always perform as expected; and that Roger Douglas’ choice was a chariot— 
Moana Mackey 
: A horse and cart. 
CLARE CURRAN 
: No David Garrett’s choice was the horse; Roger Douglas’s choice was a chariot which could have been pulled by peasants who were lucky to have the privilege of pulling it. I thought that that was an interesting comment. 
Going back to this bill and thinking about its main provisions I will mention one particular amendment: the removal of the requirement for a private seller to display a consumer information notice when selling through a car market and for car market operators to take steps to ensure that a private seller displays that information notice. It places a new onus on the car market operator to ensure that motor vehicle traders display that notice. 
There is also the removal of car market operators from the definition of a “motor vehicle trader” unless they are selling vehicles as compared with providing a venue where sales occur. Car market operators are not motor vehicle traders. That provision is quite important because it clarifies the law for companies such as TradeMe which was formerly defined as a car market operator rather than as simply a venue where sales occur. I draw the attention of the House to the submission that was made to the Commerce Committee from TradeMe explaining that the current law meant that each of the 175000 motor vehicle auctions that have been listed on TradeMe in the last year would have had to include a consumer information notice. In reality that was not enforced by the Commerce Commission so this amendment simply catches up with what everybody in the industry has agreed made sense. 
I make reference to the number of vehicles that are being sold online. It is estimated that up to 70 percent of cars are being bought and sold privately which is quite significant. In terms of car sales in 2008 187000 were sold by dealers to the public 125000 were sold by the public to dealers and 462000 were private sales. That is a significant number. It is believed that a significant number of those cars are now being sold online. Traders who are using online auction sites to sell motor vehicles have been put on notice by the Commerce Commission. There was a story in the  
New Zealand Herald  
a few days ago about this issue saying the Commerce Commission wants traders to take their legal obligations more seriously. That warning came after a TradeMe seller had said in a listing that he was selling the car on behalf of his sister and he had made other statements about the car’s reliability and service history. A Commerce Commission investigation found those statements to be untrue. Apparently that person had sold more than eight cars on TradeMe over a 12-month period and had not provided consumer information notices on at least two of those sales. 
It is good that the Commerce Commission took this matter very seriously and issued a warning. It is important that all motor vehicle traders be put on notice that the Commerce Commission expects them to take their legal obligations seriously. The point is quite well made that with new technology changes in technology and changes in the way that people are making purchases—first cars or otherwise—the way that vehicles are sold and the information that buyers can expect to get are very important matters. As my colleague Chris Hipkins pointed out it has very much been a buyer-beware situation. We have had information reported to the House today during the debate on this bill that the Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal has received 245 dispute applications this year which is an increase on the 228 received for the year ended June 2009. The new Minister of Consumer Affairs noted in a media release just the other day that the tribunal had found in the consumer’s favour in around 70 percent of the cases and that almost 80 percent were decided using the Consumer Guarantees Act. That essentially highlights the need for a change in the legislation. 
Labour supports this common-sense bill which builds on the work that was done by my colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel. It was initiated under the previous Labour Government and as we have heard it will make a difference given New Zealand’s high per capita rate of vehicle ownership. We heard earlier from one of the Green members that there are something like four million cars in New Zealand. The bill will make a difference because it is about protecting consumers. I commend the bill to the House. 
Bill read a third time.