Electronic Interactions Reform Bill

I move, That the Electronic Interactions Reform Bill be now read a second time.

The bill modernises 17 pieces of legislation to help enable digital interactions between individuals, businesses, and Government. The bill is part of wider efforts towards a digital transformation across Government to meet New Zealanders’ expectations for public services that are easily and readily accessible through digital devices.

As the new Minister of Internal Affairs, I would like to thank the Government Administration Committee for its constructive consideration of the bill. I would also like to thank the eight submitters on the bill, particularly the two submitters who made oral submissions to the committee. I was particularly pleased to see that the Privacy Commissioner was supportive of the parts of the bill that his submission commented on.

The Government is making good progress on developing digital services so that a wide range of Government services are available both online and offline. This demonstrates the Government’s commitment to continue to make it easier for New Zealanders to interact with Government. Progress is being made in developing integrated systems so that people can easily access services from the different agencies and organisations they deal with when they have a significant life event such as having a child.

The first integrated service went live with the first release of SmartStart in December 2016, and the first anniversary of this service is next week. The Department of Internal Affairs, the Inland Revenue Department, the Ministry of Social Development, and the Ministry of Health have worked together to develop SmartStart, which provides step-by-step information on one website to help new parents access a range of Government services. It has had over 150,000 visitors in its first year, and over 10,000 New Zealanders use SmartStart to share their new baby’s registered birth information with the Ministry of Social Development. This removes the need for these new parents to provide a paper birth certificate and fill out an application form, and it has also resulted in approximately 70 percent of them no longer needing to attend a face-to-face interview. It is in this context that this bill supports efforts to ensure New Zealand continues to be a leader in Government digital transformation.

The bill has four parts. Part 1 of the bill amends the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 1995, the Marriage Act 1955, and the Civil Union Act 2004 to allow individuals to apply electronically for certain services, such as applying for a marriage licence, without having to front up to an office to complete a statutory declaration.

Part 2 of the bill amends the Electronic Identity Verification Act 2012 to allow consent-based use of an individual’s photograph, collected as part of the application process for a RealMe verified identity.

Part 3 of the bill amends 11 Acts relating to the commerce and consumer affairs portfolio to expressly allow certain types of notices to be served by email. Part 3 also makes amendments to the current requirements for an individual or business to appear before Government agencies for an interview. These amendments will allow the requirements to be met using an audio link or video link to conduct these interactions remotely where both the individual and the agency agree.

Part 4 of the bill amends the Conservation Act 1987 to ensure that fishing and game hunting licence holders can vote online in Fish & Game Council elections, if they wish. Part 4 of the bill also amends the Wildlife Act 1953 to 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 change will help the online sale of licences and will meet anticipated future demand for digital licences potentially accessible by portable electronic devices.

The eight public submissions covered all parts of the bill and provided useful perspectives on the proposals. The Government Administration Committee has recommended amendments to the bill in response to some of the issues raised in the submissions to help ensure the bill achieves its stated objectives. The Government supports these, and a number of amendments have been made to reflect these recommendations, which I will speak to briefly.

Technical amendments have been made to Part 1 and include amendments to clauses 14 and 21 in the bill, which amend the Civil Union Act and Marriage Act, respectively, to provide greater certainty that individuals based overseas can apply for a civil union or marriage licence using electronic channels enabled by the bill.

The committee recommended amendments in clauses in Part 2 of the bill that amend the Electronic Identity Verification Act. One recommendation is to amend clause 30 so that the photograph collected as part of the application process for a RealMe verified identity can be used to support the issuance of a broader range of identity documents, such as a passport. This and other minor recommended changes have been made to Part 2 of the bill. I intend to introduce a technical Supplementary Order Paper to enable individuals to update their photographs.

In Part 3 of the bill, the committee recommended a new clause 61A to amend the Fair Trading Act 1986 to allow compulsory interviews to be held by audio link and audiovisual link, with the agreement of the person and the Commerce Commission. This amendment—which is similar to clause 44, which amends the Commerce Act 1986—has been made. The committee also recommended changes to the clauses throughout Part 3 of the bill enabling the service of notices by email. The main purpose of these changes is to clarify that an agency that serves a notice by email needs to prove that it was properly sent to an email address actively used by the recipient.

One amendment has also been made to Part 4 of the bill based on the committee’s recommendations. This is an amendment to clause 82, which amends the Conservation Act 1987 to clarify that the Fish & Game Council can use online voting, but must retain a postal voting option for its members in all council elections.

In its report, the committee also commented on the digital divide. This term generally refers to the gap between those who do and those who do not have internet access, often because of geographic or affordability reasons. It can also cover differences in digital capability, particularly between socio-economic groups. The focus of this bill is to enable access to services through new digital channels for individuals who choose to interact with Government departments.

I agree with the committee about the importance of ensuring all New Zealanders—young and old, whether in cities or regions—have the opportunity to take advantage of digital technology. Internationally, New Zealand generally performs well on measures of digital access, but not all New Zealanders are participating equally in the digital world. The Government will, therefore, pursue a number of initiatives that will be aimed at reducing the digital divide. This includes working with communities, academics, and industry representatives from the digital technology sector to understand the extent of digital disadvantage and to identify practical steps to address this.

We will also identify the digital skills New Zealanders need to remain digitally engaged citizens. This will help Government and non-Government organisations develop a coordinated response to support digital inclusion. I look forward to working with the Minister for Government Digital Services, the Hon Clare Curran, to achieve this.

Once again, I thank the individuals and groups that made submissions on the bill, and the Government Administration Committee for its improvements to the bill. The Electronic Interactions Reform Bill benefits New Zealanders because it will enable New Zealanders to complete more interactions with Government digitally. It is an important contribution to ongoing efforts across Government to provide services designed to meet the needs of New Zealanders in the digital age. I would mention, however, that the Government has a responsibility to ensure that it supports all our citizens, regardless of their age and socio-economic background, to be supported to use and to understand their access to these digital services, if in only one way to cut the cost that they are now meeting when it comes to manual processes, which are the other alternative. I commend the bill to the House.

Mr Assistant Speaker, can I being by congratulating you on your assumption as an Assistant Speaker. You always made a wonderful contribution to Treaty bills and I hope the fact that you are now in the Chair doesn’t prevent your continuing to do that.

Can I also congratulate the Minister of Internal Affairs on becoming the Minister. Mr Eagle from Rongotai and I have a very special interest in the internal affairs portfolio because it involves the Chatham Islands, and I expect that he and I will be beating a path to the Minister’s door on behalf of the Chatham Islanders, because there’s much to be done over there. I also congratulate the Minister on an excellent speech tonight, in contradistinction to the rather confused gibberish that lasted for only seven minutes that we had from her leader this afternoon. It really was a rather peculiar performance even by his standards.

I congratulate the Government Administration Committee on dealing with this technical legislation. In a sense, this bill is not unlike the Statutes Amendment Bill that we dealt with at length just in the last few minutes, but the Government Administration Committee, chaired by the now chief Government whip, has very carefully gone through this legislation. I don’t think in this second reading speech I need traverse unnecessarily much of what the Minister has said in her comprehensive speech. It is a very important piece of legislation. There is unanimity across the House on this issue of ensuring that New Zealanders should be able to interact with the Government digitally so far as is possible, and that is why there are quite a number of pieces of legislation that this omnibus bill is going to amend in order to achieve that aim of improved digital interaction.

The Minister has spoken in detail and so I won’t repeat her about the amendments to allow certain services offered by Births, Deaths and Marriages to be completed without the necessity for statutory declarations, and also some proposals to remove some restrictions on the use of photographs, and those provisions seem to be eminently sensible.

I was particularly interested in the amendments that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has proposed. These relate to requirements for individuals to appear before Government agencies in certain proceedings, and also allowing certain types of notices to be provided electronically. I won’t go through every amendment to the legislation referred to in Part 3, but simply, sir, refer the House to Subpart 1, which deals with amendments to the Commerce Act, and that provides the flavour of what follows in the other consequential amendments. Section 98 of the Commerce Act provides that the Commerce Commission has the power to require a person to supply information or documents in evidence, and there are two amendments that will be made to section 98. The first is that someone can appear before the commission either through an audio link or an audiovisual link. I was surprised when I read that that it hadn’t been done years ago, because that seems to make a lot of sense.

The other point that is of importance relates, for example, to section 102 of the Commerce Act, amended in clause 45, and that is dealing with the issue of emailing people. In other words, one can either deliver a notice to the person who is going to be summonsed under section 98 of the Commerce Act or email it to them, and then there are some requirements set out in the bill that deal with how the onus of proof on whether the document was emailed and whether it was received is dealt with. So these are all very sensible amendments to bring the legislation into the 21st century.

As I said, I could go through the other subparts, but that would seem to be a waste of time. I was interested to hear in the previous debate the earnest challenges from some of the new MPs on the other side that we should all stand up and fill the Chamber with our eloquence, and be sort of like Wagner operas—sounds good, but they do go on and on and on. I prefer the approach of cutting to the chase, saying what needs to be said in as succinct a manner as possible. That has always been my style, and I commend it to members of the Government. Dr Webb would benefit greatly from that, because in my experience, as a lecturer he tended towards the Wagnerian opera style.

The only other point that I would make relates to the issue in Part 4, which is the issue of enabling electronic licenses and electronic voting to be conducted, for some reason, by fish and game organisations. Look, that all, again, sounds incredibly sensible. Let Fish & Game electronically vote—but not as often as they like; only vote once—in accordance with the requirements of section 26Z of the Conservation Act.

I would say this to the Minister of Conservation. One of the things I was interested in when I was Attorney-General was revising statutes to get rid of hideous sections like “section 26ZZH” or whatever, and, indeed, we began this little jihad some years ago with bringing together a revision of all the legislation relating to contract and commercial law. I want to place on record and congratulate parliamentary counsel, who recently won a supreme plain English award for the way in which that legislation has been revised. I would certainly hope that the Conservation Act could be revised at some stage in the future, because that kind of way of setting out sections is rather cumbersome indeed.

So they’re really the only points I want to make. As I say, my preference is not to witter on, like Mr Peters did this afternoon, in a vague and incoherent manner, but to really cut to the chase, say what needs to be said, and commend the bill to the House.

Well, for someone who professes not to like Wagnerian operas, Christopher Finlayson did tend to witter on a bit during that speech. I am pleased to speak on the second reading of the Electronic Interactions Reform Bill, which they describe as an omnibus bill because it amends a whole bunch of different Acts. Behind that lies quite a significant purpose, which this new Government supports in principle, in terms of the populace and citizens being able to interact more through electronic means with their Government. However, along with that goes a responsibility of Government to ensure that nobody is left behind and that nobody is disenfranchised and unable to access the technology and therefore unable to communicate with their Government. Unfortunately, that part of the equation has been woefully ignored by the previous Government in its approach right throughout the last nine years.

You—not you, Mr Assistant Speaker, but the people out there listening tonight—will notice a significant, in fact massive, difference in approach from this new Government, which takes a very progressive, modern approach to communication between citizens and Government, but, importantly, one that does not leave people behind. I know that the Minister of Internal Affairs made reference to this in her speech, and I’m sure that we will be working in accord on that very matter, along with other Ministers, as we go forward into this new era of hope and what I describe as digital inclusion, which is an extremely important place for us to be.

As the new Minister for Government Digital Services, I, of course, support any moves that make it easier for New Zealanders to access public services, which include that drive towards more effective digital services across Government, because the digital transformation of Government is part of a wider and critical transformation of our whole society from increased use of digital technologies—for our economy as well as the way that Government communicates and does business with its citizens. I want to reiterate that the previous Government was all about pushing New Zealanders to interact with the Government digitally, which this bill represents, but not at all about ensuring that all New Zealanders were able to do so. Labour and coalition Government members who were then in Opposition made mention of this in the commentary to this piece of legislation, where the impact of the digital divide was raised as a significant issue and questions were asked about what this Government was going to do about it. So I want to spend a few minutes actually speaking about that very matter and just exactly what the digital divide is.

Of course, there hasn’t been a great deal of research done in this country on this, because the Opposition now, the previous Government, really did not put any weight on it and was not interested in pursuing it. But the World Internet Project estimates that 8 to 9 percent of New Zealanders, or around one in every 11 people, are not regular users of the internet, while a further 11 percent are low-level or light users. That adds up to one in every five who use the internet sparingly or not at all, and that is just the basis of the research that we have now. There needs to be a lot more research on this.

The 2020 Communications Trust estimates that around 40,000 households with school-aged children don’t have access to the internet. Affordability is a key issue, and it’s great to see that organisations like the 2020 Communications Trust, which runs Computers in Homes, have been doing such important work in this space. Of course, the previous Government axed the funding to them. It was one of the very few programmes that were out there trying to close the digital divide, and of course they axed the funding to them. We, of course, will be going in the opposite direction. Otago University has done work on a social deprivation index that has identified the lack of internet access at home as being the highest-weighted factor affecting social deprivation for working-age New Zealanders. What that tells us is that lack of access to the internet is rapidly becoming, and has already become, a new measure of poverty in this country.

So we have a bill before the House tonight, which we support, that has potential, without the work being done to close the digital divides, to widen those divides in our country, as more and more interactions are being done electronically between Government and citizens, and yet the gaps are not being identified, they’re not being measured, and nothing is being done about them. In fact, under the previous Government, programmes were being axed. Of course, we raised this when we were in Opposition; we get into Government and discover that that certainly is the case, and that the research is very light, the emphasis that the previous Government paid was almost negligible, and that there is a lot of work to be done.

This Government is committed to creating a digital inclusion blueprint for New Zealand to be doing the research on: where those digital divides are between rural and urban communities; where people inside urban communities are not able to afford internet access at home; where our children are going to school where there is computer access, are going home at night with an expectation that they will do their homework online, and are unable to because mum and dad have a prepaid phone with no data access—those children are being denied their opportunities for the future; where older people are unable and do not have the skills to interact with Government online, whether it’s ordering a new birth certificate, whether it’s getting a new passport, whatever; and where people who are on low incomes and who are being required by Work and Income to interact digitally with the Government are unable to.

This is creating disadvantage. It’s disenfranchising large tracts of our population. The previous Government really didn’t give a stuff.

💬 Chris Bishop: Oh, that’s rubbish.

Well, Mr Bishop, then you get up—not you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Why doesn’t he get up and give a speech about why the previous Government axed the funding for Computers in Homes, which was the only programme funded by that Government, which was started by the previous Labour Government—

💬 Chris Bishop: Oh, was it?

Yes, it was. So you get up—sorry, not you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Why doesn’t he get up and present the evidence as to how his previous Government was committed to closing the digital divide.

In conclusion, this is a bill that goes to digital transformation. But if you want to transform the country, you have to take the whole country with you, in order to be effective. If you are widening the gap and making our society more unequal, and making digital inequality the new measure of poverty, then that’s a fail. This new Government will not. It will close that digital divide and it will make it a priority.

Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s great to be able to take a call on the Electronic Interactions Reform Bill. I think one of the great reasons why it’s so good to be able to talk about this piece of legislation is because we continue to progress National’s legislative agenda through the House this evening.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Because they couldn’t finish the job.

While this is another omnibus piece of legislation—well, we’ve actually got legislation on the Order Paper, and we had a lot more to do, unlike the new Government, which is yet to put its own bills on the Table.

But let’s talk about the piece of legislation that we’re talking about tonight. It’s great to see that this bill is going through, because it is about putting into force our Better Public Services goal: 70 percent of the most common interactions to be online. This Government made great progress about ensuring that more and more transactions were taking place online. I don’t know why people don’t like doing things online, because whenever I would ring up IRD or StudyLink and listen to their terrible music, it really wanted you to get online and do all your interactions on there.

We’ve made some great progress: 52 percent of all transactions in March 2016, up from 29.9 percent in June 2012. This is about continuing to implement that programme now, across a whole wide range of other legislation, to allow more and more people to be able to use our online systems to be able to do that. So I would like to commend this bill to the House as another great example of National continuing to improve New Zealand’s ability to interact online. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s a privilege to speak to the Electronic Interactions Reform Bill. It’s also the first time I’m actually speaking in the House after my maiden speech, and possibly the first time I’m speaking with you in the chair, so I’d like to extend my congratulations to you and to your presiding officers, and to the Ministers—[Interruption] Shall I go on?

This bill is a cross-agency omnibus bill that amends 17 Acts to allow certain Government services and legislative requirements to be delivered electronically. I will go into some of the aspects of the bill that I particularly like so that I can speak, I guess, a little bit more to how I feel it will be beneficial to all New Zealanders. The proposals affect Acts that are administered by primarily three Government departments, and those are, namely, the Department of Internal Affairs, the Department of Conservation, and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. It’s part of ongoing information management and digital transformation work in the State sector, as the Minister of Internal Affairs has also pointed out previously.

In essence, this bill makes it easier for individuals and businesses to interact with Government, and that is important. This Government has made it abundantly clear that we will prioritise increasing public participation, increasing openness, and increasing transparency. This bill makes good progress towards that goal, as it moves many of our ministries squarely into the 21st century. It moves our ministries into the digital age, and it allows them to communicate more easily with New Zealanders as well.

There are four distinct parts to this bill. The first part allows for certain services offered by Births, Deaths and Marriages to be applied for without requiring written statutory declarations. It also proposes to remove some of the restrictions on the use of photographs that are stored in the RealMe verification services, with the consent of the individual concerned, of course.

The proposals related to MBIE, or the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, allow people or businesses to appear before Government agencies via electronic means in certain circumstances. That means that they would be able to be interviewed using things like audio and video technology. I mean, I’ve spent a fair few hours in teleconferences and video conferences, and know how beneficial that can be, especially in an age where so many of us are time poor. My understanding is that it’s going to save everyone involved quite a bit of time and money and effort, which is a great thing.

I imagine this would be particularly beneficial, and as I was reading this bill and researching it, a number of people I know personally sprang to mind who would benefit from this—particularly people who have young families, for whom travel is quite difficult and involves a lot of planning, forethought, and childcare provisions as well; those who struggle to find money for travel; and those who live in rural areas. MBIE’s proposals would also allow for certain types of notices to be provided electronically.

The proposals relating to the Department of Conservation would allow game hunting licences to be sold online. It would also allow—and this is the part of the bill that excites me, particularly—online voting, as was mentioned previously, for Fish & Game Council elections. This is something that’s been talked about time and again in the past: the need for us to move towards electronic voting. I mean, if we can do it for the Fish & Game Council elections, that means this takes us one step closer to online voting in a number of different elections. So many have spoken to me about online voting, whether it’s local government elections or central government elections as well, and this takes us closer to that reality. So I’m quite excited about this part of this bill.

It is also important to note that there were some concerns that were expressed during the first reading of this bill that have been considered by the Government Administration Committee, which of course was the select committee that examined this bill. It is important, also, to note that the select committee recommends that this bill be passed with the proposed amendments, which the Government agrees to. I’m also pleased that the Privacy Commissioner was supportive of the specific parts of the bill that his submission commented on.

One of the concerns raised during the first reading of this bill, and one of the concerns that was considered by the select committee, was around the digital divide. There are a number of factors that lead to that gap of the internet haves and have-nots, those who will be able to benefit from this digital transformation and those who may not be able to. Some of these barriers include ethnicity; language barriers; digital literacy is another one; geography, of course—where you live in New Zealand—and people with disabilities also. Age and household income continue to be the two biggest dividers, the two greatest factors that determine whether people, whether families can access the internet and, therefore, benefit from this transformation that we are debating here today.

As previously mentioned by the Minister, Tracey Martin, the focus of this bill is to enable access to services through various digital channels for those who choose to interact with Government online, but, of course, if we’re here debating the benefits of democracy as well, or the importance of democracy, then the onus is on us to ensure that we bridge that gap or we close that gap so that there are more people who are able to benefit from this digital transformation. Therefore, this must be addressed. It was, as I mentioned previously, addressed or considered by the committee and mentioned in the committee’s report. The ability to interact with Government easily should not be limited just to the young and those with deep pockets; it should be available to, and accessible by, everyone, and that’s why this Government will work closely—we’ve said we’ll work closely—with industry representatives, with different communities, with academics, and with key stakeholders so that we’re able to determine the extent of the digital disadvantage and also to take some practical measures to address that gap.

In addition, though, and this is what we have to acknowledge, this bill being passed in this Government means that—this is a Government that has already said we will be focusing on so many other aspects of lifting people out of income deprivation. We have a strong focus on that across the board, with a specific focus on those who are most in need. We’ve committed to making sure that there is decent, secure work that is available that pays enough for everyone to live with dignity. We will focus on fixing the health crisis, the housing crisis, and making sure that we have better transport that gets our cities moving again, and all of these will go a long way in ensuring that our families are lifted out of income deprivation, out of poverty, so that there are more people who can benefit from this digital transformation as well.

This is not only a sensible bill; it’s one that embraces the 21st century. Government is the linchpin user of ICT in our economy, the largest single user of technology. This is something that is innovative, is visionary, and enables us to be the best country that we can be for all New Zealanders. It increases trust between people and the Government. All New Zealanders deserve open and transparent democracy. The internet and digital tools are instrumental in us achieving that trust, in us insuring that we can bridge those gaps so that more New Zealanders are able to benefit from these changes from this bill and what it will achieve for us all.

I rise to also support this bill, and just to the previous speaker, Priyanca Radhakrishnan, I really enjoyed your speech there. Sorry to hear about the recent incident on Ponsonby Road, but if she moved to a safe place like Clutha-Southland, we don’t have any of these types of activities or crime down there. It’s a great place, and the people are even better.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Now that Todd’s gone.

That’s a bit cheap. In the previous speeches, no one’s actually mentioned the benefits this bill brings to rural New Zealand. We’ve got farmers that are busy. During lambing, farmers can’t take time to drive an hour or two to town to do simple Government procedures. The second-largest city in New Zealand is actually rural New Zealand. If you take the population, we’ve got roughly 600,000 to 620,000 people that live in rural New Zealand. Clutha-Southland is vastly rural. We’ve got Queenstown, we’ve got Gore, Balclutha, Te Ānau, and last Thursday I was in Milford Sound. I drove about four hours from home to Milford Sound, and they’ve got a workforce there now of around about 200 to 250, throughout the year. It’s not like these people can just drive down, five minutes down the road, or catch a bus, to use Government services; they’ve actually got to drive through Te Ānau, on to Invercargill or Gore, which can take three or four hours. If they are going on to Invercargill, I highly recommend they stop in at Jim Gray’s house for a lovely cup of tea and a lovely muffin. Just watch his wife’s cooking, because if you go there too much, the guts will expand.

I support this bill. Just a couple of points. Section 26Z, amended by clause 82—Fish & Game Council voting online. This is a good initiative, and I commend Minister Curran for taking up this bill. Just secondly, Part 4, clause 82, amends section 26Z of the Conservation Act, which means that with online voting farmers can actually stay on their farm, work in their businesses, and they don’t have to waste time going to town. So I commend Minister Curran for this bill. Thank you.

Kia ora. I am glad to be rising for the Green Party, for the second time tonight, to speak to another fantastic piece of legislation.

💬 Simeon Brown: National legislation—National legislation.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: The House is broadly in agreement about this bill. It’s straightforward, it’s common-sense—common-sense is not a piece of termination that I like to use frequently; it’s more often associated with the likes of Simeon Brown, who is making his point known across the House at the moment. I’d like to commend the Hon Tracey Martin for this bill—it is Tracey’s bill; I would like to confirm that.

Something that it is always important to be cautious of—and to echo the sentiments of the Hon Clare Curran—is that we need to have an awareness of the digital divide, which currently is present in New Zealand and is absolutely one of the indicators of inequality. On that point, we have to strike the balance between not shutting people out, i.e., convenience, but also the likes of accessibility.

On that point, too, I would also like to raise the point of privacy. I note that online photographic storage is something that was flagged by the Privacy Commissioner. They noted the need to go through a privacy impact statement, so that is something that I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to, and that is something the Green Party would like to see, but, still, we stand in support of this bill.

On the point of online voting, this is something that’s often lauded as a bit of a panacea for engagement and turnout and participation in elections, so we may see that the Fish & Game councils may be run off their feet with engagement in elections. This is something that I also want to ensure that we in this House are aware of when we’re talking about increasing engagement by way of online voting, because it is something that can be vulnerable to attack, to hacks and otherwise, by some of those people who may be looking to rig those elections.

This is something that I recently experienced in the Forest & Bird Bird of the Year competition, which, as the campaign manager for the kererū—one of three people managing the campaign for the kererū—

💬 Chris Bishop: A fine bird.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: A fine bird. A fine bird who, I think, really characterises many of us in this House. One hundred votes were fraudulently cast for the white-faced heron.

💬 Chris Bishop: What an outrage.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: What an absolute outrage. So that is something that I would like to draw all members’ attention to, as one of the potential vulnerabilities of online voting. Unfortunately, just to conclude that story, the mighty kererū was robbed, characteristically, I might add, by the kea, of the bird of the year title. But we’ll be back in 2018. We will succeed. We will win.

In summation, the Green Party would like to commend this bill to the House. We are in agreement that it is absolutely straightforward and common sense.

Mr Assistant Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity to make a contribution this evening. Can I congratulate you on your new role as Assistant Speaker. When we specifically think about this very important bill, the Electronic Interactions Reform Bill, it gives me an opportunity to think back to 2009 when I was the Minister of Internal Affairs, when we were doing some strategic thinking about online usage, uptake of broadband, and making it easier for customers to verify themselves online. Now it’s great to see some more changes being made. The transformation that’s been made in recent times, particularly with passports now being able to be applied for online—that is a big transformation that was delivered by the National Government in the previous term. This bill, indeed, carries on with some of that good work.

It also talks about electronic voting, and I guess that is the way of the future, when we think about this House and democracy and how we are always keen to get more engagement from voters up and down the country. Certainly, electronic voting is a way to enable a greater participation in New Zealand’s democracy. But I guess that comes with some challenges as well, because we need to ensure that we can indeed verify each individual so that those people that are choosing to vote online are indeed those particular individuals and not someone else.

This bill also talks about the digital divide, and, I guess, the haves and have-nots—those people that are fortunate to have broadband right into their homes or their businesses. We heard another contributor on this side of the House talking about rural New Zealand. For still a large chunk of New Zealanders out in the heartland, it is certainly very challenging to get access to broadband.

The National Government rolled out a significant investment over the last nine years—ultra-fast broadband one and two, focusing on some of those smaller towns. Also, the Rural Broadband Initiative, which has enabled access for a lot of those hard-to-reach locations throughout New Zealand. Also, mobile blackspots—there was a big initiative there to allow people with cellphones to be able to make emergency calls. So there is a lot happening in this space, and this reform bill that we are debating this evening will go a long way to ensure that progress continues to be made.

I call Paul Eagle—a 5-minute call.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and congratulations on your role. The last time I was speaking, there was a swimming pool over here, so I’ve moved this way to avoid that and to make sure I get it right this time. It’s my pleasure to support Minister Martin and, of course, Minister Curran in their work here. I also want to just acknowledge the Hon Ruth Dyson as the committee chair who helped lead this piece of work through. I don’t want to repeat much, but I do want to just acknowledge the Hon Chris Finlayson. He talked about succinctness, and he ran a succinct campaign. I think he had nine hoardings and went to nine meetings, but he did come up with the quote of the campaign, which was that if he did win he would call for a recount. I was going to pay the fee for him to do that, but, of course, the rest is history.

I think this is the “Making Life Easier for Kiwis Bill”, because when I read through it, it talks about a whole range of things that others have talked about that make life easier for most Kiwis—not all, but most. I thought I’d just concentrate on a few things that have been said and a few bits and pieces that I’ve picked out. I picked out what the MP for Pakuranga has reminded us of: this Better Public Services agenda that was led by the previous Government. They wanted—I think you said 70 percent of transactions online by the end of this year. Somewhere in the notes, it talks about that they got to 52 percent. But, really, the only big things that happened there were that the ministries got bigger, the cost of restructuring these departments got bigger—everything got bigger, except for what the purpose of Better Public Services was for. So I don’t want to call it a failure outright, but close to—close to.

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: I wouldn’t do that yet. You’ve only been here for five minutes.

That’s right. I wouldn’t call it a failure just yet. The other thing, though, that the notes pick up on is online security and secure data. That was a hive of information, because we’ve talked lots about the local government elections, where we could have had those being online. They weren’t, and I’m glad. I want them to go online, but I’m glad that local government wasn’t used as the guinea pig, because several in the IT sector were saying to me, “Look, we cannot have these online because the Government cannot prove to us that all will go well.”

Look, I’ve got a list here, and the list is huge. In terms of protecting public information, we had leaks galore. We had health—in fact, we had health senior officials in 2015 having to swear that they did not leak the information. We had 6,000 names and addresses of individuals leaked, or however else you want to describe it, and the information go yonder in 2012. I’m not even going to talk about Novopay, nor the IRD issue with Rt Hon Winston Peters, but the issue of securing online information and data I think needs to be addressed.

We’ve also talked lots about the digital divide. I know we’ve had the information there on those who don’t have the internet. I think what the Department of Internal Affairs talked about is that 93 percent of people do actually have access. I know that just up the road there in Newtown, in my electorate, you have something there called SmartNewtown. That’s a local government - funded resource where people can go in who don’t have much, they can log in for nothing, you’ve got 20 computers set up, and they can communicate with their homeland in the language that they choose to, in the time that they have, for no money. How simple such a service is. But, look, let’s try and do our best to get the information that we need to get out to people like that more easily. I’m really happy, and it’s my pleasure, to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak in support of this bill. I want to just focus on one particular part, a part that particularly interests me, section 102, in clause 45, which talks about the legitimacy of email as a modality for delivering notices and documents. This interests me because, amongst other things, for a decade or so, I worked at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. In the 1970s, the thinking is, probably a quarter of all the world’s email traversed that organisation. So I have a deep background in the early email days.

I’m particularly interested in the mechanisms that the Commerce Act will allow for documents to be delivered. There are four of them: “(a) delivering it to the person; or (b) leaving it at the person’s usual or last known [address] … (c) sending it by post to the person’s usual or last known [address] …”—and it’s this fourth part round here, around email, that interests me—“(d) emailing it to the person at an email address that is used by the person.” It’s that very first part—“emailing it to the person”—and I’m sure the select committee thought this through, but I just wonder: what if the email is a company or a corporate email and not a person?

The reason I raise that is because if we look further down at sections 388A(f) and 388A(g), in clause 48, it clearly differentiates emailing it to the director and emailing it to the company. So there seems to be some difference between a person as a director and a company. Just that very first part up there, part (d), “emailing it to the person at an email address”—I’m sure this has been well thought through, but I just wanted to raise it in this contribution. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

As a new member of the Governance and Administration Committee, I wonder whether I could put myself in the position of arriving late but claiming all the credit. In any event, I do want to acknowledge the former chairperson, the Hon Ruth Dyson, and all other members of the Government Administration Committee of the last Parliament. The select committee examined the bill and released its report in April. This is a cross-agency omnibus bill seeking to examine and update 17 pieces of legislation, to help enable digital interactions between individuals, businesses, and government agencies. The Minister who is responsible for this bill, the Hon Tracey Martin, and all other members who spoke earlier have listed all the details and proposed functions of the four parts of this bill. I tend to follow the former Attorney-General, the Hon Christopher Finlayson, and try to take a succinct approach.

I read with great interest, in an article published in Computerworld magazine in 2016, that Inland Revenue had begun accepting digital signatures with Mind Your Own Business (MYOB), which claimed to be the first accounting software provider to support the facility. The use of digital signatures by Inland Revenue would redefine how businesses interact with the organisation. The IRD guidelines allow documents such as tax returns to be filed with an electronic signature rather than in writing, meaning there will be no need to print, sign, and send the forms to Inland Revenue. MYOB also said that it had been working with Inland Revenue to find ways of simplifying a range of compliance and taxation proposals, and had also worked with the Government on the introduction of e-GST as well as on changes to provisional taxation, to allow it to be calculated and paid directly through a business accounting software package.

Two years ago, a New Zealander had her identity electronically stolen and used online by someone in Russia. The situation is unfortunate, but could serve as a timely reminder that we do need to closely scrutinise how this type of electronic activity is carried out. So this bill has taken a balanced approach.

The Government Administration Committee also analysed and discussed what they called a digital divide. Now, this is a term that generally refers to the gap between those who do and those who do not have internet access, often because of geographic or affordability reasons; it can also cover differences in digital capacity between socio-economic groups. It has just refined the view that there is a great deal of urgency for us to get the infrastructure and basic investment, in that regard, right.

I tend not to use too much of the House’s time. I commend the bill to the House.

Mr Assistant Speaker, I rise and just take a call. First of all, can I just acknowledge your ascension to the role of the Assistant Speaker and thank you that your character and your nature truly suit the role that you’ve been called to. I look forward to your adjudication through the House.

I want to also acknowledge the Hon Tracey Martin in this opportunity, because what I do realise is that Tracey Martin, as the Minister of Internal Affairs, will have the honour of actually being at every citizenship ceremony, and she’ll be able to give a speech where she welcomes people along. Previously, it was the Hon Peter Dunne that had that privilege, but she’ll have that privilege. So I just want to acknowledge you, and thank you—

💬 Hon Tracey Martin: I’ve done it in local government. It’s wonderful.

—and local government as well—in particular also for this bill.

This would be your first legislation coming through the House: the Electronic Interactions Reform Bill. As you’ve said, and you’ve stated in your speech, this is about ensuring that the reform improves the interactions with the public. I think it’s fair to say, and I’m glad that in your speech—unlike some other members that sort of totally bagged the previous Government. This is a bill that has been a long time coming. It’s been worked through the Government Administration Committee as well, so it has had the support and the input of the previous Government as well.

The one part I do want to bring to the attention of the House is Part 4 of this, where clause 82 amends section 26Z of the Conservation Act 1987. Where that becomes important is because it actually then allows for both electronic voting and postal voting to be able to take place.

I know that the previous Green member David Clendon—he and I were on the Justice and Electoral Committee. The whole point around digital technology and platforms is that while it’s important to improve efficiency, it isn’t the only form. I think I like the balance in this, and I want to acknowledge that he was also of the same mind that we are too. What was important to us, when we heard submissions when our digital technicians came in, they, hand on heart, said to us that—this was not in this select committee; it was in the Justice and Electoral Committee—there was no organisation that could 100 percent prove that online voting could be tampered with.

We’ve had some proof from Chlöe Swarbrick, who talked about the fate of the kererū and its voting. As humorous as it was, what it does prove is the fact that there needs to be options with both. I think, most importantly, the electronic transaction gives—in Part 4—an opportunity for using both of those together. So I just want to highlight that. I think this is a good bill. We’re supporting it anyway as it moves forward in the second reading. Thank you.

Mr Assistant Speaker, I wish, firstly, to congratulate you on your election to your new position. It’s good to see you sitting in the Chair. First of all, I would like to say, in speaking on the Electronic Interactions Reform Bill, it’s important that we strike a balance, as we’ve heard tonight already. It’s a great thing to see: making Government more accessible to New Zealanders—that’s a good thing—not only New Zealanders but, I note, also to businesses—to make transactions and communicating with Government far more accessible. But it is important that there is a balance struck by ensuring that we take all New Zealanders with us and not letting this so-called—as we’ve heard tonight—digital divide make participation more difficult.

We note that there’s been a series of concerns raised through the Government Administration Committee, and we’ve heard also that it’s one in every five New Zealanders who, in fact, don’t have access to the internet regularly. I know that where I come from, in Hutt South, there are many children who go home at night who don’t have the internet in their homes and who don’t have access to a computer, and so have to use either libraries or a friend’s house. So it’s important that we remember to make sure that the next generation of New Zealanders are participating in this new wave of change that we are initiating through this bill.

There is also another area we need to look at. It’s the generation of New Zealanders who didn’t grow up with computers, who might not, through economic or socio-economic means, be excluded but through their own technological awareness. I know for a fact that my mum has tried to turn off the TV with her cellphone more than once, and there must be other New Zealanders out there who are challenged by the fact of getting to terms with new technology.

It’s been noted that there’s a series of initiatives in place that are able to counter this concern. We have a cross-agency digital economy work programme that aims to support the growth of the digital sector and the uptake of smart use of ICT across the economy. Also, there was research initiated by the Department of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment in December 2016 that aims to gain insights around the current levels of digital exclusion and capability. A digital services heat map will be produced that shows how the trust and InternetNZ are updating, that maps and digital initiatives by location, type, and also programme, which is encouraging to see, and also research on international initiatives that assesses countries’ effectiveness in dealing with digital exclusion and improving digital capability.

But I do believe that the greatest initiative to address the risk of having a digital divide would be this Labour-led Government’s Families Package, which will be coming into force shortly. It’s by making sure that we have families who are receiving the basics in their lives through ensuring we invest in health, education, and housing, and not give tax cuts to those at the top—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order!

—who already have computers—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member will come back to the bill.

It is this Labour-led Government’s initiative to make sure that we have a fair society in order for all families to be able to afford to have access to the internet and have access to their computers. That’s why we are extending Working for Families to 30,000 more, introducing a Best Start payment to help families with costs in the child’s early years, and introducing a winter energy payment to superannuitants and those on main benefits—so that everybody in New Zealand has the money to go and purchase a computer and pay their weekly bills to access the internet. That is how we address the digital divide in New Zealand.

As a former public servant, I also would like to say that having communication flows inside of Government is always a priority. The amount of time taken up with paper and paper-pushing takes a lot of cost on to the taxpayer. Having more effective flows and being able to communicate, whether it be online or through digital online cameras, is a fine way of making sure meetings and paperwork are not having the Government’s time taken up unnecessarily.

It’s interesting to see how the uptake of new technology has increased over time. When we think back to when the first ways of communicating or getting information was over the radio and think about how that took over time for people to get their radio and get that up and running. Television—the first TV sets that we saw were people getting information, and that uptake increased more quickly than radio. Now, with the increase of internet, that uptake has been faster than ever. When we see the rate and the level of New Zealanders that are engaging through Facebook, through Twitter, and through Snapchat, and we see how ready people are to engage through the internet, it is a good sign that the Government needs to get on board and grasp the opportunity of more effective communication with a wider range of people, but we must ensure we do that in a way that reaches everybody.

It’s good to see that there is agreement across the House on this piece of legislation. It’s good to see that there is agreement from all parties that we need to be making the New Zealand Government far more accessible to New Zealanders. I look forward to seeing New Zealanders and businesses taking full advantage of a far more accessible Government here in New Zealand. Thank you.

Bill read a second time.