Despite a 'number 8 wire' attitude and a national love of DIY, New Zealand has no specific legislation in place for the right to repair.
Advocates such as WasteMINZ are calling for legislation to be introduced to reflect right of repair principles, including requiring manufacturers to make spare parts, tools and diagnostic information available to consumers for the useful life of a product.
That way, people can make their own decisions about what to do with failed products, whether that means DIY repairing or hiring an independent repair service.
If a company does not provide the necessary parts or tools for fixing products, the choice is removed from the consumer, particularly in the case of computers and other tech products that require specialised tools and knowledge.
This refusal can leave customers facing the choice of either throwing the broken item away or to taking it to an authorised repairer, which can mean a fee and an unspecified wait time.
In New Zealand, the Consumer Guarantees Act (CGA) provides protection if problems arise with the product or service purchased.
The CGA allows consumers to seek repairs, replacements or refunds when goods are faulty.
However, if a product fault isn’t substantial and can be fixed, it is the supplier’s choice whether to repair, replace, or refund an item.
As part of the CGA, there is also a guarantee that manufacturers will make spare parts and repair facilities available for a reasonable period of time after goods are supplied.
Canon wanted DIY expert Sarah Smith to send her camera to them for repair, rather than giving her the parts to do it herself. (Source: Fair Go)
This seems like a step towards the right to repair, but parts and repair facilities don’t need to be made available to the consumer or independent repairers, and businesses can opt out of this guarantee if they give customers notice that they don’t provide parts or repair facilities.
The other significant caveat is that only the first person in New Zealand to buy the product is covered by this guarantee. This means if you bought an item second-hand and it breaks, you are the one responsible for finding the spare parts and repair facilities to fix it.
Sarah Smith recently told Fair Go of the difficulties she faced getting spare parts for a second hand camera from Canon.
One of the groups advocating for Right to Repair in New Zealand is Consumer NZ.
Test manager Paul Smith said the rights you have under the CGA don’t “last forever in the life of the product".
If CGA protections are unlikely to apply, being unable to access the necessary parts and tools to fix an item makes extending its life much more difficult.
He said that once you buy the product it belongs to you and consequently you should be able to decide what to do with it, whether that means repairing it yourself or sending it to an independent repairer.
Companies that enforce in-house repairs are “obstructing that,” as “they don’t get any money from making that available."
Australia, the US and the EU already have some right to repair legislation in place, but Smith noted that while “there’s a lot of other countries that are more advanced than us,” he said none of them have fully legislated the right to repair.
The EU, which does have a right to repair policy, places it on individual member states to implement that policy as law.
So where does your right to repair stand in Aotearoa New Zealand?
Back in 2021 Environment Minister David Parker said he wanted new waste legislation which would replace the current Waste Minimisation Act 2008 to include right to repair.
At this point the draft Bill is set to be introduced into the House late this year or early next year, with the aim for legislation to be enacted in 2025.
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