Electronic Interactions Reform Bill

I move, That the Electronic Interactions Reform Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Government Administration Committee to consider the bill. This bill is a cross-agency omnibus bill that contains proposals from the Department of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and the Department of Conservation. It amends and modernises 17 pieces of legislation to help enable digital interactions between individuals, business, and government.

Providing digital services that make it easier for individuals and businesses to interact with government is a core part of delivering Better Public Services. I should report to the House that good progress is being made. We are on track to meet the Better Public Services Result 10 target of ensuring that 70 percent of New Zealanders’ most common transactions with Government are completed in a digital environment by the end of 2017.

Internationally, New Zealand’s efforts in the digital area have been noticed. New Zealand was a founding member of a global network called the Digital 5 (D5), a group of countries committed to leading the way in providing digital services to their citizens. The other members of the D5 are the United Kingdom, Estonia, South Korea, and Israel. Earlier this year, in recognition of the progress that New Zealand has been making in this area, I was invited to give the annual lecture to the digital leaders network at the House of Commons in London.

But we need to maintain and build on this momentum, so work is under way on innovative ways to improve delivery of public services. This includes developing integrated services so a customer can easily access services from the different agencies that they need to deal with when they have a significant life event, such as having a child. Another area being explored is using information the Government holds to proactively deliver services for which citizens are eligible. Although it is hard to accurately predict technology trends and how people will interact with government in the future, we do know that New Zealanders want services that are easy to access, convenient, and tailored to their individual needs.

To deliver public services in digitally innovative ways we need to ensure that our legislation governing service provision is fit for purpose in a modern digital context. This bill helps put those legislative conditions in place and complements portfolio-specific programmes to futureproof legislation. The bill amends legislation related to the services provided by the three participating agencies. These changes will help make a tangible difference by allowing New Zealanders to choose to interact with Government services in a fully digital way when previously they have had to use paper forms or front up in a Government office.

Under changes related to the functions performed by the Department of Internal Affairs, the bill will amend the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 1995, the Marriage Act 1955, the Civil Union Act 2004, and the Electronic Identity Verification Act 2012. Currently, individuals are required, under some of this legislation, to complete a statutory declaration in front of an authorised witness when applying for various services, such as getting married, entering into a civil union, registering a name change, or becoming a marriage celebrant for some types of organisations. These legislative requirements presently prevent New Zealanders accessing such services in a fully digital way.

Therefore, amendments to the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Act, the Marriage Act, and the Civil Union Act will allow individuals to apply electronically without completing a statutory declaration. For example, clause 21 of this bill amends section 23 of the Marriage Act to allow information on a notice of intended marriage to be verified electronically. Allowing alternative means to verify the information on applications for these services will enable a large number of transactions to be completed digitally. In 2015, for example, there were over 32,000 applications for these services.

Additionally, the amendments to the Electronic Identity Verification Act will allow consent-based use of the electronic identity photograph, which is collected as part of the application process for a RealMe verified identity. This will be allowed when an organisation needs a verified photograph of an individual, such as when issuing a photographic licence. Currently, the electronic identity photograph cannot be used for such purposes, even when the individual consents to its disclosure. Instead, they commonly need to provide a separate physical photograph. So this change will support the development of convenient digital services between individuals and organisations without undermining the voluntary premise of the Government-operated RealMe service.

The bill’s changes also provide protections to help ensure that the electronic identity photograph is used appropriately. For example, clause 38 amends section 62 of the Electronic Identity Verification Act to ensure that it is an offence to improperly access or use the photograph. The bill also amends 11 Acts relating to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. These Acts, which include the Commerce Act 1986, the Copyright Act 1994, and the Fair Trading Act 1986, relate to commerce and consumer affairs. Currently, provisions in these Acts require individuals or businesses to appear before Government agencies for a range of interactions. This requirement presently prevents the use of electronic communications, such as an audio or a video link, to conduct these interactions remotely.

The amendments to these Acts, such as clause 44, which amends section 98 of the Commerce Act 1986, will provide flexibility over current requirements to front up in person when both the individual and the agency agree. This provides an opportunity to make these interactions more convenient and run more efficiently. Other provisions in these Acts do not expressly allow for the sending of notices electronically, and this restricts the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment—along with other agencies with commerce and consumer regulatory functions—from using email to communicate with business and individuals.

Amendments to these Acts, such as clause 53, which amends section 139 of the Copyright Act, will expressly allow certain types of notices to be provided electronically. This will support more timely communications and, in situations where it is difficult to find a person’s physical or postal address, will help ensure individuals and organisations receive the information they need when dealing with the Government.

Finally, under changes related to sports fishing and game hunting activities, the bill will amend section 26Z of the Conservation Act 1987 and section 19A of the Wildlife Act 1953. The changes in clauses 82 and 88 of the bill will ensure that sports fishing and game hunting licence holders entitled to vote in Fish and Game Council elections can vote online if they wish, and allow the image of the game bird habitat stamp to be incorporated within a game hunting licence, rather than requiring a physical stamp to be stuck to each licence. This minor change will help the online sale of licences and meet anticipated future demand for digital licences, potentially accessing portable electronic devices.

This bill benefits New Zealand because it will enable New Zealanders to complete more interactions with the Government on a digital basis. It is an important contribution to the ongoing efforts across government to provide services that are designed to meet the needs of New Zealanders in the digital age, and it is an example of how agencies are able to work together to achieve this. I am very pleased to commend this bill to the House.

The Labour Party will be supporting this bill to the Government Administration Committee. As the Minister of Internal Affairs, Peter Dunne, just laid out, it obviously has some advantages in terms of moving many of our ministries into the digital age and allowing them to be able to communicate with New Zealanders much more easily. There is a cliché, really, that we are moving into a digital age and therefore the Government needs to be kept up to speed with that as much as anywhere else.

The Minister went on to talk about some of those advantages, including with regard to the marriage licences Act—being able to perform a lot of those activities online, including signing your marriage licence, as I understand it. For the Department of Conservation, it includes hunting licences and game licences, for example—being able to do that online and have that as part of an app, or even allowing the election on the Fish and Game Council to be carried out online as well, rather than having to do that in a paper form. I have to say that begs the question that if you can do it with the Fish and Game Council, why can we not move more rapidly to bring out online voting for, say, local body elections. We have just seen how appalling the local body election turnout has been in New Zealand, and a lot of that relates to, I believe, the fact that for many young people—and certainly I can speak for my own children, who were voting in this local body election this time for the first time—this is the first time they have ever had to post a letter in their lives. They sit there on their tablets or their phones all the time; it is about time we got our electoral system into the digital age as well.

There are other advantages as well that the Minister mentioned, including the transfer of Government bills, and of photos—for example, for licences—with the agreement of the applicant, etc., so that a digital photo can be used rather than a hard copy. All of that is, I think, uncontentious. It is useful. It is going to speed up the activities of government and the efficiencies of government, and can be supported. But obviously there is another side to every initiative that is taken, and I think it is worthy to mention three on this occasion.

First of all, there is a digital divide that is opening up in New Zealand, and I think we need to address that. The digital divide is between those people who, obviously, are well and truly electronically connected and those who are not. In the second category I put those sorts of people like older people who perhaps have not had the advantages of going through a more computerised education system or computerised age, and those who cannot afford to have a computer or connect to the internet in their homes—of which there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people who are not connected in that way. It is worthwhile realising that we do have this divide and it is up to Government as well not only to put in these new-fangled and welcome efficiencies but to ensure that they are universal and right across the board and not just for some and not others.

Secondly, there is the risk of—as we have seen constantly and consistently, particularly in the last few months—the penetration into our digital systems, into our databases, etc. by outside influences. We only have to look across to the United States where recently all of the Government records—all of its Government records—were entered into and stolen. There is Yahoo!, where some of its digital information was passed across to Government agencies, and this morning, in the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, we were listening to a number of submitters giving evidence on the intelligence and security changes that we are trying to make. Once again we have an agency, the GCSB, that is currently assessing the penetration by outside influences into our Government departments and key companies in New Zealand, which are being constantly bombarded by both other nations and crime syndicates to try to penetrate and get information from the Government. I am not convinced that we will ever be able to protect those resources completely, but we have to understand that there are going to be inherent risks when we consolidate and we put that sort of information together into databases and make it available in the way that the Minister laid out.

Lastly, thirdly, I want to mention this as well: this Government has not done very well when it comes to protecting our information. We have had leaks in health, ACC, social welfare, IRD—pretty much every single department in the Government has had various leaks in which people’s personal and private information has made it into the public arena. We have to do a lot more—I say we, but the Government in particular—to ensure that that information is protected. When it comes to those databases, the Government has not done particularly well in terms of setting up databases that are robust and actually work. The obvious example is Novopay, which, despite the fact that it has got out of the news, is still rumbling on through schools and still creating problems 6 years after it fell apart in glorious fashion.

The other thing that is happening right at the moment is in customs. Customs embarked on a new customs information-gathering system that was supposed to replace the old system, called CusMod, with a new system, called the Joint Border Management System (JBMS), which IBM was putting in place. The JBMS has not delivered anything like what was expected of it, and my understanding is that IBM has just been sacked by the Government and told: “There’s the door, go through it, because we don’t want to have anything more to do with you.”, having delivered over budget, 3 years behind what it said it was going to be, and not being able to deliver the most fundamental part of what it said it was going to do, which was to be able to establish the risk and intelligence functions of goods and people coming into New Zealand.

It is terrific to laud the progress of the changes that the Minister was talking about, and on the face of it they are pretty simple, they are pretty straightforward. But behind that there are problems: first, of making sure that that connectivity is universal across New Zealand; second, of making sure that the databases that we have in New Zealand, as we have seen so often over the past few years, are protected and that private information does not make it into the public arena; and, third, the woeful—the woeful—handling of major information projects that this Government has taken on, and I mentioned Novopay, but more recently, perhaps in the last couple of weeks, the exit of IBM from re-establishing and reformatting the entire customs system of border management. That has gone by the wayside as well, and IBM has been, as I said, given the sack, having delivered well over budget—about $30 million or $40 million over budget—3 years late, and not having done what it said it was going to do. It has been woeful, it has been a waste of taxpayers’ money, and it is one of those things that we have to keep a very close eye on. Thank you.

E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua, tēnā koe. E ngā mema o Te Whare Pāremata o Aotearoa, tēnā koutou katoa. I am going to make a brief intervention in this first reading debate on the Electronic Interactions Reform Bill and begin by congratulating the Hon Peter Dunne on bringing a very sensible set of measures to the House.

We are living in the 21st century and this Government has made great progress already towards implementing our Better Public Services target of having 70 percent of the most common transactions that Government offers to our citizens available and delivered electronically. I have got some personal experience recently, in signing up for the full RealMe verification service in order to become a marriage and civil union celebrant. I can say that although it was initially a little bit of an arduous process to go down to the post office, be identified, have the photograph taken, and supply all the documentation, and then to have the material sent to my home address so that they could verify my home address—ultimately, once you have got that set up, that gives you access to a wealth of Government services so much more easily, so much more conveniently than would ever have been possible before.

As the member opposite, David Cunliffe—the very distinguished and learned member opposite—mentioned, there is a digital divide, and we have to make sure that services are available not only to older and younger New Zealanders but also to those of different abilities, I think. Technology does have the potential to be both a great leveller as well as a great enabler of efficiency. So for those with sight or hearing challenges, with the technical improvements that have been offered—such as, for instance, being able to communicate verbally through a speech recognition tool—there are significant prospects to make it easier for our disabled New Zealand citizens to access Government services.

This is a very sensible set of measures. I think this Government will go down in history as one of the great reforming Governments, in that it has brought in, just yesterday, the Land Transfer Bill, which brings the land transfer system firmly into the 21st century from its 19th century origins in South Australia—the 1858 Real Property Act that was brought in by Sir Richard Torrens GCMG, the third Premier of South Australia, for instance. That is another example.

But this bill, in particular—the thing that I am excited about is that it allows the RealMe verification service to be extended to a far wider range of Government services. There really is very little excuse for any Government department not offering RealMe verification, because it is a much better system than a person walking in and having a human compare a photo and a signature with what they see in front of them. The machine actually makes far fewer mistakes than a human. But where there are, I think, some barriers to that is with archaic legislation. That is what we are fixing here today. It is an excellent bill and I commend it fully to the House.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is my pleasure to speak in this, the first reading of the Electronic Interactions Reform Bill. I was not expecting to speak on the bill, so I have done a little bit of research so that I could understand what this bill is actually trying to achieve. This is an omnibus bill, to amend more than one Act, and it may be introduced under Standing Order 263(a), because it is dealing with interrelated topics “that can be regarded as implementing a single broad policy.” What is that single broad policy? Well, that single broad policy is part of the “ongoing information management and digital transformation work”, or, as I like to think of it, how we use technology to deliver public services to New Zealanders.

In looking at the merits of this piece of legislation, I managed to find a Deloitte public sector research group report that was published in October 2015. It is titled The journey to government’s digital transformation: A global view. This survey examined “digital technology’s ability to fundamentally transform the way public sector organisations operate and deliver services to citizens”, and included 1,200 participants from Government departments of 70 countries. The key global findings were twofold. The first was that “Around 75% of respondents indicated that digital technologies are disrupting the public sector, and 96% said the impact was significant”, and the second was that “Nearly 70 percent [of these public sector officials] said they were behind the private sector.” So they identified this huge technological divide.

Why does it matter? Actually, from research and modelling in Australia it matters a lot. There was a cost-benefit analysis by Deloitte Access Economics titled Digital Government Transformation: Unlocking the Benefits of Digitising Customer Transactions. What it highlighted in this particular report was that the reduction in transaction costs by traditional channels had the ability over a 10-year period to reduce costs by 20 percent. It also increased Government productivity and efficiency to the tune—and this is quite staggering—of $17.9 billion. The other saving that it anticipated was a further $8.7 billion in convenience and out-of-pocket costs to citizens. So when you think about the merits of this piece of legislation, actually I think that speaks for itself.

The ICT and transitional costs were estimated at $6.1 billion. So if you look at the cost-benefit analysis, they are going to save $26.6 billion, and it is going to cost them $6.1 billion. That is a 4.36 ratio of savings to cost. So I think, really, the merit of this piece of legislation lies in that research. I could not find the New Zealand - specific research, but I am sure that the officials will be able to provide that advice in due course.

I also looked at the departmental disclosure statement, and the relevance to this piece of legislation on page 6 is to 163,000 New Zealand citizens. That is how many transactions annually this will enable to be completed online. So, actually, I think the scope of the transactions—I do not know how many officials anticipate, but if that is how many currently use those online services, if you think about making the technology more accessible to the entire country, which was my colleague David Shearer’s point, actually I think the benefit to New Zealand citizens is going to be huge.

It is incumbent upon me, given this is not really my area of expertise—but it is of my colleague Clare Curran, who is our spokesperson for open government—to communicate some of the messages that she thought were really relevant to this piece of legislation. We obviously are supporting the legislation to select committee, but there are questions around the amendments, specifically to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act changes. They are regarding the electronic verification, which currently requires statutory declaration documentation. Why? For her, and I think for other members of the House, it was actually within the context of the Phillip Smith issue. As we know, there was an inquiry into how Phillip Smith, who was on temporary release from Spring Hill Corrections Facility in the Waikato, could obtain a passport. What we want to be reassured about—and I am signalling this to the Government—is that any changes in the use of technology are not going to create an opportunity for someone else in Phillip Smith’s situation to be able to obtain a passport because we have enabled them through technology to do so. I am highlighting it because I think it will be one of the issues that will come up. I am sure there are ways and means, and we have the officials who will be able to answer those questions on our behalf.

Other than that, I do not really have much more to contribute. I think that the select committee process is always an incredibly robust one. We get submissions from people who not only understand the technology but will highlight some of the challenges in the system, if we remove statutory obligations in terms of requiring, for example, people to verify people’s identity. But I am convinced that the select committee process is robust, and the membership of the Government Administration Committee has the skills and expertise to identify any challenges and to provide amendments that this House, I am sure, will recognise. So I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to take a call on this, the Electronic Interactions Reform Bill. I just want to acknowledge the Hon Peter Dunne for bringing this bill to the House.

I just want to say that I found quite interesting the example that my colleague Paul Foster-Bell used in terms of getting himself registered through the RealMe process. Of course, his purpose was that he wants to be a marriage celebrant and be able to carry out or officiate marriages and civil unions. But once he had done that—once he had registered, once he had verified his identification—it then allowed for electronic transactions to take place.

I think that David Shearer made a very good point, which is that we live in an electronic world and that is not going to change. It is a digitised world where records are kept electronically. That is not going to change; that is going to grow.

I think that one of the issues, though, that Louisa Wall just raised, which I think is a very good one, is around safeguards. It is about making sure both that the system protects the individuals and that, actually, there are sanctions available for the departments that are entrusted with this information as well. I will just draw the House’s attention to just a couple of new offences that have been created as part of the bill. One is that “a participating agency commits an offence if the participating agency knowingly uses an individual’s electronic photograph for one or more of the purposes listed above without the individual’s consent or for a purpose other than one of the listed purposes …”. The other offence that has been created is “a person other than a participating agency commits an offence if the person knowingly uses an electronic identity photograph in relation to any transaction or service … and that person is not the subject of the photograph …”. So there are some good safeguards being built into the legislation.

We look forward to receiving the legislation at the Government Administration Committee and to being able to take it through a committee process and examine it more closely. Thank you very much.

Ngā mihi nui. Tēnā koutou katoa. I will keep my intervention short; I do not believe in the need to speak to use up my allotted time, so I will not.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: You’ll learn.

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: It’s an acquired skill.

Thank you—thank you. I will learn how to do that later. Unsurprisingly, the Green Party supports this bill. As you know, we are an extremely constructive party. We agree that there are benefits for the public from changes to Government processes to make online transactions easier. We note the benefits in terms of registering births, deaths, and marriages; changed definitions to allow people to appear before Government agencies online rather than in person; and online purchases of hunting licences and voting in Fish and Game Council elections. We commend the Minister Peter Dunne for the initiative for this bill. There will be many thousands of New Zealanders who will benefit from this bill and will welcome it.

We have two points to raise. The first is that our support for this bill comes with a recommendation that the Government pay particular attention to the very serious issues of security and privacy of information. It is a point that has already been made, but we would like to emphasise that we have seen too many examples of personal information having been made public, most notably in the ACC leak but also in leaks from other Government departments. The Green Party would like assurances that there will be strong security and privacy provisions in this bill, and we also look forward to improvements in the performance of Government departments.

In addition, our support for this bill also comes with a second recommendation, and that is that the Government do far more to bridge the digital divide. Again, this has been mentioned, but the division between haves and have-nots in terms of internet access has been persistent and is a new and very powerful form of exclusion for too many people. The report The Internet in New Zealand 2015, from the World Internet Project in New Zealand and authored by Auckland University of Technology (AUT) academics, highlights the persistence of the digital divide in New Zealand and notes that the digital divide is more prevalent amongst Māori. It is more prevalent amongst people with low incomes. It is more prevalent amongst people with disabilities.

But the most excluded group—the group with the least access and usage of internet services—is senior citizens. From this survey, age is the dominant factor in explaining low internet usage. What the survey says is that there are 38 percent of respondents who are over 70 years old who have never used the internet or are ex-users. That 38 percent of senior citizens compares with 4 percent of 16- to 29-year-olds. That is not only a digital divide; that is a digital chasm. Twenty percent of those users who do not use the internet either do not know how to use it or are confused by the technology, 18 percent do not own a device able to access the internet, 13 percent have no internet connection, and 11 percent do not use the internet because they consider it too expensive. This is important, because more than half of the respondents who answered the surveys said that they use internet to access Government or council services. It is obviously a major problem for elderly people when they are unable to access these services online. So, obviously, the problems of this digital divide go far beyond this bill.

We do recognise there has been work undertaken by the Government to support internet access, but we urge greater urgency on this work and a particular focus on the needs of senior citizens. In that vein, we commend the Ministry of Consumer Affairs guide for seniors, Get online savvy, but, as this AUT survey shows, there is much more that needs to be done. It is disappointing to see other research showing that services like Skype or free communications apps like WhatsApp or WeChat are not used extensively by seniors. They have the potential to connect for free with family and friends, even if these family members and friends live overseas. We hope that the Minister will give consideration to boosting internet access as a flanking measure for this bill.

We look forward to examining this bill and, hopefully, making these points in the select committee. With that, the Green Party expresses its support for this bill. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr Deputy Speaker, and congratulations to you, Mr Coates, on your first speech in the House post your maiden statement. It was a good contribution. We also support this bill going through its first reading and to the select committee, but we support it with some reservations. We want to really underline that, because our continued support will be determined by the outcome of the discussions in the select committee, hearing from those vested groups and those affected people. There are a potential number of points that could be quite contentious. However, New Zealand First sees the pragmatism of dragging this Government into the 21st century, now that we are 16 years into it, and it is certainly a good prospect for the future.

But if I could start, I guess, by giving an articulation of the bill, I do think that Minister Dunne has done a great job this afternoon of putting that quite plainly and simply, but let me see whether I can do the same thing. The bill is an omnibus bill. It does project itself over three ministries—the Department of Conservation, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and the Department of Internal Affairs, which this bill has been headed through. The whole idea is about connecting people and businesses better with Government departments, and that obviously is through the digital age, through the Electronic Interactions Reform Bill, which we have here in front of us.

On the surface it does seem rather innocuous. It is not until you actually delve down into it that you see some of these problems. The bill is broken into four parts, with Part 1 relating to enabling electronic applications. On the surface of things, we do not take too much umbrage with that. Of course, the amendments to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act are simply the registration of a name change to provide a statement that is verified electronically as an alternative to the existing requirements to provide a statutory declaration. That is in clause 4, which amends section 21A.

Subpart 2 of Part 1 amends the Civil Union Act 2004 and permits notices of intended civil unions to be given and verified electronically. That does make sense. And then, of course, we have got Subpart 3, which amends the Marriage Act 1955. Clause 19 amends section 9 to permit applications for approval as an organisation that may solemnise marriages to be made electronically and any signatures to an application to be verified electronically.

Part 2 of the bill, which gets into enabling the use of electronic identity photographs for identity cards, licensing, and public registers, is where we have some concerns. We certainly look forward to the submissions during the select committee process. Just this morning on Morning Report at 7 o’clock, there was a situation, and although not directly related, it relates in so far as an identity was stolen from a picture on Facebook and used on a Russian dating website. The photo that was used was of a New Zealand woman. Her name was not given, and I do not blame her for not wanting to give her name out.

These are the sorts of activities that are going on and have been made very easy through the internet. Although the internet is making our lives a lot easier in some respects, it opens up some serious security problems, because access to information and the use of photographs, the use of people’s information and data to fraudulently obtain things that they might want to get—passports, and so forth—becomes a lot easier. So we want to make sure that the provisions that this bill has prevent that from happening. I note that Mark Mitchell has brought forward a couple of points about there being new offences that have been brought into this bill and whether or not they go far enough, and we will certainly be scrutinising this part more closely. It is certainly a part that we have some serious problems with.

In terms of the Department of Internal Affairs, as I have already mentioned, there are amendments to allow certain services offered by Births, Deaths and Marriages to be done electronically, and there is the removal of some restrictions on the use of photographs stored in the identity verification service provided that the consent of the subject of the photo is given. Again, consent is given but you need a person to verify that that consent is ongoing—whether you use your thumbprints or you have a live feed where a person on the other end can actually say: “Right, this is you, let me see your photograph. Let’s take that photograph now, and let’s put it into the system.” Other than that, we could be opening ourselves up to a can of worms.

There are amendments that relate to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. The amendments relate to the requirement to appear before Government agencies in certain proceedings. This can now be done by videoconferencing, and that is a pragmatic way of getting through the workload and making sure that we can get some positive outcomes, but the second part is a serious concern.

I turn to Part 3, which concerns giving evidence and notice by electronic means. We do not take umbrage with the giving of evidence, but clause 45 amends section 102 of the Commerce Act to permit notices or other documents to be served or given by email. A notice or document that is emailed to a person is to be treated as received on the second working day after emailing, unless the person proves otherwise. This is a situation where you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent. I can give you dozens of occasions when people have sent me emails and it has been 10 days before they have actually come through on my computer. It could be just that the Good Technology service has fallen over once again, or it could be a number of other issues that your computer system is having, and you will not know. Now it is up to you to prove it. We in New Zealand First have some difficulty in accepting that you have to prove your innocence in a situation where somebody has sent you an email. I am sure, through the select committee process, that some of these issues can be ironed out, but that is certainly another part that we have some difficulty in working through.

Part 4 is about enabling electronic licences and electronic voting, and this is a good position to take. It certainly is the way of the future. The future of online voting has been discussed for over a decade now, and being able to get licences electronically through the Department of Conservation might be a sound step forward in the right direction. There are amendments relating to the online sale of game hunting licences—again, we would not want to see hunting licences not being able to be gained practically by going into your hunting store and gaining that licence, but enabling an easier access to those hunting licences online certainly does make sense, and New Zealand First will be supporting that.

Voting in Fish and Game councils is something I have already touched on. There is very little issue with that, although whether you have got your virtual private network numbers with regard to your computer, there are ways of fudging those voting figures and that would need to be looked at through the select committee process. We certainly would not want to see people voting more than once online, which you can do. I could not do that. I do not know how to do that, but I certainly could find the people who know how to do that.

This is a good bill, I think, that needs to be pulled apart and put back together. I am sure there will be some opportunities to amend some of these shortcomings in the bill. The idea is sound and, again, New Zealand First will be supporting this through to the select committee. In terms of whether we can continue with that support, we would like to leave that open for discussion and see what solutions can be made for some of those problems that we have outlined here today. Thank you.

It is an absolute pleasure to rise and speak in favour of this Electronic Interactions Reform Bill. As members across the House have noted, digital technology is so ubiquitous in our lives. Even if you do not touch it personally, it is in your home, so you are a consumer of it one way or another. We see simple things like smartphones; I have seen reports that people look at their smartphones 2,000 or more times a day, which is phenomenal when you think about it. Yet more and more I find myself doing my own business and living my life through things on the phone that I think it is actually possible. We wear technology. Some people like things like Google Glass but most people might wear things like Fitbits, to help to record what we are doing, how active we are, the status of our health, how we are improving, and where perhaps we could seek some help.

The reality is that digital technologies are part of our everyday lives. When that is the case, it is also a part of our everyday business or education. We all—or most—in some form or another are using technology to do our work or to do our studies. So it is not at all surprising, then, that people would have a natural expectation that they should be able to undertake their interactions with businesses and with Government agencies through digital channels. So it is a delight, first, to see us undertaking measures through this bill to help facilitate that—but also the Better Public Services target we have of 70 percent of transactions with Government to be performed online by the end of 2017. It is an interesting point that at this point we are already at about 52 percent, or just over 52 percent, so we are well on the way to meeting that target.

As we go through this—and the items that this bill will achieve are laudable in themselves—what is more important, I feel, if this passes through Parliament, is that it is showing the willingness of our agencies, and us as legislators, to remove the barriers to greater adoption and use of digital technology in interactions with Government agencies. Recently, I attended a technology in Government seminar here in Wellington and met with one of our agencies’ chief information officers. He was telling me about what he has been doing in his business. He creates a little bit of what you might call a “sandpit environment” where he has got specialists who just tear down their archaic or traditional business processes and work out how they could do things differently with technology. Once they work out how they can use technology to get better or more efficient and more effective outcomes, they set about dismantling that old process and putting something new in place—something new that will support the use of that technology. That, in effect, is exactly what we are doing here.

We acknowledge that our processes and rules are outdated for this age and we are prepared to change them so that we can embrace more and more digital technologies so that our citizens can interact with us more through digital platforms. So at this stage I would just like to commend this bill to the House.

This is a good bill. As my colleague Mr Coates has said, the Greens will be supporting it. It does some sensible things. It enables individual members of the public, businesses, and Government agencies to communicate with each other online where that is appropriate and helpful for all parties concerned. I think it is important, though, that this bill does get a fairly rigorous look from the Government Administration Committee, and I am sure it will. It is not a committee that I have ever sat on, but I have no reason to doubt that it will do anything but a good job.

There are aspects to this bill that are not worrying but that are potentially—I just think there are matters in it, particularly some assumptions that seem to sit within the bill, not least of all about people’s access to digital tools. We heard the word “ubiquitous” from Mr Hudson. In our lives, yes, it is. It is hard to get away from the wretched devices—the electronic leash, as I often call them—in fact. It is expected that one will answer that email at 11.30 at night or 5.30 in the morning. So be it. That is what we sign up for.

We also have to recognise, though—and again, Mr Coates, my colleague, mentioned it—the digital divide. I have seen that up fairly close and personal in Northland. There is a wonderful programme called Computers in Homes, whereby parents come into the schools and learn how to use a computer, mostly for the first time. At the completion of a course and if they have shown some commitment, they are gifted a computer and a modem, and they are assisted to get the things set up and assisted with an internet connection, with a person to support them in those first few months or if anything goes wrong, the purpose being—well, two purposes, really—to engage parents in their children’s education and to make sure that when kids go home from school there is a computer in the home to assist them with their study and their work. It is a great programme, but it does demonstrate the fact that a need for it exists. It proves that low-income homes, particularly, and, again, elderly people—we cannot just assume that that facility is available.

Rural areas are often compromised, in terms of internet access, by often very poor connectivity. I was speaking not so long ago to a business in the Hokianga—an art gallery, essentially—wanting to sell artwork online. For that you need a good, fast, high-quality connection, which they simply did not have; therefore, that particular aspect of the business was compromised.

So we ought to be just a little bit thoughtful about any assumptions that any and everybody can use digital technology, the point of that being that nothing in this bill, as I read it, suggests that the existing ways and means of communicating with Government agencies will be removed. Presumably, one can continue to choose paper or fax, or whatever it might be, but I think it is important that we maintain that flexibility—that we maintain the whole suite of opportunities and mechanisms for people to engage with Government agencies, in particular. Mr Dunne, in presenting the bill, made the point that New Zealand is at the forefront, in many ways, of this sort of technology. We are very willing to take it up, but we also have to make sure that people do maintain the option and that nobody is disadvantaged by the move to digital forms.

There are one or two points that I will make in my very few remaining minutes. In the explanatory note of the bill, the point is made that statutory declarations enhance the integrity of an interaction—they do provide a level of security for these interactions—and that ways will be found to verify in alternative ways that a digital interaction is equally secure. I am slightly nervous about the fact that there are not some means identified. I understand that it is never smart to imbed technical solutions into legislation, because they change and they evolve over time, but I would like to see something a little bit more robust—perhaps some key principles around what that level of security might look like. I would like to see just a little bit more guidance as to how we will ensure that people’s identities—because, essentially, that is what we are talking about—and personal information will not be lost or compromised in any way. Similarly, with photographs and the use of making online photographs more accessible—all good stuff, but let us just be aware of the security risks and ensure they are covered off. Thank you.

I call Iain Lees-Galloway—5 minutes.

It is a great pleasure to speak on the Electronic Interactions Reform Bill—it is the little surprises that make the day that little bit more interesting. So this is a good piece of legislation. It is designed—at least its intention is—to make interacting with Government more simple, more aligned with the way people interact with each other these days through electronic means, and, hopefully, a little bit cheaper for people to interact with Government as well.

I do note that it is an omnibus bill; it amends a large number of pieces of legislation. I was reading through it to see exactly what it does do, and I note that it amends a number of pieces of legislation to allow communication by email rather than by what we call snail mail these days. And I thought: “There is another piece of legislation that is before the House at the moment that does something similar.” Then I recalled the Companies (Annual Report Notice Requirements) Amendment Bill in the name of Matt Doocey, which is a member’s bill, drawn from the members’ ballot, that allows companies to communicate with their shareholders by email rather than by snail mail. At the time we said: “Well, that would fit nicely in the Statutes Amendment Bill.” It would actually fit very, very nicely—perfectly in fact—in the Electronic Interactions Reform Bill, which I think just proves the point of what a complete waste of time Matt Doocey’s bill was; that amendment to the Companies Act could easily have been included in this piece of legislation, and, in fact, maybe that would be a good amendment to make at the Committee of the whole House.

Maybe a member—maybe even Matt Doocey himself—would like to propose a Supplementary Order Paper to this piece of legislation, or even the select committee could. This is going before the Government Administration Committee. It could propose an amendment to this piece of legislation—and then we could not waste the time of the House dealing with Mr Doocey’s bill; we could do it under this piece of legislation. The change would be made. It is a noble change but it does not require the time of the House of a whole member’s bill, and we could free up a space amongst the members’ orders of the day to deal with something a bit more substantive. So that is my recommendation to the select committee that is considering this piece of legislation.

A number of members have raised two areas of interest and concern. One is around security. Are our Government agencies up to keeping people’s data and information secure? I would relate that back to the decision made by Government earlier this year not to hold the trial for online voting for local government elections. They said that there were issues with security. I have heard the arguments. In fact, there were some very convincing arguments about the issues of security with voting, but I have to ask this: if we can bank online—if we can trust the interwebs to deal with our money—then why can we not trust them to deal with our votes? Why have we not cracked the security issue with our votes? In fact, we have already got RealMe—and if that is secure enough to keep our data and our private information secure, then why not our votes as well?

The other issue—and I think this is the far more pertinent and interesting issue that this Parliament does need to consider—is that question of the digital divide. I know for us, we are all in the privileged position where, yes, everything is online—everything—and we seem to be in constant demand because of people’s ability to access us through all manner of online means. But the truth is, there are people who have difficulty accessing the internet, both by virtue of geography and also through the sheer fact of poverty or not having sufficient income to have the tools or the connection necessary to be able to connect to the internet so as to be able to make use of the changes that this piece of legislation proposes. So I think we need to be mindful of that. That is not a reason to stop proceeding with this legislation. It does not preclude people from being able to interact with Government through the old means, but it is something that we need to be aware of. We cannot fall into the trap of assuming that because digital technology is ubiquitous for us, it is for every member of the New Zealand public. But this is a good bill, an interesting bill, and I commend it to the House.

Like the last speaker, it is with a little bit of surprise that I find myself speaking to this bill. It is with even more surprise that I find myself welcoming Barry Coates to the House and finding myself on the same side as a Green Party member for the first time in 5 years. It is a new look for the Green Party, Barry.

Some of the points that were, interestingly, raised by my fellow Manawatū MP Iain Lees-Galloway are the issues that interest me about this bill. It is not necessarily because we cannot afford the technology. It is because people of my age are tested by this kind of stuff significantly, and people older than me are even more tested by this stuff than I am. I note that one of the targets that the Government has got is around 70 to 78 percent, or something like that, of engagement in this type of process. It is an admirable target to have. It is going to take quite some time before people older than me are going to adapt to this kind of technology. That is one of the challenges that we have got as a Government and as a country. In fact, the slower acceptance of the older generation of this type of technology is one of the challenges that we have got in the world, is it not? It is certainly going to take a long time, and, of course, every time we take another pill we live another day, and so we have got to put up with it for a little bit longer. Ha, ha! So it is quite challenging.

With those very brief words, I will certainly support this bill. But I do warn the select committee that it will be challenging—it will be challenging for many of us to adopt this type of technology, and the Government is just going to have to be patient with it. Thank you. I commend the bill to the House.

It is a genuine pleasure to speak to the Electronic Interactions Reform Bill. I would just really like to begin with sending a message to my friend across the hall, Mr McKelvie, just to say: do not be threatened by the technology that is slowly taking over the world. Embrace it; it is useful out on the farm—as I am sure you have seen in your electorate—and it could save you time and effort, which I think everyone in this House is after. This is one of those pieces of legislation that is “sign of the times” legislation. It is going to, I hope, set out to make the likes of Government departments and processes, and dealing with the Department of Internal Affairs via Births, Deaths and Marriages, a lot more efficient. We in Labour will support it through to the select committee stage.

I do hope that we approach this legislation with some caution, though. Although we support it, because we want to make the processes much more efficient and effective for Kiwis out there who are using these kinds of things every day, there is a danger—when we get into the detail in the select committee—that some of the Government departments may not have the adequate security settings or the training within those departments to make sure that some of the things that we have set out to achieve in this legislation become a reality.

One of the things that my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway talked about within this bill is that it allows an electronic vote, I believe, for—let me just make sure I am going to get this right, because I do not want to get Forest and Bird on my case if it is not them—who is it? It is for the Fish and Game Council elections. I think that is an important aspect of this bill. We heard that the Government, back in 2008, was ambitious for New Zealand, but one of the ambitions that it has not quite got to achieving is electronic voting for local body elections. We have just had those local body elections, and I think we all know the result—we have been talking about it for some time; the other side of the House has been quite silent on it. Having a look at some of the details around the Fish and Game Council elections and what that might entail, in their departmental disclosure statement it says that if one allows, by this legislation, an online vote to happen it will “enable up to 94,000 transactions”—and I am assuming that is votes—“to be completed online once every three years.” Let us just take the city of Porirua, for instance, which I represent—

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Who is the mayor there?

Ah, Mike Tana. Good mayor—he won by 144 votes. If we had electronic voting there—and there are certainly fewer than 94,000 people in Porirua—it would enable much more voting to happen. Many more people would have their say. So why can we not have electronic voting in our local body elections, which we have just had throughout the country, and the results came out on Saturday, when the New Zealand Fish and Game Council—which we are told will have 94,000 votes under its electronic elections every 3 years, and so it is on the same cycle as us—is able to have its election held online?

That is the kind of question that we want to ask at the select committee. Why can the average “Joe Citizen”, when they are choosing their local ward councillor or their local mayor, not have the ability to vote online? I think the turnout was something dismal, like somewhere between 35 and 40 percent around the country—somewhere in that region. If we really want to get people in New Zealand voting—increased voting in New Zealand—for their local bodies and for their mayors, then we think that we should make a faster move toward electronic voting. Why can it not happen for our local district councils, but here, in this bill, it enables the Fish and Game Council elections to be held electronically every 3 years? Why are they the priority? I do not get it. If the Government says: “Well yes, we are going to bring in legislation to enable the Fish and Game Council to do this.”, I think the question needs to asked of the Government: why is it good enough for the Fish and Game Council every 3 years—and I am not demeaning the Fish and Game Council elections—but not good enough for everyone who votes in their local body elections? I think that is a pretty important question to ask.

Another issue that I think we have with this piece of legislation is around organisations that might start having access to identity verification information under the RealMe system. The RealMe system allows people to go in to their local PostShop—take in their photo—and with certain Government departments that will be good enough as an online verification of their identity. What this piece of legislation says—and the purpose of the bill—is that some organisations have expressed an interest in using these identity verification service photographs to replace manual requirements for physical photographs. I would be OK if some organisations were Government departments or quangos—organisations with an official purpose for the photos. But “some organisations” is a bit vague. Is it the likes of businesses that want to use this? I do not mind that, but I want to know which businesses are going to get access to some of this very sensitive information through the RealMe system. I think, again, that is another question we want to ask of the Government at the select committee, once it gets to that stage. I understand it is going to the Government Administration Committee—a good committee—and I am sure we will get to ask those questions of it.

Another good thing within the bill is the ability to use videoconferencing more from Government departments. I think, certainly for people out in the regions or people out in rural areas, physically going to a Government department to verify your identity or to interact with the entity when you specifically have to attend a meeting has become a bit cumbersome, given the technology that we have. Imagine it: Mr McKelvie is in Marton and he has been requested to go to a Government department, such as the ACC or IRD, in Wanganui. Ian is too busy. He says: “Look, I’m on the farm—got too much on. Is there any other way I can do this?”. Well, under the circumstances as they now stand, Mr McKelvie is out of luck. He has to physically go to Wanganui to the Government department to make sure that he can verify that that is him, and that he, under law, has attended and been to the office to make sure that business is done. But in the new world, Mr McKelvie can crank up the laptop, open up Skype—or maybe even use his phone and FaceTime—and call the Government department concerned. Would that not be a lovely world, Mr McKelvie? Would that not be a great world, where people who have got distances to travel and it would be an inconvenience for them to deal with a Government department can actually just ring them up via Skype or do a FaceTime call? I think that would be a great thing.

Mr McKelvie, this is the piece of legislation that your Government is proposing, so I think you should take it with a firm grip and really empower yourself, and help other New Zealanders empower themselves to be able to use this technology for their benefit. But, in all seriousness, it might help us make things more efficient—and it might make it more effective for the end-user and the Government department. There is some devil in the detail around the security of information and also around some of the other organisations that might get their hands on some of this information, about which some questions need to be asked at the select committee.

I do just want to finish back on the electronic voting, because it is something that has been floating round for such a long time. Why, when the New Zealand Fish and Game Council can vote online for its leadership, can we not use the same technology for people out there in their city councils—[Interruption] I think Mr Barclay has got something to say about that—for their mayoralties, to make sure that online voting can happen. It should be easy. It is easy—it is so easy that the Government can do it for the Fish and Game Council, but it cannot do it for the average Joe Bloggs who voted just in the last couple of weeks in their local body elections. So I would like to see the Government—I will not use the word that I am not allowed to use—follow through with one of its objectives when it came to this House: to make online voting, at least for our local bodies, a reality. It should be done to make sure that everyone out there has their democratic say to make sure they pick the right person in their community and in their city and in their district to be their local representative.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Government Administration Committee.