Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. One of the I guess advantages of lockdown and the fact that colleagues are in Auckland is that other MPs get to speak on legislation and have to come up to speed with legislation that they did not know a lot about or anything about half an hour ago. I appreciate that opportunity because it does expand one's knowledge so I'm pleased to take a short call on the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill. I think this bill will really highlight the importance once again of the select committee process—and the Green Party is supporting the bill to select committee—and the contribution that submitters will make because in looking at the regulatory impact statement I understand there has been an exposure draft of the bill but because it is setting up a framework where people can trust the mechanisms by which they provide information about their identity the contribution of businesses individuals Māori and others to ensuring that this framework really does have the confidence of New Zealanders is really important. Digital identity is critical to our society. It enables both citizens and businesses to participate in the digital economy and to access Government services but as the regulatory impact statement points out there are no consistently applied standards. In fact it goes as far as saying—and I quote—the digital identity ecosystem is characterised by incoherence ad hoc regulation and lack of interoperability; and the way identity related information is shared is inefficient." I note the comments by Stuart Smith and I would agree with him about RealMe. That is set up as a Government service. I think it's got about 750000 people who verified their identity through it. It was a very good initiative at the time but things have moved on since and certainly my experience with it is that it is quite clunky. So this trust framework that the bill sets up with a governance board to oversee that is about enabling a much more consistent and secure digital identity environment for both people businesses and other organisations in Aotearoa and ensuring that those digital identity services are secure and that they are trusted. One of the issues that the Green Party has with the bill—and it would benefit from submissions—is in terms of the way it incorporates Te Ao Māori approaches to identity. We acknowledge the Minister and the provisions in the bill which make sure that there is a Māori advisory organisation to the governance board ensuring that there is expertise in Māori identity in that whole Te Ao Māori perspective because from the regulatory impact statement and the research that has been done it's very clear that there's a much lower level of trust about the Government holding and sharing information amongst Māori than other sectors of the community and the whole history of colonisation in New Zealand would make that not a surprise. There is also a major concern about misuse and abuse of information so it's really critical that this Te Ao Māori perspective shapes the way the trust framework develops and ensures that people can really have confidence in it through the work of the Māori advisory board. I note I think that there is a test in the legislation that the advice of the Māori advisory board has to be implemented unless it's not reasonably practicable. So we know that there has been an effort there but we would welcome submissions to just further develop and scope that out. We note too that digital identity is potentially really important for our voting system. There has been provision made for online voting at local authority level for trials but I don't think any local authority took that up because of concerns about hacking and insecurity of information. So the work in this space may assist with that. With everything moving online—particularly for people—now it seems a bit incongruous to go to a polling station or to fill out something that is on paper and send that back. So this whole issue of identity verification should be treated as a public good because it does facilitate the inclusion of individuals in commerce in society and in interacting with the Government. Therefore the funding for the development of the framework should come through general taxation rather than through some sort of a user charge and we hope that there's been a commitment to do that. The Green Party will be supporting this bill to select committee. Kia ora."