Ivan Dean, Speeches Index

Thursday 26 May 2011

MOTOR VEHICLE TRADERS BILL 2011

Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - I just heard some of that additional information and it would have been probably helpful to have had some of that prior to coming into the Chamber but I will try to deal with that as best I can moving through.

This legislation in some respects is not unlike the legislation that we dealt with some long time ago in relation to the Real Estate Agents Act where there are to be disclosure statements. Some of that legislation, I do not think, is still to be I think given royal assent so I think there is some way to go with that. It was a long time ago.

This legislation is about taking shonky traders out of the market and ensuring that there is some protection given to the purchasers. In many instances purchasers of these vehicles are vulnerable, that is the second-hand vehicle.

Just on that I recall a very distressed caller to my office - and this was about two years ago now - where this gentleman had purchased a relatively new car and he was vulnerable in as much as he had a reasonably low IQ. He had driven his car home and it was the next day or the day after the exhaust had fallen off it. It created and was going to create quite a considerable expense to him.

He went back to the dealer and the dealer had indicated very clearly the vehicle was sold as it was, where it was et cetera, and that they would not cover it. For that reason he came to me for some support. I did do some inquiry and negotiation on his part and at the end there was a reasonable position reached with the dealer of that vehicle, which was a good result.

Ms Forrest - What fell off it?

Mr DEAN - The exhaust.

Ms Forrest - I thought you said the wheel.

Mr DEAN - No, the exhaust system fell out of it. It was quite an expense to this person who was struggling and had saved the money to buy this car in the first instance.

This bill refers only to vehicles that have travelled less than 120 000 kilometres and been fitted with a compliance plate less than seven years old. Some of those vehicles would still be, I would think, subject to warranties, distributor warranties or manufacturer warranties, and that is still as I understand it applicable to a person buying a vehicle in a second-hand condition. I wonder the reasons as to why 120 000 is selected and why the compliance plate of seven years is identified as the mark in these warranties being provided. As I said, it is a relatively new vehicle - 120 000 is almost new even in today's environment. It is not an old vehicle by any means. I just wonder where we are going with that.

As I understand it there will be an extra cost on a person purchasing one of these vehicles, and I need some clarity on that, that it could be up to $800 odd or thereabouts. Here we have a purchaser, as I understand it, having to buy their warranty. In most instances I would have thought they could have probably bought a similar position with an insurance company or some other form of insurance on their vehicle, which may well have covered it and might even be for a less amount than that. I do not know if that can occur or not, but it is an extra cost on a purchaser of a vehicle. There are many shonky traders in the business and we know that. But we need to be careful when we talk about shonky dealers in the trade because they, on the status ladder, are on two or three rungs higher than we are. I am saying that tongue in cheek. I am being very careful about that.

Mr Wilkinson - Shonky dealers do not stay in business for long, do they?

Mr DEAN - No, they don't.

Mr Hall - Six years.

Mr DEAN - This is, as I understand it, what this legislation is about. I know of another case and I go back to when I was a police officer dealing with this; it was where a person purchased a relatively new car from a fairly reputable organisation at the time and that vehicle had been sold knowing that there were faults in it. There had been grease in the gearbox and the differential and whatever other parts of it and the owner, the purchaser of that vehicle, went back to the company and complained bitterly about what had happened. Unfortunately he did not get a good result, unfortunately he took the law into his own hands, and finished up being charged with assault.

That was the result of that situation. It is good to see this sort of legislation coming forward because it should prevent some of those things happening.

The part about 'fit and proper persons' conducting this type of business is a very important part of it. I think that we would all support that. You ask the question, it is not in the legislation, and I do not like retrospective law, I do not think that retrospective law is good law. However, we have people out there involved in this business now as to whether or not there should have been some retrospectivity applied to it. In other words, they should have gone back two or three years to bring these people into a position where they could be classified as reliable motor vehicle dealers.

I suspect that would have caused some issues and may have caused a lot of problems and perhaps that is the reason that has not occurred. I guess those people will sort it out in due course.

Those selling six cars or more annually will be considered to be a dealer. There is additional information provided on that. I can see that there is a way around this and there is a way around the point with families because you could have the husband or the wife or the partner selling six cars and then you could have the other partner selling six cars and somebody else within the family doing the same thing. I wondered if the legislation covered that sort of situation. That would apply in some situations.

In reference to cars being sold off the side of the highway, I do not know whether that will be stopped by some of this - I doubt it. It is reaching alarming rates. The situation at Riverside that some would be aware of, going back a few years ago, developed from two to three cars on the side of the road to 30 to 40 vehicles on the side of the road on weekends and even during the day as well. It involved trucks, boats et cetera.

The Launceston City Council in that situation were able to bring in a bylaw because it was a road that they had control over and they were able to fix that problem. But I move to an area closer to you, Madam President, just east of Ulverstone. I drive through there regularly and that has developed into a second-hand car yard. It is dangerous because you have drivers driving past, and I have experienced this a number of times where people slow right down to gawk at the vehicles on the side of the road rather than pulling off and going over and doing what they should be doing. It ought to be stopped.

Mr Wilkinson - That shows your age, using the word 'gawk'.

Mr DEAN - What is the new word?

Mr Parkinson - Ogle.

Mr Wilkinson - Gawk is a word from the past, isn't it.

Mr DEAN - I am obviously back in the past. But it does create issues. We know very well that a lot of those cars are there on behalf of dealers. They are not all private vehicles put there by you or me or somebody else, they are dealer vehicles that are being displayed for sale in that manner.

Once again, I am hopeful that the legislation as it changes would start to get control of those situations. It is a prominent thing, it is occurring throughout the State.

Regarding the 'fit and proper person' again, and reading through the bill - the director must notify the applicant in writing of the refusal and give reasons for refusing the application, and that is reasonable; then that person has the right of appeal against that process. The police can become involved in this process as well and that has always been the case with second-hand dealers. If you move away from cars to the person involved in second-hand dealing with other properties there was always a police investigation or a police inquiry as to the suitability of those people to be involved and conduct that type of business and that is what has been changed here. The police would have some involvement here as well. The persons wanting to deal are provided with some support inasmuch they can appeal that position.

The winding back of odometers is and was a very common position in the country going back a number of years ago. I do not know how much it occurs now but I know recently -

Ms Forrest - You'd need to be a computer hacker to do it now.

Mr DEAN - Yes, that is right, you would have to be. I know of a very recent situation of a machine, Madam President, an excavator in actual fact, of where it had been offered for sale with 1 200 hours on it when a closer inquiry revealed that in fact that excavator had about 3 200 hours on it, a significant difference to the 1 200 hours with which it had been advertised and had on the clock. It can still happen but that was an older machine.

It is good that in this instance, if it appears to the dealer that the odometer reading is not accurate or reasonably correct, they have to make the appropriate inquiry to establish whether or not that is the case and we now know with electronics and so on that it is reasonably easy, I understand, to identify odometer manipulation.

I query the position again of why the position of 120 000 kilometres was the identified limit and why the other position of the three months or 3 000 kilometres and other conditions also apply. Page 67 refers to some of this and I think it is an interesting aspect.

I have referred to the real estate agents act and pre-sale disclosure requirements will be necessary of car dealers in the future and should be. There has been industry consultation and I verified that as well where I spoke to a number of the people involved in this industry and they said that there had been good consultation. It is very pleasing to see when this sort of legislation comes to us that those people impacted on are involved in the process. That is a tick for the Government in this situation and very pleasing to see happen.

The major companies, if we look at Jackson, Motors and a lot of those bigger organisations, have always done it pretty right, in my opinion, and I think that this is really targeted more towards those other, smaller businesses that set up from time to time and they do not set up with longevity in mind. They set up probably for a shorter stay than some of the other bigger businesses with those very good reputations. It is good that we have some control there.

Madam President, this should have, one would hope, a controlling impact on those write-off vehicles that are done up, rebuilt and sold to the purchaser who has no idea of what has gone on and that can happen to me, you or any of us. You need to be a mechanic and an engineer at times to identify whether a vehicle has been rebuilt; it is not easy and there are some examples I could give of where that has happened. It also ought to have some control in relation to the sale of stolen motor vehicles, and we know of situations where there have been organisations involved in the stealing of vehicles and moving those vehicles to other States and selling them off.

Once again, as a commander of police I can recall being involved in one of those big investigations, which involved about 30 to 40 vehicles and a number of power boats, which led us right around Australia where they were being stolen, compliance plates were being changed and goodness knows what else was happening and those vehicles being sold to unsuspecting people. It was not until they were re-registering some of those vehicles that this was being identified.

Ms Rattray - It happens with motorbikes too.

Mr DEAN - Yes, motorbikes are a fairly common situation as well.

Madam President, that is all I intend to say at this stage other than to say I am going to test the Floor with a minor amendment in relation to one of the sections. It deals with the conditions under which a vehicle is sold. In other words it refers to 'must be in going order'. Well, that can be anything. My amendment when I flag it will simply be the word 'good' or 'reasonable', whatever the parliamentary draftsmen believe that it should be.

Mr Parkinson - It doesn't refer to 'going', it refers to 'working'.

Mr DEAN - 'Working'?

Mr Parkinson - You said 'going'; the word is 'working.'

Mr DEAN - Yes, currently if you go to section 65 and I will refer to it in the Committee stage I think is the appropriate place for that, but it simply refers to 'in going order', I think.

Ms Rattray - Wouldn't 'reliable' be a better word?

Mr DEAN - Something like that. To me there needs to be. I just flag it at this stage.

Mr Parkinson - 'Working order' it refers to, I think.

Mr DEAN - 'Working order'. 'Working order' is to me so wide if it is an old clunker just clunking over it is in 'working order'. Anyway, I will be testing the Floor with that small amendment, Madam President.

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