Clendon David: New Zealand Business Number Bill — Second ReadingText is subject to correctionClendon David: New Zealand Business Number Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 03 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9416. Text is subject to correction.]DAVID CLENDON (Green): Could I begin by acknowledging the comments made by our New Zealand First colleague Ria Bond. Many of the reservations she expressed about this bill we share—the fact that it is well intentioned and a potentially useful piece of legislation but it will require a rapid implementation. We take a slightly more optimistic view perhaps that this Government may be capable of quickly implementing the good intention of this plan. That optimism may be a triumph of hope over experience but time will tell.Chris Bishop: No no—that is good. Very good.DAVID CLENDON: We shall see. The challenge is on Mr Bishop and his colleagues to prove us right in this instance which I am sure he will enjoy doing.The notion of a unique identifier is a fundamentally good idea. Anything that facilitates the painless interaction between business and Government is to be supported. In an ideal world I think each business would have a single point of contact with an agency of Government. Behind that agency would sit the multitude of other Government agencies—ACC the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment health and safety organisations and all the rest of them. I think that would be an ideal outcome. That would be something we can aspire to in time I think—particularly for small and medium sized enterprises which as we have heard are the backbone of New Zealand business. There are over 460000-odd small and medium sized enterprises in New Zealand which contribute something like 30 percent of GDP. They are seldom praised or celebrated and I think they ought to be.One of the implications of this unique identifier if properly implemented is that it would allow for the gathering of metadata about business business trends what business is doing and how it is achieving it and that would potentially be a very useful body of knowledge and information to inform further policy development. Alongside that of course come privacy concerns—quite legitimate privacy concerns. This Government and dare I say it previous Governments have not had a particularly good record in terms of protecting large databases or protecting people’s privacy—be they individuals or businesses—but in this instance we are aware that the Privacy Commissioner was involved in the debate and made some contribution to it and I think the framework of this bill will allow for good privacy protection. Again it is a matter of implementation and a matter of actually making sure that it is done well and done appropriately.We share the concern of our Labour colleagues as expressed in the minority report and indeed by Ria Bond recently that it does seem that the Government has got ahead of itself with this legislation. It is putting in place the legislation before the necessary infrastructure exists. Nothing will undermine this legislation more quickly than if it simply becomes another number another form of bureaucracy that businesses are burdened with. It is incumbent on this Government to ensure that this legislation does succeed because it could and it ought to and if it does it will make a positive contribution to the business community—freeing it up to do what it does well: to be productive to make a useful economic and social contribution. So it really lies in the hands of this Government to actually make sure that it does work.The Government talks a lot about a whole-of-Government approach. It is talked about more than it is evident I would have to say. Integration within and between departments within and between policies and practices is a worthy aspiration. I am a great believer in an integrated approach to things more generally. Again we have not seen a great deal of evidence of it. What we have seen is the sort of mashing together of Government agencies into these great unwieldy beasts—and I daresay many people will recognise the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment in that description as it currently exists. Integration is a good thing. Simply randomly stuffing bits of Government together is not.The initiative contained within this bill could contribute to proper integration and better relationships between business and the Government. It could facilitate successful small and medium enterprises to do their job well and to do it better than they can now if they are not chewing up valuable time complying with Government regulation.It is up to this Government to prove that its reasonably well-grounded legislation can work and I leave it with that challenge. Surprise me and do it well. Kia ora.