Stewart Barbara: Secondhand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Bill — First Reading 
Stewart Barbara: Secondhand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6516] 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 On behalf of New Zealand First I rise to support this bill. In many parts there are no substantial changes to the legislation that currently governs the group. As outlined in the explanatory note of the bill—and New Zealand First agrees with it—due to the increasing rate of crime in our communities it is timely to ensure that those people who are and who want to be second-hand dealers and pawnbrokers are subject to far more scrutiny in order to ensure that the unscrupulous dealers in this whole sector are followed up on. There are already challenges within this sector and if some existing dealers will not meet the requirements for the issue of certificates with this new legislation some of that group will be disqualified from holding a certificate and quite rightly so. New Zealand First believes that initially there will be a great deal of work for the registrar to follow up on in the licensing area. 
Richard Worth 
: Why? 
BARBARA STEWART 
: Because of the number of people who will be required to be licensed. Although we support the issue of certificates for pawnbrokers and second-hand dealers we query the availability of police resources to carry out the checks as recommended in the bill. In clause 23 “Police check on every applicant” we see that the police must check on everyone who applies for a certificate. There is a shortage of police officers throughout the country and one has to question whether the resources that are currently available will be sufficient. 
Jill Pettis 
: The police have never had more money then they’ve got now. 
BARBARA STEWART 
: But we need more of them. Because of our increasing population the police require an increased number of officers to carry out the work they currently do and this checking of applicants will be an additional task for them. However we do know that the police regularly contact and visit the various second-hand dealers within their towns so they do know who they are. Due to the legislation we pass through this House it appears that every day the police are getting an increasing number of jobs that are not front-line policing. There is a big anomaly because we do not see any action at all on increasing police numbers so that the front-line policing role can be adequately carried out. They are stretched now and we keep wanting them to do more. The bottom line is that we really do not want to see our valuable police service further stressed by a totally unmanageable workload. 
Second-hand dealers support a police check on every applicant as they know that a percentage of the people operating in that industry deal in property from a questionable source. The police themselves can already identify those people. A second-hand dealer whom I was speaking to yesterday was proposing a check-sheet system similar to that used by the Auctioneers Association to assist the police to check the goods. He said that a mandatory requirement to forward a completed form to the police on a regular basis would ensure that the police have a very good idea as to the goods that were being brought in for sale and by whom. He proposed that the police enter the list of goods into the computer so that there is in existence a list of the goods that have been brought in to be sold. He thought that such a list would help the police and give them extra time to do the functions that they should be carrying out. 
Opposition Member 
: What a good idea! 
BARBARA STEWART 
: It is a good idea but not so good for the overworked police who have to maintain the record. The owner of the business also commented upon the length of time that the goods were to be stored—14 days. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes. He was quite pleased with the 14 days I must tell members. But he did not like the fact that the number of goods on the schedule was quite vast—it had increased vastly from what was already there. He wondered what on earth he was going to do with the goods he had to store. It was good to see that ordinary whiteware goods like fridges washing machines clothes dryers dishwashers and stoves—which lots of New Zealanders go into second-hand shops to buy—are exempted from storage. We were quite amazed that the list specifically mentioned sunglasses. We wonder about the logic of that when one considers the number of sunglasses that are on sale and the fact they are the same in every way. During the select committee stage hopefully the second-hand dealers will review that schedule because as the Minister has pointed out it is far more extensive than that currently in existence. 
New Zealand First queries the working of the bill with regard to the increasing number of professional traders that are now selling goods on market days all around the country. We see them in every town and every city. There is no way that the second-hand goods that are on sale on those market days can be tracked. Yet many of those market traders have the same goods that are listed on the schedule attached to the bill. The amount of second-hand goods that are available on market days is really similar to that of second-hand shops and pawnbrokers. The bottom line is that they are highly mobile second-hand shops with the same people and the same types of goods appearing at the various market days around New Zealand. We realise that there are requirements on the people organising the market days to note down the stallholders’ names and addresses but that does not focus on the second-hand goods being sold at all. We do not want to see two separate classes of second-hand dealers and pawnbrokers: one group that is highly regulated and works within the bill and a second group that is highly mobile and is apparently above the scope of any bill such as this. 
New Zealand First also queries whether appliance dealers who use second-hand whiteware as trade-ins on new appliances will also be subject to the provisions of the bill. At this point in time many retailers do not consider themselves to be second-hand dealers yet the definition contained within the bill does include them despite their protestations to the contrary. New Zealand First hopes that that issue will be clarified by the Law and Order Committee. New Zealand First supports this legislation being referred to the select committee.