Joyce Steven: New Zealand Business Number Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeJoyce Steven: New Zealand Business Number Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 05 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3187. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): I move That the New Zealand Business Number Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Commerce Committee to consider the bill. The New Zealand Business Number will help to reduce costs that businesses face when dealing with the Government. The New Zealand Business Number is part of the Better for Business – Result 9 programme of the Government’s Better Public Services initiative which aims to reform the public sector to provide high-quality flexible and cost-effective public services in New Zealand.Currently eight key Government agencies collectively provide over 700 different services to New Zealand businesses. The quality and speed of these services makes a difference to businesses’ ability to perform grow and export. Of the about 1.3 million New Zealand businesses 90 percent of them have contact with one or more Government agencies at least once a year. An estimated 30 million interactions occur between public sector agencies and small to medium sized enterprises every year.The public sector is currently organised—as it has been for many many years—as a series of vertical agencies that operate in relative separation from each other according to their mandates and functions. This vertical structure of the public system does have its challenges. It results in duplications of transactions and therefore inefficiencies from each agency developing the same capability. It is no longer fit for purpose in this modern world. Government agencies need to perform better to secure outcomes that matter to New Zealanders.In terms of the business sector businesses find interacting with the Government to be at times confusing unproductive and time-consuming. The compliance costs of dealing with the Government can adversely affect the productivity of a business or impact on the potential for economic growth.Businesses have been telling us they want to spend more time on their business and less time on the administration of that business. Estimates suggest that repeated registration processes are estimated to cost New Zealand businesses up to $34 million a year in lost productivity alone maintaining core business data with Government agencies can cost business up to $26 million a year and between 50 and 60 percent of business details are replicated on over 250 Government forms. Although 30 percent of sole traders and nearly a quarter of companies change some of their details each year around only half of them tell the Government about the change.Businesses want joined-up Government services and more certainty and less confusion when interacting with the Government. They want an infrastructure that better enables and supports e-commerce and business innovation. In a nutshell giving businesses a New Zealand Business Number will enable service integration and innovative time-saving administration solutions between businesses their suppliers and the Government.This programme has been worked on for a period of time and it is now time to get this bill into the House to deal with some of the legislative issues around the New Zealand Business Number. In practice businesses will no longer have to keep updating their data with a myriad of agencies but will be able to start maintain and cease business activities with the Government in one place giving them more time to spend growing their businesses.The purpose of the New Zealand Business Number Bill is to enable easier and more efficient interactions for business in New Zealand. It is required to enable the allocation of New Zealand Business Numbers to eligible businesses and to individuals operating as businesses. Over time the New Zealand Business Number will replace many of the separate numerical identifiers that agencies currently use.The bill sets out that there are two types of business entities: corporate and public entities which will be governed by one set of rules and unincorporated entities such as sole traders partnerships and trustees of trusts where special rules are needed to address privacy issues. The bill establishes the statutory position of the Registrar of New Zealand Business Numbers and it establishes a New Zealand Business Number Register. The register will collect in one place a core set of data about a business. The data will be such things as the type of entity where the business is located and so on. The proposed types of data are set out in schedule 3 of the bill and in the draft regulations. The regulations will also be released so the full list is available for consideration by submitters. Some of this data will be publicly searchable and some will be public only if the business allows it. Government agencies will be able to access this data to update their own systems. In the course of time it is intended that the agency systems can be used to update the New Zealand Business Number Register. Third parties will also have access to a business’s information if the business consents or if the data is in bulk or aggregated form and no individual can be identified.One of the challenges when dealing with individuals who are in businesses is privacy issues that arise under the Privacy Act 1993. The bill will enable the allocation of a number to individuals. This requires an override of privacy principle 2. In addition the data on the register will not necessarily come directly from the individuals concerned and that requires an override of privacy principle 12.The bill puts in place various protections around the security and confidentiality of private information. The Privacy Commissioner will be able to require the registrar to prepare a report that assesses the effects that the register has on the privacy of individuals in business. The bill provides the registrar with the usual types of powers to operate the register make decisions verify identity investigate possible contraventions and take enforcement action. Certain decisions of the registrar can be appealed to the High Court.New Zealand is famous the world over for the relative ease of doing business here. Only last week I was talking on behalf of New Zealand in South America and many of the business people I met expressed great interest in our reputation in regard to the ease of doing business. But we cannot rest on our laurels. The New Zealand Business Number will take New Zealand to a new level in the ease of doing business. It is important we do that because we operate in a competitive world and of course our businesses face other challenges such as size of market and our relative isolation.This New Zealand Business Number will increase innovation in business services and the future integration of Government services to businesses will be enabled by the New Zealand Business Number Bill. I have pleasure in commending this bill to the House.