Drafted by the Green Party’s Ricardo Menendez March and put forward by party co-leader Marama Davidson, the bill was pulled from the biscuit tin and would need cross-party support to progress.
Davidson said New Zealanders liked to fix stuff, and it was “frustrating” that consumers weren’t able to simply buy spare parts for their items and fix the item.
She said a prime example was the case for people in rural or farming communities who had to send tractors to the company’s more expensive certified technicians for repair.
“Farmers are supposed to own that equipment, they’ve invested heavily in it, but they’re often unable to just be able to fix it or fix it locally,” she said.
“The large corporations, the large companies can often restrict farmers from being able to check under the hood, being able to even diagnose what the problem is in the first place, and then be restricted to the manufacturer repairers.
“So this is what the bill would help us to support, farmers having more of that sovereignty over their farm equipment.”
She said manufacturers were utilising a legal loophole around providing repair facilities, spare parts and information, by simply telling consumers they were not available.
“What that has meant is it’s been really difficult for people to just be able to fix or get a local repairer or workshop to fix their appliances, vacuum cleaners, maybe their fridge and drier, and it has also been often costly,” Davidson said.
“So this bill removes that loophole, and it basically requires manufacturers to be able to provide the information, the repair facility or spare parts.”
Davidson said supporters should contact their local MPs to ask them to support the bill and get it to select committee.
The bill was supported by Consumer NZ, Right to Repair Coalition, Repair Cafe Aotearoa NZ, WasteMINZ, lawyers and academics at Auckland and Waikato Universities and others.
Right-to-repair laws globally have been amended to enable greater freedoms for consumers through the manufacturer, in recent years.
New legislation in the European Union will enshrine machinery right to repair for consumers from 2026 – with similar approaches in other markets like the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.
Australia’s National Farmers’ Federation hit loggerheads with its Tractor and Machinery Association last year, failing to reach a voluntary agreement on the right to repair.
The farmer lobby group was pushing for legislation to make consumer product data sharing mandatory, which would require amendments to its Australian Competition Consumer Act.
- RNZ
