Getting your faulty or broken goods fixed will be easier and cheaper if a bill giving Kiwis the right to repair becomes law.
The Consumer Guarantees Act (Right to Repair) Amendment Bill was pulled from the parliamentary biscuit tin last April and will have its first reading in Parliament on Wednesday.
If passed into law, the bill’s advocates say, it would give power back to consumers, saving them both time and money, and reduce environmental harm. . .
Less wastage would be better for the environment, but would the right to repair really save time and money?
Being able to have products repaired would require the people, tools and parts for the repairs. Finding them, and getting the repair done, would almost always take more time than dumping something faulty and buying a replacement.
Less expensive products are often not repairable, but making them able to be repaired would almost certainly make them more expensive and there’s not guarantee that the cost of parts and labour wouldn’t make the repair nearly, and sometimes, more, expensive than buying a replacement.
This looks like a feel-good Bill that is attractive in theory and would reduce wastage but it’s doubtful that it would save time and money in practice.
Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.
9 comments:
Repairing top quality goods is sensible but the Reginald Perrin Grot Shop items from The Warehouse and K Mart etc are not worth it
How would that work for imported goods with built in obsolescence and no spare parts? Would there be a price cap on spare parts when they are available together with a guaranteed supply? Would instructions be in English or would they have to be in maori? What would minimum guarantee be with these repairs?
The consumer guarantees act already covers this adequately.
As an avid and able d.i.yer it has appeal. But whilst our charge out rates are $100 an hour or so and wages where manufactured $1 an hour or whatever, not practical. Accessible items also lead to gaurantee fraud etc Unless shipped by sea in bulk. not practicable for small seldom but promptly required parts, transport alone far exceeds cost of many parts. Personally I find the likes of serious bicycle kitsets for less than $200 morally troubling. if i was lazing unemployed in a cosy state unit I would find it even more so.
The obvious consequence of this bill becoming law is that many merchants will simply refuse to import the cheap low-end stuff, and the big-end suppliers with branches in NZ will close ranks and declare a monopoly on repairing their stuff, the way LG already does. Either way the consumer loses.
For many years it has been totally un- economic to repair most appliances other than the big whiteware items.
If, for instance, a $30 toaster fails, the ecology cost of driving that toaster to a repair shop, have a technician assess @ $100 /hrs, admin costs in ordering a part from offshore, the ecology cost of flying it to NZ, having a courier deliver it, the technician to fit it a $100 / hrs, the ecology coat of driving to collect it is just horrendous.
Just put it out for recycling.
Just another Green ideal to stack up with all the other ones that don't work in the real world. Marama is clueless. Why can't our well paid politicians do something useful
They can't see the woods for the nanny state.
There's no chance of Marama Davidson splitting the atom in the near future...
To Hugh Jorgan,. Maybe not, but I she knew she could repair it afterwards she may try harder.
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