Coates BarryBARRY COATES (Green): Ngā mihi nui. Tēnā koutou katoa. I will keep my intervention short; I do not believe in the need to speak to use up my allotted time so I will not.Hon Michael Woodhouse: You'll learn.Iain Lees-Galloway: It's an acquired skill.BARRY COATES: Thank you—thank you. I will learn how to do that later. Unsurprisingly the Green Party supports this bill. As you know we are an extremely constructive party. We agree that there are benefits for the public from changes to Government processes to make online transactions easier. We note the benefits in terms of registering births deaths and marriages; changed definitions to allow people to appear before Government agencies online rather than in person; and online purchases of hunting licences and voting in Fish and Game Council elections. We commend the Minister Peter Dunne for the initiative for this bill. There will be many thousands of New Zealanders who will benefit from this bill and will welcome it.We have two points to raise. The first is that our support for this bill comes with a recommendation that the Government pay particular attention to the very serious issues of security and privacy of information. It is a point that has already been made but we would like to emphasise that we have seen too many examples of personal information having been made public most notably in the ACC leak but also in leaks from other Government departments. The Green Party would like assurances that there will be strong security and privacy provisions in this bill and we also look forward to improvements in the performance of Government departments.In addition our support for this bill also comes with a second recommendation and that is that the Government do far more to bridge the digital divide. Again this has been mentioned but the division between haves and have-nots in terms of internet access has been persistent and is a new and very powerful form of exclusion for too many people. The report The Internet in New Zealand 2015 from the World Internet Project in New Zealand and authored by Auckland University of Technology (AUT) academics highlights the persistence of the digital divide in New Zealand and notes that the digital divide is more prevalent amongst Māori. It is more prevalent amongst people with low incomes. It is more prevalent amongst people with disabilities.But the most excluded group—the group with the least access and usage of internet services—is senior citizens. From this survey age is the dominant factor in explaining low internet usage. What the survey says is that there are 38 percent of respondents who are over 70 years old who have never used the internet or are ex-users. That 38 percent of senior citizens compares with 4 percent of 16- to 29-year-olds. That is not only a digital divide; that is a digital chasm. Twenty percent of those users who do not use the internet either do not know how to use it or are confused by the technology 18 percent do not own a device able to access the internet 13 percent have no internet connection and 11 percent do not use the internet because they consider it too expensive. This is important because more than half of the respondents who answered the surveys said that they use internet to access Government or council services. It is obviously a major problem for elderly people when they are unable to access these services online. So obviously the problems of this digital divide go far beyond this bill.We do recognise there has been work undertaken by the Government to support internet access but we urge greater urgency on this work and a particular focus on the needs of senior citizens. In that vein we commend the Ministry of Consumer Affairs guide for seniors Get online savvy but as this AUT survey shows there is much more that needs to be done. It is disappointing to see other research showing that services like Skype or free communications apps like WhatsApp or WeChat are not used extensively by seniors. They have the potential to connect for free with family and friends even if these family members and friends live overseas. We hope that the Minister will give consideration to boosting internet access as a flanking measure for this bill.We look forward to examining this bill and hopefully making these points in the select committee. With that the Green Party expresses its support for this bill. Thank you.