Volunteers from the community group Repair Café Aotearoa NZ will deliver a petition to Minister for the Environment David Parker on Thursday 7 July, calling on the Government to set regulations for a ‘right to repair’.

The petition has been signed by over 12,000 people, and if enacted, will mean producers and retailers must ensure the items they sell are repairable.

“We’re leading this petition because manufacturers won’t change their behaviour through goodwill alone, so we need to build the pressure on our elected representatives pull the levers they have control over, whether that’s updating laws, mandatory product stewardship, offering funding, or setting penalties to move toward designing durable and repairable products, says Brigitte Sistig, co-founder of Repair Café Aotearoa NZ

Repair Café Aotearoa NZ is a champion of the Right to Repair movement together with Consumer NZ and WasteMINZ toward the shift to a circular economy in New Zealand.

A number of countries have either implemented Right to Repair legislation, drafted bills or, in the case of Australia, conducted reviews into it. New Zealand is in the fortunate position to draw on these resources and pass our own laws. The current review of the Waste Minimisation Act 2008 offers exactly this opportunity.

“By making it easier to fix our appliances and devices we’ll make our lives easier, '' says Sistig. “It will encourage our communities to place more value on our material things we decide to own or share, prevent stuff going to landfill, and also strengthen community networks by sharing skills across generations and cultures, and thereby create a more sustainable economy that is kind to the Earth.”

The Right to Repair contributes to a culture of conscious decision-making regarding manufacturing, marketing, purchasing and maintaining, which allows for a more respectful approach to resources and equal distribution of products. In addition, if consumers were given rights to repair, other laws would require changing, for example, the Waste Minimisation Act 2008, the Copyright Act 1994, the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 and others. For a brief overview of the complexity of the Right to Repair see The right to repair: good for consumers and the environment.

“The thousands of people who have signed our petition shows the support for the Government to ensure products are made durable and easy to repair.”

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