Nash StuartNEW ZEALAND BUSINESS NUMBER FUNDING (VALIDATION AND AUTHORISATION) BILLFirst ReadingHon STUART NASH (Minister of Revenue): I move That the New Zealand Business Number Funding (Validation and Authorisation) Bill be now read a first time.The New Zealand Business Number (NZBN) is a globally unique identifier available to all Kiwi businesses whether they are a sole trader working from home or a large corporate.Hon David Parker: Great initiative.Hon STUART NASH: Thank you. The New Zealand Business Number links to core business information which organisations are most often asked for.Brett Hudson: You never liked this when you were in Opposition Faafs. What are you going to say about it now? You hated it in Opposition.Hon STUART NASH: For New Zealand to succeed it's important to have infrastructure in place that makes it efficient and easy to do its business.SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member gets his chance in a minute.Hon STUART NASH: This Government has a vision to improve New Zealand business encouraging them to become digitally enabled and directly transacting with each other in an efficient automated and standardised way. By making it faster and easier to share core business information the New Zealand Business Number saves businesses time and money when interacting and transacting with each other and with the Government.GST numbers have recently been added to a range of key business information available via the New Zealand Business Number or companies. Currently 60 Government agencies have or are building the New Zealand Business Number into their systems right now. The New Zealand Business Number supports and enables high quality flexible and cost-effective public services. When a business's details change it's quick and easy to update everyone in their business network by notifying them all at once including Government. This allows businesses to spend more time on their business and less time on the administration of that business. The value of the NZBN is also greater than the sum of its parts. The true potential of the NZBN lies in its power to connect and I expect many businesses will find new and innovative ways to use the information on the register.It is estimated that once the NZBN is fully implemented the benefits to New Zealand businesses will be around $60 million per year. This only includes savings calculated from businesses' interactions with Government. The savings are likely to be more when business to business interactions are included.The idea of a single identifying number for businesses is not new internationally. Unique business identifiers are relatively common now and are used in many countries in Asia Europe and North America.The New Zealand Business Number provides a platform for a number of digital innovations like e-invoicing which will transform how New Zealand does business in the future. It's crucial that New Zealand businesses are ready for the technology powered by the NZBN like e-invoicing. If 60 percent of the transactions of businesses that currently use internet or desktop accounting solutions are e-invoicing within five years the estimated benefit is $1.27 billion each year to the economy.Hon Member: Wow.Hon STUART NASH: Amazing.This bill addresses a technical issue in the design of the New Zealand Business Number Act 2016. Late last year the Government became aware of a problem with the way the New Zealand Business Number Register was being funded. About 80 percent of the costs of running the New Zealand Business Number Register previously came from fees collected under the Companies Act. This practice was consistent with previous decisions about how the NZBN would be funded. I have received advice that the way this money has been spent is not consistent with the fee-setting provisions in the Companies Act. After I became aware of the problems with funding the NZBN Register in this way I authorised Crown funding to be used to fund the NZBZN Register. In order to preserve the value of the New Zealand Business Number Register and the initiatives that depend upon it legislative change is needed.There is currently no way for businesses to explicitly share the costs of providing the New Zealand Business Number Register. It has always been intended that businesses would help meet the costs of the NZBN. The New Zealand Business Number provides benefits to businesses not the general public. For this reason the Government is maintaining the previous policy that businesses should pay most of the costs of the New Zealand Business Number.This is being done now under urgency because of the need to also validate the way the New Zealand Business Number has been funded historically. If this were done through a normal statutory process the way the company's regulations had been set out could be challenged and money historically used to fund the New Zealand Business Number Register may need to be refunded.This bill is also designed to permit amounts obtained under the Companies Act to be used in the short term for NZBN purposes and to put in place a robust legislative framework allowing the costs of the NZBN to be recovered from businesses in a transparent way. It will not in itself lead to any changes to the fees obtained from companies to meet the costs of the NZBN.Before I finish I would just like to wish Will and Isabella Nash all the best in their soccer tournaments they're playing in Napier today. I commend this bill to the House.