CABNZ has a strong history in undertaking social justice work on behalf of our members, and our clients - the public of New Zealand.
One key way we work to help address systemic problems is to feed into government processes through making submissions. This work is informed by CABNZ’s aim to exert a responsible influence on the development of social policies and services, both locally and nationally.
The strength of our work lies in the experience of bureaux from their daily client contacts and the evidence this provides. CABNZ coordinates the process for submission making by our organisation on national-level issues.
Local bureaux or groupings of bureaux may undertake social justice advocacy on the local level and this can include making formal submissions to local body authorities and other organisations.
Recent Submissions
Submission on Repossession Act (September 2011)
In this submission we argued that the Act needs an urgent overhaul and that there are two things this overhaul should focus on:
- Improving oversight and enforcement of the Act
- Rebalancing the Act to provide a fairer balance between lenders and debtors.
Compared to other similar jurisdictions we have relatively weak consumer safeguards relating to repossession. This is particularly apparent in relation to what can be repossessed and oversight of the repossession process
Submission on Credit Reporting Code Amendment 5 (June 2011)
This code would introduce much more intensive credit reporting information. We argued that there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate that it would be more beneficial than not to introduce such a system and that changes in how credit reporting works should not take place in isolation of wider reform of the credit system.
We expressed concern about the possibility of increased inaccuracies in the way credit records would be kept under the proposals.
Older Submissions
You can view previous submissions on our archived submissions page.