Goldsmith Paul: Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoldsmith Paul: Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 15 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:9991. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): It does fill me with pleasure and gratitude to know that the Greens are offering to support this bill the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill as they did support me in the campaign during the election in Epsom. It is nice to recall some of those moments of bipartisanship which I hoped to carry on when I got into Parliament. I know the Greens did very well.This debate has indeed focused on the question of when exactly an electronic communication is received by the offeror. Is it when he or she opens an email in his or her in-box or when it arrives in the server if there is a gap between the arrival in the server and when it is in the in-box and similarly for text messages? Mr Mallard way back when this bill was first brought to the House was very strong on that point. I do defer to Mr Mallard on matters of criminal law given his personal experiences there but on matters of commercial law I am not so sure. So I just want to say that it may well be that it is best to include a definition of “receipt” in the legislation. Certainly it is my expectation that receipt refers to the arrival of an email or a text in the in-box rather than when the email or text is opened up. That would seem the logical way because it might be months—as indeed my colleague Mr Graham suggests—after they receive the email before it is actually opened.However this matter is not as simple as it seems. There was the episode in February this year for example when Telecom cancelled the passwords of more than 60000 Yahoo XTRA email accounts because it believed that they had been compromised by a cyber-attack. Those people could not access their accounts for a few days though presumably emails had arrived in the server and perhaps in the in-box but they could not be accessed. So it may well be that it is best not to be too prescriptive in the legislation. I have had a few comments from legal practitioners on the topic and suggestions on how it may best be achieved and I think the best thing to do is to send this bill off to the select committee to consider precisely how we deal with the question of receipt.Some members have been so unkind as to suggest that this bill is rather minor in its ambition and perhaps not befitting a politician of such promise but it is a small step and every little bit helps. This bill is about maintaining that intricate latticework of the rule of law that holds up and sustains capitalism in this country. It is a small piece and on that basis I am very pleased that we have the support of the Greens and New Zealand First. I am shocked and dismayed that the Labour Party members do not see fit to even send it to the select committee to consider further but that may perhaps reflect their rather negative mindset at the moment. Given the Budget that is coming tomorrow and the good story that this Government has I am not surprised that they are a little bit lost like sheep without a shepherd. But we will hear more about that tomorrow. Coming back to this bill I am very pleased that it has such widespread support within the House. It will continue to maintain grow and sustain contract law which is so essential to this economy continuing to grow. Thank you very much.