Hutchison Paul: Social Security (Entitlement Cards) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Social Security (Entitlement Cards) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:639;Page:9148] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I want to make it perfectly clear from the beginning that National will indeed support everything possible to ensure that our senior citizens get access to all the entitlements that they can from the discounts available to them. But I take the point that my colleague Nick Smith made earlier on—that the majority of the Social Services Committee members made a recommendation. They first of all said: “We received a submission that raised concerns about the use of microchips in the entitlement cards on such a large scale and recommended a review of the principles governing the use of such technology.” That is not a difficult thing to achieve but the committee went further: “While the amendment would allow entitlement cards to be issued with embedded microchips the Government has no plans to incorporate a chip into the SuperGold Card or entitlement cards generally at present.” Whether the intervening time has been too much of a rush for New Zealand First I do not know but it was indeed quite extraordinary to read in the  
New Zealand Herald  
this morning the point from New Zealand First that the cards will not be functional without microchips which could be in use as early as next year. 
I think there is an absolutely correct concern by a variety of responsible people as to taihoa-ing—taking caution—with the use of microchips. First of all there is the New Zealand Law Society the view of which I understand the Rt Hon Winston Peters has in some respects rejected. But then we can go to Marie Shroff the Privacy Commissioner who said she was not opposed to smart-card technology but more debate was needed—which I think is very reasonable. In fact she went on and made the statement that there is the potential for functional creep where the card ends up being used for far more than what was originally intended. 
To balance that view we heard from Keith Locke who was talking about the nightmare of the photograph when he went through the USA. Indeed his photograph could indeed be a nightmare to a lot of— 
Sandra Goudie 
: Oh not kind. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: “Not kind” the member says? But look I tell members that the soothsayers and scaremongers and the disaster predictors from the Green Party revel in this sort of thing and they conjure up all sorts of things that are quite unrealistic. I think that a balance is required—the balance required and suggested by the Law Society by Marie Shroff and indeed by Grey Power. 
I cannot understand why New Zealand First is wanting to stampede into this when Grey Power is saying that microchips are potentially an invasion of privacy and could track user activities. That may be a colourful description of what can happen but there is no doubt that the sensible thing is to have thorough debate on the issue of microchips. Technology—globally and in New Zealand—is rapidly changing and we have a functional card that can be made available to superannuitants right now. They can take advantage of the discounts that the Rt Hon Winston Peters says are available. We have yet to see exactly their reality; he says they are commercially sensitive. But we hope that the expectations will be lived up to and that the Rt Hon Winston Peters has done some very solid groundwork to make sure that the commercial arrangements and advantages that stem from these cards will bring real benefits to our seniors. 
I understand that Heather Roy is bringing in another amendment to ensure that part of a proposed amendment to clause 5(2) will be deleted thus meaning there will be an opportunity for a proper debate to take place on the way in which new technologies can be used in New Zealand. I think that is absolutely sensible; I believe that National will be supporting such an amendment. 
I go back to say that yes indeed we support the original intent of this bill. We are looking forward to seeing the arrangements that the Rt Hon Winston Peters has worked so hard and diligently on to ensure that the seniors of our country will have real benefits from discounts. He might be able to give us just a little bit of an idea of what those arrangements might be without giving away the commercial sensitivities that he talked about in question time this afternoon.