New Zealand Business Number Bill

on behalf of the Minister for Economic Development: I move, That the New Zealand Business Number Bill be now read a third time. It gives me great satisfaction to support this legislation at the third reading. The New Zealand Business Number is an important part of Result 9 of the Government’s Better Public Services programme, which aims to reform the public sector to provide high-quality, flexible, and cost-effective public services in New Zealand.

I would once again like to thank the Commerce Committee and the submitters for their work on, and contribution to, the changes made to the bill. They will make the bill more effective and ensure that Parliament’s intention is clear. I would also like to express my appreciation for the support received in the House for this legislation.

The purpose of the New Zealand Business Number is to enable easier and more efficient interactions for business in New Zealand. The bill will enable the allocation of the New Zealand business numbers to eligible businesses, corporate and public entities, and to eligible individuals in business, unincorporated entities such as sole traders, partnerships, and trustees of trusts. It will establish the statutory position of Registrar of New Zealand Business Numbers and establish a New Zealand Business Number Register. It establishes rules to enable the access to, and use of, the 23 pieces of primary business data about each entity that will be held in the New Zealand Business Number Register, taking into consideration privacy issues.

The combination of a unique number, a data set, and access to that data results in a New Zealand Business Number ecosystem that will provide savings to businesses, savings to Government, and e-commerce opportunities. Early adopters in the private sector are already finding uses for the New Zealand Business Number in areas such as export documentation invoicing. Some public sector agencies are also adopting the New Zealand Business Number under the current regulatory framework. The full benefits of the New Zealand Business Number will be realised with wide uptake by the public sector.

The more businesses who choose to use the New Zealand Business Number, the more value it will have for other businesses already using it. Similarly, a whole-of-Government approach to using this number is also important. I would like to assure the business community members that there is a plan to implement this legislation. The previous requirement in the consultation draft of the bill for eight business-facing Government agencies to recognise the New Zealand Business Number was removed prior to the bill being introduced, and will be replaced with a set of whole-of-Government directions.

Whole-of-Government directions provide more flexibility to be able to adapt to a rapidly changing environment, and will also provide agencies with more detailed implementation instructions. The proposed directions are more ambitious in both scope and breadth than what was originally proposed in the draft legislation. Consultation with 185 agencies—that is 32 Government departments and 153 Crown entities—took place from July to October 2015, and analysis was undertaken to ensure a fit for purpose implementation plan.

The House will have the opportunity to scrutinise the Government’s plan for the implementation of the New Zealand Business Number across the public sector in the coming months. I commend this bill to the House.

We will be supporting this bill, but we do it with significant reservation. In the Committee stage I moved an amendment to an amendment put forward by Ria Bond from New Zealand First, which was an excellent amendment to ensure that this bill actually delivered on what it promised. It was a sensible amendment, and I believe that my amendment to the amendment made it even more sensible.

Put in plain language, it was a small change to the legislation that would have ensured that the Government does implement this bill as the language in the bill suggests: that the Government makes sure that there is a single number for businesses to deal with Government, so that when businesses come to deal with Government, whether it be with the Immigration Service or with ACC or with the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) or with whoever they want to have to deal with—or might not want to have to deal with, but do—they would have a single number that they could put forward and say: “Look, in my dealings with Government you will find all of my information under this number. Here is the number. Now can we talk?”.

That is what this bill purports to want to do. Unfortunately, from the very start there have been doubts about whether the Government can deliver on this. In the Committee stage that amendment was put forward to test the Government’s mettle—to say: is the Government really committed to achieving this outcome of having a single number for business to deal with the Government? The amendment said that the Government will put this into play in 2 years’ time.

The opportunity, of course, was there for the Government to say: “Look, Mr Clark. You’re being a little unrealistic. Let’s make it 3 years’ time. Or let’s make it 4 years’ time.” But no, the Government rejected it outright. It did not want a time frame around ensuring that this policy was in place. And so what we learnt from that is that a lot of this is window dressing.

The intention is good—the intention is good—that there should be a single number for business to have, to deal with the Government. There is a lot of red tape for business and it does not take a member very long in this Parliament, or very many visits to business, to discover that there is a lot of frustration in dealing with the Government.

The Government talks a big game, but frequently it is inflexible and it introduces red tape. Under this Government we have seen changes around child support legislation that have put additional burdens on employers. We have seen it trying to introduce tax for car-parks and other measures. We know that putting burdens on business is easy; taking it off is hard in the modern world. We agree with the intention, but we share the doubts of the likes of Federated Farmers. Federated Farmers said they were concerned that the list of agencies involved initially did not include WorkSafe, with which, of course, they deal. The list does not include Immigration New Zealand, with which, of course, they deal. They were concerned, equally, that local government may be considered to be brought in under the business number too. But no moves have been made in that regard.

So we are disappointed, on this side of the House, that the Government has not fully committed to this ideal. We understand that behind the scenes, yes, there are some tensions with the IRD, because the IRD is concerned about data security and the failures of the Government, in terms of privacy and information that is important to business and to individuals. We understand that, and yet it is the Government’s problem to solve. It is solely responsible for running Government. Its members are the people who can commit resource and who can commit to talking with the officials to make sure that these problems are ironed out, to make sure that the system is simple, and to make sure that businesses do not have to get tied up in red tape every time they come to Government. But it does not seem willing to do it. And you have to ask why. You have to ask why, ultimately.

It boils down, in my view, to the fact that this Government is more concerned with tilting the playing field towards big business. It does not care about small business. We have seen, year after year, fewer small businesses created under this Government than were created under the last Labour Government. It seems pretty evident from the statistics that the Government is not concerned about the majority of business owners in New Zealand. It talks the talk, but it will not walk it. It will not pass legislation that actually delivers on the promise in this bill. The Government will not even set a time frame. It will not even say: “In 5 years’ time there will be a single number that you have to deal with. We will commit to getting our software upgraded or whatever it takes to make sure that businesses have a simple, straightforward way into Government.” Instead, it says: “We like the idea. We will put it on the never-never.” That is what this bill achieves.

It will probably take a Labour Government to come in and sort this out, dare I say, because I think it will still be a problem in a few years’ time. What is worse is that this will be an additional cost on the Government in the short term. That is something that business will be prepared to wear, if we get to a single number in a reasonable period of time. But, in the interim, businesses will be forced to take on yet another number. And this is something that was warned about in the regulatory impact statement that was put out by Treasury, which the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment worked on, which was put out before the bill even got into the House. The officials knew the problem was there, but perhaps Steven Joyce’s ears were blocked—I do not know. I do not know why he did not hear this advice. I do not know why the Government did not move, behind the scenes, to ensure that the processes would be in place to implement this legislation, to make sure that the Government could deliver on its promise to business to make it easier to deal with the Government. This is a lost opportunity, and we still hope that Government members will find it within themselves to get there, to make sure that there is a single business number within a reasonable frame of time.

Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand told us, in its submission, “that the benefits for businesses may be overstated … [without] prompt and broad integration by government agencies”. What “prompt and broad” means, I do not know. I put forward 2 years; the Government could have said 3 years. But prompt, I think, means getting this done within 5 years, certainly. I would be interested in whether other Government members can outline a time frame in which they expect this business number to come into effect—one that cannot be laughed down in the House. In the meantime, businesses must collect another number—yet another number—to deal with the Government.

So slow implementation across the Government will carry this cost to business. There is no way to avoid that. What could be avoided is this being put on the never-never. The Government can plan towards that. It can plan towards investing in its own infrastructure, to make sure that it has the capacity to deliver on the promise of this bill eventually. I look forward, I hope, in a future bill that comes to this House, to some kind of an indication as to how that is going to be achieved. It may be through the Budget process—all may be revealed. There may be a secret plan going on behind the scenes. There may be hamsters running in the wheels of power, generating a plan to deliver on this bill. I surely hope so, because right now it comes nowhere near. It is only a promise at this stage.

And the problem, too, is if businesses lose faith in the ability of the Government ever to deliver on this, they will hold off on getting that extra number. Businesses will wait, and critical mass will be hard to achieve within the government system also. Officials will be doing two tasks: dealing with the existing business number and with the new business number. So if businesses hold off because they do not have faith that the Government can deliver on this, we have our greatest problem still. So I am hopeful that the Government is working on this behind the scenes to deliver in the Budget a solution to the problem of the business number that it is creating here.

This is a Government that is failing on every front with business. Let us face it: it set itself, in its glorious Business Growth Agenda, a target of getting exports to 40 percent of GDP. It has not come close. It had it at 30 percent—it is going down. It is going down, and it is projected to go down further. This is a Government that is failing on every front. It tried to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership—it went off course. It failed to even ask for protections for our housing, so that we could protect our economic sovereignty to make decisions in the national interest.

This is a Government that is off beam on economic issues. It is failing businesses, and here, in the short term at least, it is adding more red tape to businesses, with the promise that it will go in the longer term. I challenge this Government opposite to put down a time frame in which this will be achieved, and to stump up with the resources to achieve it. Without that, all we are doing here is putting an additional impost on business.

It should be easy for business to deal with the Government. There is no excuse for this dilly-dallying, for this window dressing. The intention is good. We will support the bill but, for goodness’ sake, we would like to see, from the Government, resource and a plan to get us to the single number that is promised in this legislation.

I would like to thank the member who just sat down, David Clark, for supporting this bill. But before I move on to talking about the bill, I would just like to comment on a couple of things. Dr David Clark talked about how he actually supports businesses and how he wants the economy to grow, and I would say one thing to him: support the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

It is great today to see the final passage of this New Zealand Business Number Bill. The New Zealand Business Number simplifies how business can work with Government in an effective and productive way. The New Zealand Business Number is an excellent initiative supporting better business access to Government and the wider agencies. It was a privilege to be part of the consultation process that happened. As chairperson of the Commerce Committee I say we have had submissions and actually heard submissions as well. We worked collaboratively with the members opposite, as well, during the select committee process.

The Commerce Committee considered 14 written submissions and heard only five, but the committee did not recommend any fundamental changes to the policy of making the cost of doing business easier. New Zealand businesses are growing—whether they are in fact small or larger businesses, they are increasing in size, as well as in vigour. We are working to lift our long-term growth rate, and we will help to do this by continuing to diversify and build productivity in the economy.

This House knows that our Government has been working really hard for business, as well as supporting the development of high-quality public services. Our public services must be able to give support to both commercial and sole trading needs. We know that businesses have been asking for an easier way to deal with Government agencies, and this New Zealand Business Number will be providing that. It will be delivering that for businesses.

It is really a pleasure to be able to offer the opportunity to small businesses. Small businesses across New Zealand are the ones with the most to gain from the New Zealand Business Number. Taking up time with bureaucracy is, in fact, a waste of skills as well as resources for hard-working New Zealanders, and this will be reduced through the adoption of the New Zealand Business Number. It will also save businesses about $60 million a year, which will naturally help New Zealand to get rid of some debt and support our local economies, creating more jobs and opportunities for Kiwi families.

A majority of businesses in New Zealand are mum and dad family owned businesses. I mean, a big chunk of the New Zealand economy is actually run by small business operators, and ease of business is something that this Government wants to promote. Ease of business is something that we are delivering for these businesses, through the New Zealand Business Number.

I know that members opposite have sort of suggested that this is just another number; it is not so. It is, in fact, a number that will help to transform our economy. The New Zealand Business Number is a unique identifier provided by the GS1 global standards organisation, which supports wider portability across different agencies and sectors, and will also allow greater access to e-commerce. It is also able to recognise Australian business numbers. So we will be able to do business with much more ease, and, hopefully, better produce greater profits for these businesses.

Businesses are keen and willing to sign up to the New Zealand Business Number, and our Government has acquired 10 million unique identifiers to provide to those businesses. I know that there were concerns raised in regard to Government departments taking and using the New Zealand Business Number, and that is my hope as well. Implementation is something that needs to happen fairly quickly, and I believe that it will. I think the New Zealand Business Number is part of a greater programme of this Government delivering business growth to New Zealand.

The Business Growth Agenda is focused on lifting business confidence and on building strong export markets, building investments, and building innovation. The Business Growth Agenda is a plan from our Government to lift economic performance and support better economic management in this country. The New Zealand Business Number is a great thing for New Zealand and New Zealand businesses. I commend this bill to the House.

You know when the Minister Judith Collins gets up and reads a third reading speech in a very quiet, monotone voice that there is a problem with the bill, and there certainly are some real problems with the New Zealand Business Number Bill. This is a bill that, when it came before the Commerce Committee, had general support across the House. And the more that we teased into it, the more that the submitters came and spoke to us about it, the more we realised how unprepared this Government was and how it had not done the work that needed to be done before a bill such as this was introduced, and the more we realised how deeply flawed it was.

Labour is supporting this bill tonight with very strong reservations. We support it in this third reading because of the intent and because, ultimately, we all agreed in the first reading and at the select committee in the process and that this was, actually, a good idea. We had no idea, though, that this Government had not done the work that it needed to do. And if you want the proof of that pudding, the proof was that in her third reading speech the Minister Judith Collins said that 183, I think, Government agencies were being consulted with around whether or not they would implement the New Zealand Business Number, that that was yet to be determined, and that there was “hope” that would happen in the near future. We heard that word used several times by the member Melissa Lee, who was the chair of the select committee. We heard that word used several times in her speech—around how “hopefully” this New Zealand Business Number will be implemented across the public sector. Well, quite frankly, it is not good enough to bring a bill to the House and say: “Hopefully, the public sector will actually implement it.”

This leads to the main flaws in this bill—the two main flaws that were attempted to be dealt with during the Committee stage by my New Zealand First colleague on the select committee, Ria Bond, and my colleague from the Labour Party David Clark, with the two amendments that were put forward in the Committee stage and were voted down by this Government, which would have dealt with the two issues around the time line and the intention of this bill actually being realised. Unfortunately, sense did not prevail, and I think that is a deep shame because there were opportunities in this bill to make some real change for the business community, for the private sector, and also across the public sector across Government agencies. There have been words used around transforming the economy. Well, there is no evidence that this bill will, in the short to medium term, transform the economy. I think it is going to take another Government being voted in to actually see the realisation of the true intent behind this bill, and I think that is a deep shame because—

💬 Brett Hudson: I think it’d be a deep shame if Labour were voted in, absolutely.

It is a deep shame, and we were told this by numerous submitters. We were told this by the Chartered Accountants, we were told this by Federated Farmers, we were told this by other submitters—that if this bill did not get implemented across the public sector, then it was a sham. And the outcome through this whole process was that the Government could not deliver. I think that is a testament to a Government that really has lost its way, a Government that is not doing the work that it should do before it brings a bill of this substance to a select committee, and a Government that really is not, as my colleague David Clark said, looking out for the interests of small business across New Zealand, is not paying attention, and is trying to introduce something that is actually not going to work in the short term.

We are deeply concerned that the Government has not outlined a clear plan or committed the necessary funds for the bill’s stated purpose to be achieved. I think the Opposition, in good faith, did its best through this process to say that actually this is what the Government needs to do and that we need to have these things in place. But the Government was not listening and is just, as it does with all pieces of legislation—or, you know, 99.9 percent of legislation—railroading it through because it has the numbers on the floor of the House, even though some of the most significant submitters coming before the select committee really had severe concerns.

One of our concerns in the short to medium term is that this is just another number. We heard no convincing reason through this whole process why the IRD number should or could not be adapted to achieve one universal number for interaction with the Government. I do not know whether we have an actual number for how many actual Government departments have committed to the initial roll-out of the New Zealand Business Number, but we heard through the third reading speech from the Minister that there is going to be a plan to implement the legislation through whole-of-Government directions. That is just Government-speak for saying “We did not do the work. We did not do the work and we have to go back and actually consult properly with those different agencies to try to come back with some kind of figure.”

These 183 agencies—surely there should be some direction to those agencies around whether or not they are going to commit to this legislation. This is legislation being, presumably, passed in this House tonight. Why are those Government agencies not being required to commit to that tonight? Why is it going to take an unspecified amount of time for that to happen? What kind of signal does that send to the private sector and to small businesses across New Zealand about whether or not adopting yet another number is going to be effective? What kind of signal does this send to New Zealand about the economy, and the transformation of the economy that this bill is supposed to have the effect of? This bill is a shambles. It should not have been a shambles. It should have gone smoothly through all of its stages, but it did not. It has had stiff opposition from across the House around the substance of the bill and the deep flaws within it, and that is a significant issue.

Labour recognises—absolutely recognises—the need to support businesses by cutting red tape where possible to reduce the cost of business transactions for small businesses, whether they are sole traders, partnerships, trusts, or whatever. But we believe absolutely that this Government has put itself in the position where it cannot deliver on the promise that lies behind this bill, which is why we are giving it only qualified support.

The bill hoped to enable Government to provide more consistent and joined-up services, saving businesses time and enabling greater e-commerce between businesses, and we believe that this bill falls disappointingly short in the short to medium term because the Government has provided no evidence—no evidence—that this will be anything other, in the short to medium term, than just another number. It has sold itself short, and it sold New Zealand short, by not providing a credible time line, by not putting the resources in place, and by not requiring the public sector and all those Government agencies to adhere to what it says is going to transform the economy. This is a disappointing bill.

It is a pleasure to rise in support of the New Zealand Business Number Bill in its third reading. A previous speaker, Dr Clark, showed—it is actually pleasing to see—a very strong interest in small and medium sized business. But, actually, the New Zealand public were asked very recently about what they thought of the Opposition and its plans, and I think the public showed very strongly that they seemed to believe that the quickest and easiest way to massively grow the number of small businesses in New Zealand would be to put Labour in charge of the large ones.

💬 Clare Curran: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a third reading speech, and this is a speech about a Government bill and not about the Labour Party.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am listening carefully to the content, and any relevance is a matter for me to rule on. I am asking Brett Hudson to continue.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I think that was well borne out in the contribution that Dr Clark had to make. Sitting on the select committee, we have seen this bill go through each of the stages and go through the submissions process and advice from officials. When we had the Committee of the whole House, what we saw was, quite frankly, a reckless amendment suggested on the floor, one that would force agencies to have to set aside other business—other technology business; other business work—simply to meet an arbitrary deadline that the Opposition might have liked to place. When I spoke on that, and when I reflected after the Committee of the whole House as we headed into this reading, I first thought: “Is this merely an illustration that the Opposition members do not understand technology?”. It could well be that, but then, on further reflection, I was worried that perhaps it is more symbolic of their not understanding business—that they did not actually grasp what they would be asking public sector agencies to set aside in order that they might meet some arbitrary deadline set by the Opposition.

Just earlier this evening, we were debating the Taxation (Transformation: First Phase Simplification and Other Measures) Bill. This is a tax transformation programme that is going to last for a number of years at the Inland Revenue Department (IRD). The Opposition members would—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

—have the IRD set that aside—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): That is not part of this debate.

—simply to meet the requirements of the amendment that they supported in the Committee of the whole House. So I wondered whether perhaps they simply had not grasped the business, and then it occurred to me that it could be worse. It could actually be the case that because they realised that Parliament, being sovereign, has the right to impose any conditions it chooses upon society, upon individuals, and upon public sector agencies, that just because it could, it would—and it would do so without giving any consideration as to the other business or the other activities that those agencies are obliged to be delivering over the next 1, 2, or even more years. Quite frankly, the amendment and Labour’s amendment to the amendment were not only reckless, they were feckless.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! There is Speaker’s ruling 137/4. You can mention in passing amendments that have been defeated in the Committee of the whole House but you cannot dwell on them at length. So I will ask the member to come back to the content of the third reading speech.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. So what we do have in the House at the third reading is the bill, unamended, which will provide a mechanism for small and medium sized businesses, in particular, to be able to undertake their interactions with the Government in a much more cost and time-effective manner; one that will help them to avoid the troubling and, quite frankly, wasteful exercise of doing things like repeating such basic public information as the nature of your business and the address—that public register of information—not having to repeat that with every agency you deal with if any of that should change, even such as an address if you relocate, and not having to provide that update to every single agency.

This is a very effective and pragmatic bill. I have enjoyed working on it through each of the stages. It does appear as if it will pass in the House tonight, and I commend this bill to the House.

It is my pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party in support of the New Zealand Business Number Bill. I would like to acknowledge the work of the Commerce Committee and the officials in getting the bill to this stage and, in particular, I would like to acknowledge the chair of the select committee, Melissa Lee.

It is nice to be able to see the passage of this bill at last. It is obviously not the longest bill to wend its way through the House, but it has taken over a year now to get to this stage. One of my questions, which I have always held about this, is why it requires an Act of Parliament to be able to issue numbers to trading entities and businesses in New Zealand. It does seem to me quite strange that it actually requires an Act of Parliament for us to pass a law for the Government to say “Here you are. Here’s a number.”, but apparently it does, and so there you have it—we are committed to this course of action. But it does raise a question to me about the extent to which legislation is required to do what seems to be a fairly basic function.

I want to acknowledge that there are a number of concerns that have been raised at all stages of the process that have not been answered entirely adequately by the Government as the bill has wound its way through the process. One of those is the fairly well-worn concern, which previous speakers tonight have spoken on, in relation to the ability of the Government to actually deliver the New Zealand Business Number project to the people whom it is supposed to benefit, and to do so in a manner that is efficient and effective. There is what appears to be a lack of resources that are being provided in order to be able to deliver, once the legislation is passed. So I think that that is a concern that does still need answering.

One of the things that I think we need to do is ensure that, when we have passed this bill and the roll-out starts going, we actually have good methods of monitoring the effectiveness, because often when it comes to these kinds of programmes, these kinds of services, they can end up being of more benefit to the Government than they are to the people whom they are supposed to benefit. So they become a tool of the Government making things more efficient and effective for the Government that actually make things, in many cases, more difficult for the communities that they are supposed to serve. So I would like to know what kind of monitoring is going to be set up as a result of this to see whether this programme is actually delivering what it is supposed to do.

One of the other concerns that was raised at a number of stages was around privacy and data security. There have been a number of reasonably high-profile cases in recent times where the Government has lost data or data has become exposed, and in order to have a business number, obviously, users of it need to provide a reasonable amount of personal information. Again, we would need to know what kind of monitoring systems are in place to ensure not only that the system is being delivered effectively but also that users’ data is safe and provided for.

Having said that, there are a number of benefits here—they have been fairly well trotted out in terms of the cost of doing business, of interacting with Government services, and having to reregister and have different registration processes with different agencies, and so on. So that set of benefits is, obviously, why the Green Party is supporting this bill—because it will make business interactions with the Government more efficient and fast, or it is certainly intended to. It does provide the opportunity to harmonise more effectively with Australia, which is, obviously, very important to us and very important to businesses that trade with Australia.

But I just wanted to focus for a minute on some of the opportunities—some of things that actually have not been spoken about either in the regulatory impact statement or in the business case that the Government put forward when it tabled the bill in the first place. These are things, I think, that would be well worth exploring. The first is the opportunity to use this to assist with the Government’s big data set about trading enterprises and businesses in New Zealand. So having set up a unique identifying number and developed a trading relationship with not just limited liability companies but also trading entities of all sorts across the country, we should be able to get a much better picture than we currently do—and I say we should be able to get a much better picture than we already have—of the size and nature of New Zealand businesses and trading organisations. That, in itself, will become incredibly valuable in terms of the Government’s ability to shape services to those different sectors.

I just wanted to use the example of that little Wellington-based company Xero, which is currently doing the accounts for most of the planet, and its ability, from that position, to be able to aggregate data to build up a very sophisticated picture about the nature of business and of trade in New Zealand and around the world. It actually has better data than the Government does, because, of course, it is doing the books for most of these organisations, or a very large number of these organisations. I know that the business number programme is not designed specifically to do that, but it does create the mechanism to enable that kind of big data collection and analysis later on. So I think that is an opportunity that we want to explore here.

The second, which I have mentioned before, is the opportunity to try to use this to cut down on fraud and zombie companies, which is a large and growing problem—the idea that people, in many cases small trades organisations, will simply shut down their business rather than pay the bills and then reopen under another name in order to get out of paying bills, and they will do this repeatedly. I get this a lot as I travel around the country, that people in business are constantly frustrated by this phenomenon, and there is not an easy way of dealing with it. One of the opportunities—again, not explicitly provided for in the legislation—that this may enable is the opportunity for us to have that one-to-one relationship with these trading enterprises and to use that to be able to cut down on instances of fraud and zombie companies, which are operators that are shutting down and then starting up without paying the bills from their previous entity. That is a second opportunity that I think we want to explore, having set up this programme.

The third opportunity that I think this provides is the ability to create aggregate services. In New Zealand, large companies will have access to things like deals on cheaper petrol for company cars; they will have insurance deals, health insurance; they will be able to get bulk discounts on materials; and so on and so forth. Actually, the vast majority of enterprises in New Zealand, which are very small operators, do not have the scale to be able to tap into these kinds of deals. So the companies that are least able and most vulnerable actually are the ones that end up paying the higher prices, and it is the larger companies that have got the resources that pay the lower prices. I think being able to form this one-to-one relationship with all of these enterprises and trading organisations around the country does provide the opportunity to create aggregate services for very small micro-enterprises and so on, which otherwise would not be able to have access to them.

Finally, I think one of the obvious things here is that we already have business numbers in place for most of our companies in New Zealand, or many companies in New Zealand—limited liability companies, and so on—and all this really does is simply extend the same service, in many ways, to other organisations like social enterprises, State sector organisations like schools and district health boards, non-profits, charity shops, and so on, freelancers, and sole traders who are not covered by the other programme, and so the idea that actually everyone, no matter their trading form, will be able to interact with the Government in the same way and on an equal footing is a good one.

In conclusion, it is odd that it needs legislation to issue a number. There are some concerns that I do not think were addressed adequately as the bill passed its passage through the House. I do think that the bill does have the promise of many benefits and some unexplored opportunities, and so the Green Party is pleased to be able to support this bill in its final reading. Thank you.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take this third call in the House tonight on the New Zealand Business Number Bill, which is, for the National-led Government, a very important piece of legislation that seeks to promote innovation and business. New Zealand First supports the intent of this bill, which is primarily to enhance the Government’s initiatives aimed at achieving Better Public Services result No. 9: to achieve better business commitment by reducing the business costs from effort in dealing with Government by 25 percent by 2017. It aims to reduce the businesses’ red tape for eligible entities, and it also aims to increase or lift the productivity of businesses, so, therefore, there is less time stuck on the phone trying to make contact with Government agencies and more time spent working in their businesses, especially for sole traders who work not only in their business but also on their businesses, as often they are the only ones who are actually within their business. And it also, ultimately, aims to increase the cost savings to businesses.

I am disappointed in the National Government members across the House who took calls in the Committee of the whole House on this bill, because a good amount of content on talking to this bill was merely—well, it was simply a mechanical delivery, with very few impressive details coming out of the calls. That showed that those members did not fully understand the total effects of this bill and did not understand why my amendment would have helped to assist the Government to incorporate those Government agencies to adopt the New Zealand Business Number Bill. That showed the lack of care for ensuring that legislation set down in this House is fit for purpose, and the intent of this bill, particularly, could have been achieved with my amendment.

I want to say that I noted that in her opening statement tonight Minister Judith Collins mentioned the fact that the Government does not have complete buy-in from the nine agencies that are required to actually adopt the process to interact with the aim and intent of this bill. I just want to add that that is still putting the cart before the horse, because what the Minister failed to give this House, and New Zealanders who are actually in business in this country, was a time frame by which the agencies would be required to come into line and adopt the system so it can be interactive and it can actually aim to complete the intent of this bill and not just become another wasted resource.

What this Government failed to do, in all of its members’ calls taken in this House, was to back itself. It also failed to back small to medium sized enterprises. It failed to back sole traders. It failed to back trusts and incorporated societies. And that in itself showed the absolute failure to back its very own Government agencies, and to say that this was, indeed, a good, sound bill that would achieve its intent and purpose. It was simply a farce.

Let us remember that, during my Committee call—and I do understand, Mr Assistant Speaker, that you have given a ruling to remind us that we cannot dwell too much on what is lost—I provided the Government support for this bill from my amendment. It amended clause 28, which reads: “Government agencies may use NZBN”. For me, it was quite simple to change that clause to “Government agencies must use NZBN”. I knew when I introduced that amendment to the Committee that not all 880 agencies would be able to pick that up. I knew that and I understood that. The rationale for my amendment was to help assist the Government and Government agencies to become part of the single portal system, if that use is in accordance with the purposes of this legislation. Dr David Clark amended my amendment to provide the grace of time to allow the Government agencies to become part of the successful implementation of this bill.

Let us remember that when the Government originally presented this bill to the House, the intent of this Government was to have all of the Government agencies included in this business number roll-out—it would be mandatory. New Zealand First asks why this was removed from this bill. The only answer that I can see clearly is that this bill was poorly drafted, and, glaringly, the Government did not understand the financial risk to its own Government agencies. The reason that, fundamentally, the Government has failed to ensure its own agencies are kept up to speed at the administration and IT level is it has continually underfunded core expenditure to ensure robust, clean, efficient systems are regularly maintained. That should have been a strong focus, and that really is the fundamental reason why, all of a sudden, clause 34 was stripped from this bill.

Mandatory participation by the Government agencies should be required, to ensure that the New Zealand Business Number does not become just another number, another business overhead, from another bill that has unintended consequences in inequality to entities and not Government agencies. Secondly, it makes me question whether the Government was muscled by its own agencies to pull them out of the business number process. Did it bow to pressure? Was that why clause 34 was actually stripped from this bill? I say that that is embarrassing. I say that that is actually really embarrassing for this Government, if that was the case. There is a formidable saying in the business world: “The devil is in the detail”. I can assure you that, from this side of the House, we are getting used to this National-led Government doing the exact opposite—the exact opposite—and not understanding just how devilish the detail is, like in this poorly constructed bill.

We heard from various submitters, one of them being Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, which opposed the clause being removed for the very reasons that I have already alluded to in both my second reading speech and the Committee of the whole House stage. It said that the benefits for businesses may be overstated. As a former businesswoman myself, I speak first-hand of the neglect this National-led Government has inflicted on small to medium sized businesses and sole traders, which make a significant contribution to our economy. That is no secret, and members of this House know this too.

We have heard in this House that for a period of time businesses have been asking for a more streamlined, secure, easier process with which to interact with Government agencies, and this bill goes part-way to allowing that. This bill is widening up the scope of catchment by including small to medium sized enterprises, sole traders, incorporated societies, and trusts. I go back to the fact that New Zealand First supports the intent of this bill, but without mandatory participation by Government agencies this bill will become another problematic one, and we may be here again in a year’s time amending this bill again.

I would also like to say that during the Minister’s speech earlier, she mentioned that the agencies will be required within a length of time to hook into the system again. New Zealand First wants an answer: when will that be? Because a piece of string is quite long. How many times are we to see in the 51st Parliament, or have we seen already, unintended consequences like zero-hour contracts, retrospective discoveries like paying back beneficiaries, increased red tape—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Come back to the bill.

OK, Mr Assistant Speaker. Too many times we have seen the 51st Parliament amend Acts that have not been fit for purpose. This National-led Government has had so many instances of poor administration that I have actually lost count of how many times we have had to do this. Just take the news this morning of confidential medical records being found scattered across a Christchurch street. That is more embarrassment—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is not part of the bill.

OK. On one hand, this Government expects thousands of owner-operator businesses—in places like Invercargill, where I come from—to upgrade their administration and IT systems to fit in with the New Zealand Business Number. The Government itself, on the other hand, has removed clause 34, which ensured that all Government agencies participated in the New Zealand Business Number process. I speak to constituents in Southland on a daily basis who are fed up with this Government’s neglect, and I wholeheartedly agree with those constituents who tell me that this Government has an inability to really listen and to ensure that legislation that we progress in this House is fit for purpose and not a cost to businesses.

I know it is simply not achievable, as I said earlier, to have all 880 Government agencies participate and adopt the New Zealand Business Number and to hook up into the online system. I know that, and I knew that through the Committee of the whole House stage. The riddle in this particular bill, for me, is that when the Government introduced the New Zealand Business Number Bill to the House, it actually had clause 34 inside of it. Those provisions meant that it would be mandatory for all Government agencies to participate in this bill.

If Government agencies are so ill-prepared for the New Zealand Business Number that they are granted voluntary participation, as the Minister clearly spoke to earlier, with unplanned time frames, I ask how it is fair to small and medium sized enterprises that they are being forced into mandatory compliance within 28 days of the Royal assent. Enterprises like taxi operators, like dairy owners, like sharemilkers, like hairdressers, and like independent midwives—how is this bill fair for those sectors?

In closing, New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill, for of all the reasons I have stated here tonight. It is not going to reduce red tape. It will delay significant recognition of the benefits to businesses using this bill. Thank you.

I am actually very pleased to take a call on the New Zealand Business Number Bill. I want to stress that, because actually the speech we have just heard was all about a failed amendment that did not come to pass, which has nothing to do, of course, with the third reading. I also take a little bit of umbrage at the member who has just been speaking, Ria Bond, in saying that the National Party has been taking rather short calls that are not very good at all. That is quite ironic, seeing that I am not reading from prepared speech notes but am actually just prepared to speak on the bill; nor am I launching into major ad hominem attacks on the Government.

This is actually a remarkably simple bill, which is why, from this side, we are not taking an egregious amount of time to discuss it. Ultimately, it is about making business interaction with Government easier. We have heard a lot of talk about Government agencies trying to deal with Government agencies. This is fundamentally one of the points of the Business Growth Agenda, which the Government has clearly outlined and is now clearly delivering and that will make it easier for businesses to—

💬 Todd Barclay: Fundamental.

Yes, fundamental, actually, as one of my colleagues—in fact, the fine member for Clutha-Southland, Todd Barclay—is saying. It is actually fundamental to good business—that is, easy engagement, through the New Zealand Business Number, particularly with Government agencies but, of course, business to business. As we have heard from some people, it is also for New Zealand businesses to link in with Australian businesses.

It is a simple bill. It has been very well accorded and very well looked after in the Commerce Committee, under the leadership of Melissa Lee. I was going to say that I was pleased it had the support of the whole House—we even had the Greens on board, and, actually, I do thank James Shaw for his contribution; I thought that was worthwhile. I am disappointed but not surprised in New Zealand First. But good things take time—they will come on board.

Again, it is a simple bill. I commend it to the House but also, importantly, I commend it to New Zealand businesses to sign up. Thank you very much.

It is with a sense of irony that I note that the member Simon O’Connor stood up and criticised the New Zealand First member Ria Bond for an excellent speech that she gave because she read a prepared statement but spoke for 10 minutes—I think it was a very enlightening speech—when the member himself stands up, says absolutely nothing, and sits down after 3 minutes.

💬 Kris Faafoi: Was it 3?

Was it 3 or was it 2½? There is a word beginning with “h” that we are not allowed to use in this House, but I think that everyone knows what it is.

There is absolutely no doubt that making it easier for businesses to deal with Government departments and Government agencies, etc., is a very admirable outcome. It is a very admirable outcome, and if we can achieve that it would be fantastic, but one thing that I would say is that simply saying it will happen does not mean that it will happen. Simply putting a piece of flawed legislation in does not mean it will happen. The thing about this Government that I am increasingly seeing is that it does not walk the walk. It talks the talk: those members come in here and say “We’re business-friendly, we want to cut red tape, we want to make things easier for businesses to get on with Government, and we want to make the interaction easier.” But it is just not happening.

We had a bill here that was supported by every political party, but there was a problem in that bill. The problem in that bill was that companies were required to do something, but Government departments were not. When that happens, the trust that needs to be built up between business and Government will just not happen. Ria Bond and Dr David Clark put forward a very helpful suggestion that said “Hey, do you know what, we understand what this bill is trying to achieve; we understand the necessity, actually, of making it easier for businesses to deal with Government”, because in this day and age things move at such a pace that if the information flow is in real time, then I believe it will make it easier.

The tax department is right—the Inland Revenue Department is spending $1.3 billion on something called business transformation. It is a system that is going to make it—I hope and I believe—a lot easier for taxpayers to fill in tax returns and interact with the Inland Revenue Department. It is what we need in the 21st century. But if a bill like this is put in place and there is no time frame or there is no requirement for Government agencies to aptly implement this, then why would business do it? Why would business say: “OK, I can see a benefit here but the Government cannot see a benefit.”? It has got to be a two-way process. One of the absolute privileges of being in this House is passing legislation that can make things easier for everyone. This bill could have done this—it could have done it. It is a real missed opportunity, and it is such a shame.

In my experience, there are three variables that businesses like to operate with, whether it is supply, whether it is in the private sector, whether it is the Government sector, whether it is domestically, or whether it is overseas. One of these variables is that they have got to build up trust. That is, the supplier, or the customer, or the client has got to do what they say they are going to do. The second thing is integrity. This comes down to the honesty of process. Trust is a subset of integrity, but it means slightly different things. It is slightly more than “I say what I am going to do”; it is: “You can trust my people, you can trust the processes, I am a good taxpayer, I do what I say I am going to do, but also, I get things done and let’s work together in a constructive way.” The third one is transparency.

There is no point in introducing a bill like this, and taking up the time of the House—I hope that we are not boring you, Mr Barclay; I see you yawning in the back there, but as a young pup you could actually learn some stuff about this. I would suggest that when that member goes and talks to the businesses in his electorate—because he cannot talk to them out of experience, because he has none—he actually asks businessmen and businesswomen what they want from Government. As opposed to saying “We know what you want.”, how about you ask them: “What would you like?”. I will tell you what those businesses would like—because I have worked in a number of businesses, large and small—they will say: “Let us have a two-way relationship.”

This is what businesses actually want: they actually do want to interact with Government. Believe it or not, they want their tax to be easy, they want red tape cut, and they do not want to be sitting at the dining room table at 10.30 at night angsting over GST. If we can make it easier for businesses—and we have the potential to do this—then it will deliver the $60 million worth of savings or reductions in compliance costs. But when we put out this sort of bill, which says “Businesses, you have got to do this.”, but there is no time frame for the Government to do it, then all businesses do is go: “This is just another number. This is just another piece of compliance. This is just something else that the Government is throwing at me.”

So instead of having the desired effect of reducing compliance, what it actually does is it increases compliance. Instead of having the effect of saying “Wow, the Government has come out with something that I get; this is 21st century engagement.”, all it does is makes them say: “Oh, goodness me—more information that the Government is going to collect about my business; more information that I am going to have to duplicate.” So it actually has the opposite effect of what the intention is. And that is a real shame—it is a real shame because this is the third bill that I have spoken on tonight where the Government had the opportunity to actually get it right, and in three out of three bills it has missed it.

I will tell you why I think this is the case: I think after 8 years it has sort of lost touch. It has become arrogant and has lost touch with what middle New Zealand wants. It has lost touch with what really drives business. It happens. Do not worry about it, it happens after 8 years. It happened to the Clark Government, it happened to the Bolger Government, and it is happening to the Key Government. After 8 years you forget to go to business, you forget to go to your key stakeholders and actually ask them what they would like to see, and you believe that you have got all the answers—you believe that, as a Government, you know the answers and you can go to business and say: “See, this is what you want.” Well, I can tell you, Government, you have actually got it wrong. All you have done is create compliance for businesses when you had the opportunity to reduce compliance.

When I look at the risk profile in the—

💬 Kris Faafoi: The regulatory impact statement.

—the regulatory impact statement, the RIS—thank you, Mr Faafoi—it talks about reducing compliance costs. That is the aim: “reduces costs to business government by enabling fewer, more accurate business-to-business and business to Government transactions.” I do not think that there would be anyone in this House who would disagree with that aim. It is fabulous, it needs to happen, and it is what 21st century information technology should be able to deliver. What the regulatory impact statement does say, which is quite surprising, is: “However, these benefits are not quantifiable, as the NZBN is an enabler of opportunities, it does not deliver these opportunities.”

So what this basically says is that before any business is going to take this up they have got to see value. They have got to be able to see value and say: “OK, I am going to go through this process proactively”—because it will take a bit of time and they are going to need to access websites and put in information—“because I see a significant amount of value.” But what I can say, and what I would like to reiterate, is that if the Government departments that a business liaises with are not part of this, then the business will not see value. If a business has to have duplicate communications with different Government agencies, then this is defeating the point of what this bill is trying to achieve. I guarantee that within the first 12 months of a Labour-led Government, we will be going out to business and saying: “Hey, you know what? The intent of this bill was right; let us put it right in legislation.”

This bill came to the House with good intentions. It came to the select committee with good intentions. New Zealand First and Labour were trying to work with the Government, with good intentions, to get this right, but because the Government knows best, because it has become arrogant and it has lost touch with what the market actually wants, we are now delivering a product that I very much doubt will get much uptake from business at all. This is another missed opportunity by a Government that is now out of touch and has forgotten how to ask the question: “How can we help you?”. Instead, what it is doing now is saying: “We know best; this is what you want.” That is the wrong approach to legislation. I think this is a missed opportunity, and that is a real shame. Thank you very much.

I stand in support of the New Zealand Business Number Bill in its third reading. The previous speaker, Stuart Nash, was just mentioning that this Government is out of touch. I can assure you that this Government is working at ground level and we are listening to businesses, and that is why we brought this legislation in. I think that member, for whom I have got a bit of respect, should go out and talk to the people. That party has been totally out of touch for a long time, and I do not see any light—where the Labour Party will be in power—for a long time. And looking at the recent polls, I think you are dreaming.

💬 Darroch Ball: Arrogance—arrogance!

Yes, I am coming to that side. It is not arrogance, New Zealand First. Your leader is better than their leader, so you can have some credit for it, I think. This bill—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: We thought you were better than that, Bakshi.

Sorry? [Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

💬 Hon Members: Nasty. Nasty member.

Who is a nasty—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I want to hear what the member is saying. There is too much barracking across the benches.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. As has been mentioned earlier, this bill will help businesses to cut red-tapeism. They have to give their details once and then, if they have to change, it is only once that they have to do it. But all other agencies can access those details for the business. With these words, I support this bill.

It is an absolute pleasure to take the final call for Labour on the New Zealand Business Number Bill, and to bring together some of the arguments that my colleagues have made during this final reading.

I do want to address some of the comments made by the previous speaker, Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, and the fact that he believes his side of the House is not out of touch. Well, I think that if you put this piece of legislation together with an earlier piece of legislation that we were debating around GST you will find that this Government is increasingly out of touch with the likes of small to medium sized businesses. If you were a small business and you wanted the full effect of this piece of legislation, then you would want to see the kinds of changes that were proffered by Dr David Clark and by Ria Bond from the New Zealand First Party put into this piece of legislation at the Committee stage. They were not. If you were watching earlier from home about the GST taxation bill, you would want to make sure that the tangible products that are being bought overseas were tackled by this Government, and GST put on that. But this Government is not willing to do that. It is not willing to support small businesses and put GST on those products. So this Government is becoming increasingly out of touch with the likes of small to medium sized businesses.

I think that the legislative process that we have in this House is a good one. We start with a first reading, and then, through those various stages, a piece of legislation is meant to get better. It is meant to get better at the select committee because the public and businesses and organisations and political parties can have input into that process to make changes that, hopefully, all parties in this House can agree to. So we get through the select committee process into the second reading stage and the Committee of the whole House, where different parties and individual members can put forward changes, amendments, SOPs—a Supplementary Order Paper, in parliamentary language—to make things better. But what we have here is a piece of legislation that started out with great promise but has actually got worse during the parliamentary process.

The big question I want to ask is: what happened to clause 34? What happened to clause 34? It was there in the first reading, and it gave a mandate for all Government departments to use and prioritise the New Zealand Business Number, but somewhere along the process clause 34 went missing. The Government bottled out. It said: “We want to back this New Zealand Business Number, so we are going to make all Government departments use it.” That was the essence of clause 34, but that went mysteriously missing after the select committee process, quite simply because the Government said “We want to do this.”, and then it realised “Actually, we can’t do this. We can’t do it because, actually, we’re not ready for this.”

So we are going to get ourselves into a farcical situation where the Government has introduced this New Zealand Business Number to make things more efficient for businesses out there, but we may have some businesses actually having to have two numbers, making things tougher and creating more red tape for businesses. Not only will they probably have to have an Inland Revenue Department (IRD) number, with which they will deal with the IRD, as per usual, but they may also have to have a New Zealand Business Number. So the whole premise of this piece of legislation, to have one individual identifying number for businesses, could be out the door because this Government is not backing itself, is not backing those Government departments, and is not properly resourcing those Government departments to make sure that this business number can be rolled out around all the relevant departments, and so it can actually be of use to small and medium sized businesses.

Of course I would say that, because I am biased. I am on this side of the House. But, hold on. The Government was warned about this by the officials at the very beginning of the process. But do not take my word for it. I will read from the last paragraph of the opening page of the regulatory impact statement: “A second issue for the success of the NZBN”—we all want that; you want that; we want that; we’re going to vote for it; but I do not think it is going to happen—“is ensuring that there is an efficient and rapid uptake of the number by businesses and state sector agencies.” That sounds pretty common-sense. If you are going to introduce a number, make sure that Government departments use it and businesses use it. “This is needed to build momentum for infrastructure development and private investment in commercial opportunities.” And here we go: “A potential conundrum arises if agencies ‘wait’ for all businesses and, conversely, if businesses ‘wait’ for the agencies. 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.” That is official-speak. That is from the advisers to the bill. In English that is saying that if we do not get the Government departments ready to use the number in an effective and broad enough manner, so that sufficient businesses pick up the New Zealand Business Number, we think the New Zealand Business Number could be a waste of time, ineffective, and make things harder for the very people whom we want to help.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Sounds like a Labour Party meeting.

Ha, ha! You just keep eating your slops. Ha, ha! It reminds me of the kind of legislation you support and the answers you give at question time. He is still smiling from the slops. You just keep eating your slops. Ineffective, just like that Minister; hopeless, just like that Minister; and not willing to be rolled out—we wish he was rolled out.

This piece of legislation started with good intentions. Labour supported this legislation and thought it would get better during the process. But it has actually got worse. So a big message to those out there, those small business owners and medium business owners whom this Government says it is working for—well, it started but did not finish the job. So all that hard work the Government said it was going to do for you—to make your life easier, to save you money—could be absolutely ineffectual because this Government bottled out. Again, where is clause 34—the very important clause 34?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): It is not in the bill. We can only talk about those things—

Well it is not there, because they took it out.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We are on a third reading debate. I have mentioned this previously. We are talking about what has been reported back from the Committee of the whole House, back to the third reading. I would ask members to concentrate on the content of a third reading debate and what has been reported back from the Committee of the whole House. And that also refers to amendments; I gave a ruling on that earlier.

Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker.

This bill could have been better if the Government had taken on amendments from Ria Bond and David Clark that would have essentially reinserted a clause that was there at the beginning of the process, but is not there now. It would have put pressure on Government departments to take up this business number, to make sure that they were offering it to as many of the people as possible who interact with those Government departments, so that they could get the benefits of the number. The legislation that we have got now does not have that in it. And I think it is weaker for it because now there is no mandate, no pressure on those Government departments, to say: “Look, the Government has introduced this number. The pressure is on us to get people out there signed up, so we can get the benefits of this.” And quite good benefits were offered up at the very beginning of this legislative process. I think there was around a $60 million benefit to people—individuals and businesses out there—which is not an insignificant amount of money that could have been redirected into giving people pay rises, because they have not seen one of those for a while, or into creating some jobs, because that has not happened for a while. But no—we do not think that entire $60 million is going to be realised, because the Government has bottled out.

So let me put this in very plain English, for those people who are listening. This could have been better. It started off very well. But the Government did not back itself and, therefore, has not supported those small and medium sized businesses, to make sure that this piece of legislation, which at the very beginning of the process had wide and broad support, could be effective. The Government will congratulate itself on passing this piece of legislation, but it is only any good if it is effective—and it is not. It could have been better. This Government says that it backs small and medium sized businesses, but in this case it has not.

I think that is another example of how this Government has got out of touch with the very people whom it says it supports.

E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua, tēnā koe, tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema o Te Whare.

[Acknowledgments to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to all you members of the House.]

In speaking in this third reading debate on the New Zealand Business Number Bill, I want to say that it is a very fine bill—contrary to what the member who has just resumed his seat, Kris Faafoi, has said. The New Zealand Business Number Bill will save New Zealand businesses—small, medium, and large enterprises—up to $60 million. That is a significant saving to those businesses and one that only a National-led Government could deliver, as we know from the turpitudes they suffered at the hands of the Labour regime in years gone by.

A significant part of this bill is giving interoperability with our trans-Tasman trading partners, so a New Zealand business number will be able to operate in Australia and an Australian business number will be recognised here. There will be mutual recognition. This is very important in the modern economy where we have disruptive technology and small start-ups taking advantage of the ability to operate across borders, particularly in the electronic commerce space.

It is a fine bill. It has been well considered by the Committee of the whole House, as well as the Commerce Committee. I want to commend the members of the select committee; the chair, Melissa Lee; the deputy chairman, Brett Hudson—the very fine member from Ōhāriu—and also the Minister for Economic Development, the Hon Steven Joyce, who introduced the bill. I commend the bill to the House.