Tabuteau Fletcher: New Zealand Business Number Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTabuteau Fletcher: New Zealand Business Number Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:10037. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): It is a pleasure to stand and take a call on the New Zealand Business Number Bill. I wanted to take this opportunity basically to respond to the contributions from the other side of the Chamber which have been kind of marginal at best to put it politely.First to address the resistance of the previous speaker Simon O’Connor to all Government agencies having to comply and use the business number: if he had read the amendment it clearly says: “any other identifier the government agency may use for that entity) if that use is in accordance with the purposes of this Act.” Ria Bond wrote this amendment understanding that of course not all Government agencies are going to necessitate the need for the use of the business number—of course it does not make sense. If the member had taken the time to read the amendment then we would not have wasted those minutes in the debate.I think that after that contribution the previous speaker from the other side of the Chamber should stand up stand against his party and vote against this piece of legislation. That is how passionate he was about how pitiful or how terrible it is to ask Government agencies to actually have a time line and a budget to comply with the expectations set out in this legislation. I mean he just could not believe that we would ask Government agencies to comply with those kinds of requirements. It is nonsensical.What I wanted to touch on because Minister Joyce when we first addressed this in the House spoke very eloquently about how this universal business number will—actually he spoke about it adding to GDP. He said that it would be so monumental in its application that it would actually improve the economy. We are given numbers such as reduced costs of dealing with the Government by 25 percent. New Zealand First says that companies are now dealing with that. I think we have seen that companies that are obliged to work with the business number system at the moment are seeing some of those benefits. So they are saying: “Actually we think New Zealand’s small and medium enterprises might benefit from this.”But as the member Jacinda Ardern pointed out actually there is quite a bit of debate around that and there is actually not a lot of engagement from the Government as to why this would benefit New Zealand businesses. New Zealand business at that smaller level which you would think would benefit the most from not having to deal with all these Government organisations and that deal with this every day actually cannot see the benefit of this legislation at face value. So where is the engagement? Where is the conversation? It just undermines what the Government is trying to achieve. I have to say that New Zealand First does support the intent. If it does make it easier for small to medium sized enterprises in New Zealand to engage with the Government so that they are spending less time on red tape then we think that is a wonderful thing.I just want to refer to some of the amendments for example. In the original bill as has been pointed out the original obligation for Crown entities was that they “must”—they must—commit to this process. If they do not it makes a farce of the entire piece of legislation. I put it to you that if it is not mandatory for Crown organisations to commit to this process not only will the legislation fail and therefore undermine its intent but in fact it will be costly for New Zealand businesses in its failure in terms of their being forced to comply with legislation that essentially has no meaning because the Crown is not there to act in the same manner on a level playing field with business.Originally the bill said that the legislation must bind the Crown. Now it does not. This bill is all about Crown entities and they have scratched out: “this Act must bind the Crown”. It just makes no sense whatsoever. I think what Miss Bond and Dr Clark have come up with is exactly the solution that we need. But perhaps if I put it to the Minister: maybe there is another compromise? Maybe if Crown entities can commit in writing to a time frame and a budget to say when they will comply—Simon O’Connor: It’s in clause 8—clause 8 “the Act binds the Crown”.FLETCHER TABUTEAU: No it has been deleted mate.