Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill

Now, when we were last debating the bill, we were up to call number five, which is the New Zealand First call. I call Tanya Unkovich.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand on behalf of New Zealand First to support this bill, the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill. I’d like to acknowledge the member in the House, who is my colleague from the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, Dan Bidois for bringing this bill to the House. I think he was actually the second member, wasn’t he? It was originally the Hon Melissa Lee. So I just want to acknowledge you both.

Now, I must admit, on a personal note, it would be a very rare day that I would personally allow a gift card to expire. The accountant in me never lets a penny go astray or wasted, and, I must say, nothing has changed. Last month, I was notified that I had a small voucher at a company, and off I went very quickly to redeem it. Also, I must admit, it’s not something that I would normally give as a gift. So learning about all of these processes and what actually does go on was quite an eye-opener for me.

My mother, on the other hand, was addicted to gift cards. Being the one who would always go and do the Christmas shopping for her, I was always the one who was left to wrap them. So I must admit that I was kind of relieved when she discovered gift cards and I got the instructions: “Tanya, you go to Farmers”—or DEKA, in those days, I think it was—“and get 10 times”—oh, I don’t think the clock’s going, Madam Speaker; that’s fine. Oh, there we go. It is going. There we go.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: It blinked.

It blinked, it did.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Carry on.

Power outage. So the big learning curve for me, actually, was that not everyone’s like me. In the select committee, I discovered that not having an expiry date was actually quite a big issue and that there were many consumers who are often left on the back foot when they realise that they have lost their card, they cannot redeem it or anything like that. I then discovered that they needed to be protected. According to a Consumer New Zealand campaign to end unfair gift card expiry dates, evidence was shown that one in five gift card holders have actually been stuck with an expired gift card.

Now, the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill seeks to prohibit the sale of gift cards with an expiry date of less than three years after the initial sale date. Now, some people may think, “Gosh, that is a really long time.” It was one of the issues that we looked at during the select committee on what a reasonable period of time would be, and we decided and fell on the three-year mark. So, in doing this, this will now give any recipient of a gift card this reasonable period of time in which to spend it and use it. This bill will have to amend the Fair Trading Act 1986. That is where the rules for gift cards are currently stipulated. The new section 24A will prohibit the selling of gift cards with an expiry date of less than three years. So 24A also defines the terms “expiry date” and also defines “gift card”—believe it or not, this does have to be stipulated in the bill.

It also sets out in the bill that there are a number of cards and vouchers that are excluded from this definition of “gift cards”. So, whilst I won’t go into all of them, I’ll just give you a few examples of what will be excluded. The first one is a gift card supplied through a customer loyalty programme—so, for example, if you get a New World gift card which is purchased with Fly Buys; now, I don’t know if you can do that at the moment; things may be changing there as well. That is an example that is excluded. Also excluded will be a gift card or a voucher for a time-limited event—so an example would be a festival or a concert, something like that, often which happens during the summer period. Another example of an exclusion, something that is not defined as a gift card, is a card which is used to pay for transport and utilities. So that would be a pre-paid card for public transport or electricity or gas or something like that.

Other issues that we discussed during the committee process was to actually have the word “exp”—shortened expiry—on the card, so that people didn’t miss it. It’s very easy to see a few numbers there and not actually realise what it is. So, in order to avoid that confusion, we decided to have the word “exp” on the card then with the numbers that would be the expiry date. So one could easily be confused or, if you don’t have your glasses on, miss it completely. So that was one thing we decided on during the select committee process.

Now, another thing that needed to be decided on was the transition period. When does this kick in? We decided that there did need to be a transition period. Now, this would be in order to give businesses—small businesses, especially—a bit of time to adjust for especially their accounting processes. This is something that New Zealand First were very agreed on, that this had to be done. The reason being is that revenue recognition is often very different for gift cards. While someone might go in and buy a card, they exchange money, the sale is up front but it doesn’t actually qualify for revenue recognition because no goods or services have actually been exchanged yet. So it sits on the balance sheet as a liability for the business owner. Then, once the gift card is redeemed, that is when it is recorded as a sale in the books.

As you can understand, business owners would need a bit of time in order for them to perhaps make some adjustments to their accounting processes or even to simply understand what is going on. Some may have to engage a professional in order to assist them during this transformation period. Now, there could be other issues that could come up—data entry, I’m not sure if there would be any changes to GST reporting, there could be potential cash-flow implications. This all needs to be taken into account in order to give businesses a good period of time in order to adjust. I believe it was 18 months, actually, that we fell on as a period of time.

So, as mentioned before, look, it would be a rare day that I would allow a card to expire, but the truth is that it does happen. Many people forget they’ve been given one, and many people forget where it was. Just reading through my notes a little while ago, it reminded me that after my late-mother passed away, I was going through her things, and inside a birthday card was a gift voucher that she had not used and had expired. So, on that note, I would like to, on behalf of New Zealand First, commend this bill to the House.

This call is a split call. I call Ricardo Menéndez March.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. So, first of all, I just want to acknowledge Melissa Lee for having had this bill drawn from the ballot, and Dan Bidois for taking it on.

I think this bill is just such a good reminder that all the rules in this place are completely made up and, in that same way, we can change those rules. Gift cards are just such a great notion of just the constructs that we’ve come to create where we’ve decided to attach a very specific dollar figure to a piece of paper or cardboard or material that in and of itself has value. And we’ve decided very arbitrarily to allow the market to create rules and let those rules run amok in terms of the expiry dates. One of the things that has been rightfully identified here is that the market alone won’t create fair conditions for people—I would say very rarely, but in this case definitely, it’s been identified as one of those places where just letting the market decide how to set expiry dates has created an unfair situation for consumers, and that, therefore, we need some regulation in place to better protect everyday people.

Other speakers have talked about the amount of money that goes to waste, both for everyday people and just for our communities by nature of having these arbitrary—well, for leaving it to the market, basically. I think the ACT Party’s differing position in the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee was just such a rallying cry for me to get in support of this bill. We supported it at first reading anyway, but they just made it so obvious for us, because they believed that this bill would create unnecessary burden for New Zealand businesses. They also talked about how they believe that the bill takes away businesses’ ability to manage their liabilities as well as financial sustainability for the gift card or vouchers programme. And while it’s important for Parliament to encourage responsible business practice, they then talk about how we should leave it to businesses.

Look, even with MPs that I don’t agree with, like Tanya Unkovich—on most things—she rightfully pointed out there is a genuine issue here that the market itself isn’t sorting. So I think, when so many low-income people, for example, end up having access to gift cards to buy basic essentials such as food or petrol, I think it’s really important. Prezzy Cards actually form, again, a way in which low-income people are often supported to make ends meet. But having these expiry dates left to the market isn’t useful. The only people who have won under the current system are retailers, who get to pocket the money off those cards that end up expiring.

The Green Party is and has been supportive of this bill. I think I do want to note the constructive changes that have been proposed at the select committee stage, all which we think have merit. It’s mostly around tightening stuff around making sure that the language is consistent. I think most important is that there’s a level of consequences, particularly for a body corporate who does not kind of comply with this new regime. I think initially this idea that we could have just created this set of rules, only to then leave it, effectively, voluntarily for the market to sort it would have not been particularly effective. So I think it’s good that this has been looked at. I also know that there’s a transition period as well.

I think, again, this just shows—as I said at the beginning of my contribution—how much those rules are made up. I ask, I guess, the Government members that with the same imagination that they had when it came to drafting this bill, that they realise that rules that allow people to live in poverty, rules that allow people to go without housing are also completely made up. Things like setting benefits below the poverty line is a completely made-up rule that successive Governments have allowed. So with the same imagination that the Government members used to come up with this bill, they use those same powers to tackle some of the big, systemic issues that we face. Because I think members’ bills, while they can tackle discrete issues, they can also be a really useful tool to actually enable important system change conversations that we deserve to have, and our communities certainly deserve, because I’m sure this will actually alleviate cost of living pressures for some people, but the overall systems that create those cost of living pressures remain, despite this bill having merit.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Dan Bidois. Just for the clarity of the House, no, this is actually a full call. So, for the clarity of the House, Te Pāti Māori have chosen not to take their split call on this bill, so that call will be given at the end of the debate. So apologies for any confusion. Dan Bidois—10 minutes.

Thank you. Tonight is a good night for this House and for New Zealand for many reasons. For the passage of my colleague Stuart Smith’s bill. It’s a good day for New Zealand with the announcement of the tax relief package that comes into effect. It is a good day for New Zealand with this bill, the bill that I’m sponsoring, coming one step closer to law. It’s also a good day because it’s my wife’s birthday, and she’s watching at home, so I’d like to just say a very special happy birthday to my wife, Courtney: I love you. I’ll give her a gift card later on.

It is a pleasure to rise and take a call on this bill—the first call for me in this debate. I’d like to start out by acknowledging the Ministers who have gone before me, who actually brought this bill to the House. Melissa Lee has been mentioned—I would love to acknowledge her contribution. But this bill actually goes way back before her, to Jacqui Dean from the great electorate of Waitaki. She initially brought this bill forward; Melissa Lee then took that upon herself and shepherded this through, and it is my role to shepherd this through the House on their behalf. So thank you to those members past and present.

I certainly wish to acknowledge Miles Anderson at the moment, the current member for Waitaki, and my thoughts go out to him and his family at this time. It’s also a pleasure to thank the select committee that I’m on, the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. We’ve got some hard-working members here: Vanessa, Reuben, and other members of the select committee who have—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can we just use the last names of members in the House. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Reuben Davidson and Vanessa Weenink—great, hard-working members of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, and I thank them for their contribution. But this bill is not going to solve the world, it doesn’t solve the big challenges that we face, but it does solve a very small challenge for many out there. Many consumers have, no doubt, bought gift cards and seen them expire. It is a small issue. As is often the case when speaking to members’ bills, they’re not game-changer issues that turn New Zealand upside down and improve it overnight, but they are small improvements. This is, I think, a great example of a small improvement for the country.

What this bill, essentially, does is change the Fair Trading Act to require that gift cards have an expiry date of three years. This bill really is about consumers. It’s around empowering consumers and empowering them to make the best choices that they can, and to make sure that they can redeem the full value of gift cards. My colleague Tanya Unkovich mentioned that, actually, about one out of every five gift cards in this country expire. So this bill seeks to address that by standardising the expiry date and providing an expiry date for which consumers can, in fact, redeem their cards in the full value.

As a member of the select committee, I just want to run through for the House the issues that the select committee dealt with. The first issue was round encapsulating the true and fair definition of what a gift card is. So we spent much time talking about what is and what isn’t a gift card. We got to the point where there were very clear definitions on what a gift card is and what isn’t a gift card. For example, Mr Speaker, if you’re selling a gift card for charitable purposes, that’s not included in this bill. If you receive a gift card for substitution for returned goods—for example, you take your clothes that you got from your birthday back in and you get a gift card voucher—that is not under the definition of this bill. If you go to an event—for example, in the East Coast or great electorates around the country—and you get a gift card or a voucher, those gift cards or vouchers won’t be included. If you get a gift card for utilities or for Auckland Transport—you know, using the public transport—those are the types of things that will not be included in this bill. So what we’ve done is make sure there’s a very clear and narrow definition of what a gift card is.

The second issue was around the length of expiry. We did consider varying the length, but I think we’ve struck a balance—a balance that is right—for three years for expiry. There will be clear rules for businesses around the display of expiry on the gift cards themselves. There’s going to be an infringement process for businesses who violate the—

💬 Hon Member: A stiff one.

Yep, it’s quite a stiff penalty, as my colleague mentioned, for not actually adhering to the rules of this legislation.

Finally, we talked about the transition time, and I did want to just mention this for businesses out there who will be thinking about when they have to comply with this. We did consider seriously the submissions that were made from businesses and from business associations who raised concerns about the length of time it will take to get their IT systems up to speed, to train their staff, and to get new gift card stock. So we have put in a transition time of 18 months, which we think is fair and reasonable for businesses to respond to this piece of legislation.

It is very encouraging to see that almost all parties have signalled that they’re supporting this bill through the House. The only party that’s not is the ACT Party. I would encourage members, who are good friends, in the ACT Party to reconsider. The ACT Party—what is it called? It’s called the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers—“Consumers”. If I think of the great architects of the ACT Party, the Roger Douglases, the Derek Quigleys, the Richard Prebbles, they would really want to support pieces of legislation that empower the consumer. So I would love to encourage my colleagues from the ACT Party—come on, you can come join the waka.

This bill is pro-consumer. This bill is actually free market. Now, most of you—this House, Mr Speaker—doesn’t have necessarily the best grasp of economics, but one of the biggest things you learn in economics is that free markets require the power of information and perfect information. This is actually about clarifying information that will help markets improve efficiency. This bill is necessary for proper regulation.

One of the points that was raised by the dissenting ACT Party was around the impact that this will have on businesses. Actually, businesses support this piece of legislation. They support it because it actually helps manage their financial liability. It creates a lower and upper bound on their financial liability for their accounts. So I would encourage, once again, the great members of the ACT Party—my friends, my coalition partners—to join the waka, to get on the phone to their leader, and to see if we can come to a unanimous unison of perspective in the House this evening.

I just would like to say, finally, thank you to the submitters, for those who took the time to submit. There were some great submissions from various businesses who provided light on their support of the bill, the impact of this bill, and how to make it work in a practical setting. I’d like to thank again the members of the select committee who actually provided some really good frank and cross-partisan commentary. I would like to thank the Ministers once again. We all stand on the shoulders of science, or the shoulders of those who have gone before us. No doubt, it is my role to simply shepherd a great idea that has come before us. So it is on that basis, at the second reading, that I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand to speak on the second reading of the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill. Like my predecessor, I would like to acknowledge Melissa Lee; it was originally her bill drawn from the biscuit tin. She did some work to identify the issue, turned it into a bill, and had the good luck to get it drawn before it was then transferred to that speaker who just took his seat, Dan Bidois.

I thought it would be good to start by imagining being promised something of a certain value, only to discover when you go to get it that it’s worth less—or it’s worthless. I think today is probably a day that most New Zealanders know exactly that feeling because they’ve been promised $250 and they discover it’s $2.15. The relevance is that this bill addresses exactly that issue and—relevance—because we’re talking about a three-year expiry date.

In the instance of gift cards, they often do expire too soon, so a very well-intentioned gift can end up amounting to absolutely nothing. That doesn’t seem very fair, so this bill is our opportunity to change that. And whilst our ACT Party colleagues may have pinned their hopes on something else, we’re yet to see what that is. What we do know is that 54 percent of New Zealanders have received a gift card in the last two years, and 24 percent of New Zealanders are left with gift cards they can never redeem because they are expired or the business has closed. So what’s that worth? It’s worth $267 million dollars in unspent gift cards. That’s only one-tenth the value of the gift card that landlords are getting, but it’s still a lot of money. This bill sets out to address that unfairness.

I think, with the work that we did at our Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, we worked through some of the issues and some of the unintended consequences or points that we could have missed. So some of the reasons it’s a good idea: one is that we all lead busy lives. It’s very easy to get a gift card, slip it into your glove box of your car—I’ve got more than one in mine—and discover that it’s expired by the time you want to use it. One of the members of our select committee had bought a shared experience but every time they went to redeem the gift card, they were unable to redeem it because of weather—because the shared experience was a hot air balloon ride—and that meant that by the time the weather finally cleared, the card had expired and they could not have that shared experience.

We had a lot of submissions at select committee from various retailers and also from entities who are associations or organisations that represent the interests of retailer groups. Foodstuffs New Zealand submitted in support of this bill. They were keen for the extended expiry period. They were not keen on an indefinite period, which was one of the matters that we did discuss, and they also identified the need for a really good transition period, so that was taken into consideration. Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand noted that where we were heading would align us with the Australian model—a three-year expiry date—and that currently they’re selling, usually, with a two-year expiry, although they had extended this during COVID. They definitely supported the proposed three years and also talked about how a lot of their retailers honour expired gift cards already to ensure that customers and consumers have a really positive experience.

Finally, Consumer NZ, who are there to look after consumers and do amazing work in that space, had multiple examples and complaints from people who had missed out on what they thought they were entitled to, due to unfair terms on gift cards, sometimes terms of expiry of six months or even less. One of their really strong requests, and, again, Dan Bidois mentioned this in his speech to the bill—sorry, I think it was actually Tanya Unkovich who mentioned it in hers—was to clearly communicate the expiry date and that it was an expiry date on the voucher, and to strengthen the penalties for effective enforcement; to make sure that there were enough teeth in the legislation to deter retailers or entities from issuing vouchers that were in breach of these terms. So I think it would be fair to say that the majority supported it, with the exception of needing a bit of time for transition, but they’re happy enough with the principle of the bill.

I won’t go into all of the unintended consequences that were identified or addressed. My time would definitely expire before I could go through those, but I am confident that we did, at select committee, look at those. I think this bill ultimately is a gift to consumers. It makes sure that people have the time to make the most of the gifts that they receive. It’s a bill for the 54 percent of New Zealanders who have received a voucher in the last two years, it’s a bill for the 24 percent of New Zealanders who have previously missed out, and it’s a bill that will probably give New Zealanders more relief than the very small tax cuts that came into effect today. So I commend this bill to the House.

Look, I rise in support of the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill—and I’d just like to congratulate members of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for navigating this bill through, and for Dan Bidois, whose name in which the bill is in, following on from Minister Melissa Lee—because this is a fantastic bill.

I must say, I do personally relate to this issue of gift cards, because when you have four children that are often going to birthdays—all the time, kind of gets more and more as they get a little bit older—it’s a very easy solution to race in and grab a gift card, but also, in return, you often get a lot of gift cards. So, anyway, we’ve ended up with this drawer full of gift cards which are literally expired. My husband actually was wanting to prevent these gift cards from expiring, so he decided to kind of stick them all to the wardrobe so that when you open the wardrobe you’d see all the gift cards, so you would remind yourself that you actually have to go and use the gift card. You’d think that that would have worked, but it didn’t, and we still have a lot of expired gift cards. So I can certainly relate to this issue, and I’m sure most New Zealanders can.

As we’ve already heard tonight, one in four gift cards is expired, and 54 percent of people have used gift cards in the past two years, so we would definitely see a lot of expired gift cards. Hundreds of families around the country—you know, they run busy lives, as we all do, and so I suppose they often do reach out for the gift card option when they’re giving a gift. I’m surprised, actually, Dan, that you perhaps didn’t get a gift card for Courtney today, given it’s her birthday. But consumers need to have time. They need to have time to be able to spend the gift card. I think that’s fair. This bill is all about the consumer and being pro the consumer, which is good for business and good for the economy, because we want to support consumers. I must say, if you think about kids and they’ve got this gift card and they think they’re going to go and spend it, only to arrive at the shop and discover it’s expired, just the look on the children’s faces; they’re just absolutely devastated that their gift card is expired. So, anyway, this bill is about stopping that and giving more time—giving three years, in fact, which is a reasonable period, I think, to enable a gift card to be used. I mean, it allows more flexibility and more protection to the consumer.

Research has actually found—I’ve read in some of these documents here—that we could be losing $10 million a year on cards before they are redeemed. I mean, that is a lot—that’s a lot. A Consumer New Zealand study found that one in four gift cards ends up stuck in the top drawer, as I’ve already said. Actually, you know, I also got a lot of gift cards and vouchers when I used to do a lot of running events, because I did a lot of running events in a previous career. Actually, a few of them: the Hawke’s Bay half-marathon, the Hawke’s Bay triathlons—actually, we’ve got the triathlon about to start at the Olympics. It might have already started, so a big shout-out to Hayden Wilde; hopefully another medal—and the Hastings harriers events, where you quite often get vouchers, and the Hawke’s Bay Hundy, and the Mount Maunganui half-marathon, the Taupō half-marathon—that was a good one, that’s next weekend actually; there’ll be a few gift cards, I’m sure, that will be handed out at that event. And the Spirited Women Adventure Race, and the Auckland marathon—now, that was a good one; that was a really good one. Running across the Harbour Bridge, I mean, I’ll never ever forget the Auckland marathon.

These events draw a lot of people into the regions and across the country, and often there are a lot of gift cards that, potentially, are sometimes given out in these events because it can be easier to give a gift card for a pair of shoes or give a gift card for a singlet or a running top, or to that effect. So, you know, we’re all very, very familiar with the gift card issue and the fact that we do have a lot that expire, I mean, a lot of those ones that I did win in some of those events have expired. So you put the power back to the consumer. I mean, if we take a little bit of information from internationally, some of the other countries around the world: in Canada, expiry dates are banned, and in the USA, a five-year expiry date is required—five years. Obviously we haven’t quite gone that far; we’ve kept it around the three years, which was obviously seen to be quite reasonable. But here in New Zealand, we’ve been around the six months or 12 months—I mean, you barely get time to look at the gift card before it’s expired. Well, unless it’s hanging on the wardrobe, you know, for you to kind of look at quite regularly. But I think that many of us would agree that three years is very fair and reasonable and it is the right thing to do, to stand up for consumers.

We need to foster consumer confidence in our economy, which is what we’re all about on this side of the House—you know, strengthening our economy and making sure that we are supporting our hard-working consumers out there. Actually, I mean, I would say it is a great day for consumers here in New Zealand, an amazing day today because historically, in the past 14 years, New Zealanders have not had tax relief. But today, after 14 years, hard-working New Zealanders are getting tax relief. So that is amazing for our New Zealand consumers, and perhaps some of them may go out and they may purchase a gift card; you just don’t know. But it’s all about strengthening our economy, and, I suppose, creating more competition as well, because we want to drive more competition. I sit on the Finance and Expenditure Committee—as well as the Primary Production Committee, actually—and we are having a banking inquiry at the moment, which is also going to be, you know, very valuable for our consumers out there because we have one of the most uncompetitive banking sectors in the world. So this will certainly give us an opportunity to inquire further into this sector and, hopefully, create a more competitive sector in New Zealand so that we can strengthen our economy.

Look, just coming back to the bill, because I think that it is interesting to look at some of the areas which it doesn’t cover, so that is: loyalty programmes—so it does actually stipulate here that a New World card that was purchased potentially with Fly Buys points, which the member over here has already alluded to, that wouldn’t be included. I think another area which I think is very, very sensible in relation to this bill is not including time-limited events. So, you know, obviously if you get a gift voucher to, say, Mission Concert in Hawke’s Bay—the wonderful, wonderful Hawke’s Bay—where we see a lot of events and, often, people are given gift vouchers to these events, but of course they are time limited, so it’s only fair that you would get a redemption or a further length of time if the event has already passed. I mean, that makes absolute sense, which, you know, this bill is all about practical sense. And of course, as my colleague has already said, the card cannot be the ones that are used for public transport and utilities and those types of cards and vouchers are not able to be included in this bill and have the three-year limit, which, again, seems quite fair. And, of course, second-hand consumer sales of gift cards—I think, obviously, if a gift card’s been given, you can’t then flog it off and then the three years starts; I mean, that’s obviously unfair.

So, I mean, a lot of thought has gone into ensuring that we have a very fair and reasonable bill, and they’ve thought a lot about the gift cards and of course the display of the cards’ expiry date—very, very important because consumers need to know the expiry date so they know the exact time frame that they have to be able to go out and use that card. So, of course, if we were purchasing it, that expiry date should be very, very obvious. As we’ve already talked about, the transition period will be over an 18-month period of time, which I think is very, very fair and reasonable. But, look, we think this bill is an absolutely fantastic bill for the consumers of New Zealand. It’s great to see this one navigated through because it’s a very, very important issue that we can all relate to—54 percent of New Zealanders have purchased a gift card in the past two years, but one in four expire. That really is unfair to the consumers; it’s unreasonable, and we certainly need to make sure that we get the gift card industry back on track. So I commend this bill to the House.

I’m really pleased to be debating the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill tonight. This is a really good bill. Overall, it seeks to protect consumers from losing the value of their gift cards due to short expiry periods, and I believe that this should promote fairer and more transparent business practices. I’d like to congratulate Dan Bidois on his bill and to wish a happy birthday to your lovely wife, and I presume that she might be getting a gift card as one of her many presents.

This is a really sensible bill and Labour supports it. It is not always the case, though, that so many of our different parties in the House of Parliament agree and give support to a member’s bill, but in this case, I believe it is well-deserved. This bill will put an end to the unfairness of gift card expiry dates.

I remember when this bill had its first reading last year. I recall that many of the members of Parliament who spoke on it shared some of their experiences with expired gift cards. I too have had some experiences of having expired gift cards because I have been given gifts and, unfortunately, I don’t have the habit of always looking to see what the expiry date on those gift cards is. So I’ve also been caught out.

When Consumer New Zealand came to make a submission on this bill—and I was one of the substitute MPs that sat in on this particular day at the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee—they told us that they have received many complaints from consumers about expired gift cards. They actually urged the select committee to consider extending it from three years to a period of five years, and they argued that this would be in order to ensure that consumers do not miss out on what is rightfully theirs.

Now, expiry dates on gift cards have been given the boot in other countries. For instance—and this has been spoken about by other MPs—in most of Canada, they have banned expiry dates on gift cards. In the US and Ireland, they are required to have expiry dates of about five years. In Australia—our neighbouring country—in 2019, they strengthened their laws, requiring gift cards to be valid for a period of three years, and I believe that this is one of the things that we’re trying to do with this bill.

We know from research that New Zealanders are leaving millions and millions of dollars on gift cards unspent. They found that more than a third of New Zealanders have at least one unused gift card, and they’ve put the cumulative value to around about $267 million, which is a staggering amount.

Now, in reading the Hansard of previous speeches on this bill, I feel that it is actually a good idea that parliamentarians—especially on members’ bills—come to an agreement and actually put aside our differences, and put aside politics for at least a few minutes when we’re debating a bill that we agree on, because it is the right thing to do for New Zealanders. In this context, we are doing what is right for consumers, and I’d like to actually say that I agree with the author of this bill, Dan Bidois, when he said earlier on that the ACT Party, which is the only party in this House who does not agree with this bill—I find it really interesting because “Consumers” is actually part of their name. ACT stands for the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, so why is it that on this occasion, ACT is not advocating for and not standing up for consumers of gift cards? This law change is a very practical way of making sure that money stays in the pockets of New Zealanders.

Last Christmas, after the first reading of this bill, Consumer New Zealand put together a nice and naughty list of retailers. The nice retailers were the ones in New Zealand who either had no expiry date or an expiry date of five years. The naughty retailers were the ones with only 12 months or less. This bill will ensure that all retailers will be consistent and that they will have a minimum of at least a three-year expiry date. I commend this bill to the House.

Nancy Lu, for the second five-minute call.

I’m very, very happy to stand to support the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill, second reading. First of all, I’d like to say a huge congratulations to the National Minister Melissa Lee, and senior MP, for actually putting her name on this and being drawn from the biscuit tin, from the ballot, and also taking it through the first reading. Now it is transferred to the name of Dan Bidois, MP, my really good friend and a really good MP.

I am so happy with supporting this bill because a gift card, for most people, is a happy thing. You receive it—it could be either for a goodwill or a congratulatory purpose. It could either be a physical card, or, sometimes, actually, it’s a surprise, because your family and friends from a different city or from a different country could send you something online and send it to you as a surprise to your email. And guess what! Most people would have hundreds and hundreds of emails. And, sometimes, if you get an email directly from one of those the gift providers, you may not even realise it’s actually a gift from a family member or a friend. Before you know it, you could be very, very close to a so-called expiry date.

This bill is very helpful for many of our Kiwis and New Zealanders, because it extends the time to at least three years for the gift voucher, gift card, and electronic vouchers, but, also, it allows, actually, consumers to have more time to go through a thorough process—especially now with our cost of living pressure in New Zealand—to really go through and find the item that they really need for their family or for themselves as individuals. So today is a really good day, for the one in every five recipients of the gift cards, to feel happy, and, actually, they can put it into really good use.

Now, speaking of gift cards, I actually have a very personal story to share, and it’s something that I have gone through when I first had my first daughter in 2020. So it was my first daughter. It was the first time, obviously, that I experienced something called a baby brain. In Chinese, there is a very similar word to it called一孕傻三年—literally, it means, “As soon as you’re pregnant and have given birth, you will be stupid for three years.”; in other words, you will be forgetful, you will be grumpy, you will be deprived of sleep, you’ll be angry with your partner, with your family, with the baby, and everything. And it goes for three years. And when you have two, it goes for six. It doesn’t condense into three. Because I now have two children, I am still literally within the six-year period of a so-called baby brain.

What happened with my first becoming a mother, I was gifted a total value of $700 from my friends and family. They got together, and they wanted to give me something very special but very expensive but something I can actually put into good use. For a lot of the mums out there, $700 four years ago could get you a decent car seat. Not anymore; it is actually more expensive now. But $700 for me and my husband then, for our first daughter, Amber—we were very, very grateful for the $700. But we obviously wanted to wait until she was a bit older so that we could get the right size and so we knew what we were looking for. As baby brains hit, you forget about them. Because $700 is so expensive, so much in value, I store them somewhere—somewhere. For the life of me, I just could not find them.

I was not comfortable in telling my husband about the $700 until he decided that maybe we should go and buy the car seat for Amber. When Amber turned one, I told him the story that I couldn’t find the gift cards. He was obviously not very happy, but we still went ahead and got the car seat. And guess what! The minute we buy the car seat, a week later, I found the gift cards in my drawer, and guess what! They’d all expired. I’ve tried communicating with the shop. It didn’t work. That was very, very stressful for me as a young mum and very stressful for the family, and, obviously, we have just flushed down the toilet the goodwill and the good intentions from our family and friends.

So, as a young mother who is still experiencing the six years of my baby brain, I really think that extending the expiry date for gift cards will be beneficial for many people, including the new mums out there in New Zealand. So I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This will be a brief call from me, but I do want to extend the congratulations of this House to Dan Bidois for shepherding through what is a great bill here, and to thank everyone for their speeches on this topic. It’s been a really genuinely interesting discussion about how we can advance a pro-consumer agenda in New Zealand which benefits everyone, because we’re all consumers, we all want prices to come down for ordinary New Zealanders, and we all want to make sure that these kinds of conditions that make life harder for people, that are so frustrating for ordinary people are something that the Government intervenes in and says, “Hey, actually, this isn’t the way that we should be conducting business here. We’re going to get some sensible rules around this and make sure that everyone’s on an even playing field.” So it’s good to be able to have this discussion. This is a good size for a member’s bill too.

I commend the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for working through some of what were actually quite technical and difficult issues. I’ve read the report of the select committee. I’ve seen the work that has gone into it. It’s a great example of where parliamentarians can get around the table and talk about these issues which we all know a lot about and want to make things better for people.

I think that’s the attitude we need to be bringing to this. Catherine Wedd, who gave a passionate speech about how we need to make things better for consumers, needs to continue to bring that passion to our work in this Parliament, because these should be bipartisan issues. The idea that a Government can advance a pro-consumer agenda while, at the same time, growing the economy is absolutely the approach that advanced economies around the world at the moment are taking. We’ve seen the Biden administration working through a huge, huge piece of legislation called the Inflation Reduction Act, which has a number of these initiatives which are about making things easier for consumers, making it harder for the large corporates that exercise a huge amount of market power in their market to be able to take advantage of ordinary people. That’s good work for Government to be doing. It’s not something that is blue or red; it’s something that we should demand of our Government always, and things like this.

We’ve heard a number of stories around the House tonight about just how disappointing, frustrating, sometimes humiliating, sometimes you can’t talk to your partner about letting those gift cards expire, because they make you feel rotten. It really is outrageous that we’ve had a situation in New Zealand where gift cards could expire in six months or a year for an experience that you couldn’t book at the time or for goods and services that consumers have paid for. They’re not paying to give a card and for that exchange of the card to be the thing that they think they’re getting; they’re buying products to be selected at a future date. That’s why jurisdictions around the world, as my colleague the Hon Jenny Salesa has said, have set their expiry dates up to five years—in some cases, seven; in some cases, there are no expiries at all—and that would be an appropriate thing for, I think, New Zealand to move to in future, where we can be sure that consumers are always going to be able to get the goods and services that they think they have paid for from these businesses. Protections for consumers in this way are a really good thing, but there’s more we could be doing here.

Labour’s record on protecting consumers in our monopolistic and duopolistic markets is a good one. We made incredible progress on things like supermarkets duopoly in New Zealand, which were all designed around giving the little guy the best go. The ACT Party have opposed this bill that we are talking about tonight for exactly the same reasons they opposed those reforms when Labour was in Government, because having a swing at big business is not the end of town that they will be going for. In this bill, we are having a bit of a swing at business, but we’re saying that, actually, it’s Government’s role to make sure that consumers are getting a fair go. There will always be a role for Government in that, to make sure that everyone is able to enjoy the things that they think they’re paying for and getting a fair deal when they go through the checkout. Labour’s record on improving things in insurance and lending is also a part of that pro-consumer agenda that New Zealanders expect from their Governments, whether they are red or whether they are blue.

I think there is more that we could be doing here on things like junk fees. Consumers across New Zealand’s market are paying extra, more than the ticket price, when they’re buying things like airline fees, when they’re paying for things like concert tickets, and that is incredibly frustrating for consumers in exactly the same way that having an expired gift card is. You’re just reminded constantly that some big corporate is taking a cut that you didn’t expect to be losing out on. That’s a problem and that’s another way that Government can support consumers to be able to get a fair go.

There’s also an important piece of work here around the transparency of pricing in New Zealand’s market. I put those questions to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs at his Estimates and asked him to continue to focus on that work that Labour began. I’d love the Government to continue that work, and not for it to be something that is relegated to members’ bills only, not for it to be something that is popular to do—because a pro-consumer agenda is popular when they are in Opposition—but something that they are focused on in Government. So I commend those backbenchers who are raising these issues and I hope that they are continuing to raise the dialogue with their Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a good day for New Zealand. It’s good news after good news. It’s a good day for all New Zealanders, with tax relief, being 31 July. It’s a good day for Dan Bidois’ wife on her birthday. It’s a good day for the wine industry. It’s a good day for Kaikōura. It’s a good day for this House as we celebrate this bill going through its third reading in the somewhat spirit of unity—albeit one minor party there. But Mr Luxton, it’s not too late if you want to join, my friend; I won’t tell your leader. You can come over if you’d be enticed. But it’s wonderful. It’s not every day that I’ll agree with member Menéndez March and member Davidson and member Salesa. But it’s a great day as we come together for what is a pragmatic solution, and which something has been bubbling away for a long time.

I do want to acknowledge member Dan Bidois for shepherding this and, of course, the Hon Melissa Lee, who got the bill drawn. In fact, she was quoted—she was so excited—“This bill was put in the ballot such a long time ago, I completely didn’t think I was going to get it. I have such bad luck getting bills drawn out of the ballot, it was a bit of a surprise this morning”, she said. And then, in talking with her, I realised it was actually the Hon Jacqui Dean’s original. This has been fathered, mothered, shepherded for a long time, so it’s great to see it come to fruition today.

I actually am working on learning some of the te reo and different names, but now I need to learn some Chinese, and I’m keen to learn that baby-brain dialogue, so I’m looking to learn that—yeah, very discretely.

It’s interesting, one in five recipients lose out when they don’t redeem before expiry, which is costing—as has been mentioned—approximately $10 million a year, which would be for our everyday Kiwis. We’ve all had experiences of losing or misplacing or finding one later, and then realising it’s too late. I was thinking, coming up, we’ve got Father’s Day on 1 September—it’s a month away, 1 September. I feel for Mr Jackson over there. He’s been looking a bit sad and grumpy lately, and I thought, actually, for Father’s Day, we could all chip in and get him a Prezzy Card and cheer him up, because I’m really feeling for him and I want to encourage him because I really like him. But we’ve got Father’s Day coming up. We’ve got Christmas—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): The member’s not misleading the House, is he?

Ha, ha! No, Mr Speaker. But as has been mentioned, in other countries like Canada, expiry dates are banned—they don’t even have expiry dates. And it makes sense, right? Cash or money doesn’t expire, so why do we put these artificial, constructed rules on these Prezzy Cards? And the US has a five-year expiry.

The honourable member Jenny Salesa was very gracious in not naming and shaming some of the businesses that Consumer magazine did, but I think it’s worthwhile acknowledging those that have no expiry date: Apple Store; Baby Factory, which would have been very useful to the former speaker if she’d known; Barkers; Bunnings; Countdown, which is excellent; EB Games; Farro Fresh; Foot Locker; Glassons; Hallensteins; JB Hi-Fi, Kathmandu, and Macpac. Of course, there’ll be many others that don’t have expiry or that will have expired but that will still honour the Prezzy Card, and they do a wonderful thing by still honouring it.

Consumer understands some retailers calculate gift card income on the assumption that a percentage of shoppers will never actually spend the money. Of the few retailers who publish non-redemption information, they calculate non-redemption rates between 5 and 10 percent. Across a multimillion-dollar industry, this adds up to quite a nice little earner. For many years, Consumer has been campaigning to end unfair gift card expiry dates. When a gift card expires, the retailer pockets any money left on the card. As has been mentioned, approximately $267 million of gift cards throughout New Zealand have been unused. The retailers have benefited and the consumers have missed out. That’s a lot of Subways or DIY tools or clothing or supermarket or food or Glassons—or 67 loaves of bread with an $80 voucher, as member Kirkpatrick had worked out earlier.

I’d like to share a story, but for reasons of privacy, I’ve changed the names a little bit and the location of the venue, you’d understand. This was, essentially, called the unredeemed spa day gift card. Once upon a time—actually, last year—in the bustling, fastest-growing city in New Zealand called Hamilton, or Kirikiriroa, there lived a young woman named Lauren. Lauren was a hard-working nurse who spent her days caring for others. Her friends and family admired her dedication but worried that she neglected herself. In fact, she’s a nurse up at Waikato Hospital, which, by the way, is one of the largest footprint hospitals in the Southern Hemisphere—very busy place.

For Lauren’s birthday, her best friend, Kari, decided to surprise her with a thoughtful gift: a surprise day at the luxurious Tranquil Waters Spa. Kari knew that Lauren needed a break from the chaos of the hospital, and what better way to unwind than with a massage, facials, and soothing baths. I’ve spoken at some length about bubble baths before, but I won’t go there tonight; I’ll keep on the bill here. Kari purchased a beautifully packaged gift card from the spa. The card promised a promising day of pampering, complete with herbal teas from Zealong Tea in Gordonton, actually, which are organic—in fact, they were told green tea can never grow in New Zealand; they’ve proved them wrong—fluffy robes, and calming music. The expiration date was a generous two years away, so Lauren had plenty of time to redeem it.

Lauren was thrilled when she received it. In fact, she giggled with a little bit of joy. She tucked the card into her bedside drawer, envisioning the blissful day ahead, but life had other plans. The hospital became busier and busier. The bureaucracy was intense—something like 14 layers, but I digress, noting this was about a year ago and Lauren’s shifts grew longer and longer. She postponed her spa day, promising herself she’d go when things calmed down, but months turned into a year and Lauren’s spa card remained untouched. She would glance at it occasionally, just to remind herself of the hopefulness and the possibility.

Then, one rainy afternoon, Lauren’s friend Kari called. “Guess what!” Kari’s voice bubbled with excitement. “I booked my day spa at Tranquil Waters—you should come, too. It’ll be our little escape.” Lauren hesitated. She pulled out the gift card and checked the expiry date. To her horror, it had passed by a few weeks. The spa’s policy was strict—no extensions, no exceptions. She explained the situation to Kari, who empathised but couldn’t change the rule. Lauren felt a mix of disappointment and frustration. The very gift meant to rejuvenate her had become a source of stress, Mr Luxton.

In a story closer to home, my wife was given a voucher for Mother’s Day by our three children. They had all fund-raised and put the money together and cobbled it together, and she actually lost the card and rang the outfit. They said, “Sorry, you need the card.”, and she argued, because surely they’d have a record of the card, but they said, “No, you must have the card.” So she kind of relinquished, forgot about it, found the card but then realised that it had expired and they did not honour it. Needless to say, she won’t be visiting that venue anytime soon.

💬 Cameron Luxton: So the market worked again.

In the fiscal year 2021—talking about the market, Mr Luxton—Starbucks reportedly claimed a staggering $181 million in revenue from unused gift cards and loyalty accounts. This amount represented approximately 1 percent of their total sales and 4.3 percent of their net income. You can appreciate it’s the net income, because they’ve got no cost against the Prezzy Card—it’s pure profit. It’s fascinating how these unredeemed vouchers contributed significantly to the financial health. And here is the kicker: they actually have a three-year expiry. Keep in mind that gift cards can sometimes linger in our wallets, waiting for the perfect moment to be redeemed. Perhaps we all have a little bit of unspent Starbucks magic somewhere tucked away. We can’t regulate out people’s choices, but we can extend the opportunity, and that is what we are doing today: we are extending the opportunity.

In the bill, it actually just mentions a few of the key elements: the display of the card expiry date, and I think it’s just important to mention that we’ve added in new section 36WC to the Act, inserted by clause 5 of the bill, to include “(a) the expiry date: (b) the month and year the gift card ceases to be redeemable: (c) the date the gift card is sold and a statement that identifies the period during which the gift card is redeemable:” and “(d) the words ‘no expiry date’ or words to that effect.” As you’ve heard across this House, this is a pragmatic bill. It unites just about everyone in a spirit of unity and consumer and business logic. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Five-minute call.

Final call—yes, thank you, Mr Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): This is the Te Pāti Māori call.

This is the final call on the second reading of the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill. And just for the member who’s just resumed his seat, Ryan Hamilton, whilst I was enjoying his anecdotes and I thought his story was very sweet and lovely, I can also confirm that the leaders of the men’s triathlon bike cycle changed positions several times just in the period of time where you chose to rattle off a list of competing businesses or businesses that partake in selling gift cards to fill that 10 minutes. So thank you very much.

I think that everything that could possibly be said about this bill has been said tonight. It’s pragmatic; it’s sensible. I don’t think anybody necessarily disagrees. I think it’s been interesting to have some comment from the other side of the House about whether there should be an expiry date at all. And that’s something that we or the Government could perhaps look at in further members’ bills or their programme of work.

When we think of all of the reasons as to why consumers may get the rough end of the deal here, I think it’s a really good bill to bring to the House. I note, again, that the previous speaker wanted to thank Dan Bidois. And I extend my thanks to him and also acknowledge the fact that I remember both Melissa Lee and Jacqui Dean being very excited and quite animated about this when they spoke about it. And, in fact, it was Jacqui Dean, when she first mentioned it, that kind of got me over the line when I was thinking about whether this was a good idea or a bad idea or what those loopholes might be. So, on that basis, I commend this bill to the House.

The question is, That the amendments recommended by the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee by majority be agreed to.