Twyford Phil; Bayly AndrewHon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Thank you Madam Chair—excellent choice. I'm sure that the Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing didn't agree with my characterisation of this bill as sort of venal kind of deference to vested interests—Hon Paul Goldsmith: Gaslighting.Hon PHIL TWYFORD: And gaslighting. Thank you for putting that on the record. But I want to give the Minister an opportunity to convince the committee that that characterisation wasn't fair. And I think that the way that he can do that is by providing us with the data the analysis the modelling the projections that informed his decision. I want to be assured that it's not just reckons and ideology and political shortcutting.A Green colleague earlier asked what data the Minister had or what consultation was done to inform his assertion that small and medium enterprise (SME) owners will not use the public disclosure database. And I too would like to know what that's based on. Is it just reckons or is there actually some information some facts that underpin that?At the heart of this argument is a trade-off—a trade-off between imposing a compliance cost on the country's largest corporations in order to deliver a benefit to SMEs and to create a more competitive environment for our small and medium sized enterprises. I'd like to know what cost-benefit analysis has been done to inform where the Government has come down on that trade-off. Has the Minister been able to have the benefit of some kind of quantifying of the compliance costs to big business? Surely that modelling shouldn't be too difficult to obtain. What's the likely cost what's the incidence of it the number of corporations that would be affected the frequency and so on? Thirdly what makes him think that a voluntary code of conduct will change behaviour when we're talking about an entrenched pattern of behaviour that confers substantial financial benefit on the late-paying corporations at the expense of small businesses? What are the facts on this? What is the data that the Minister has drawn on to justify his assertion that a voluntary code of conduct is a credible or serious alternative to the law that is being repealed today?I would suggest that Helen White's Amendment Paper that would essentially retain the current law but give it a trial period would be a much more thoughtful and responsible approach. If the Minister in fact does agree that this is a serious problem affecting small businesses as he says unless he's got a watertight case based on the modelling based on the facts then surely a more responsible approach would be to allow the legislation to continue and effectively a trial period and do an evaluation after four or five years. Why not take the Australian approach which is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater but to see how the approach the legislation can be strengthened or improved or streamlined?Hon ANDREW BAYLY (Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing): Look this reckon" thing—I'd just say to the member the Hon Phil Twyford: how can you get a qualification on a system that hasn't actually taken place? No one could answer that question. That question cannot be answered. The only place where it has taken place is in Australia and it's been in place for two years and so they're the best people to look at what the impact is.I've quoted the statistics before particularly around the take-up of the scheme over there and the usage of the scheme and the recommendations of the Minister who actually did the review are interesting. What he said was—and again I just quote—"I recommend: better protecting the rights of small businesses regarding unfair trading practices and unfair contract terms". We're not talking reckons here; we're talking about a Minister who has actually reviewed the scheme that's been in place which the Labour Government just obviously picked up and carried over here without much further thought. I've just noted previously that one of the seven initiatives is raising awareness of existing redress options under the Fair Trading Act. The second point is increasing the adoption of e-invoicing. I've already said countless times in the House that one of the greatest drivers of productivity—and if you just pick up or google Xero's report they talk about an $8.5 billion uplift for the New Zealand economy if small businesses in particular pick up and do one more app. If that one more app happened to be e-invoicing the productivity gains to New Zealand they estimate are $8.5 billion right? I am very keen as the small-business Minister and this Government is very keen to promote e-invoicing because of the productivity gains. So what we've said is we're going to require Government agencies and entities in time to be capable of e-invoicing both to be able to receive and to send and to incentivise businesses to do it because they're going to have even quicker payment times. That is not about regulation; that is just smart thinking about how you try and make things happen in the economy without resorting to regulation which the Labour Government loved to do. The third thing: elevating the importance of prompt payment of suppliers and of procurement practices. Guess what! What are the one of the other seven initiatives I noted? The other one is that we are going to ask the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment to publicly disclose the payment times for Government agencies. We are going to do that. That is the biggest nudge you will see because that will drive CEOs of our large Government agencies and in time the Crown entities—nearly 100 entities spending over $50 billion a year—to promptly pay. All these things are actually recommended by the Australian Government and that is what we're proposing to do with the reforms that I've set out many times that I've spoken about in the House."