We Can Fix our Right to Repair!

Does it annoy you when a useful item you’ve paid good money for breaks down and it’s nigh impossible or outrageously expensive to get it fixed?

Do you feel bad when this situation means you have to junk the item earlier than you expected AND fork out more money for a new one?

Do you miss the days when local repair businesses were easily accessible in our towns and cities so you could get your faulty items working again?

If you’re nodding away, we’ve got some great news…

Aotearoa has an exciting opportunity to make it easier for us all to get our stuff repaired when it breaks. We need your help to turn this opportunity into reality.

Let us explain…

A new Bill (that’s fancy speak for a “proposed law”) was introduced to Parliament in April 2024: the Consumer Guarantees (Right to Repair) Amendment Bill.

This Bill seeks to take us one step closer to creating a Right to Repair in New Zealand. It would do this by changing the Consumer Guarantees Act (CGA) to require manufacturers to make spare parts and repair information available to consumers and to independent repairers so that we can get our belongings fixed if they break down.

We, the Right to Repair Coalition, strongly support this Bill and want to see it become law in Aotearoa. We also have some ideas about how the Bill could be even better.

To make these things happen, we need your help:

1. Contact your local MP

We need politicians from all the parties to know that we’d like them to come together to support this Bill. The first thing we need politicians to do is to vote the Bill through to the Select Committee where it can be discussed in more detail, and all parts of society can have a say. The second thing we will need politicians to do is vote the Bill through the remaining stages of the Parliament process so it becomes law.

  • We’ve created a template email that anyone can use to reach out to your local MP for a chat. Your local MP is there to represent you and should make time to meet with you to discuss the Bill. 

  • If you are an organisation or group and can see how repair is relevant to your mahi (work), you can use the letter to invite the MP to your workplace to discuss the Bill in context.

2. Support the Bill when it is in Select Committee

You can do this by making written and oral submissions.

  • We’ll create resources closer to the time to help with this. We also welcome support from anyone who wishes to help us with our submissions and guidance documents.

Read on below to find out more about the Right to Repair, how this proposed law would work, and what it could mean for you.

  • A Right to Repair gives us the power to fix the things we own - we paid for them and so we should be allowed to get them fixed if we want! When businesses know everyday people have this right, they are more likely to design products to be long-lasting and fixable in the first place. When stuff does break, a strong and well-protected right to repair means it is cheaper and easier to get stuff fixed.

    The Right to Repair upholds property and consumer rights, while protecting the planet and resonating with New Zealand’s resourceful, do-it-yourself, ‘No 8 wire’ cultural values. When products are easy to repair, the benefits are obvious: 

    • products last longer, saving us money and time

    • more job opportunities in a growing repair industry

    • more autonomy for consumers to choose to fix the products they own

    • less harm to the planet because we reduce broken stuff going to landfill, keeping precious natural resources in use for as long as possible.

How would the proposed law work and what could it mean for you?

This Bill would update the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 (CGA). The purpose of the CGA is to protect consumers and their rights by setting out quality guarantees every business must provide. In the 31 years since the CGA was passed, products have become less repairable, and the Act has lacked the powers to prevent this. 

The Bill seeks to turn this around. Its main proposed changes focus on the essential ingredient for product repairability: the supply of repair information, necessary tools, and spare parts. The Bill would also close up some sneaky loopholes that get in the way of our right to repair the goods we own.

What would it look like in real-life if the Bill became law?

Here are some examples of what the Bill seeks to do, and how this could affect you – in a good way!

  • If it became law, the Bill would require manufacturers to:

    • Take reasonable action to ensure a supply of parts for goods, and the availability of repair facilities, for a reasonable amount of time.

    • Provide consumers with information, software and tools for diagnosing, maintaining and repairing goods.

    What this would mean in a real-life scenario?

    The catch on your electric jug lid fails after 3 years of normal use, so the lid won’t stay shut.

    • The status quo: the whole electric jug is junk as the 10c part you need to fix it isn’t available. You throw it away and buy a whole new kettle.

    • What would happen if the Bill became law: the manufacturer (or importer) now makes this part available, so this reasonably common fault becomes easy to fix and your electric jug lives on to provide you with many more cups of tea.

  • If it became law the bill would say that when providing spare parts, the availability of repair facilities, information, software and tools, a manufacturer would not be allowed to:

    • Make repair too expensive – digital information would have to be free, and all other charges reasonable.

    • Drag the chain on repair – manufacturers would have to comply with a request for repair information as soon as reasonably practicable (within 20 days).

    What this would mean in a real-life scenario

    Your washing machine fails and displays a fault code.

    • The status quo: you have no idea what the code means. You call in a repairer, who diagnoses it as a blocked drain and fixes it – at your expense.

    • What would happen if the Bill became law: The manufacturer has to make fault codes freely available to you. With this information, you immediately diagnose the fault as a blocked drain. The manufacturer info also tells you how to remove the drain and clean it out. No repair is needed, you’ve saved a call-out charge, and your washing machine!

      Extra for experts: The Bill also states that supplying consumers with repair information, parts and tools does not limit a manufacturer’s intellectual property rights. This is significant because a common manufacturer argument against protecting the consumer’s right to repair has been that it would violate their IP.

  • If it became law, the bill would make it so that a manufacturer would not be able to void a product’s warranty just because repairs weren’t carried out by their authorised repairer using authorised parts. And, as a consumer, you would be able to request repair to be completed in a reasonable time. If the supplier did not comply, you would be able to have the item repaired and obtain the costs.

    What this would mean in a real-life scenario

    The zip on your backpack develops a fault while the backpack is still within warranty, so you take it back to the store to get it fixed.

    • The status quo: The store says they want to send your backpack to be assessed. This will take 2-3 weeks and the store wants you to pay a fee for the assessment (refundable if it deems the fault to be within warranty). You don’t want to wait or pay, but going to an independent repairer would risk voiding the manufacturer’s warranty.

    • What would happen if the Bill became law: You don’t have to accept the delay (or the fee). You can take the backpack to an independent repairer to get it fixed immediately, and you can claim the repair cost back from the manufacturer. If the product fails again within its warranty, the manufacturer still has to honour it - even though you got an unofficial repair completed.

  • If it became law the Bill would close-up a sneaky loophole in the CGA by making it clear that a supplier cannot opt-out of offering repair before the goods are sold.

    What this would mean in a real-life scenario

    You bought a food blender six months ago that came with a one-year “Replacement Warranty” that stated no repair facilities are available. Within the warranty period, it starts to leak through the base of the jug.

    • The status quo: The manufacturer has opted out of repair so you get a brand new blender, but the manufacturer throws out your broken blender to landfill instead of fixing it.

    • What would happen if the Bill became law: You have the right to have the blender repaired instead of being replaced. Your blender doesn’t end up as waste in landfill.

Fully rebuilding a thriving repair culture in New Zealand requires tweaks to lots of areas of law, including copyright, IP and waste laws. This Bill focuses on consumer law; it’s one very important piece in the puzzle. If it passes, there will still be more work to do to guarantee our right to repair in NZ, but we’ll have ticked one key task off the list!

The Right to Repair Coalition has some ideas for making this Bill even better. To have a chance to suggest these improvements AND achieve our goal of making this Bill law, the first thing we must do is encourage enough MPs to say yes to this Bill in the “First Reading” vote in Parliament. If we succeed, then the Bill will go to the Select Committee, and we’ll be able to work on written and oral submissions to support the Bill and suggest improvements.

Getting a Right to Repair is 100% DOABLE!

Right to Repair legislation has recently passed in New York, California, Oregon and Minnesota with near-unanimous support from both Democrat and Republican politicians. Now it’s our turn here in Aotearoa. We feel confident that, just like in other countries, politicians of every leaning can get behind this - because being able to repair the stuff we own just makes sense!

So, with your support, let’s get the Consumer Guarantees (Right to Repair) Amendment Bill through Parliament. We’d love it if you’d join us in making it clear to politicians and industry that we want our Right to Repair!

Contact your local MP and those leading the environment and consumer portfolios, on all sides of government and opposition - let them know that you want to repair the stuff you own, that you support this Bill, and you hope they do too.

Who are we?

The Right to Repair Coalition Aotearoa formed in 2021 with a goal to support practical repair activities and generate support for a Right to Repair in New Zealand. Its members include representatives from Repair Café Aotearoa NZ (RCANZ), Para Kore, WasteMINZ and the Zero Waste Network, along with lawyers and academics at Auckland and Waikato Universities.