Clark David: New Zealand Business Number Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: New Zealand Business Number Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 09 February 2016. Volume:711;Page:8824. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): After listening to that speech I wonder whether that Minister really is as familiar with the bill as he ought to be. Unfortunately this bill will actually increase costs to business in the short term—this bill will increase costs to business in the short term. That is why we on this side of the House are reluctant to support this bill without reservations. We will be supporting it; we will be lending our support because we hope that this policy can be properly implemented over time. We are embarrassed for the Government for the fact that it has not ironed out the obvious things that could be fixed up front that could make this a real boon for business.The idea of a single number for business has been around for a long time. This Government has had attempts at it before and it is an excellent idea—it is an excellent idea. It is incredibly frustrating for business to have several different numbers and to have to come back again and again and again to different Government departments with different numbers in order to get what should by right be access to Government services for every business. Instead with this multi-numbered system there is an increased overhead and there is increased compliance as those numbers are updated and tested and verified throughout Government. So we have an overly complex system.Nobody in this House I hazard to say would disagree with the intent of this bill. The intent is very very worthy indeed but what the Government has failed to outline is a plan a clear plan for how the bill’s stated purpose will be achieved—that is (a) to enable businesses in New Zealand to interact more easily with Government and (b) to reduce the costs of business transactions in New Zealand. I will explain this more in my address because initially at least it is absolutely beyond dispute that we are creating another number. There are only a small group of Government departments that will have this service available initially. For all other interactions with Government other numbers will be required. So there will be multiple numbers right from the start and there will be a hurdle initially because a new number will have to be set up for this New Zealand Business Number system to work.Existing businesses will get another number—yet another number. We only hope that the next step will happen which will mean that the existing numbers are gradually reduced. But hope we must—hope is all that is left to us when one has read through this bill and seen that the Government has not allocated suitable resources to make this happen.Why is no IRD number used? Well Mr Goldsmith explained to us that an IRD number would not be suitable as an international business number. Nobody is disputing that—that was not the point at issue. If the international business number was suitable why would the Inland Revenue Department not adopt it? Is it worried about security issues? Is the Government saying that this new number will not be secure enough? Is that what it is saying or is it saying that it does not have joined-up government? Because what I hear from officials is that they were never able to resolve those issues behind closed doors and now Ministers are wearing the consequences of that. Cabinet is forced into an embarrassing position where it has not got the policy straightened out and it is trying to implement it anyway. There are still many hurdles to get over.The Labour Party finds itself agreeing with Federated Farmers on this. The initial list of Government departments does not include agencies such as WorkSafe New Zealand and Immigration New Zealand and people are interacting more often with local government which also is not a part of this system—so you have multiple numbers. Imagine your average worm farmer out there wanting to interact with Government doing the right thing. The average worm farmer completely worried by the new legislation introduced is trying to find out from WorkSafe New Zealand what their obligations are in order to avoid the kinds of catastrophes that happen all the time from worm farming—according to this Government. Well I am afraid that worm farmer will have to have—probably if they are interacting with some departments—this new number and also a completely separate number for their interactions with WorkSafe New Zealand. If they have got workers from overseas working at their worm farm they will have to have another number again for Immigration New Zealand—a whole series of numbers.We see very quickly that this bill has not yet got to the place that it needs to get to. We see that this Government has not yet shown how it will get to this utopian single number because it has not done its homework yet. It is a good idea; it needs to be supported but this Government needs to outline a plan as to how it is going to get there. Instead of worrying about what is going on this week at Waitangi instead of the Prime Minister worrying about the flag and where the next $26 million is going to be spent on this pet project or that pet project the Government should be focusing on the nuts and bolts of making sure that New Zealand businesses can get on with the productive stuff that they do.It is wrapping them up in red tape and that is not unusual for this Government. We know with the child support legislation it has put additional obligations on small business. It tried to introduce car-park taxes. It has a penchant—this Government—for introducing new obligations on businesses. Unfortunately here we have another example in the short term. As I say on this side of the House we hope it will get there; we hope that it will get to the single number but at the moment we find ourselves agreeing with Federated Farmers that the system is not right.We also agree with Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand which says that “without significant uptake there is a risk that the identifier is not integrated and utilised widely and just becomes another number rather than a replacement for the many current identifiers—as is intended.” It shares the same concern. So we see these business organisations also expressing this concern.The Labour Party is certainly not on its own here. It is clear that businesses that work with a number of departments will have to obtain a number of numbers. The additional yet another number is the opposite of the purpose of the bill—that point is clear. It will cost more in the short term. So businesses will have to comply and that could be tolerated if we had the long-term plan. I want to urge this Government to outline that plan and to say how it is going to roll it out across the whole of Government and how it is going to resource departments to implement the necessary changes so that they can make interaction a whole lot easier for business. That is what is missing here. That is what is missing from that side of the House—a credible plan for rolling this business number out across the whole of Government.I look forward to the next speaker explaining how that may happen and where the resources are coming from. Is it going to be in the next Budget? I guess we will wait and see but my hunch—and what has been shown up from the appearances of officials at select committees—is that the Government has not done that work yet it has not outlined how it is going to roll out over time and so it is asking in this bill effectively New Zealand businesses to carry more costs and more compliance until it sorts its act out. We urge it to get busy on that project rather than the distractions it has been busy on up until now.And there is a real risk too with this number that it will not ever get across that hurdle. There is a very real risk that businesses will wait and see that they will not sign up too quickly to this new system because they are not convinced it is going to be implemented. They are worried that it is going to be another number and then that other Government departments will not invest in that resource because they do not want to sign up to a system that is going to become redundant—be yet another number and replace their existing systems—if there is not a plan for a complete roll-out.This is a bill as I said at the beginning that has a very good intended outcome. But as we have seen before with this Government there have been other attempts at this that have failed. This Government needs to sort out how it is going to do this in a way that is credible. It needs to allocate the necessary resource to make this happen in a way that is credible. We do not want another—what was the name of that system for the education payroll?Hon Members: Novopay.Dr DAVID CLARK: Novopay. We certainly do not want another Novopay and Minister Parata across there the Minister of Education I think would agree with me. We do not want to go down that track again.But that is the risk with coming out with half-baked solutions and trying to implement half-baked solutions before you have outlined where the end point is before you have signed up all of your departments to deliver the services and before you know that the plan is in place. And that is why this Government needs to display to New Zealanders that it has done its homework. This is a Government that is getting more arrogant it is getting more out of touch and it is losing the track that it once had and so we see it is happy to implement this system which is imposing extra costs on business in the vague hope that it will sort itself out over time. We urge it to do that from this side of the House. We will be supporting the bill but we are doing it with those reservations—and they are significant reservations.We stand alongside Federated Farmers we stand alongside Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand and we stand alongside most of the business people who submitted who expressed their concerns about the way that this bill is being implemented. This Government needs to do its homework. It needs to lay out a credible plan. It needs to have a bigger vision. And we urge it to do that so that this bill can be implemented in a way that really and truly does make doing business easier with the Government. It is about time.