Dalziel Lianne: Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dalziel Lianne: Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 21 March 2012. Volume:678;Page:1218. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 As the former chair of the Commerce Committee in the previous Parliament I rise to support the passage of the Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill. I think the sequence of events in terms of who has had this bill in their name has added some interest in terms of the contribution of the member who has just resumed her seat Louise Upston because of course this bill was originally in the name of one Amy Adams who quite rightly was promoted to Cabinet after the last general election. 
Charles Chauvel 
: She was so good in  
The Muppet Show 
. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I think my colleague here keeps getting her confused with the famous actor called Amy Adams. No unfortunately she was not on  
The Muppet Show 
 and she was not in  
Doubt 
 either so I have to convince him that this is not the case. There is just a coincidence of name. Unfortunately this member here is distracting me from a very serious contribution that I want to make because this is an important matter. The reason I want to make these comments is because of the nature of the contributions of the various members. 
When Amy Adams brought this bill in front of the committee we ensured that she became part of the deliberation process of the select committee so she was able to sit in at a time we were hearing submissions and to contribute and discuss with officials the way that we were going to resolve the bill. I think she brought a bill to the House under a member’s bill process and this unlike some of the other bills we have dealt with tonight is an extremely good example of how a private member can actually use the member’s bill process to advance good law and make some very positive changes that can gain the support of the whole House and I do not think anyone will get up and oppose this particular bill tonight. One of the deficits of our current process in creating members’ bills is that we simply do not have the skill sets for drafting complex pieces of legislation. No matter how simple they appear on the surface they can in fact be quite complex underneath. We have the secret weapon of one Charles Chauvel a former very prestigious well-renowned partner in a major law firm in Wellington to call upon in order to enable us to get good members’ bills into the ballot but this one suffered from a particular problem in that the intention was well-thought-through but the mechanism for delivery was not. The select committee in fact had to do considerable work in changing this into a provision that created a regulation-making power rather than trying to deal with the problem in the law itself. [ 
Interruption 
] I am sorry but I am being distracted by my very good colleague in front of me. The point that I am making in relation to this bill is that Amy Adams certainly had in a very short period of time in this House set herself apart and was an obvious choice for the Government when looking to introduce a new Cabinet after the last general election. This bill now sits in the name of one Michael Woodhouse. The fact that he was not speaking to his bill suggests that he may in fact be in consultation right now over his future and it may well be that the name of this bill will transfer to somebody else in the very near future and we congratulate him in advance if that is the case. 
I want to comment on the substance of the legislation because although we have had a very good contribution from Louise Upston on behalf of Michael Woodhouse I think that there is something that has been completely missed. I just want to remind people of a case and I downloaded this off the internet just before I came down to the House because I had kind of forgotten what the name of this person was. I know that my colleague Ruth Dyson is going to remember this case very well: “A man accused of pretending to be disabled to ‘scam’ money is still selling pens for $20 on behalf of a charity that has told him to stop. John Peters a Christchurch man who says he travels the country as a professional fund-raiser was in Wellington last week selling pens bearing a Wheelchair Tennis New Zealand logo.” Well I also know that he also sold pens for something called the Disabled Children’s Trust as well. Anyway it goes on to say: “Wheelchair Tennis administrator Amanda Hill confirmed the charity had accepted money from Mr Peters in recent years but had written to him in October telling him to stop selling the pens.” The difficulty with Mr Peters was that he actually took money off people selling these pens—and they were for a paraplegic organisation—with a rug over his legs to make it look as if he was sitting in a wheelchair which is quite disgraceful when one thinks about it. But the interesting thing about Mr Peters that really sets him apart from most other people by that name is that he is a former ACT Party candidate. As a former ACT Party candidate who still owned nine rental properties while he was doing this he said to the media—he told the  
Dominion Post 
—that he was asset rich but cash poor. So I thought that this was a terrible thing to be allowed to get away with and this bill will go some way to ensuring that he has to disclose the fact that he sells the pens for $20 but donates only $5 of that $20 to the charity of his particular choosing. He will have to disclose that under the regulations when they are formed but there is nothing in this bill that will stop him doing that at all. I think that is a flaw in the legislation which we were advised would be picked up in the consumer law review. 
If one reads the commentary from the Commerce Committee we concluded our commentary by saying: “We are advised that there is likely to be significant amendment of the Fair Trading Act resulting from the review of consumer law that the Government is undertaking. Consideration of whether to require disclosure by collectors would fit within the wider context of the part of the review looking at possible additional best practice enforcement tools for consumer protection and promoting business competition.” That bill is now finally in front of the House. It has gone to a select committee and submissions have been called for on it. We did discuss with the former member in charge of the bill now a Minister Amy Adams whether we should hold this bill over for the process of the consumer law reform legislation. In fact she felt passionate about this and said no we should carry on with this bill regardless of the advancement of the consumer law protection legislation rather than including it within it. 
There is another bill on the Order Paper further down—the Consumer Guarantees Amendment Bill—where the select committee and the member in charge of the bill actually decided exactly that course of action. I hope that when we finally do get to the Consumer Guarantees Amendment Bill that that will be discharged and basically withdrawn from the Order Paper. I mean all credit to Dr Jackie Blue but in that particular case it was agreed that it would not proceed and that it would be subsumed within the consumer law reform legislation which it has been. This one on the other hand—the Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill—stands on its own merits and it is to the credit of Amy Adams and I believe to the credit of the member’s bill process that we are able to support its passage through the House. I am very pleased that we have had the opportunity finally tonight to debate a bill that is worthy of this House’s time and I commend its passage to the House.