Motor Vehicle Sales Bill

I am delighted to rise to support the Motor Vehicle Sales Bill. I notice that despite all the criticism of it, the one member of the House who knows most about the actual industry of car sales, Mr Paul Adams, supports the deal; and that the member of the House who knows most about cars, Mr Harry Duynhoven, also supports the bill.

I just want to make two points. The first is that last night we saw something that I have not seen in my 22 years in Parliament. We saw members of a party get up and say: “We support the title of the bill but we do not support anything else about it.” As Leader of the House, I was sorely tempted to say: “Right, we’ll vote with you, and we’ll send out to motor vehicle dealers the new Motor Vehicle Sales Bill, courtesy of Winston Peters, consisting of a title and then a blank sheet.” The dealers would really be baffled and wondering what it was all about, and we would have to explain that Mr Peters was probably somewhere in Courtenay Place at the time, resulting in the bill ending up in that particular form.

Then we have listened to all that whingeing from National and ACT members, who have been saying: “Labour Governments always do something that is called ‘sneaky’.”

💬 Gerry Brownlee: That’s right!

The member learnt to say that from Roger Sowry. When he has more experience, he can be leader of the National Party, because we have learnt that the only reason he is not the leader of the National Party is that he does not have enough experience. That is what his leader actually said. Those members said that a Supplementary Order Paper imposing a levy had been sneaked into the House.

💬 Gerry Brownlee: That’s right!

“That’s right!”, the member says. I heard him say this morning that he had just discovered on page 5 of the Supplementary Order Paper that a levy is being imposed. If he looks at the front page of that document, he will see that it was tabled on 19 November 2002. This lazy, inexperienced, wannabe leader of the National Party MP has taken 4½ months to discover the most important bit on that Supplementary Order Paper. National members have just discovered the levy in the amendments on the Supplementary Order Paper after 4½ months. Where were they all that time? Were they going around their used-car dealers, asking them about the Supplementary Order Paper? They were too busy counting the numbers in caucus to go and do their work as an Opposition.

Firstly, I would just like to thank Harry Duynhoven for getting up and clarifying a few more points this morning, because I was disappointed that the Minister would not take the call and clarify them. Whether she would not take the call or could not take it I do not know, but Harry Duynhoven’s explanations were very much appreciated. He was able to clarify a number of points for us.

New Zealand First is concerned about the lack of compliance in this bill. It does not have any teeth. It does not provide the mechanisms to make sure that unregistered dealers will want to become registered. Because it does not require them to be registered, or does not provide the teeth to make them register, why should they bother to be registered? They can work out of backyards, and, if necessary, use the licence of another registered dealer, under the terms of harbouring. This leaves the consumer without any recourse, because the dealer’s licence being used is not the one under which the vehicle is being sold. The person selling the vehicle therefore does not have to front up and be accountable for the sale. He or she just uses the name and the dealer, and walks away from any deals.

Under the bill, backyard dealers can sell up to six vehicles, but if they do not disclose how many they sell, they continue selling vehicles without reporting their sale.

Last night we had an explanation from Mr Duynhoven on the subject of odometer tampering. He said that the paperwork of cars purchased in Japan clearly documents odometer readings, and therefore if that paperwork were transferred with the vehicles to New Zealand, dealers and the buyers in this country could identify those vehicles that come in with “clocked” odometers and we would not have this problem. If this bill insisted that those documents travel with the vehicle, then we would not have an odometer-clocking problem.

Paul Adams claims that it is a used-car problem. Well, a large number of the used cars on the roads in New Zealand are imported from Japan, and many of the vehicles whose paperwork has been separated from them are found to have been “clocked”. Mr Cullen got up and with great glee stated that New Zealand First intended to support only the title of the bill. Well, I tell him that if the bill had had the content it was intended to have, we could have supported the whole bill. We can support only the title, because the rest of the bill is so fragmented and disjointed. It is not properly cross-referenced, so one does not know what a penalty refers to and what the circumstances are.

So if that had been properly drafted, and if the bill had all the proper content, then we would have been able to support it. We support the idea and the intent of the bill, and so does the industry. The Minister was unable to explain any of the bill. He had to leave it to one other member of his party to explain. The Minister did not really know what the bill was all about, so we have come up with a drafted bill that has no real substance and no real content. That is the reason we could not support the rest of the bill.

The Supplementary Order Paper clearly states “19 November”. That was after the second reading, and it was also after the select committee process. Nobody in the industry was given an opportunity to put his or her views. Deborah Coddington of ACT has a pile of papers from the industry, which is horrified that it was not consulted. I really have some doubt about the Minister’s claim that she was consulted about this. A continual stream of letters are coming in, in reply to a letter that went out from Deborah Coddington asking the industry what it thought about the bill. The industry is horrified. It was not consulted, and not given the opportunity to talk about this through the select committee process and to provide its submissions.

With regard to the removal of the fidelity fund, it is extraordinary that we throw open the industry to new players, and players who will not necessarily have the integrity that Mr Adams claimed that the rest of the industry has. He has admitted that to us, and he is a member of the Government. He has also admitted to us that there will be another level of car dealer in this country—that is, dealers who will not have the integrity of the rest of the industry. To remove the fidelity fund without providing it with another mechanism as a safeguard will leave a lot of consumers with a huge potential for the unscrupulous ones to leave them with a dud car, “clocked” odometers, and no recourse.

When we look back at the Supplementary Order Paper we find that right at the very end of it is an additional clause: clause 146, “Review of operation of Act”, which states that it is to be no later than 2 years. That indicates that this Government suddenly realised that this bill did not have the substance, and it certainly did not have the confidence of the Government. If the Government had had the confidence, it would not have needed this particular clause, so why have a clause that basically will review the whole thing and say that this could be a total disaster? I hope that once the Government does the review it actually looks at the review and does something about it, because nothing in this bill requires the Government to action that review and do anything about it. It states that the Government has to do a review within 2 years, but if anything is found that is amiss in the review, then there is no requirement by the Government to do anything about it.

This bill lacks substance, it certainly lacks integrity, and it certainly lacks any compliance and teeth. That is the reason that we were unable to support it any further than the title.