Curran Clare: Electronic Identity Verification Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Curran Clare: Electronic Identity Verification Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 29 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4965. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 I did not sit on the Government Administration Committee for this bill the Electronic Identity Verification Bill so I cannot comment on the amount of discussion that went on and no doubt my colleague who has yet to speak will have some things to say about that. I have got a few things to say about the issues that surround what this bill represents. We exist in a digital age in the era of the internet; almost everything that people are doing in their lives has something to do with the internet. Usage of the internet in our country as in every other country is going up. It is absolutely critical that we get legislation and regulation in place to enable transactions and to enable all kinds of manners of things to happen via the internet in a way that takes into account privacy issues but also enables people to have access to the things that they need to have access to. 
We all support this bill. I do not know if I would describe it as a “little ripper of a bill” as Chris Auchinvole did but it does seem to me I have to say that going through it there have been an awful lot of changes made to it since it went to the select committee. I want to make a couple of comments. This is essentially about a balance. It is about getting the balance right between as InternetNZ said in its submission efficient administration and the protection of privacy information. If we cannot get this stuff right then how can we expect the rest of the country the rest of the population and the private sector to get it right? It seems to me that we are a bit behind the eight ball in much of our approach to legislation to the regulatory environment to the reality of how the private sector is operating out there and to the behaviours of people in their daily lives how they access the internet and what they are doing on the internet. It really concerns me that probably the vast majority of members of Parliament in the New Zealand Parliament really do not have a clue about the importance of the internet in our lives. We pay lip-service to it but we really do not have a clue. This was evidenced in the last couple of years with all the debate around copyright and people’s general ignorance of what copyright actually means on the internet what the actual behaviours of people are in the population and why there is such a degree of illegal online downloading going on. 
The two things that I want to say are that it is absolutely critical that this remains an optional system. Although this is the age of the internet and I think something like 86 percent of New Zealanders are on the internet there is still a proportion of New Zealanders who do not and cannot access the internet. There is a growing digital divide in this country. I certainly note that one of the submitters—I think it was actually the Dunedin community law centre—gave a very good submission around how important it was that the individual’s use of this service remains optional because of the fact that there are still people who cannot access the internet. It makes reference to the digital divide. For a Government that is putting in place as one of its flagship programmes broadband and making a great big song and dance about how it is all going to give us all faster cheaper access to the internet there is no doubt—and there is actually an inquiry going on at this very moment into this issue and submitter after submitter is telling us—that we have to be concerned about the digital divide. The fact is that the lower socio-economic parts of New Zealand are going to receive faster cheaper broadband at some point way out in the future and that these people—kids growing up in New Zealand—are not getting the same kind of access that other parts of New Zealand are. 
Here we are putting in place a piece of legislation that is essentially about trying to make things more efficient. I think the regulatory impact statement certainly makes reference to the millions of dollars—between $385 million and $527 million—that are going to be saved through this. That is a good thing. But what about the other side of the equation and the number of children who are starting school today and who will be going through school and maybe even coming out of school without having had access to this faster cheaper broadband at school and also in their homes? This is a critical issue for New Zealand and members on that side of the House have not got their heads around copyright issues. They have not got their heads around the fact that there is a growing digital divide in this country. Ultimately although there might be a little ripper of a piece of legislation being put in place to try to make it more efficient for people to actually be identified online so that they can do their business online the big issue is how many New Zealanders will have the means to access it.