Tremain Chris: Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTremain Chris: Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:16129. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier): Mr Cosgrove has painted a very unparliamentary picture or perhaps a metaphor of the Commerce Committee wandering through a zoo following an elephant—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: With a shovel.Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: —with a shovel. Yes those were your words Mr Cosgrove. Fortunately—well possibly fortunately—in regard to the bill I was not a member of the Commerce Committee at that point in time and so I come to it with fresh eyes. I come to it with fresh eyes and a different perspective from Mr Cosgrove. I read the title of the bill—Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill—and I think about the modern economy that we are currently in. It is a wonderful economy and it is an exciting time to be a Kiwi to be a New Zealander in the New Zealand economy. It is exciting for a range of reasons.I will start with the Business New Zealand Back to the Grindstone function I attended just last night down at the Cake Tin where the speakers stood up one after another and said there were very good omens for business in New Zealand. They talked about the positive vibe that was in the business community and the way the Government was creating the right conditions to invest in New Zealand. There was a great vibe. I think that is why it is so exciting to be part of the New Zealand economy at the moment and to be part of this Government which is actually driving that economy forward. The reason why I say that in relation to this bill the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill is that actually more and more transactions are occurring online. I do not know the figures but in fact millions and millions of transactions are being conducted every year online and that requires us to be pretty clear and accurate about when the offer and acceptance on those transactions takes place.I commend Mr Goldsmith for bringing this bill to the House. I commend him for bringing this member’s bill. Not too many members have the opportunity to get to this point in time to successfully bring a member’s bill into the House and to have it pass as I am sure it will over the next few weeks in this House. But let us be clear about what this bill does. It clarifies the legal position on the time at which a contract is formed if the acceptance of the offer is sent by electronic communication. It does take the debateforward and it actually adds to the initiatives this Government has rolled out to drive a better economy. According to those guys at the Back to the Grindstone meeting last night there has not been one silver bullet that has actually taken the economy forward; it has actually been done by a huge volume of different policies that we have driven as a Government.Just to remind you there have been four key goals of the Government. Firstly there is getting the country back to surplus. We are going to do that in 2014 and 2015. Secondly there is rebuilding that beautiful city of Christchurch.Chris Hipkins: What has this got to do with the bill?Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: There are 50000 repairs that have taken place down there already. I tell you Mr Hipkins it has a lot more to with this bill than what Mr Cosgrove was talking about when he talked on and on about Mr Banks. So I will continue. The third goal is actually about building better public services and in that regard we have outlined 10 key result areas. Result 10 which is actually about driving more online transactions has a lot to do with this bill and I want to talk about that in some depth. I will come back to Better Public Services Result 10 because for electronic transactions the point at which offer and acceptance is agreed as defined clearly by this bill is going to play a big part in modern transactions going forward.The fourth area where we have tried to drive big change is through a more competitive and productive economy. That has been driven by the Business Growth Agenda of which there have been six key components many of which require changes in information and communications technology.Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: Can you elaborate on that?Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: Can I elaborate more on that? I certainly can. One of the big initiatives there is ultra-fast broadband. What will that do? It will drive more electronic transactions. It is a modern economy. This bill helps us to be clear about when offer and acceptance is achieved in those electronic transactions.I just want to be clear about what we have achieved with ultra-fast broadband because it is exciting to see what the Government has rolled out in that respect. In terms of broadband we are spending $1.65 billion or that sort of level on making sure that that electronic highway to conduct these transactions is good. The aim is to have that delivered by 2025. We have rolled it out to 40630 new end-users just in the last quarter up until 31 December. Now there are 363000 end-users around the country with ultra-fast broadband. We are 27 percent complete. That is another huge initiative. There are more than 2000 schools that are now online. They are able to connect to fibre. We have even got 39 of the most remote schools connected allowing those communities to be connected through hubs. And guess what? They also depend on electronic transactions as well.Kris Faafoi: Is that right?Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: They probably even do out in that beautiful suburb that you live in in Wellington Kris. They will actually be concerned about electronic transactions as well. But I will come back to the third point which I wanted to spend some time on which is around those key objectives in building Better Public Services which this bill certainly adds to significantly. In terms of Better Public Services we had 10 result areas that the Prime Minister rolled out. Result 10 was about bringing more transactions online in a digital environment so that by 2017 17 percent of transactions by which the Government interacts with New Zealanders are online. In that regard we have brought out a basket of those transactions many of which are electronic transactions that require an offer and acceptance component.Let us go through a few of those transactions that are in the basket of 10. I will just start with applying for financial assistance with the Ministry of Social Development.Fifty-one percent of those transactions are now being delivered online. For paying individual tax 75.1 percent of those transactions are now being delivered online. For filing an individual tax return 77.9 percent are. Paying for a vehicle licence from the New Zealand Transport Agency actually requires an offer and acceptance. This bill goes to the heart of being clear about when that transaction is completed so I think it is really important and 24.8 percent of those transactions are being delivered online now. The New Zealand Police—paying for a fine on time. I accept that in respect to that it is probably not a transaction where there is an offer and acceptance. One is actually being forced to pay that one but 42.2 percent of those are delivered online.Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: What about for passports?Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: Passports? Well that was one that I was fortunate to have a fair bit to do with myself through the Department of Internal Affairs rolling out passports online. We now have 31.4 percent of passports being delivered online which is 20 percent more than they used to be with a turn-round time of 3 days. That is absolutely sensational. We have also got New Zealand Customs using digital transactions with 45.6 percent using SmartGate.So far from the metaphor that Mr Cosgrove wanted to paint at the start of this debate—that the Commerce Commission was following around some elephant with a series of spades—I see a totally different view of this particular piece of legislation. I see it as part of a tranche of new initiatives that this Government has rolled out. We have made it clear that we agree that there is no silver bullet for taking this economy forward. It is going to take constant and never-ending improvement and constantly lifting the bar. Even small bits of legislation like this inch the economy forward. And guess what? We are actually seeing results. Some of the best economic growth in the Western World is being projected. This economy will be back in surplus in 2014-15. We are in fantastic shape. It is an exciting time to be a New Zealander and an exciting time to be part of this Government. Thank you.