Hudson Brett: New Zealand Business Number Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHudson Brett: New Zealand Business Number Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 05 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3204. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BRETT HUDSON (National): It is an absolute joy to rise to speak in support of the New Zealand Business Number Bill in its first reading. For the benefit of the speaker who has just resumed her seat who is a bit worried that doing this to help business might come at the expense of doing something else well seemingly unlike the Labour Opposition this is a side of the House that can walk and chew gum. We look forward to doing a number of things not just one at a time. This New Zealand Business Number is really in part about the Government’s agenda of delivering Better Public Services to New Zealand. It is an absolutely measurable and concrete way of driving better value for New Zealanders reducing compliance for businesses and making it easier for people and for businesses to engage with the Government.This is a really simple concept. If you have a business whether it is small medium or large—but there is a greater compliance cost on small and medium sized businesses I think everyone would argue—that business has to interact with a number of Government agencies. We have picked just a few just off the top of our heads. Obviously there is the Inland Revenue Department and if your business perhaps is employing a very varied workforce you might have Immigration New Zealand contacts you might have department of labour contacts you will have ACC you have got the Companies Office—any number of Government agencies that even a small business or a medium sized business may be obliged to have dealings with.If you have got a situation where with every one of those agencies you have to have a unique and different identifier then it boggles the mind that anyone could suggest that you need some sort of scientific methodology rationale and proof that somehow having one identifier across all of them could be anything less than more productive and more cost saving than having a different identifier with every single one of them. This is exactly what this bill is delivering. It is delivering the one identifier that a business can use in every dealing it has with any Government agency that it chooses to or has to have dealings with.That is a simple concept to grasp. It is something that will certainly be grasped very readily by small businesses to whom I would argue the constant interaction with Government agencies is more of a bane than a boon to them. The idea that this will streamline those interactions is something that businesses will welcome and we are very very pleased to be delivering it for them.One of the things that I think is very very important about this and I would make a note about the previous speaker from the Greens Julie Anne Genter who raised issues of privacy. One of the good things about this is that supplying their core information once that information the core information about that business will be shared with other agencies and the business if it needs to make an update will be able to make the update once at its preferred point. No longer will it have to advise every Government agency about a change of address or some subtle change in purpose that the agency might feel is important. The business will do it once at the agency of its choice the one where it likely does most of its business. It could be New Zealand Post. That is a possibility. It will make that change once and that will proliferate across the agencies that access that New Zealand Business Number.The issue about data privacy I think shows that the members opposite do not understand the data that is actually going to be captured behind the New Zealand Business Number and that is going to be shared. That data is the legal entity name its registered address a location identifier a start date the type of entity that it is and its business status—whether it is active or inactive. There is not a great hacking potential in that data. Businesses are not storing their customer addresses. They are not storing their receipts. They are not storing their inventories. They are not storing the heart of their businesses. They are saying they are an active business based at this address and here is their number. [Interruption] Well sure. I mean it is a bit of a worry if the hackers want to get in and have a look at that.So you have got to wonder whether the Opposition members actually understand the information that is going to be captured and shared because based on what they have been saying tonight it does not look to me that they do.But the point on this is also that although we are expanding in this bill the New Zealand Business Number eligibility across a broader range of business it is worth noting that we have actually already allocated about 1.1 million of these numbers to registered companies to date. In fact we have got a reference group of about 1200 small and medium sized businesses that we have been tracking progress with on the New Zealand Business Number and how it has been working for them. The reports over the last 6 months or so have reported back a net 7 percent reduction in reported effort in their dealings with Government agencies since 2012.So here we have it. We have got a reference group—actual businesses operating in the real world—using the New Zealand Business Number. Their reports show and their feedback to the Government shows that this has had a net 7 percent productivity gain for them in terms of their—well a net saving for them in terms of their interactions with the Government since 2012; that is a better way of putting it I agree. That is definitely a very very positive thing for them to have experienced. I tell you what: if I were the member opposite and I had a business and someone was offering me a 7 percent saving I would not be saying: “No give me something more. Take this one away.” I would be grasping it with both hands while doing something else as well to further improve my business.Chris Bishop: You understand business.BRETT HUDSON: Well thank you Mr Bishop.But I would just like to say in concluding that Opposition members have also made a comment that is just a small thing. And at an estimate of $30 million to $60 million in savings set against the entire economy you could say that is a small thing just as you could say that half a billion dollars out of the entire GDP of New Zealand is a tiny thing as well. You could say it is a very small thing but it is part of a larger plan. It is not one thing solely in isolation; it is one thing that is part of a plan. Like in our Business Growth Agenda for instance there are between 350 and 400 initiatives in that plan that go together to improve business outlook and promote growth and growth in employment as well.So this New Zealand Business Number is part of another plan. We have already seen things for small and medium sized businesses like www.business.govt.nz which is a bit of a one-stop shop for what a small or medium sized business needs to consider when setting up and operating or growing a company in New Zealand in respect of its interactions and compliance obligations with Government agencies. Within that is a thing called Compliance Matters. This is a tool that sets out for those businesses exactly what their compliance obligations are and points them in the direction of what they need to do to make sure that they are compliant.So let us take this in context. The New Zealand Business Number on its own is not the only thing that this Government is doing to support small and medium sized businesses. It is part of a much broader plan both for small businesses and for business as a whole to promote economic growth in New Zealand and to help to raise confidence and results in our businesses that lead to greater employment as we have seen in the past 12 months and earlier. I commend this bill to the House.