Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Before I begin my contribution, I’d just like to acknowledge my colleague Mark Cameron for his contribution. Our hearts are with you, mate. Our ears are with the farming community. Kia kaha to you and to your family.

Today is a good day in the House. Today is a good day for consumers, who have clarity to know that when they get a gift card, they are able to realise the full value of that gift card. Today is a good day for businesses, who have clarity on their liability when they issue gift cards, and today is a good day for those who are looking for cost of living relief in the way of making sure that gift cards are fully realised in the economy.

I am merely part of a relay competition. I’d like to start my contribution today by acknowledging the Ministers and members I have inherited this bill from. The first is my dear colleague Melissa Lee. Melissa is now a Minister and so could not be the member in charge of this bill. I certainly would like to acknowledge her contribution and her dedication and her hard work as a Minister as she passes the baton of this bill to me. The second person I’d like to acknowledge is the Hon Jacqui Dean, a former member for the great electorate of Waitaki, who originally initiated this bill idea in the House. I think that without those two members, I wouldn’t be running the final relay of this competition.

The clear truth is that I have no issue spending gift cards. Anybody who knows me will know that I am quick to spend the full value of gift cards within a matter of days, and, like any good economist, I will make sure that I spend the full value and make sure that I will find the goods and services that realise that full value of the gift card.

There are many out there with expired gift cards in their purse, and I’ve had many people come to me, and, in fact, the dollar value is anywhere from $20 million to $40 million in unrealised gift card value on any given year. That is what this is bill is designed to address—it is to provide clarity for those people to realise those gift card values so the cards can be used for what they were intended for, which is that a gift card for $100 actually gets realised for $100 in the economy.

What does this bill intend to do? Well, simply put, it means that there will be a minimum expiry date of three years for all gift cards. Three years—there you go. I take a week to spend a gift card but New Zealanders will have up to three years to spend the full value of their gift cards, whether the cards are in digital form or physical form.

There are a range of gift cards that are excluded from this bill, and I’d just to just summarise that for the House and for the one or two people that are tuning in to Parliament TV. The first is gift cards that are sold for charitable purposes. I’m thinking about gift cards sold at my own local primary school just at the weekend. They were sold at auction. They will not need to have expiry dates on them. A gift card supplied through a loyalty programme will not need an expiry date. Gift cards sold at time-limited events, such as Splore and other great events that I’ve never been because I don’t really care for such events, will not need expiry dates. If you buy an AT HOP card and give it to somebody else, or an energy card or a utility card voucher, they will not need an expiry date.

Everything else, for the purposes of the bill, for those listening at home, will require a standard three-year minimum expiry date. And that is actually bringing us in line with most of our comparator countries. That is a good thing.

The second thing this bill does is it provides an offence under the law for those who do not comply. If those businesses do sell gift cards with a minimum expiry date less than three years, then they will be able to be fined by the authorities. And if they continue to do so, then the relevant regulator will have the ability to take action and fine them up to—actually, a fairly hefty amount prescribed in the regime.

I have talked about the 18-month transition. If you’re a business watching this at home—which is not the case because most people that run businesses are not sitting at home idle on the TV. But if they wish to know, I can tell them that for the next 18 months, they don’t need to comply. It’s after 18 months from the date of Royal assent, and that is to allow time for businesses to comply with the legislation, whether it’s time to train their staff, make sure that they can get rid of all current gift cards, and make sure their IT and relevant systems are all kosher.

I would like to acknowledge some of my colleagues here in the House today—firstly, colleagues on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee on both sides of the House, most of whom are here today. Thank you for the engagement. This bill has received very good and widespread support, and I would like to acknowledge the contribution of my colleagues here today.

Thank you to the officials who traversed a range of very subtle and nuanced issues through the select committee process. Thank you to the officials and the unsung heroes for making sure the legislation is written in a way that is relatively easy to understand and also fit for purpose. Thank you to those that submitted on the bill. Most of the submissions were in support of the bill, even within the business community, and so I’d like to acknowledge them.

I would like to acknowledge ACT, but in previous rounds of this bill, they have been the only party in Parliament that hasn’t supported this legislation. I would like to encourage ACT, on the 30th birthday of the ACT Party, and to remind those members that ACT stands for “Association of Consumers and Taxpayers”. I would like to remind my good friends from the ACT Party that this bill is very much consistent with the values of the ACT Party and the greats; whether they’re Roger Douglas, Richard Prebble, or Derek Quigley, they would all be wanting to pass legislation like this because they were on the side of consumers.

Consumers have the will to decide for themselves, and it is through that that we will have greater competition in society and greater outcomes. I would like to extend the kaupapa and send an olive branch to my dear friends in the ACT Party—join us in this waka. Become relevant on this particular bill and vote to support such an important piece of legislation in the House today.

This bill is part of the National-led Government’s plan to make practical changes that reduce the cost of living pressures on Kiwi households, to restore the economy and the economic growth potential of our country, and to get our economy and our country back on track.

It is my privilege and pleasure today to be the member in charge of this bill and to, on behalf of my colleagues and my party, commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you. I stand in support of this bill. I’d first of all like to thank Dan, who has brought the bill to the House; but also the Hon Melissa Lee, who had the bill before and has been my competitor in Mt Albert and can be proud of this bill; and Jacqui Dean, who had the bill prior to that.

This is a bill that I wouldn’t have thought was particularly controversial for the ACT Party, because it is quite right that it is about consumers and it’s about making sure that things are fair. My understanding is that the ACT Party have not supported the bill, seeing the issue as one of letting people do what they want or businesses do what they want. With respect, I think that that shows a flaw in the thinking of the ACT Party, where, in fact, it is not willing to accept that we need to get the balance right in things like this. In fact, I think that the other parties in the House that support this bill can see that this is a small change—it’s not a giant change, but it’s a small change—that favours consumers and that makes sure that there is a better situation. The free market shouldn’t be something that we treat in some sort of slavish way, because it’s not really that free when, in fact, people can covenant something like this and contract out of an obligation.

In a situation like this, what we see is that, up until now, private companies have taken hard-earned money from a consumer. Perhaps my grandmother gives the hard-earned money across and gets a $200 voucher for $200, and the company that she’s given it to, perhaps a big supermarket chain, pockets that money and puts an expiry date on the end of the gift voucher. And, then, I am not like Dan; I have been known—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can you use last names as well?

Sorry, I’m not like Dan Bidois; I have been known to keep the vouchers on my fridge, actually, often for years, and only discover it, in fact—those vouchers are there underneath probably some little calendar or a little Helen White fridge magnet—once they’ve expired, and, actually, the hard-earned money of the person who gave it to me has been lost. I’ve also had the annoying reverse of this where I have given gift cards to my children and they are worse than me at actually noticing such expiries and all the money that I’ve earned and given them these vouchers with has been lost. So the business does rather well out of it.

Well, it’s just all about a balance here. We didn’t go to an extreme. We didn’t say, “No expiry ever.” We put a capacity in the voucher to have an expiry at three years because we were worried about the kind of accumulated responsibility for refunding and how that would go. We reached a pretty good compromise, I think, at three years. We have done that in 18 months. There’s plenty of lead-in time. As a result, we have a regime that I think everybody would consider fair, where if a voucher is bought, people can spend the full value of that voucher over quite a long period of time—three years—and they’ll get a real fair opportunity to spend that.

I’m very pleased with this piece of legislation as a recognition of a more moderate approach to such things, a point where law comes in and it actually just gently nudges people into a position where power is balanced. I support this bill, as does the Labour Party today, and I commend the bill to the House.

Scott Willis—you might want to be a little faster next time, or you might lose the call.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for allowing me to take this call and to let the member opposite know that, of course, the Green Party does support the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill. There isn’t a great deal that we can say, except to acknowledge that it is somewhat ironic that the ACT Party, which purports to support consumer rights, doesn’t support this bill. But, apart from that, we are very happy and we would like to see this bill progress.

We don’t think there is actually a great deal of need to take full calls on it, because virtually everyone is in agreement. What we would like to see is that we have more opportunity to have more members’ bills out of the ballot, because there is some important legislation to proceed with. I’m going to be short and sweet and thank Dan Bidois, in particular, for progressing this bill, and members of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for all the work we put into it. It is something that needs to be done promptly, and so I commend this bill.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar, to speak for the ACT Party.

Yes, Madam Speaker. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Yes, I am taking this call for the ACT Party. To the member in charge of this bill, Dan Bidois, I would say in the start that the ACT Party is not supporting this bill, the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill. The reason for this is that we believe that this is actually something that is totally unnecessary and we believe in the ACT Party that we do not want to overburden businesses with things that are not required. In our view, this bill is, basically, taking up the time of the House which is just not needed. I would like, actually, to ask the member in charge of this bill to reconsider, before we finalise the third reading of this bill, if the member really wants to proceed with this bill. This is based on the arguments that I’m going to present to the member here.

As we look at this bill, what this bill does is it amends the Fair Trading Act 1986 to give recipients of gift cards a more reasonable period in which to redeem their full value. The question here from the start that I have asked is what is a reasonable period? And here we heard just now from the member in charge of the bill that he’s very quick at using his gift cards. My colleague here Cameron Luxton, he might be taking maybe two months to use his gift cards; I might be taking up to six months. Tell me, what is a reasonable period? It’s very subjective. It depends on the individual who receives the gift card or who chooses the gift card—it depends on that person.

This bill is setting a minimum expiry date of three years from the initial date of the sale of that gift card. I’m sure there will be people who will find some expired gift cards in their drawers even after this bill goes through, even when the expiry date will be three years. What do you think we should do next? Do you think then we should bring another bill here in Parliament and say that the expiry date should actually be five years? It’s very interesting that in the select committee, we did have a discussion about whether it should be three years or five years. “Reasonable time” is subjective; it depends on the individual. There will be some people still who will not use their gift card within three years and will complain that the three years’ time period was not enough. Just coming up with this reason that “Yeah, there are so many people out there who see their gift cards expire. We should make sure that it is a minimum of three years.” is not a logical argument and is not a logical policy.

As I said before, this is going to create unnecessary burden on businesses because businesses should be allowed to use the kind of marketing strategies they want to. This is one of the tools that some businesses might want to utilise. Also businesses when they change hands, it becomes really important for that business to note that any business card that has been sold and is not redeemed becomes a liability of that business. That needs to be passed on to that new business. And then, obviously, there needs to be some additional accounting that needs to be done. That accounting expense is also put on the business because of this legislation.

We should let businesses decide what the expiry date is. And my experience is that—yes, I have seen gift cards from big companies and small companies as well—when you go to purchase a gift card, they very clearly tell you what the expiry date is going to be and then that decision is for that person who is purchasing that gift card if they want to proceed with that purchase after they know what the expiry date is. They can go to other outlets and shop around if they don’t like the expiry date that the business is offering.

Also the expiry date—my experience is they’re quite clearly printed on gift cards. This is just an excuse. I also ask where is the personal responsibility component in this. There is no personal responsibility component in this, because what this bill does is it says just because somebody could not use their gift card within the time period that was printed on the gift card as the expiry date, it should become someone else’s problem. In the ACT Party, we really believe in personal responsibility. When someone makes the decision of buying a gift card, clearly knowing what the expiry date is, or when somebody receives a gift card as a gift, clearly knowing what the expiry date is, that person should be responsible for redeeming the full value of that gift card within the time period that is on that gift card. And if they do not, then that is their issue. That should not become businesses’ issue that we go on creating more burden on businesses.

As I’ve said, in the ACT Party we really believe in personal responsibility and we really believe that businesses should be doing things in a transparent manner in a way that is confining them within the legislation that we have. This is also taking care of rights of other businesses, taking care of rights of consumers, but just adding more and more layers doesn’t help businesses and doesn’t help consumers. What we know is that businesses like to offer a diverse range of marketing ideas to their consumers. This is to widen their market. This is also to influence more people to come to their outlets so that they can grow.

We know that the economy at the moment, because of the previous Labour Government’s mismanagement of the economy—yes, under this Government it’s improving, but it will take some time to improve from where it was left when we came into Government. We need to provide all the support that businesses need to do what they need to do to grow their business so that they can employ more people and support our economy, rather than creating another issue or other work for businesses.

We know that this is definitely something that cannot happen overnight, because in the bill, during the select committee process, we discussed that this kind of change cannot be implemented overnight. That’s why this period of 18 months is allowed for transition. That clearly shows—that 18 months, as discussed—that businesses will need time to transition to this new requirement of making sure that their gift cards have a minimum of three years expiry date from the date of sale. That clearly shows that businesses will have to divert some of their resources to ensure that if they want to continue with this strategy—this is for marketing and giving out gift cards, selling gift cards—then they will need some time to implement this new requirement of a minimum of three years.

Here I also want to highlight that for large businesses it may not be an issue, because large businesses have lots of resources. They can easily divert those resources to ensure that they are compliant with this legislation if it goes through—it is my feeling that based on what I’ve heard from previous speakers here on this bill, the bill will go through. They have the resources. They can easily divert those resources to comply with this bill. But we have to note that most of our businesses are small to medium businesses. We need to keep those businesses in mind when we come up with ideas.

That’s why we believe that it is actually not a good idea; it is actually a bad idea. It’s not going to support businesses. It doesn’t help consumers because consumers are informed. As long as consumers are informed by business, as long as clearly the date is printed, businesses—[Phone rings] Ha, ha!

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That wasn’t my bell!

Ha, ha! Madam Speaker; it was coming from that side. I just want to emphasise the point that as long as businesses are transparent to their consumers about what the expiry date is, that’s how it should be operating. I think this bill is totally unnecessary and I again ask the member in charge to reconsider proceeding with this bill before we finalise the third reading of this bill. We do not commend this bill. We do not support this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support this bill. We are very much in favour of this bill at the third and final reading. I am also part of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee with my colleague Mr Dan Bidois, and I’d like to congratulate him on all of his work during the select committee process—of course, knowing that you had to manoeuvre everything around your son being born. We know that you’ve been a very busy man, yet you still had the time to come very prepared to our select committee meetings.

It is great to spend time—and this is probably one of the first bills that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing quite a way through the process. It was really good to learn the process of how a bill actually works through. It does make standing up in the House considerably more comfortable when you know a little bit more about what you are speaking of and you just are able to recall some of the submissions and the conversations that you had. I just hope they come to me while I’m up for my 10 minutes today.

Now, this bill is about fairness, and it is a concept that New Zealand First is very, very firm on: fairness. Common sense—that is one of the many reasons that we are supporting this bill, but we do feel that fairness is really at the top of that list there. It is fair for the consumer. It is fair that there is a good relationship of trust and rapport between business and consumer, and this is one way that this can happen for the business.

What this bill does is it introduces Subpart 3A, which will prohibit the selling of gift cards with an expiry date that is less than three years after the sale of the gift card. Now, I must admit, when I saw this come up on the Order Paper and I got the email saying, “Tanya, you’re speaking on this”, it really did feel like we’ve been speaking on this for three years. But that is just the process; it does take time for legislation to come through. Today, this legislation will pass.

Now, look, I’ve not personally been a big fan of gift cards myself. I prefer to have the experience of going out and buying something for someone and wrapping it and handing it to them. Then again, I don’t probably see that they might not do anything with that gift or it might end up on TradeMe or something like that later on. I, personally, don’t tend to use it a lot myself. I must admit, when I do receive a gift card, I go, “Oh, I’ve got to spend this really quickly.”, because I was an accountant in a previous life. Being someone who doesn’t like to spend or waste money, it’s like: don’t let this puppy somewhere die in my drawer. I like to go and spend it straight away. I haven’t received a gift card for I cannot tell you how long, and—would you believe?—I got one this weekend.

Anyway—for a wonderful store with some good Croatian food. I’ll go and buy that. But I could feel the part of me going, “Grant! Grant!”—to my husband—“Should we go and spend it today?” But we didn’t have time. OK, so I’ll put it in a safe place, and I’ve put it in a safe place. Now, the challenge for me will be remembering where that safe place is when the time comes to spend it.

I know that Dr Parmjeet Parmar, who spoke previously, was talking about personal responsibility and having to go out and make sure that you spend it on time so that you don’t get into this position of it being wasted. But, often, the elderly are the ones who forget that they’ve got the card. I can say that after my mum passed away, I was really miffed when I found a $200 card somewhere. It was well expired and mum wouldn’t have known it was there, but it’s examples like that that we have to consider. Maybe the elderly people just don’t even know what it is, actually.

Speaking of my mother, she always used to give me the job of, every Christmas, going to the Farmers Trading Company, as it was then known, and buying vouchers for all of my nieces and nephews—all of her grandchildren. That was great; it was easy. But, boy, the teller didn’t like it when I came to the counter and said, “Can you give me thirty $20 vouchers?” That wasn’t a lot of fun—back in those days it was manual, you know? But it was one way that my mother could give, as she was getting older, without having to think about, or the stress of, buying a gift.

Look, I do believe it is important that this bill passes, because something I learnt, according to Consumer New Zealand, was that evidence showed that one in five gift card holders have been stuck with an expired gift card. I was quite surprised at that, truthfully. I was also quite surprised to hear of the stories that we heard during the select committee process—you know, some of them lost cards and that, but some of them are actually quite difficult stories where people were getting ripped off. That is why it is important that we address this issue.

New Zealand First—you know, we aren’t in favour of burdening business and we took this into account when we were making the decision. We didn’t feel that it would burden business any more—maybe a little bit of accounting tweaking or a little bit of advice there, but nothing major. If anything, it would probably help business to be a little bit more structured in their own bookkeeping and being able to go, “Yes, I’ve got X dollars in my liability account.” We felt that it would probably be beneficial for business. The other thing we felt would be beneficial for business would be the rapport, the relationship, with the customer. It’s one way to build trust with your customer, and it may even increase the sales for the business if there is an increased flow in these card purchases.

It was also encouraging for us to see that our Australian neighbours are doing something similar. We looked at other countries to see what their period of time was—you know, it was five years, one year. We did settle on three years; it seemed to be in middle there. We discussed the transition period and what would be an appropriate transition period. Less than six months—probably not good because it’s less than one financial year. A little bit more than one financial year would probably be better. It would give you time to have a full financial year plus a few months. We felt that that was a good reason to have the 18 months.

Now, there are some cards that are not included in this legislation. Specifically, customer loyalty programmes, cards for vouchers for limited events or discounts—that might be a concert or a three-day type of event, which I don’t think I’ve personally ever been to—and also cards that are used to pay for transport and utilities aren’t included in this legislation. But that good old Farmers trading card—well, it’s no longer Farmers Trading Company. That good old Farmers card will be coming under this legislation.

One of the things we also talked about during the select committee was the importance of the expiry date being on the card and also the word “exp”, an abbreviation of the word “expiry”. It was important that that was clear on the card so that someone actually could see that. That was one of the additions that I felt was very important.

Well, I feel I have probably contributed enough. I look forward to going and spending my $40 voucher when I get home. I’m really proud to stand and, with support of many of the other parties, commend this bill to the House on behalf of New Zealand First. Thank you.

Tēnā rā koe te Pīka. Well, this is a weird week because we fully support this bill. I love this bill because I’m a big shopper and I don’t think I’ve ever spent a gift card in my life. And especially if shoppers are losing $10 million a year—Te Pāti Māori takes a short call today to support this.

I think it’s also the convenience of the physical gift card. I’m just going to add a little spiel in here: it’d be really great if we could add gift cards to our phone and PayPal, and an app, but that’s just the Gen Z coming out in me today. We support this bill. Kia ora.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I rise to support the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill as well, from the Green Party. I just want to mention a couple of things. I think this is a really interesting moment for me, because when I first arrived in Aotearoa, a gift card was a weird thing. Coming from the Chinese culture, we like to give cash, because we feel cash is way more personal. But, in terms of gift cards, you are basically giving someone the same amount of money. It’s not like you pay $80 and you get $100, or you pay $20 and you get $30 on a gift card. You’re paying for the same amount of money with an expiration date, and also, you can only use it in one store. For me, growing up, that was an incredibly weird concept. Saying that in China we give cash in red envelopes for major festivals or birthdays, we are almost sneered at—“That’s so crass. Why would you do that?”, as if giving a fake card with the assumption that you know what someone really likes is any better!

In any case, we do support this bill, but there are a couple of things that I would like to mention—and I think this is something that we have mentioned before—in terms of the arbitrariness of when we are using legislation also, because of the fact that we know, in this particular instance, and many other instances, when it comes to consumer rights, we cannot wholly trust the market to be able to create fair conditions for the people of Aotearoa. And we have seen it with this particular bill. It might be quite a small one, but it really highlights the fact that sometimes we cannot leave things to businesses. I think that’s a really important thing to mention again in this particular instance.

Also, when we’re looking at the fact that a number of times, with some of these businesses, the large amount of wasted and expired gift cards—I myself, in many ways, am to blame for that, because, when you are neurodivergent, you get a gift card and that’s it; it just never sees the light of day ever again! The number of gift cards I have inadvertently wasted hurts my soul as a Chinese person. It probably hurts my mum’s soul more so than mine! But, in this case, when other speakers are mentioning, “Oh, it’s going to put a lot of pressure on small and medium size businesses in particular”, I guess the fear is that if people are spending the money, what additional hardship or what additional pressure is that going to be adding by having an expiration date on a gift card—and the potential, maybe for some large businesses of a disingenuous nature, for getting money that someone paid for but they haven’t actually provided a service or provided a product? I think, in this case, sometimes it’s more harmful.

Again, to finish, when we are looking at this, once again, a lot of this is a political choice. The decisions we are making today are a political choice, and when we are looking at other elements of our communities, such as the fact that it’s inappropriate for businesses to get money that they cannot provide a service for, other elements such as poverty can also be considered as a political choice, and we do actually, in Aotearoa, in this very Parliament, have the tools to make the changes that we would like to see in Aotearoa.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand in support of the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill in its third reading. I congratulate my friend and colleague Dan Bidois and also the Hon Melissa Lee for the passage of this bill through all of its phases.

This is a small but useful piece of legislation. It seeks to address an insidious and kind of pervasive consumer issue. We’ve heard, across the House, many stories of gift cards, and I’d just like to shout out yet again to Catherine Wedd’s husband, Henry, for his attempt to line his wardrobe with the various gift cards for their four children in order to try and actually use those. I think that was one of the most useful ways, but it didn’t work. I’ve also had a drawer full of gift cards that have gone to waste. When my mother passed away, I too found a $200 gift card that I had seen her open a couple of years before, and she was very complimentary, and I wish that she’d actually had the chance to spend it.

By amending the Fair Trading Act 1986, we would be introducing a minimum expiry period of three years. As many of my colleagues have traversed, through the process of the committee, we discussed the options of having it be a longer period of up to five years or, following the Canadian example, of having it never expire, and we landed somewhere in the middle. We do think that this is about fairness; it’s about consumer rights. It’s an unfair practice for those gift cards to be able to moulder away and disappear and to prematurely expire. That sense of frustration for consumers is very real.

Through the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, we had a pretty thorough process. We had some very valuable feedback. Some of those stories that we heard in that committee stage were pretty stark. The one that sticks out to me the most, that we’ve talked about before, is the $1,500 Mobil voucher that one unfortunate consumer was unable to use. We recognise the need for stronger consumer protections in this realm.

We decided on a few amendments to the bill to make it a little bit clearer. Some of those were around making sure that the definitions of “gift cards” were extremely clear and that we covered all of the potential permutations of what could be considered a “gift card”. We looked at whether or not a gift card that is provided as a customer loyalty programme should be included. I was personally quite keen on the idea because I have, many times, had the Farmers beauty card vouchers that you get when you spend a certain amount of money or the Unichem vouchers that you get for a similar thing that only last about three months. Every time you go back, you think you’re going to be able to use your voucher, but you never can. Those are the sorts of programmes that are provided as a means of promotion, but we felt that it would be too difficult for business to be able to comply with those, and it wasn’t within the scope of what the bill was intending. We did define those cards to be out of scope.

If you are talking about a loyalty programme where, for example, with Westpac, you have the hotpoints programme, one of the things can redeem your points for is, for example, a gift card through Ballantynes in Christchurch. Those gift cards would be eligible to be considered under this bill because they are redeemed for a reduction in the number of points. That’s very much clarified in the bill.

We also recommended that open loop cards, such as Prezzy cards, were within the scope of the bill, because those cards can be redeemed at a number of different businesses and they’re very popular and they can be transferred from one person to another. It’s very important, with that increasing popularity as well, that we make it that they are subject to that minimum expiry period as well. Regardless of whoever ends up using them, they needed to be treated equitably and to provide consumers with that reasonable time frame to be able to use them. Other members around the House talked about personal responsibility and said that timing doesn’t seem to matter, but, actually, a year goes past extremely fast—it’s extremely fast. It only feels like a matter of weeks, and some of us who are new have been in this place for 12 months. It is a very, very fast period of time, and it can go by in a flash.

The other element of things is who is not included in this bill. Other members have explained some of the exclusions to the gift card expiries, including those that are provided as part of a charity, those that are part of utilities, and part of a concert or a limited-time arrangement.

We also talked about how long we should take to implement this. One of the reasons that hasn’t been traversed about this was that there is potentially a large stock of small plastic cards around that need to be used up. Most of them had about a year’s worth of expiry. That stock needs to be able to work its way through the system, and we didn’t want businesses to be burdened with stock that they couldn’t get rid of. That was just one of the provisions that we took to make sure that that 18-month period of grace before the bill comes into effect would help businesses be able to make that transition.

We think that that proactive approach means that we can demonstrate that balance of consumer protection but also allow a practical solution for businesses. The requirement to have the expiry printed on the card is actually important because it’s a way of explaining to people and making sure that that’s communicated clearly.

Now, the other very important element that the bill has is providing a reasonable but significant penalty for breaching this. It was important for us to make sure that this part of the bill is shifted into Part 4A of the original Act so that, that way, any breaches of the regulations are treated as infringement offences on each occasion, and that can be quite a significant amount of money and also subject to a large fine. We think that that approach should incentivise compliance by business and create a strong deterrent against issuing the short-dated gift cards and ensure that customers are protected.

In conclusion, I think that the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill is a small but significant step forward in protecting consumers from unfair gift card practices. I think that with the amendments that we’ve made along the way, we should be able to address some of the concerns and some of the ambiguities that have arisen, and we can ensure that the provisions are appropriately enforced and provide businesses with enough time to make adjustments. I commend this bill to the House.

“Good things come to those who wait” was a bit of a mantra that lived in our household as I grew up. Delayed gratification—whenever gran or poppa sent you that Christmas or birthday card and there was that $2 or that $5 in there, it was always encouraged that we bank that money and save it and learnt what it meant for good things to take time.

When it comes to gift cards, it’s not quite the same thing, as I’ve learnt. That’s why this side of the House supports this bill. Some research was done a few years ago and they saw that around $267 million on unspent gift cards was floating around, sitting on those empty plastic cards never to be used again. Some 24 percent, in fact, of gift card holders didn’t get to fully spend their money.

That’s why we want to say thank you to the Hon Jacqui Dean, the Hon Melissa Lee, and now Dan Bidois for shepherding this through. Labour supports this legislation, and I support the kōkako for Bird of the Year.

I stand in this House this afternoon to support the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill.

Before the debate started today, the Hon Melissa Lee asked me to say a few words on her behalf; she originally introduced this bill to the House. Cool. Today is the final reading of the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill in the House. This bill may seem small to some, but for many going through the cost of living crisis this bill can and will make a difference. The Minister would also like to acknowledge all those who have worked on and in support of this bill, including the members of her office and her adviser Matthew Stephens; members of the National leader’s office including the now MP of Rangitata, James Meager, who spent a lot of time drafting this bill.

💬 Stuart Smith: He’s everywhere, that man.

Yes. Also we want to acknowledge his colleague Dan Bidois as well, the hard-working MP for Northcote, who will see this bill through its final reading today. Then millions of New Zealanders will benefit from this barrier being removed from our economies.

This is my first and, I believe, my final contribution to this bill, so I would like to begin my contribution by thanking my colleagues the Hon Melissa Lee and Dan Bidois as well. Some people may argue this bill only addresses a small matter; this is not a small matter. Gift cards are a big business. The digital gift card industry alone is expected to reach $2,000 billion by 2027. Research shows that 52 percent of people bought a gift card to give to someone else in the past 12 months.

In my electorate of Mt Roskill, gift cards are commonly purchased, especially around Christmas time. If you visit a shopping mall before Christmas time, you can see a long queue of people just lined up outside the consumer counter, waiting to buy a gift card. Why? Because looking for a perfect gift item to give someone can be very stressful. You may not know what they really want at such time, and giving them a gift card will allow them to make the choice while saving themselves the stress too. They are commonly gifted to people of all ages and stages of life. Gift cards can be the best gift you can ever imagine giving to a loved one, a friend, or an employee. However, I myself have had the experience with gift cards expiring very quickly after purchase and not being accepted by the retailers, or when I find a gift card and want to use it, I realise it has expired, unspent. I call this “gift card anxieties”, and it is real because research has found that one in five recipients lose out when they don’t redeem the full value before the card expires. This could be worth up to $10 million per year. A nationally representative survey by Finder, a financial information business, found the average Kiwi has $72 in unused gift card credit, equivalent to a national outlay of $267 million.

New Zealand is getting a short change compared with those in other countries. In Australia, consumers have a minimum of three years to use their gift card; and in Canada, the US, and Ireland, they have either no expiry date or at least five years to spend their gift card. However, many New Zealand retailers are still using a six- or 12-month expiry. Consumer New Zealand reviewed 61 gift cards in 2023 and they found out that only 14 gift cards did not have an expiry date. Only a few retailers have a five-year expiry date, but they also found out 14 out of 61 gift cards only last for a year, and they receive a lot of complaints. A lot of small businesses only have an expiry date of less than six months.

This bill is an important bill because it will prohibit the sales of gift cards with an expiry date of less than three years from the day of sale, giving the recipient a more reasonable period in which to redeem the card’s full value. This bill is about the people, this bill is about the ordinary, hard-working New Zealanders. This bill is another example of our National Party commitments to working for the people, addressing the issues that matter to the people, and getting New Zealand back on track.

We are actually taking a social approach to restore the economy. Not only have we delivered tax relief for the first time in 14 years; we have also delivered our Family Boost policy to make childcare more affordable for family in Mt Roskill and New Zealand. This bill is yet another step towards getting New Zealand back on track.

Gift cards can be purchased from big retailers; however, it is important not to forget gift cards can also be an opportunity to support local and small business, and especially small businesses in Mt Roskill. I also believe that it supports small businesses in Northcote, Upper Harbour, Bay of Plenty, Mangakiekie.

💬 Hon Member: What about New Plymouth?

Yes.

💬 Hon Member: Respect!

That’s right. We will support all businesses across New Zealand. This will enhance the original concept of what a gift card is all about: flexibility, not only for what the gift card is spent on but also the period of the time it is valid for. Right now, small businesses are struggling and elevating confidence in gift cards is another measure our party is taking to generate revenue and get our economy back on track. However, it is very disappointing that members from the ACT Party do not support this bill, because this bill absolutely will help our businesses. Moreover, the good news is that the signs of green shoots in our economy are there. Interest rates are starting to come down and this Government has got inflation under control. We will get our economy back on track.

Before I finish, I would also like to thank the members of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for all the hard work they put into this bill; also the members of the public who made submissions on this bill as well because their input actually made a difference and resulted in substantial changes to this bill, including the following: a clear definition of gift cards which included all gift card vouchers redeemable for goods or services, but not including card supply and substitution for goods returned, prepaid telecommunication services, public transport or utility cards.

We also changed the rules for displaying the expiry date so the issuer will be required to clearly state the expiry date for all gift vouchers and cards. We also changed the fines for infringement offences up to $10,000 for an individual offence and up to $30,000 for a body corporate. Also, we changed it to a longer transition period as well. An 18-month transition period has been recommended to allow businesses enough time to prepare this system for changes.

This Government is committed to make sure more money stays in the pockets of New Zealanders. This bill is a perfect example of supporting both retailers and consumers to work together to get New Zealand’s economy back on track. Today, like my colleague Dan Bidois said, it’s a good day for consumers, it’s a good day for business, but also a great day for people in Mt Roskill, and a great day for all the hard-working people in New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House.

To begin my contribution on this third and final reading, I want to recall some words of wisdom from one of our senior colleagues: the Hon Damien O’Connor, who, when I was in my first term in this House, was talking about what we legislate for. What we legislate for is the margins, for the hard cases, for the people at the edges, and for the people who have just a little bit, and I think that in some ways, this bill exemplifies that. When we’re talking about gift cards, they often don’t have a lot of value on the card. They’re often $100 or maybe $200, or something like that. So it’s a small amount of money and it might seem not to matter a lot to many people, but to people at the margins, it matters a great deal.

In terms of spending gift cards, we all know what happens. We might spend a bit of it or we might even spend most of it, but then there’s a little bit left on it—a marginal amount. It’s the sort of amount that when you’re scrabbling around your house thinking “I really need to go and get my kids some shoes.” and you scrabble together the money for it, there is a gift card with a little bit of money left on it—and those are the people we’re trying to protect here.

They are the people just getting that last little bit of value out of their gift card, and it astonishes me that the ACT Party—the party which started out as the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers—does not support this bill. One would think that the ACT Party, which is so keen on legislating in some other areas, would actually look after the small people, but apparently not.

I just wanted to point out that there is no requirement for businesses to offer gift cards. A business who finds it too burdensome need not offer gift cards as a service. There are some advantages to businesses in offering gift cards. They get the money upfront. They get considerable benefit from it, but it should not be a benefit which comes along with, effectively, a free ride.

There are some obligations that come along with that benefit and it seems quite reasonable to ensure that people who have gift cards have a reasonable amount of time to spend them, and that is exactly what this bill does. It doesn’t extend the time for a gift card out into eternity and it doesn’t limit it to six months. It strikes a reasonable balance between consumers and businesses, and it enables people at the margins to get that last little bit of value from their cards. I commend this bill to the House.

This is quite a delight to be able to speak on this bill. My first time speaking to it—and only 2½ speeches to go, Mr Bidois; only 2½ speeches to go.

💬 Tom Rutherford: 1½.

1½?

💬 Tom Rutherford: Yeah.

No, no, no. Don’t discount me completely.

💬 Tom Rutherford: You’re the half.

There’ll be something in this, Mr Rutherford—2½ speeches until gift cards and their expiry dates will be fairly treated in New Zealand.

As I looked carefully through the detail of this bill, what came to mind for me was my own experience as a trader in gift cards—[Members groan] and that, yes—

💬 Hon Members: Woah!

That came about. It wasn’t something I planned. No, it was a business I fell into. First of all, it came about because we had five children, and by the time we worked out why that was happening we had five of them for ever. Every time we sent them off for birthday parties, so would begin the great search of what it was that we were going to give their dear friends for birthdays. When you’re dealing with that number of children, inevitably you turn to gift cards, which was great for us, except that then the gift cards started coming back. Before long, we found that every time we would host a birthday party for one of our five children, there would be this deluge of gift cards—some of them looking like I’d seen them before—getting ever-closer to the expiry date.

💬 Hon Member: They expired?

Then my kids worked out—yeah, exactly. My kids would go down to The Warehouse, where they’d seen the toy that they really wanted, and they’d proudly pull out their Rebel Sport voucher, and they couldn’t use it and they were outraged. At which stage, it was my job as the parent to exchange said voucher for cash.

I quickly discovered—I had these building up, these expiring gift vouchers, and that’s when the trading part came in. I began to agree to buy these gift vouchers from each of my five little darlings, but at a discount—at a discount. [Interruption] Yes, yes. Then I needed to—[Interruption] Scrooge? Absolutely. But this was where they began to learn about the market. In fact, they have become such market gurus that they have threatened to even join the ACT Party, until this moment, because this bill is about fairness for the consumer. They, like most of the members of this good House, are outraged that our colleagues in the ACT Party can’t see this for what it is. This is a rort of consumers; this is a greater rort than that which I tried to bestow upon my own children. This bill deserves to pass.

Now, the only part of this bill that I had any doubts about was whether this was placing an unfair obligation upon retailers, which is where I think that this time limit of three years strikes an excellent balance. When I look at the experience of overseas jurisdictions and when I look at my own forgetfulness, I think three years is about right. So I move my final attention to the original sponsors of the bill, the Hon Jacqui Dean and then the Hon Melissa Lee, in terms of this particular bill, and then to my good colleague and friend Dan Bidois—or “Daddy Dan”, as we call him.

The reality of it is that “Daddy Dan” is going to find that for the next 15 years, he’s going to have such brain fog from his lack of sleep as he follows in my footsteps and has five children that he is going to be forgetting expiry dates and he’s going to look back with great pride and satisfaction on the day that he ushered this fine piece of legislation through this House, and ensured that he would indeed be able to endure the sleepless nights of those early years of his children and make it through to that 2½-year mark when your brain starts to operate again and you’ve still got six months where you can go and redeem that gift card. That is why I am thrilled—I am delighted—to commend this fine piece of legislation to the House.

I have very much enjoyed listening to the speeches for this bill and it is a good opportunity to thank all of the members around the House, particularly those members of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee who have worked on this piece of legislation; and the Hon Jacqui Dean, who was one of the finest Speakers of this House; the Hon Melissa Lee; and now Dan Bidois, who have all shepherded this bill through.

It’s an opportunity for both sides of the House to talk about those protections that, look, just make common sense for consumers, should be a part of our law, and, actually, often retailers uphold too. Small businesses, especially the kinds of businesses where they’re really connected to the communities, where they know their customers, will often have acknowledged the value of gift cards and cards that were sold—like loyalty cards in the store—for much longer than the expiry date because it’s the right thing to do.

This kind of legislation is about making sure that everyone’s got a good, fair playing field and that those small business retailers who would have always honoured the obligations—which, arguably, as my colleague Camilla Belich has pointed out, exist under common law anyway—it levels the playing field and it means that those big businesses that might not have honoured it otherwise are held to that same standard that we expect of our small and medium sized businesses.

This is a really good piece of legislation. Good on the ACT Party, too, for saying the quiet part out loud—that there will be some queasiness in this House from people who do not want to see these kinds of consumer protections being legislated for when it requires more regulation and it requires a Commerce Commission with beefed-up powers to be a regulator in this space.

We saw over the election period a Prime Minister who rubbished the idea of a Grocery Commissioner. He said, “Well, he’s going to be out there with his clipboard checking prices—how’s that going to work?” This kind of bill introduces more regulatory powers for the Commerce Commission to be able to check that consumers are getting a fair deal when they have bought something—or when one of their loved ones has bought them something—that they see value in, that they get the value of that thing. That’s sensible regulation. Good on the ACT Party for being honest about exactly the sentiment that was expressed by many more in this House. At least they have put their colours on the mast, and good on them.

I would say that more regulation like this is sensible in New Zealand’s market. We have several sectors in New Zealand that are some of the least regulated in the world, some of the least competitive in the world—like our grocery sector, which gift cards are used in, to the detriment of some consumers, especially those vulnerable consumers like we’ve heard the New Zealand First speaker tell very compelling stories, twice, about her elderly mother who is affected by this. I know my elderly father has also been affected by this.

Many in the House will think about those people who, when given a gift card, absolutely want to be able to use it, but for many, many reasons could not use it in the time period before. It’s just good practice to have these kinds of rules which protect them, make it easy for people to use these things, and don’t result in the devastating disappointment of realising a few years down the track that you’ve been given a really nice thing by someone who cares about you very much and you can’t use it because of a sense of personal failure when it is, in fact, just a right that you should have always had, being recognised by the law. I’m pleased to support this bill, I’m pleased it will be the law soon, and I commend it to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. And if you just give me a moment of indulgence, I do want to make a couple of acknowledgments: firstly, to Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke on her really heartfelt and genuine speech that she made yesterday in acknowledging the death of King Tuheitia. You could tell and feel the emotion that she was giving at that time of her relation, and understanding the grief, and obviously the difficult times that have been experienced for her and her wider whānau over the last couple of weeks. I want to acknowledge Hana for her incredible contribution yesterday.

Then, today, I want to acknowledge the final speech that we heard in the general debate from Mark Cameron of the ACT Party—a real close-to-home story for him and for many New Zealanders who have experienced suicide in this country: a pandemic that we are not proud of. Mark spoke freely and openly and with a real sense of rawness around what yesterday, as World Suicide Prevention Day, meant to him, and what it means as a farmer and on behalf of the rural community. I applaud people like Mark for standing up in this House, speaking out, being prepared to have those difficult conversations so that the New Zealand public knows that it’s OK to not be OK and to talk about it out in public. I wanted to acknowledge both Hana and Mark for their wonderful contributions both yesterday and today.

Then, coming to the Fair Trading (Gift Card Expiry) Amendment Bill, I want to acknowledge that it was previously in the name of Melissa Lee, prior to her the Hon Jacqui Dean, and now it is under the leadership of my colleague and friend Dan Bidois, the wonderful MP for Northcote, which ranks at about the second or third electorate in the country, depending on what day it is. The way it’s been shepherded through the House, it’s been fantastic to listen to the variety of contributions, both in this third reading and also through the first reading and the second reading and the committee of the whole House, and, obviously, what took place at the select committee as well.

There are some key points on the bill that I definitely did pick up, but before I dive into those, I was thinking, while I was listening to the other contributions, about the Christmas card and gift card roulette that takes place in the Rutherford household on a regular basis. As you start to grow up—as I’m still currently doing—in our household, instead of buying a gift for my sister and buying a gift for my sister’s husband and buying a gift for my brother and buying a gift for my brother’s wife—and, you know, I’ve got separated parents, so you’ve got step-parents, so you’ve got to buy all of them gifts—we just thought, well, actually, we’ll just simplify this. On my mum’s side of the family, we just do Secret Santa, and we do the same on my dad’s side of the family too.

What I found one year was we set the spending limit at $50, and then it came to it, and you had been allocated your person, so I might have got my brother, for example, and in one particular year, out of about the eight of us who were involved in the gift card—or Secret Santa—gift-giving situation, there were six $50 vouchers to lululemon. Lululemon took $300 from the Rutherford family that day, and they just simply went across the table to my various family members. I think we’ve put in a rule since then—my sister runs the Secret Santa competition—of no more gift cards.

💬 David MacLeod: What’s her name?

Jade—Jade is my sister’s name.

💬 Hon Member: What did you buy, though?

Oh, I bought some lovely running shorts; whether I use them or not, we’ll see. We got rid of that in our family because of the gift card roulette that took place each year.

I’m like a few of my colleagues in that, actually, as soon as I get a gift card, I’m thinking about the first thing I’m going to buy with it. I treat that thing like cash. I don’t carry cash any more, but I treat that thing like cash—I’ve got to get rid of it, because I’m going to lose it if I don’t spend it, you know? I might not lose it in the sense of “not spend it” lose it; I might physically lose it. I’m thinking I’ve got to get out there and spend this gift card; I’ve got to make the most of it; I’ve got to use it to its potential; and, like my colleague Dan Bidois said, I’ve got to use all of it. There’s no point in getting a $50 gift card and then only spending $45 and missing out on the $5. Then there’s also that time where you go, “Oh, I’ve got the $50 gift card.”, and then you spend $60 and you go “Oh, those cheeky guys, they got me—they got me.” But, unlike my colleague Dan Bidois, I’ve definitely got to utilise the gift card as soon as I possibly can.

I applaud particularly the select committee for their leadership around the 18-month commencement date, providing that allows New Zealand businesses to change their practices around how they operate with gift cards in our country. It gives them a lead-in time to adopt that change. I heard my colleague Nicola Grigg ask and say, “Oh, if I bought my partner a gift card today—if I did that today, would that mean it would then be the three years?” No, no, there’s the 18-month lead-in time—there’s the 18-month—

💬 Hon Nicola Grigg: So I’m in trouble?

Well, you are, but I don’t want to talk about it. There is that 18-month lead-in time to ensure that businesses around the country have the opportunity to update their gift cards, update their processes, and then allow people the three years to spend their gift cards, rather than what we see at the moment as the 12 months, in most instances.

I was reading through some information from the Parliamentary Library that was provided on this. I noted a couple of examples that were provided by Consumer New Zealand, and they highlighted an example from both Mobil, the petrol station, and also from SkyCity. When they talked about the Mobil situation, they cited a case of a person who purchased $1,500 worth of Mobil gift cards. He then mistakenly assumed the cards had a two-year expiry period—simple mistake to make—when, in fact, they were only valid for 12 months. He contacted Mobil as soon as he realised the gift cards had expired, but they refused to do anything to help.

Then another example was from SkyCity. Another person contacted them and said that they got a $180 SkyCity gift card for Christmas in 2022, but due to family illness, plans to redeem the gift card were put on hold. By the time she came to use the card, it had expired. She contacted SkyCity, explained their circumstances, and asked for an extension. SkyCity refused, even though it now sells the vouchers that are valid for three years. The thing I saw from this information, actually—what I thought was commendable from SkyCity was their understanding in that, after they heard this story presented to the select committee, they publicly apologised for how they treated the gift card holder who lost their credit. They said, “We are sorry, we got this one wrong, and we will make it up to the customer with an exceptional experience.”

That’s what this legislation is about: it’s about simply moving one year to three years for gift cards; it’s about simply saying that the one-year arbitrary time line we see on most gift cards in the country is not fair. Pushing out the threshold to three years is much better for the consumer and much better for the New Zealand public.

Then I come to the ACT Party. They say they’re not going to support this legislation. They’re the only party in the Parliament not supporting it. And I’ve got—

💬 Dr Parmjeet Parmar: Because we believe in personal responsibility.

I’ve got this feeling that we’re almost—

💬 Dr Parmjeet Parmar: There’s personal responsibility.

I’m holding on to hope, like David Seymour is with the Treaty principles bill, about a reversal. I’m saying they’re talking about not supporting the legislation, and I think they might get in behind and actually support it. They have said out loud they’re not supporting the legislation, but just you wait till they come to voting on the bill, and I think there may well be a chance. Parmjeet Parmar has listened to 12 excellent contributions across the House from all the other political parties. She’ll be standing up 11 votes in favour for the ACT Party and voting in support of this legislation, because it’s about the consumer, it’s about businesses in New Zealand, and it’s about ensuring that everyone that receives a gift card, whether it’s through the Rutherford Secret Santa roulette, whether it’s through birthdays, whether it’s just for someone who is leaving a business and moving on to a new opportunity—whatever experience or whatever undertaking they receive it in—has got adequate time to use it and spend it as it is intended.

I just want to say that this has been a great way of watching a member’s bill be passed through the passage of this House: through Jacqui Dean having it when she was here previously, and then Melissa Lee holding on to it, and then getting her ministerial responsibilities and transitioning the leadership of it through to Dan Bidois, who’s then shepherded it accordingly. I recall the committee of the whole House three weeks ago, with Dan sitting in the chair, and a really good understanding and debate taking place around both the title of the bill but particularly relating to the commencement and the feedback that the select committee had heard from public submissions that were received on the bill—and also the provisions that were excluded, and as to why they were.

If you just give me a moment, Madam Speaker, these are the definitions of those that were excluded: a card supplied in substitution for returned goods; a pre-paid card or voucher redeemable for phone credit, internet access, or other similar services; a debit card, credit card, pre-paid travel card, or any other similar product; and a card or voucher supplied as part of a customer loyalty programme. These excluded types of cards or vouchers will not be subject to the minimum expiry period. This is a pragmatic piece of legislation, and I commend it to the House.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Family Proceedings (Dissolution of Marriage or Civil Union for Family Violence) Amendment Bill.