Dalziel Lianne: Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Dalziel Lianne: Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
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Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak in the third reading of the Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill. This bill has had quite a long history in terms of its gestation and its traverse through the House and I want to comment on all of those points as we did in the Committee stage. First I want to again comment on the history of the bill and how we have arrived at this position today. I think it is important that we have very good regulatory processes in order to assess the operation of a regulatory framework after it has been in place for a certain period of time. The Motor Vehicle Sales Act 2003 which this bill amends had within it a review after 2 years. There are those who would consider a 2-year review as too short and there are those who would consider a 10-year review as too long. I am probably of the view that the 2-year review is too short. 
Although I think this process was robust in that it involved the review that had a number of recommendations coming out of it it then led to the development of a discussion paper that proposed amendments to the Motor Vehicle Sales Act. There were 18 submissions on the discussion paper and there was an open forum with industry and consumer representative organisations. It engaged with the major stakeholders that one would expect to see involved such as the Motor Trade Association the Independent Motor Vehicle Dealers Association the Motor Industry Association the New Zealand Automobile Association and Consumer New Zealand amongst many others. 
I think the importance of the process was that those particular major stakeholders were able to engage quite fully in the process. If it was a 2-year review after legislation that had come into force in 2003 the discussion document came out in 2007 and the legislation was introduced in 2009 I am starting to get a picture of things having probably moved on during the period. I personally think that 2 years is too short. Just for future reference—and we all learn as we go along in this particular role—I think that a review of this nature should have been 5 years unless there were circumstances that required the urgent attention of the Government that would bring it forward. 
We also need to consider truncating the process because I think we have doubled up here. There were 18 submissions on the discussion paper and at the Commerce Committee we received eight submissions on the bill and we heard two submissions. Again one of the concerns I have is that although it is a robust process and I again place on record our thanks to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs which gave us very good support when dealing with this bill it possibly could have been dealt with a lot sooner if we had managed to get the bill before the House a bit sooner than we did. Be that as it may we got the bill in front of the House last year in about May we reported it back from the select committee in December last year and now we are in urgency finishing off the final reading. It is actually— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I was a member of the select committee way back then. It was when Chris Carter was our education spokesperson I think. I sat on the committee. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: No I do not think so because it was my select committee and I do not think I have ever had the pleasure of having Trevor Mallard on my select committee. I kind of hope that— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: It never happens? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: —it stays that way. Oh it is nothing personal. 
Hon Members 
: Poor Trevor! 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Well I do not think I could compete with that degree of testosterone but there we go! We were speaking on the Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill I say to Mr Mallard. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Right—wrong bill. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I thought we were speaking at cross purposes. 
The Motor Vehicle Sales Amendment Bill was reported back to this House on 14 December last year but the bill was not read a second time until June this year. I went back and had a quick look at that second reading and it was dealt with under urgency as well. Now here we are completing the final stages of the bill under urgency. I made the point during the Committee stage that although the calendar on the wall says that it is 24 August it is in fact 26 August. Although time may have stood still as far as the urgency motion goes we are debating this bill now when our select committee should actually be meeting and dealing with other legislation. But here we are in the House dealing with this bill. If this really was a matter of urgency then it ought to have been dealt with some time sooner. 
The main issue that I focused on when we were in the Committee stage on this bill was the question of the display of a consumer information notice. I will comment on one of the submissions that we received in the select committee because I thought it was the most appropriate submission to refer to in respect of e-commerce and the advent of TradeMe into the car market as it were through online car market operators. According to the submission the theory of the current situation prior to this bill coming in is that each of the 175000 motor vehicle auctions on TradeMe in the past year would have had to include a consumer information notice and TradeMe provides advice to the sellers in the car listing process that they must do that. But as the submission said the reality was quite different. It said that the Commerce Commission had advised in 2006 that it would enforce this requirement only against motor vehicle traders and the Ministry of Consumer Affairs recommended in 2007 that the law be changed to remove this requirement on private sellers. I guess that in the meantime generally only motor vehicle traders have been displaying the consumer information notices. 
The point made in the submission—and I guess that this backs up the point that I was trying to make before about the time frame for review and action on those reviews—is that the amendment simply changes the law to catch up with the reality of what people are doing and with what everyone seems to agree makes sense. That is why when the previous speaker said that our Government did not address red tape and compliance costs I would make the point that I was the Minister who developed the model of the Regulatory Improvement Bill. Something like this does not need to be separate legislation. This could have been dealt with by way of making amendments under the Regulatory Improvement Bill. 
I think that one of the things we need to also contemplate as a Parliament is having a much more open approach towards an omnibus bill or generic legislation that is able to pick up a range of compliance-reducing initiatives that do not always get the priority of the department the Minister or the Leader of the House in terms of the process that will be adopted for ensuring that legislation can be updated in a timely fashion. The sequence of events that I have spelt out in terms of the timing of the review the discussion document getting it to a bill stage and getting priority in terms of the House means that something that was identified in 2006—according to this submission from TradeMe—is being fixed in 2010. That to me is the fundamental flaw we have in our parliamentary system. 
This bill has had to compete against changes to “three strikes” legislation and with other things that the Government might think are a priority but most New Zealanders do not. Bills have to compete on that basis. I would certainly recommend that we ensure these things are kept up to date with sensible review periods and also take an action approach to implementing those changes. I commend the bill to the House in its third reading.