Coddington Deborah: Motor Vehicle Sales Bill — Third Reading 
Coddington Deborah: Motor Vehicle Sales Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4799] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I speak on behalf of the ACT party in the final reading of this legislation. The ACT party now opposes this legislation and will vote against it. As I said originally we were going to give it our guarded support when it was sent to the select committee because my colleague Owen Jennings recognised the need for an overhaul of the 1975 Act. But when this bill came back from the select committee a Supplementary Order Paper was sneaked in which singles out motor vehicle dealers as being deserving of some sort of special tax. As Richard Prebble told the House earlier this morning that brings the whole of Parliament into disrepute. That is not a minor Supplementary Order Paper with just technical changes as the Minister asserts. We are told that it brings in a levy to fund a disputes tribunal in part but there is no assurance that the levy will not end up in the consolidated account. 
The Minister says that in January 2001 a discussion paper was circulated which is what she calls “extensive consultation”. From her own words we know that there are two submissions on that discussion paper. If it was such a good idea to have a levy why was it not put in the original bill so that it could go to the select committee allowing motor vehicle dealers to have an input into it? Why treat motor vehicle dealers with such contempt? We know why: it is because they are easy to sting. They are the line of least resistance. One of the points of taxation is representation—or at least that is the case in a liberal democracy. That is not what we are seeing in this case. As I said that Supplementary Order Paper should have gone to a select committee. 
People have been saying that motor vehicle dealers were consulted but from my perspective the only consultation they had was when I sent out a letter to 2250 of them last week and they started to reply. They said things like: “I am supportive of any action that raises awareness of the potential problem of the good guys subsidising the bad guys. I am alarmed over the industry levy proposed by Labour.” That is from a national executive member of the Motor Vehicle Dealers Institute. 
The whole point of the levy is to fund the tribunal. It is penalising the good dealers as opposed to the bad dealers. I notice in the schedules that there is provision in the legislation for the tribunal to award costs against vexatious litigants or people who refuse to mediate before cases come before the tribunal. If there is the ability to award costs why do we need a levy to support the tribunal in the first case? Yet here we are in urgency and the bill will go through. The levy will be sneaked in with regulations that impose how much what for and where to. Motor vehicle dealers already pay considerable taxes through their GST and through high company taxes. They do not want to nor should they pay an extra tax without knowing anything about it. 
It is interesting that the discussion document the Minister talked about went out in January which is a good time to put something out to the industry! How many people are taking care with their mail in January or noticing things that the Government might be doing? It is holiday time. Again it just shows the disregard that this Government has for corporates companies and entrepreneurs out there. If they knew this levy was coming why are they so outraged about it now? 
I also see in the schedules that the assessors who sit on the disputes tribunal will be paid out of the consolidated account. There is another reason for us to query why we need the tax. I am very suspicious of where the levy will go. Nothing in this legislation assures us that it will in fact be used to fund the disputes tribunal. To me it looks suspiciously as if the Government will get its clammy hands on what was the fidelity fund which was the property right of the Motor Vehicle Dealers Institute. 
I concede that the dealers welcomed the demise of the fidelity fund. Harry Duynhoven is right when he says that dealers wanted to get rid of it. But what has the Government done? After getting rid of that it will set up its own little fidelity fund. Sometimes we cannot protect people from themselves—much as Governments would like to be able to do so. Sometimes people make silly mistakes and bad decisions. People have a right to be wrong—the Government cannot be there to hold their hands every step of the way. 
Most members of this House have overlooked the fact that every day in this country two-thirds of all car sales are done without the benefit or involvement of a licensed regulated dealer. This legislation will ensure that 100 percent of all those cars that change hands will be do so without the benefit or involvement of a licensed and regulated dealer because this bill will drive motor vehicle dealers away from registering. Nothing in this legislation that would tempt them to register and to comply with the law. Why should they bother? The levy is another nail in the coffin for them in addition to the growth in Internet and private sales with an individual being able to sell up to six cars a year without registering. There is nothing to stop people from banding together. For instance a family of six could band together and sell six cars each. 
As I said during the Committee stage we welcome the end of car dealers compulsorily having to join the Motor Vehicle Dealers Institute. That is a good move. If an industry organisation is good and acts well on behalf of its members then there is no need for it to be compulsory to join. I look forward to the Government applying the same attitude to student unions law societies and all other closed-shop unions and professions where it is compulsory to join. 
The only reason that the industry is protected by legislation and is compulsory of course is that without such legislation they might fall over. We see creeping compulsion coming back into unions too and I look forward to the Government applying that same attitude to those areas. 
I would like to finish by drawing the House’s attention to another area that this legislation has missed out—that is where the New Zealand Customs seizes imported cars for safety reasons when it suspects that the odometers have been tampered with. Any normal person would think it would follow that if those cars were unsafe then they should not be allowed on the road. They could be broken up and sold for parts or they could be sent back to where they came from. 
But no they get sold. The Crown sells them and keeps the money. The Crown is exempt as a car dealer under this Act so the people who purchase those cars from the Crown without knowing that the odometers had been wound back will have no redress because the Crown will not be liable—and this is a bill that is meant to be about protecting consumers. As Richard Prebble said if car dealers were doing to the public what this Government is doing to car dealers there would be an outcry. I repeat: we should be passing a law to protect motor vehicle dealers. In fact all entrepreneurs and all wealth creators in this country should be passing a law to protect themselves from this Government. ACT is not supporting this bill.