Beaumont Carol: Third Readings —Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBeaumont Carol: Third Readings —[Sitting date: 10 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15390. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): I rise to speak in support as we have done throughout of the consumer law reform process. The Consumer Law Reform Bill hasbeen split into six separate bills. I ask the question: why are consumers not a priority for this Government? Why are consumer rights not a priority? Why is protecting consumers not a priority? The time taken to update our consumer legislation is an absolute outrage but it is absolutely consistent with other Government behaviour that shows how out of touch it is with the life and the reality of the majority of New Zealanders who are doing it tough. It is hard out there and in tough economic times making sure that we have sound consumer legislation that protects consumers—that makes sure that they are not being ripped off by unscrupulous traders—is more important than ever. What has the Government done? It has sat on its hands for this legislation. It has been just unbelievable. It has actually taken a campaign to get this legislation through the House and we have supported it throughout. In fact I think every party in this House has supported this legislation. It should have been dealt with sooner.This is at a time when we know now that 265000 children are living in poverty—that is 25 percent of our children. Ten percent of them are living in extreme poverty and 40 percent of them are living in households with at least one working adult. Times are tough. Consumer legislation is important to make sure that people do not waste their money and that they are not ripped off yet this Government has taken so long to get this legislation through. In fact I could even talk about the consumer credit legislation in a very similar manner because that has also taken a completely unreasonable amount of time to get through this House—abject failure by the Minister of Consumer Affairs and abject failure by this Government.I just thought it would be good to get on the record what Consumer New Zealand said. This is a letter to the Hon Craig Foss the Minister of Consumer Affairs: “What has happened to promised new consumer protections? New Zealand consumers deserve better. Once we had some of the best consumer laws in the world. But they are now outdated and there are significant gaps in consumer protection. Consumers are being disadvantaged every day the Consumer Law Reform Bill is not passed. Traders can avoid the Consumer Guarantees Act by auctioning goods online or pretending to sell by competitive tender. Crucially the Bill will increase protections for people buying online and regulate extended warranties. It will also ban unfair contract terms outlaw unsubstantiated product claims and deliver much needed protections for door-to-door sales where unscrupulous businesses take advantage of consumers. Consumers have waited years for this reform. The Bill is supported by all parties in Parliament. Australia passed legislation to improve its consumer laws more than two years ago. Why is it taking so long here?”. Well that is a very very good question.Consumer New Zealand even went as far as asking whether there were vested interests that were delaying the passing of this legislation. I do not know whether there were or not but what I do know is that it just shows that ordinary New Zealanders families who are struggling are not the priority of this Government.Just to be clear about the time line there was a review initiated in 2009 and a discussion document introduced in June 2010. The Consumer Law Reform Bill was introduced to Parliament in April 2011 and its first reading was getting on for a year later in February 2012. In October 2012 it was reported back from the Commerce Committee. Just to note here that there was very good work done by that select committee—no question about that. It worked hard it made changes and it was getting good advice from officials. So that process went quite well. And then the bill languished for some time. So we had the report back from the select committee and the second reading—that was quite prompt—but then it languished for almost a year until we had the Committee stage last week. We cooperated with that. We said that yes we would cooperate with that as long as this legislation got through Parliament this year—hence here we are for the third readings in the second to last sitting day of this year. Buthonestly it is a disgrace to have a piece of legislation that is really important languish when our consumer law is out of date and does not reflect the reality of so many trading situations that consumers are now in particularly online trading and when you have support of everybody in the House and you do not get the legislation through. I have no words really to describe how appalled I am by that.It does provide protections and a number of them have been mentioned but I will give just a bit of detail. This legislation amends a number of Acts. The oldest of those is actually the Sale of Goods Act 1908 but also the Fair Trading Act 1986 the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 the Weights and Measures Act 1987 the Carriage of Goods Act 1979 and the Secondhand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Act 2004. It also repeals a few Acts—the Auctioneers Act 1928 the Door to Door Sales Act 1967 theLayby Sales Act 1971 and the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act 1975—and incorporates them into the Fair Trading Act and the new Auctioneers Act. So it is a substantial piece of work—no question about that—and the protections it provides are really positive. As others have mentioned this is principles-based legislation which is sensible. It means that we do not have to regulate every particular circumstance.Some of the new rules that I do particularly want to mention are auction protection. Goods sold by traders at auction will now be covered by the Consumer Guarantees Act. That is the Act that says that goods have to be of acceptable quality and fit for purpose. Online traders will also be required to tell consumers that they are in trade. There will be clarity around extended warranties. That is particularly important. So many people end up unnecessarily getting and paying for extended warranties that merely repeat the protections they have in the Consumer Guarantees Act. There will be delivery protection. A seller will now be responsible for goods until they are delivered to the customer so they would have to replace a product damaged en route for example.In respect of proof of claims a company will have to demonstrate that it has proof before making advertising claims about its products. There will be stricter regulation of door-to-door sales. Shill bidding placing bids on your own auction to inflate the price—something I actually had not heard of before—will be an offence. The important thing—the really important thing—is that the Consumer Guarantees Act which is important will apply to all transactions between trades and consumers whether that be in a shop whether it be online or whether it be at a market. Those are some of the protections that are in this legislation and that is very positive.I do however want to say just a few more comments about why this is important. Apart from consumer protection having good robust consumer law is actually good for business as well. It is good because ethical traders—people who follow the rules—will not be disadvantaged by those online traders—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.CAROL BEAUMONT: As I was saying before the dinner break the legislation is not just going to provide protection for consumers important as that is; it is also going to mean that ethical traders—good employers and good business people who do the right thing—will not be undermined and disadvantaged by those who do not. That is a problem at the moment where people are slipping outside consumer regulation. So that is another important reason why we need this legislation.It also has the benefit of greater alignment with our Australian neighbours in terms of our consumer law and that is important. It has been a relatively close working relationship generally in the area of consumer law. So there is a number of reasons why this is positive legislation and I have outlined some of the major provisions. Once againI would ask though why consumers have not been a priority for this Government. Why has it taken so long? I ask absolutely the same question in relation to consumer credit law reform which has languished even longer. We first started looking at that in 2007-08. The Government deprioritised it supposedly to allow this legislation to be prioritised and then this has languished on the Order Paper as well. I think it speaks volumes about the priorities that the Government gives to consumers.My last point really is to say that to do this properly we need to make sure that people both businesses and consumers will be well-informed about the changes and it is important that we have material available in many languages. Thank you.