Cosgrove Clayton: Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCosgrove Clayton: Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:16127. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): There are times in this Parliament when history is made and tonight has been one of them. The member Paul Goldsmith who is the author of this bill the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill thanked the Commerce Committee of which I am a member for its assistance. Indeed I have to say that after dealing with this piece of legislation the members of the Commerce Committee felt like the collective guys with the shovels following the elephant—big time.I have to say that I thought that Mr Goldsmith was a writer of some repute. He is a man who has penned many literary works including I think a biography—he will correct me—of Don Brash and some interesting works regarding that notable member of Parliament John Archibald Banks known to us here colloquially and affectionately as “Brown Bag Banks”. But when it came to this piece of legislation I have to say to Mr Goldsmith you would have thought it had been written by the local village idiot. This is a piece of legislation that presumably came about because the whips or somebody in the hierarchy of the National Party said: “Look we need a member’s bill. We need to throw a few in the ballot to cut Labour’s chances and the Greens’ chances down. So can somebody somewhere come up with a few pages of drivel so we can bang it in.” You know a bit like taking a lotto ticket.Kris Faafoi: And Paul said yes.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: And Paul said yes. You know there is an old military phrase: “Never volunteer.” And I have got to say that this was pure spin pure bunkum and Mr Goldsmith is right in one thing. The Commerce Committee—Louise Upston: You’re just jealous you didn’t come up with the idea Clayton.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Jealous of Mr Goldsmith? Hell no I have got to say not on this one—and a man who has on his CV the biography of John Archibald Banks. I am told he got sidetracked and that is why this bill is in trouble—because he got sidetracked. He got sidetracked because apparently he is writing the trilogy of John Archibald Banks the penultimate work. I think it is going to be entitledJohn Banks: Looking Through Striped Sunshine—or something like that—FromBehind the Wire or something like that. This will be the final chapter or the penultimate chapter in the career of one John Archibald Banks.But I have to say that when I heard Mr Goldsmith talking about this I heard three words. I heard the words “fleece” “fraud” and “the defendant” and I have got to say that I thought of John Banks again. Mr Goldsmith was quoting ancient legal cases. Mr O’Rourke is a lawyer. He will take up this point I am sure because unlike me he hasgot a legal mind—I am not a lawyer. But there was “fleecing” “fraudulent” activity and “the defendant”. Maybe Mr Goldsmith could answer this question: did the Hon John Archibald Banks act as a consultant in respect of this bill? “Fleecing” “fraudulent behaviour” and “the defendant” I think are three concepts that Mr Banks—I am sure he will take a call at some point—could give us many hours of dissertation on. “Fleecing” “fraudulent behaviour” and being “the defendant”—after all he has been the defendant three times convicted twice and is up on the third strike.Then we look at the bill and it talks about “offer” and “acceptance”. It talks about “offer” and “acceptance”. Sam Lotu-Iiga again a lawyer will know this. He will recall his stage 101 law classes on offer and acceptance. I am just wondering whether Mr Goldsmith as he put this piece of drivel together actually consulted John Archibald Banks. He had the offer he accepted and he is now the defendant. Who got fleeced? I would say it was Dotcom but who knows?I have to say that this bill should have been encompassed in a Statutes Amendment Bill. When it arrived at the select committee it even failed to clear up ambiguities in electronic contract acceptance by not defining when the contract “arrived” at the recipient’s electronic address. That is how much effort and intellectual rigour was put into this legislation. He could not even define the word “arrived”—when an offer and an acceptance have arrived. This is the drivel that was put in place.So I say to Mr Goldsmith who I know is hanging on every word that if he paid John Archibald Banks a consultancy fee to consult on this bill he should ask for his money back. He should ask for his money back because a fraud has been committed because Mr Banks was obviously offering advice—[Interruption] Well maybe he did have a qualification for it actually. Did that advice arrive in a plain brown paper bag? I do not know. So I just say to Mr Goldsmith that surely there is a lesson in here for him. Next time the whips ask for a volunteer I say to Mr Goldsmith do not volunteer because this is drivel. This is absolute drivel. It is wrongly defined badly drafted and I presume it never made its way anywhere near the Clerk’s Office for the assistance that we can obtain in drafting legislation because the Clerk would have looked at this and said: “Oh my God! How do we fix this?”. So it obviously got nowhere near the Clerk’s expertise or any legal mind or any intelligent mind of any kind. It was just hashed together as a bit of political spin that is substandard.I have got to say that I cannot recall the amount of money per hour—maybe the Speaker or somebody else could remind me—that it actually costs to run this place. Mr Goldsmith in his political career has been one who has railed against wasteful expenditure as has Mr Banks even though in his last term as mayor Mr Banks trebled the debt of the Auckland City Council the big spender.Kris Faafoi: He did what?Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: He trebled the debt of the Auckland City Council. I do not know how many dollars how many thousands of dollars it takes to run this Parliament hour after hour but it is a disgrace that we are wasting taxpayers’ money tonight dealing with a political stunt and political drivel which was so badly drafted that the Commerce Committee spent hours trying to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. We did our best. We shovelled behind the elephant. We tried to get something with a semblance of intelligence back into this Chamber wasting taxpayers’ money every hour that we did it. I say to the Government that I look forward to the next speaker who will get up and have a crack at this. If you cannot even define the word “arrived” in your draft legislation that goes before a select committee if you cannot define “offer” and “acceptance” you should not be in this Parliament.I got one member’s bill through. That was the boy-racer stuff. Luckily I had a lot of good sound minds to lean on both in my party in the bureaucracy and in other places.The bill was actually adopted by the Government and got through and hopefully contributed to doing a little bit of good work around the country.But I have to say that this bill is political drivel. This is a political pamphlet. But I have got to say that it is very apt when the owner of the bill the sponsor of the bill John Banks’ biographer gets up and talks about fleecing fraud and the defendant and quotes legal cases then we know he is still under the influence of that very special mind that very special mind in the Parliament John Archibald Banks. He is in the rotten pile one of two including Peter Dunne that props this crew up over there. It is very very telling that this bill deals with offer and acceptance because we know of course that Mr Banks was offered he accepted and got the brown bag and then does not want to admit it and he is going to pay a price for that.So I just say this to the National Party. Fair go. Let us treat the people out there with a bit of respect. They are not numbskulls. They are not stupid. They are intelligent in our communities and they can smell and see bull when it is put before them and this is pretty substandard stuff. Those members over there know that this bill does not make sense and know that it makes very little contribution to the body politic. But I suppose again there is a correlation with Mr Banks in that when he was Minister for Small Business he introduced a piece of legislation that abolished 31 Acts that did not exist—another classic and historic moment in this Parliament. I say to Mr Goldsmith: next time do not volunteer but I will buy a copy of the book when it comes outJohn Banks: Behind the Wire.