Genter Julie Anne: New Zealand Business Number Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGenter Julie Anne: New Zealand Business Number Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 05 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3202. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. The Green Party is supporting the New Zealand Business Number Bill. As members of the House will know—I am sure they listen very closely to Green Party speeches—the overarching aim of the Green Party’s economic policy is to facilitate a transition to a smarter greener fairer economy—one that ensures that future generations will have all the benefits that we have and one that ensures that every person in New Zealand has every opportunity to be the best they can be and are not undermined by for example a lack of money on the part of their parents.Contrary to what our opponents claim I would say an important part of this transition is fostering strong New Zealand businesses particularly those that work to support communities and the environment. We want to ensure that they are able to do so and that they are not undermined by competition that undercuts them by increasing pollution. To that end I would say the Greens would be very supportive of any initiatives that reduce the time and costs of doing business without compromising those higher-level goals of creating a greener and fairer New Zealand.This bill on the face of it looks like a smart initiative that should make doing business easier and more efficient especially for small to medium sized enterprises—we think they are quite important. Assigning businesses one unique identifying number that can be used for a number of different purposes is a sensible way to reduce administration costs and make it more efficient. It should make it simpler for businesses themselves to interact with Government agencies as well as with each other. It could enable Government to better collect and share information that would enable targeted services and policies for business.We do of course have the same concerns that have been expressed by other members here in the House tonight about the impacts on privacy particularly as this Government the National Government has a poor record. We have seen a couple of Ministers release private information held by Government agencies just to score political points. We have some real concerns about what that could mean having this unique identifying number. Greater interaction between sharing of data means that the system becomes a little less resilient. There is this trade-off between efficiency and resilience generally and so although we will have something that is more efficient it is more susceptible to breaches of privacy and potentially hacking. I note from the regulatory impact statement that the Privacy Commissioner thought that most of the privacy concerns for example could be addressed. That is something we will be looking at very carefully and closely during the select committee process.The devil really is in the detail as to whether or not this will pay off. Obviously there have been other moves towards centralisation like for example the Auckland super-city merger which was supposed to deliver benefits but in fact has made the bureaucracy ever more unwieldy for your average citizen to deal with. So it all depends on how it is implemented and I think we will have to watch the submissions in the select committee carefully and explore the different opportunities. I am sure it will be an iterative process if the bill is passed of learning what works and what does not work.I would say that the opportunities provided by getting Government agencies to not be so siloed do not just apply to administration and the savings costs. For example in this bill according to the regulatory impact statement we might see something like $30 million to $50 million in savings. When you spread that out across the entire economy that is not really a huge impact. I would say that the Green Party is interested in finding even bigger savings for businesses and households in New Zealand. The big ones are transport buildings and energy. If we did those things smarter—and we have the ability to do that—then we know we could save billions of dollars each year for businesses and households and reduce environmental pollution. I think surely those sorts of win-wins are achievable in policy and are something that should be pursued by this Government if it genuinely believes in long-term sustainable economic development that looks after people and the environment.So although we will be supporting this bill I think that a smarter greener approach to policy across the board would deliver much greater savings to business and households here in New Zealand and ensure that we protect all the things we really love about New Zealand well into the future. Thank you.Brett Hudson: Mr Speaker.Jacinda Ardern: Mr Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Jacinda Ardern.