Trade Practices Bill

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28661, 11 August 1958, Page 8

Trade Practices Bill

The Parliamentary parties agree about the desirability of protecting consumers against restrictive. trade practices and both the National Party and Labour Governments Lave considered legislation. But agreement on general principles does not absolve either party from examining with scruoulous care the details of the Trade Practices Bill, which was introduced into Parliament on Thursday. The bill appears to follow recent legislation of the British Parliament, but this fact alone is not sufficient endorsement. The worth of the British bill has yet to be demonstrated, and it is by no means certain that British precedents can fit easily into New Zealand conditions. In effect, the bill sets out a code of trading from which discriminatory and ring practices are excluded. The bill proposes enforcement of the code by various methods, chief of which is the establishment of a commission that would work hand in hand with the Price Tribunal. ,The commission may inquire into trade practices if the commission is satisfied that they “ appear ” contrary to public interest. Because such wide powers of inquiry would throw open a door through which hosts of undesirable things could pass. Parliament should insist upon more safeguards than appear in the bill. The looseness of the proposed procedure is well illustrated in provision (m) of

the detailed trade practices. This provision mentions: The unjustifiable exclusion from any trade association of any person carrying on, or intending to carry on, in good faith the trade in relation to which -the association is formed. “ Unjustifiable ” and “ good “ faith ” are terms so elastic in this context that they could be stretched to fantastic lengths. Parliament must look especially closely at a provision saying that a person called upon to give evidence before the commission “ shall not be “ excused from answering any “ question or from producing “ any book or document on the “ ground that this evidence will “ tend to incriminate him ”. A device that has been frowned upon by Courts and Royal Commissions innumerable should not be introduced lightly into what in effect is new commercial law to be administered outside the established Courts of the land. Furthermore, it would be going very far indeed to invest the proposed trade practices commission with power to give indemnity against criminal prosecution and penal actions against persons who have admitted illegal practices. In the public interest and for the guidance of Parliament, the Law Society should be invited to look very closely into, at least, the incriminatory and indemnity provisions of the bill.