Tremain Chris: Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTremain Chris: Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 09 April 2014. Volume:697;Page:17104. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier):My challenge clearly was not taken up by Opposition members which is unfortunate but we gave them the chance. Perhaps tomorrow in the select committees—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Oh yes! Same time same place.Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: —when you have that opportunity again you may choose to sit out on that one Mr Cosgrove but possibly not.The commencement date is really important because it is actually the commencement of another part of the great National Government plan to actually take this country forward. In fact if you think of the four key parts of that plan it is firstly to get the country back into surplus and we are doing that. We are doing that very well. Secondly it is to build a more competitive and productive economy. Well this bill the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill and the commencement date go to the heart of that particular focus of building a more competitive and productive economy. The urgency of getting this bill across the line once it has obviously had the appropriate debate that is needed in this Chamber is very important.Do not forget the third part Better Public Services which we continue to do on a day-by-day basis in this Chamber. The public is now coming up to me and saying “Minister Tremain”—ex-Minister—“the services that we are seeing from our Government sector are absolutely fantastic.”Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Relevance?Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: Do not forget Mr Cosgrove the fourth part of that plan. It is very relevant to your electorate down in the south there rebuilding that beautiful city of Christchurch—that beautiful city of Christchurch.Coming back to that commencement date which is critical and specifically to the second part of that wider Government plan for the economy of building a more competitive economy one of the key parts of that as I spoke about earlier is the information and communications technology strategy and action plan.Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The member has strayed a long way from the commencement clause. In the Committee stage he needs to keep his comments directly to the clause we are debating.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Actually he does. I have been listening and I have to say that less than 15 seconds ago he actually mentioned the commencement date. But I would ask the member to try to focus on the date.Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: Thank you Mr Chair particularly for listening so intently to the points that I was making. What I was getting to and continuing to focus on was that commencement date and the urgency of it once we have had the appropriate debate that needs to happen in this Chamber tonight and possibly over more weeks to get this bill through.What I was really focused on though were the other strategies that we are rolling out particularly in the computing and information and communications technology sector. I want to turn particularly in this regard to other commencement dates in regard to services that are digital by default because these also are other strategies that we are rolling out in conjunction with the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill. In clause 2 “Commencement” it states the Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent. Well these other strategies also have some level of urgency to them as well. If the Committee would like I can go through some of those strategies in some detail. Perhaps the member in the chair Paul Goldsmith could comment on some of these strategies and the relevance of the information and communications technology strategic plan and the commencement date in this bill and how the two wider strategies relate. Yes I agree this is not a silver bullet to taking the economy forward but it is one of the small parts so the urgency of the commencement date is very important.I will leave it at that at this point in time. It is up to one of the other members to expand on the commencement date and the importance of the urgency that we are attributing to it this evening. Thank you.