Ardern Jacinda: New Zealand Business Number Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: New Zealand Business Number Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:10033. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I want to stand and support the statements that have been made by the member Ria Bond and also by David Clark. If I were to summarise the amendment that Ria Bond has put before this House for the benefit of Mr Hudson it basically says to back yourself—back yourself. To have Mr Hudson actually stand up and say that putting a time line or a requirement on Government agencies to actually implement the purpose of this bill would ruin the bill shows to me what an absolutely shambolic process this has been—absolutely shambolic.Brett Hudson: If you listened maybe you would comprehend Jacinda.JACINDA ARDERN: Unfortunately I did listen Mr Hudson and that was my take-home point: back yourself. If you believe that this bill can deliver for business in the way that you have described and in fact if you read the background papers to this bill as I have—the Cabinet papers the committee papers the regulatory impact statements—they clearly set out that this bill will be useful to business only if the widest possible range of Government agencies adopt the purpose of this bill adopt the whole Business Number regime. So unless the Government is willing to say that there are some requirements for those agencies to pick up the Business Number then it will not achieve its purpose clause. It will not achieve the purpose as set out at the beginning of the bill.I want to reflect though on the real reason Mr Hudson—it is not necessarily because of the argument that you seem to put across that in putting a time line we suddenly do not understand technology on this side of the House. I find it quite laughable to be lectured on that by a Government that only in recent times basically lost $7 million in the Ministry of Justice by the failed eBench project alone. That is before you start on Novopay and every other failed technological project that this Government has tried to implement.Putting that aside the most telling paper that I would recommend that Mr Hudson read is the paper to the Cabinet economic growth and infrastructure committee from March 2015. It sets out the real reason there is reluctance on that side of the House to put forward a date for implementation. Treasury has called this policy high risk because of concerns around Government agencies implementing this proposal. It also sets out just the level of compulsion that the Government is trying to put behind these agencies in order to get the Business Number rolling.It talks about the Government directions. It says “The Government has previously stated that the main goal of the NZBN is to replace over time many of the separate identifiers currently used by businesses … However no comprehensive statement has been made stating when or how this goal will be achieved.” It set that out as being problematic in the Cabinet paper. “Consequently many Government agencies are unsure about what they need to do to meet the Government’s expectations …” We are setting out a path forward on that one with this amendment or how to plan and how to meet those expectations.It goes on. It says: “We consider the most appropriate vehicle is to issue two directions one to government departments under cover of a Cabinet Office Circular the other under … the Crown Entities Act”. What would those directions set out? They would set out the range of agencies to which the direction applies. They would set out a high-level description of what agencies need to do to achieve the goals and milestones in the implementation plan. What better place for it than in the bill itself? There would be a requirement on agencies to report on progress annually. There would be a centralised system for monitoring agencies’ reports including reporting to Ministers on progress. The Cabinet paper also states: “Consideration would also need to be given to whether there should be a mechanism for resolving any disputes about whether a business identifier is within scope of the NZBN policy … because it is not always clear whether an identifier that is currently being used by an agency should be replaced by the NZBN …”.What all of that tells us is that the Government knows that the success or failure of this policy relies on its implementation. It will be putting out directions to agencies to implement this policy itself. All I am hearing is that there is a lack of confidence from the Government that those agencies will be able to follow through. That is what we are hearing. It is absolutely clear in this Cabinet paper that implementation is reliant on that happening and therefore the only reason it is not in the bill is that there is fear they will not be able to deliver. Why else would you have to set up a dispute resolution mechanism for agencies that are going to push back that hard against a Government direction?It also suggests to me a bit of a lack of confidence from those agencies as to whether or not they have got the capacity to deliver. Certainly we have seen I think a number of disasters as agencies have tried to transition to new Government-imposed regimes. Perhaps there is a genuine fear amongst those agencies that in that transition they will be unable to deliver to their business clients. Perhaps that is one of the fears.But I want to just reflect again on the purpose clause of the bill set out in Part 1. The main purpose of the bill we are debating is set out very clearly in three parts. Clause 3 “Main purposes” states “The main purposes of this Act are to—(a) enable eligible entities in New Zealand to interact more easily with government;”—that is the goal. I highlight “government” there—that is a broad turn of phrase. It goes on: “and (ab) enable eligible entities in New Zealand to interact more easily with one another; and (b) reduce transaction costs in New Zealand;”. Then paragraph (c) is about the how. Those big giant goals are all going to be achieved by establishing and maintaining the New Zealand Business Number Register.That is a big goal. It is all linked into the Government’s desire under Better Public Services agenda result area 9—which I always think sounds like a bad sci-fi movie—which is to reduce the cost of dealing with the Government by 25 percent which is a big goal. I can absolutely see why the Government sees that goal as hinging on the success or failure of the business number. I can see that because it is all about transaction cost—transactions Government to Government. What I am concerned about is the degree to which business believes this is the most useful thing the Government could be doing.I would like to ask the Minister in the chair Minister Barry—it seems clear to me from some of the other Cabinet papers I have read that the Government has surveyed business in this regard perhaps in 2013 when a piece of work called The Benefits of a New Zealand Business Number: the Opinions of New Zealand Businesses was conducted. I do not know whether the Commerce Committee was ever provided with that research but excerpts seem to have made their way into the Cabinet paper and they include statements like: “During public consultation in March this year on extending the NZBN to all businesses larger businesses and industry representatives strongly supported extending the NZBN”.So big business thinks “Good.”; smaller businesses were less enthusiastic. Smaller businesses were less enthusiastic. Why? What was it about the New Zealand Business Number that they had concerns about? Where is the discussion and dialogue about that? If we want to fulfil that big bold purpose clause we need to answer that question. All the Cabinet paper tells me is that this “likely reflects a lack of knowledge about the NZBN.”So there is a bit of an arrogant view in there that they just cannot do it and it continues in paragraph 24: “A small number of businesses and individuals commented. Some of these did not see any value in the NZBN.” Again that is another statement that small businesses question the value of this $14 million project. Again it is explained away by saying that a number of these small businesses appeared to be giving their initial reaction. I want to see more detail on why it was that small businesses had big question marks over this.Look you can theorise around why it could be potentially beneficial—big business sees the value of it. But why is it that those small businesses simply did not? What opportunity is potentially being missed here by there being a lack of transparency around that research which I think could have really helped the consideration of the select committee and helped us ultimately make sure that this big bold purpose clause is not hollow in its aims and helped us make sure that the New Zealand Business Number is not just about one section of our business community but is genuinely something that proves useful for the majority of our businesses which are indeed small to medium sized enterprises. I look forward to contributing to the debate on other parts of this bill.