Menéndez March RicardoRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. We're very supportive of the Customer and Product Data Bill. The Minister's completely right that this bill does have cross-party support and so this is a welcome opportunity to have constructive conversations at select committee about how we can tackle the issue of the lack of consumers being able to access and in some ways share information that allows them to get more affordable services. I also don't want to pretend that greater competition will be the panacea to systemic issues that mean that for example basic services such as energy are run by entities that ultimately seek to make a profit but it is crystal clear that the current mechanisms in place benefit really really big players and really large corporates that have right now benefited from a system that prevents consumers from actually being able to access the cheapest service available by using available information. This has created a system where basically advocates such as Consumer New Zealand are now running campaigns to support consumers being able to find the correct information about for example what energy provider may actually allow them to access a more affordable service. When it comes to open banking I want to support the Minister's statement that this lays the foundation towards having an open banking system. In the case of New Zealand all that we are doing is following what for example jurisdictions in Australia the UK and Europe have been doing and moving forward to an open banking system. So this is a case of us following other players in the world who have led the way when it comes to these sort of regulations. It is good to see particularly at a time where many of these financial services move their profits overseas to actually have New Zealand not lag behind so much when it comes to other jurisdictions particularly when it comes to Australia where some of those banks end up taking their profits to. So that's a really good thing. I want to again shout out to advocates like Consumer New Zealand and others who have done really important work in highlighting how the lack of access to information plays a huge role in consumers not being able to make informed decisions as to which provider they may want to choose for a range of services that actually may be more beneficial. Because we know that right now when we've got an inequality crisis there are people who are having to choose between the services they access when it comes to a portable banking system or any of the providers and paying their rent. That is something that should never have to happen—certainly should not have to happen because of the lack of systems available for people to have access to information and to then be able to make better decisions. I also want to note that we look forward in the select committee process to the discussions around what was noted by the Productivity Commission in 2021 around indigenous data and the Productivity Commission noted that there is an ongoing policy debate around collective data rights and indigenous data sovereignty and so part of having a consumer protection data regime would mean that we also need to have a closer look around issues relating to how this would interact with Māori data sovereignty and whether this bill is in line with Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Those are just nuances—and important ones—that we need to unpack at the select committee. But in the spirit of cross-party collaboration when it comes to this bill I do hope that those conversations will be constructive. I do also want to note that some of the issues that have arisen that led to the creation of this bill are actually relatively new right? A lot of these conversations are due to emerging technologies and the way that information is now held due to those that perhaps in past decades would have not been the case and they have also been the result of the accumulation of power and resources by a few huge corporations. So in the same way that a lot of these constructs are new we need to be bold and imaginative around how we can move beyond simply competition-led solutions to address the issue about why some basic services are run by companies that seek to make a profit.So the Green Party will continue to push for those broader systemic solutions but at the same time acknowledge that this bill will have benefits for people in their day-to-day lives that will allow them to make better informed decisions that lead to more affordable lifestyle choices when it comes to those products and services of the issues.