District Court (Protection of Judgment Debtors with Disabilities) Amendment Bill

We come first to the District Court (Protection of Judgment Debtors with Disabilities) Amendment Bill. Members, this bill will be debated in clauses. We come first to clause 1, the debate on the title.

I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one debate.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is none.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wish to take a short call and ask a question of the member Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki. Firstly, I just want to congratulate the member on having her member’s bill drawn and having gotten this far through the process. I am proudly a member of the Justice Committee, of which this bill came before us. However, at crucial points when the member was interacting with the committee, I was subbing her on another select committee, so I didn’t actually have the privilege of discussing and debating this with the member.

What I wanted to ask the member about in particular is that through the select committee process we received submissions from organisations like Age Concern and others who suggested that we actually broaden the people, or the group, that are captured by the Act in terms of caregivers—so not just the disabled person themselves but also their caregivers. I wanted to ask the member her thoughts on that, because, obviously, in the new legislation that we’ve got, you have decided to adopt the unanimous recommendation of the select committee on that, but noting that that wasn’t part of the original bill as you put it into the biscuit tin. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s an honour and a privilege to be standing here at the committee stage of the bill. I want to thank the member Willow-Jean Prime for her question, in terms of the changes that the select committee have brought about and making final recommendations to the House. But, before I do that, I want to briefly remind the committee of why this matter came about, here in Parliament. Community Law South Auckland had asked me if I could sponsor a gap in the law that needed addressing, because there was a disabled person who had their mobility vehicle removed or seized because of debt, because of a judgment debt against that person. We are here today in the committee stage.

So, originally, it was, as it says in its title, District Court (Protection of Judgment Debtors with Disabilities) Amendment Bill. We had a different definition of disability in the original drafting of the bill, but it was changed at the select committee. If I go back to the member’s question, the reason why it was changed at the select committee—if I go back to the title, it says “Judgment Debtors with Disabilities”. So this acknowledges that there are disabled children, young people, or other people who are from our disabled community who actually do not own the vehicle but the vehicle is owned by the caregiver or owned by the parent. So this is a further layer of protection in terms of protecting persons with a disability, and I want to acknowledge the work of the select committee in their recommendations and making this bill a better bill than it originally started. Thank you.

This question is for the member, and, again, congratulations on that work that’s been done through the Justice Committee. We have amended section 167, which is the warrant to seize property, and we amended this section to include the principal caregivers for the disabled person.

I really like what we’ve done there. I think we have done an outstanding job. But when we were listening to those submitters on this bill at the select committee stage, there were many of them who wanted us to ban the seizure of cellphones. Those submitters came from the hearing-impaired and the blind communities, because they regard their cellphones as essential items. They now come under the new definition of disability that we’ve put through there.

Seeing as we’ve not directly addressed this issue in the select committee report, I was hoping that the member could clarify just for the record that with the introduction of that changed definition of a disabled person, which is also in this section, it is the intention of Parliament that those with vision or hearing disabilities would not be adversely affected by this bill if it can be shown that the device is essential for the care, support, or independence of, or to promote inclusion or participation in society of, the judgment debtor, who is the disabled person.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to be able to ask the member a question about this bill, which has been so important for our disabled community to see their issues debated in this House and at select committee. I commend her for her work for that community.

Now, my question is about this confusion which has arisen at the last reading in the House, and it has been discussed at length at the select committee. It’s to do with this idea about at what point this legislative change would apply to people with disability who wanted to access consumer goods. The question that was raised by a number of submitters and by Opposition members on the committee and in the House last time was about whether this would apply in a way which would have a chilling effect on the debt that was extended to people with disabilities when they went to buy consumer goods. For example, that was things where, say, you have someone with a disability who goes into Noel Leeming and wishes to buy a television on hire purchase. The contention was that maybe they won’t be able to have that credit extended because Noel Leeming would be on inquiry as to whether they were someone who they could recover a debt from.

Now, it’s my understanding that this would not, in fact, apply to people with disabilities who wanted to access consumer credit, because the way that the Personal Property Securities Register works is that if you were to buy something like a TV on hire purchase, a debt would be registered against your name. Then that debt would be civilly enforceable and a court could order that that particular item, which you had a registration against, could be repossessed to recover that debt, and that wouldn’t be touched by this legislation. Where this legislation would apply—my understanding is—is at the point at which a whole civil debt or criminal debt was to be recovered, and that was at the court-ordered point, where a judge made that decision, and it would apply to all assets. So there would be no need for lenders of consumer finance to extend any sort of checks about what our disabled community might be accessing in terms of their products that they wanted to buy.

So it’s my understanding that this bill doesn’t encourage people to need those checks and it doesn’t have a chilling effect. Can I ask the member to clarify whether that is the case?

Thank you, members. I just want to go back to Nicole McKee’s question around mobility devices. The select committee did make changes to the definition of devices. If we refer to new subclause (5) in section 167 in clause 4, in this section it did change it to include “mobility device”, but it also gave in the definition that it “has the same meaning as in section 2(1) of the Land Transport Act 1998.” Anything outside of that is actually not relevant, and it’s out of scope for this bill.

Also, to the member Arena Williams and her question about the consumer finance Act, those matters were debated heavily at select committee, and I again acknowledge the Justice Committee. Questions were asked about whether or not the disabled person should declare that they’re disabled when applying for loans or financial hire purchases, and that itself was disagreed to by most of the select committee, because it disadvantages a person with a disability. We should be able to apply for financial services on our capacity to afford those financial services, not on our physicality, or on the physicality of any person. So, hopefully, that addresses the member’s question. Thank you.

I move, That the question be now put.

The question is that clauses 1 to 5 stand part.

Clauses 1 to 5 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.