Customer and Product Data Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Customer and Product Data Bill.

SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: I move, That the Customer and Product Data Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee to consider the bill.

It is a pleasure to be introducing this bill. The Customer and Product Data Bill paves the way for greater competition in the banking and electricity sector, two sectors that touch the lives of every New Zealander. Our coalition Government is 100 percent committed to creating a more dynamic and prosperous economy. A crucial part of this is encouraging competition, with a view to fostering innovation and lowering consumer prices. This bill sets up a framework which will make it easier and more attractive for entrepreneurial start-ups to challenge big established players, first in the banking sector and secondly in the electricity sector. Later, there will be opportunities to apply it to other sectors such as to communications.

The ultimate goal is to provide Kiwis with greater choice: choice about who you bank with and who you get your electricity from; choice about how you manage your finances and what technology plan you sign up for. Choice is freedom, and when customers have choice, businesses have to compete.

Innovation is fostered as businesses are encouraged to create and invest in new products and services. There are some fantastic examples of innovative products that exist overseas but which are not available here in New Zealand because we don’t yet have a consumer data right in place. For example, many of the big Australian banks offer 10-minute online home loans to the Australian customers. Yet, here in New Zealand, the same customers of the same banks have to go through a lengthy manual process to get a mortgage. New Zealand has some of the world’s most profitable banks. Our four big banks are Australian-owned and the fact that they make bigger profits in New Zealand than at home speaks to the lack of competition.

We also have high electricity prices, and it isn’t easy for most households to compare plans and work out how to adjust their energy use to save money. I’m very pleased to say that this bill lays the foundation for open banking and open electricity, which will have a transformative effect on competition and, in turn, likely lower consumer prices. At its most basic, the bill sets out a framework for data to be safely and simply accessed and shared.

Modern businesses like banks and electricity companies hold masses of data about your usage and you in particular. You can request your data, but there is no requirement for them to give you this data quickly or in a useful and digestible format. One of my very clever officials who actually worked on this bill told me how she spent a whole year trying to work out the best electricity plan for her family. She had to download the raw data and put it into an Excel spreadsheet, code it, and manually work through all the various plans on offer. Eventually, she worked out that a plan that offers free power on the weekend would be the most economical for her family, and while I applaud her due diligence, this is not a realistic thing that we expect normal people to do. Overseas there are apps that can do this for you, and this bill lays the groundwork for them to operate in New Zealand.

When customers have access to this kind of information, companies can’t hide behind slick promotional deals and advertising campaigns. Customers will be better able to make informed decisions and compare services. The terms “open banking” and “open electricity” are a little misleading. They make it like there are no guard rails or they’ve been removed and there’s some kind of data free-for-all. This is not the case. In fact, data privacy and security will improve.

The bill is supported by the Privacy Commissioner and complements existing protections in the Privacy Act. I expect minimum security requirements to be set for each sector in regulations that follow this bill. Right now, New Zealand has no mandatory data standards for businesses. Many businesses operate complicated, out-of-date systems that put customers at risk. Some businesses have popped up that offer customers the kinds of services I have mentioned, but with no safe data right; they rely on a practice called screen scraping, which is risky. It is a practice that essentially asks customers to provide a third party your log-in details so they can access your bank data. This breaches bank terms and conditions, and means if something goes wrong, you have little protection.

The data-sharing framework is entirely opt-in, meaning that customers must first give their explicit consent for their data to be shared. There will be rules to make sure that data requests are expressed in simple terms so that customers can understand what they’re signing up for. To participate in the regime, businesses will have to be independently accredited and to show that they meet the security standards. There will also be a customer verification process. Banks will have to verify that it is you making the request, not an impersonator.

I want to stress that the Government will play a limited role in this regime. We’re kick-starting the transformation and establishing the legal and regulatory framework. I’ve been working with the Commerce Commission to make sure we’re making good progress on developing the application programming interfaces, or the standards that set the rules for transferring data. While it is important that we set some rules and standards to ensure safety is not trumped by commercial interests, the Government will not collect or hold any customer data, nor will we participate in data-sharing arrangements unless explicitly requested by you, the customer.

The question is: who supports the bill? Well, honestly, basically everyone. Many people have advocated for a consumer data right regime for years. Just a few weeks ago, the OECD recommended that New Zealand introduce a consumer data right regime. It is also supported by consumer advocacy groups and by industry, including banks, because while we expect this bill to eventually lead to more competition for these entities, they are also excited about the fact that they will be able to develop products and services for their customers. They will also be able to develop labour-saving, productivity-enhancing tools like the 10-minute online mortgage application process I spoke of earlier. It will also support businesses accessing capital by giving lenders a more accurate picture of a business’ financial health.

Even our colleagues across the aisle support it, and I’d just like to acknowledge previous commerce and consumer affairs Ministers who have worked on this bill. It has been in train for a long time, and I’m really pleased that there’s cross-party support. I’d argue that it’s been in train for far too long. There’s a lot of fatigue out there because people have been waiting so long for this to actually happen, so I’m really pleased that this Government is progressing this legislation within a few months of coming to office. None the less, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge and thank former Ministers for their work. It is also my hope and intention that we work together to get the best outcomes for New Zealanders in this area, which stand the test of time and set us up for a bright and prosperous future.

Finally, I’d like to provide some international context. Most of our international partners who we compare ourselves to already have put in place or are in the process of putting in place a consumer data right just like this one we are doing today, or are making steps to deliberately accelerate open banking. Australia, the UK, the EU, Canada, and the US are some examples, and probably the most successful one is actually in Brazil. New Zealand has been comparatively slow. Recent reports say there are as many as 300 companies waiting for open banking to become a reality. So we know that there are smart businesses queuing up to bring products to the New Zealand market.

The advantage of our slow start is that we’ve been able to learn from others’ mistakes. Open banking has been slow in Australia. I’ve met with the person that drafted the legislation and what we have done is we’ve observed what has happened and learnt from this and adapted our framework so the same won’t happen here. [Bell rung]

Mr Speaker, thank you. I was enjoying that speech and I was enjoying the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs’ ambition for New Zealand’s economy. This is a good bill, and it helps him to achieve that purpose of increasing New Zealand’s productivity and improving the way that consumers experience their lives. It’s about getting Kiwis a better deal. That’s why successive Labour Ministers have shepherded through this work, and it’s great to see that the Minister has picked this up and prioritised it on his work programme.

I’m really, really proud of this piece of work. I want to add to the Minister’s comments about how this bill will actually work for consumers. When you think about banks and electricity retailers and other companies that hold data about our spending, I think it’s only fair that consumers have access to the same information that they do. It’s about making sure that the businesses which hold our data, which gather data about our personal spending habits, about the way that we interact in their stores, about our behaviour online—that consumers would also be able to access their information.

The Minister gave a great example of someone trawling through their bills to make sure that they can understand their electricity consumption and work out what is the best use of their family’s budget—which is always going to be limited—about how to spend that and how to get the most out of their electricity. There are countless examples about how consumers will be able to access this in future. It will be a really powerful tool to not only drive competition in those sectors that have otherwise not been largely competitive in New Zealand’s economy—and I’ll get to that in a second—but also so that consumers actually understand how their money can go further, about the spending in our daily lives, like electricity particularly but also our banking and financial services products.

This bill, which began its life as a Labour bill, would create rights for data holders to safely and securely share their data with third parties following the consent of that customer. That’s important because, as the Minister has said, that’s something that the Privacy Commissioner actually supports, and there need to be safeguards on how we are sharing this kind of data.

It’s interesting, and something that we will need to tease out at the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, those services that have operated in New Zealand’s environment for, say, 10 years and that use scraping services with no major security incident—where those might need further regulation or whether we would say that actually there has been no security incident there, there seems to be appropriate security in place, so those things are working OK. To give consumers more choice is the point here, not to introduce further restrictions dressed up in protection of data, when, actually, the data is being used in our market in a way that is acceptable for consumers.

These regulations are good, though. In general, they let New Zealand consumers share data with things like fintech companies. I would love to see the Acts that the Minister has talked about taking off in New Zealand. They’re the kinds of tools that let consumers instantly see and compare—due to their usage of, say, their electricity in their home, or due to the kind of products that they have; for instance, their mortgage, their car loan, and their insurance on their home—the kinds of products that are available to you and the kinds of prices that you would expect to pay not only at your own provider, where you might not be on the most competitive product for you, but also within other providers within the market. That’ll be a really good thing.

This is something that’s been available to not only UK consumers but also Australian consumers since 2019. Our legislation here is based on that legislation. It brings us in line with those markets, where these apps are already operating and where there is already—you know, our market providers, realistically, in New Zealand are also operating in the Australian market. So to be able to make the change, to be able to provide those same services to Kiwi consumers who are, basically, buying the same product for the same reasons, is a really useful thing for us to do.

When I talked, though, about New Zealand’s economy, this is a really important step in driving that competition. I talk about the ambition of this Minister to be able to do that, because we need to keep that pressure up on large corporates in the New Zealand market place, who over three decades have increased their proportion of rents that you would otherwise be able to calculate that are above and beyond their capital investment. A large proportion of New Zealand’s GDP is actually represented by these firms that are charging over and above what you would otherwise expect based on their capital investment—that’s things like plants, materials, machines—and into what you might say are intangibles or are into what you might say is just pure corporate profit.

The second largest industry for this is the financial services industry, where, you know, they’re getting up to a larger and larger proportion of their profits going offshore. So to be able to drive competition in the New Zealand market is incredibly important. We have a system now, which represents five stable competitors in a market, where we would like to see those fintechs and those smaller companies being able to compete with the larger banks. This is one tool that can do that—but there are more. We want to see this Minister out there, being able to take Commerce Commission cases where there is unfair competition, and driving that competition as much as he can.

Before I call the member, the enthusiasm that has been generated around this bill has clearly got me quite captivated. As a consequence of both my captivation by the Hon Andrew Bayly and then anticipation of Arena Williams, I neglected to say that the question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. We’re very supportive of the Customer and Product Data Bill. The Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs is completely right that this bill does have cross-party support, and so this is a welcome opportunity to have constructive conversations at the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee about how we can tackle the issue of the lack of consumers being able to access and, in some ways, share information that allows them to get more affordable services.

I also don’t want to pretend that greater competition will be the panacea to systemic issues that mean that, for example, basic services such as energy are run by entities that ultimately seek to make a profit. But it is crystal clear that the current mechanisms in place benefit really, really big players and really large corporates that have, right now, benefited from a system that prevents consumers from actually being able to access the cheapest service available by using available information. This has created a system where, basically, advocates such as Consumer New Zealand are now running campaigns to support consumers being able to find the correct information about, for example, what energy provider may actually allow them to access a more affordable service.

When it comes to open banking, I want to support the Minister’s statement that this lays the foundation towards having an open banking system. In the case of New Zealand, all that we are doing is following what, for example, jurisdictions in Australia, the UK, and Europe have been doing and moving forward to an open banking system. So this is a case of us following other players in the world who have led the way when it comes to these sort of regulations. It is good to see, particularly at a time where many of these financial services move their profits overseas, New Zealand not lagging behind so much when it comes to other jurisdictions, particularly when it comes to Australia, where some of those banks end up taking their profits to. So that’s a really good thing.

I want to again shout out to advocates like Consumer New Zealand and others who have done really important work in highlighting how the lack of access to information plays a huge role in consumers not being able to make informed decisions as to which provider they may want to choose for a range of services that actually may be more beneficial. We know that right now, when we’ve got an inequality crisis, there are people who are having to choose between the services they access when it comes to a portable banking system or any of the providers and paying their rent. That is something that should never have to happen—certainly should not have to happen because of the lack of systems available for people to have access to information and to then be able to make better decisions.

I also want to note that we look forward, in the select committee process, to the discussions around what was noted by the Productivity Commission in 2021 around indigenous data. The Productivity Commission noted that there is an ongoing policy debate around collective data rights and indigenous data sovereignty, and so part of having a consumer protection data regime would mean that we also need to have a closer look around issues relating to how this would interact with Māori data sovereignty and whether this bill is in line with Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Those are just nuances—and important ones—that we need to unpack at the select committee. But in the spirit of cross-party collaboration when it comes to this bill, I do hope that those conversations will be constructive.

I do also want to note that some of the issues that have arisen that led to the creation of this bill are actually relatively new, right? A lot of these conversations are due to emerging technologies and the way that information is now held, due to those—that, perhaps, in past decades would have not been the case. They have also been the result of the accumulation of power and resources by a few huge corporations. So in the same way that a lot of these constructs are new, we need to be bold and imaginative around how we can move beyond simply competition-led solutions to address the issue about why some basic services are run by companies that seek to make a profit.

So the Green Party will continue to push for those broader systemic solutions, but at the same time acknowledge that this bill will have benefits for people in their day-to-day lives that will allow them to make better informed decisions that lead to more affordable lifestyle choices when it comes to those products and services that they choose.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m taking this call on behalf of ACT. We are supporting the first reading of the Customer and Product Data Bill. We believe that it will be really important for us to hear from relevant stakeholders in the select committee process. I heard from the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs that this bill is going to be sent, after the first reading, to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. As the chair of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, I look forward to working on this bill with all members on the committee. I look forward to hearing from submitters as well.

The Minister also mentioned two sectors here; that is, the banking and electricity sectors. We understand that this bill is going to actually set up an economy-wide framework for data portability. So, basically, it’s about data portability but it can be applied to various sectors and various sectors can be included in this framework. This is normally referred to as the consumer data regime—the consumer data right regime, I should say. In this one, as the name implies—consumer data right regime—it is about giving that right to consumers about their data. So every time consumers do any transaction, they are creating data and that data is actually held with the agency or the outlet they are dealing with. This bill is to ensure that that data is actually controlled by the consumer. The consumer authorises if the data can be transferred to another agency so that they can be provided with better products.

In this bill, what is important is that, yes, data is going to be more available, but for consumers it’s also important that it gives that assurance that it’s going to be secure. That is the most important thing for consumers. In this legislation, it says that the data will be transferred to other parties and it will be done in a secure manner; it will be done in a standardised manner, which is a very important point to note in this legislation. With this, what we expect is that there will be more digital innovation, there will be more competition, and that is what we are planning on through this legislation. I’ll be really looking forward to hearing from submitters on how they think that this bill can bring that kind of digital innovation and can bring competition.

I also want to acknowledge that that work on this legislation started in 2020, and then there was a consultation process as well, and the current Minister has decided to carry forward this legislation. So a lot of work has gone into this bill and we really want to see how this can bring that change that we are expecting in different sectors by introducing more competition. This is about bringing market efficiency, this is about giving consumers more confidence that they have the best possible product available to them, and this is through their data being shared.

Now, another important point in this is that this is going to be an economy-wide framework, but this will not be about applying it to each and every consumer. It will be up to consumers to decide if they want to opt into this consumer data right regime, and if they don’t want to, they can decide not to be part of this. Again, it comes down to trust—so trust when any consumer authorises the transfer of any data from one agency to another agency, what they want is trust. This legislation actually will provide that trust as well by making sure that data is transferred through secure interfaces, it is transferred in a standardised manner, and it is transferred in a seamless manner so that the consumers can see in real time what a difference it would make if they switch from one agency to the other agency; that is very important. That operational efficiency and cost efficiency for consumers is really important.

That is why we believe that this is an important bill to go to the select committee, and we really want to hear from relevant stakeholders. We also want to hear from sectors—those who are keen in open banking, and the electricity sector has been mentioned as well. So I am really looking forward to working on this bill in the select committee process. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand on behalf of New Zealand First in support of this bill, the Customer and Product Data Bill, in this first reading. I am also on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, so I’m very much looking forward to hearing submissions.

Now, we support this bill because it represents critical steps towards establishing a clear and effective regulatory framework for data access and management in New Zealand. Now, this provides customers with greater control over their data and it promotes fair and transparent data practices. This bill aligns with our principles of protecting individuals’ privacy rights and fostering innovation. We believe that the bill will continue to be more equitable and prosperous in the digital economy while safeguarding the interests of all stakeholders.

Hon Andrew Bayly: That’s right.

TANYA UNKOVICH: Yes. Now, we also recognise the importance of striking a balance between promoting innovation and protecting individuals’ privacy rights in this digital age. We believe that these robust data regulations are now essential to ensure fair and transparent data practices. Our principles prioritise the interests of consumers and small businesses, so we will advocate and always promote competition, innovation, and data sovereignty. So I am very proud to commend this bill to the House on behalf of New Zealand First.

SPEAKER: Is the Māori Party putting up a speaker?

Sorry, I thought I was (b), not (a). Nō reira. Mōrena tātou. This bill is a non-event, really, to be quite honest, in regards to our support. So we’ll be supporting it to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, Mr Bayly, only because it gives the customer the data right to be able to have more control over their ability to move in these particular spaces. But this gives me an opportunity to speak about the more competitive space in the banking system. They made $7.2 billion last year, just in 2023.

What this does is it also gives us an opportunity to look at what a Māori banking system might look like in regards to consumer data rights—and not just being served up what we have always been served up. I just want to make mention of the Māori electricity company Nau Mai Rā. Again, this gives customers the opportunity to move into a more competitive space and to look at other options when it comes to data sharing and consumer data rights.

Also, this is an opportunity for me to speak about Māori sovereignty in terms of our data sovereignty, which has been a huge issue. I note that both Governments, at one particular time, have worked with Māori to ensure Māori sovereignty and Māori data sovereignty is an ongoing project. If we look at Te Whata, the iwi data platform, it also gives us an opportunity to look at how data is shared across the iwi data sector and platforms. Te Whata is one of those data platforms that, I think, we should be looking at in terms of these types of bills. We’re supporting it to select committee because we want to see where Te Tiriti o Waitangi sits in terms of data sovereignty in regards to this bill.

This is not just a bill that, I think, is as simple as it comes across, but I think it’s an opportunity for us to have a wider discussion around Māori sovereignty, around how Te Tiriti o Waitangi fits within this particular bill in terms of data sovereignty and giving the consumer the data rights, and—just to reiterate the kōrero here by ACT—how this goes across some of the other sectors in terms of data sharing; I’m talking about health, education, welfare, housing, justice, and also across tamariki. Te Pāti Māori will be supporting this bill to the select committee, because we believe that it allows the submitters to have their say on this particular issue.

So, koinā hoki [that’s all]. It’s only a short call, but I’ll just say to Mr Bayly, I think this is a good bill, but it allows us to have a wider conversation around Māori sovereignty in terms of our data. It also allows us to have stronger conversations around foreign banks and the amount of money they make and take overseas to make it more competitive in that particular space. You might even champion a Māori bank in your Government, Mr Bayly—but also in the electricity sector where I think there needs to be more competition. I look at, like I said, companies like Nau Mai Rā who are trending in that particular space. Nō reira. We commend this bill to the House. Kia ora tātou.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak on this Customer and Product Data Bill, one from the very hard-working Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, the Hon Andrew Bayly.

This is a great bill and I take issue with what the previous speaker Rawiri Waititi said. This is about individual sovereignty of your data. It’s not about groups having sovereignty over it; it’s about your individual sovereignty over your own data. And actually, this is, at its heart, about competition. It’s about choice in competition. This is about enabling individuals to own their own data and ensure—we give away huge amounts of data when we interact electronically, and particularly with our banks and with our electricity companies as part of this bill.

I know from my own experience that, when I wanted to make a change in heating our home, trying to figure out how to get the information on your electricity bill down to the level that you need in order to make a sensible financial calculation is incredibly difficult. You’ve got to know the time at which you’re using your electricity so you can actually make that calculation sensibly. It’s very difficult to get that data down to that granular level, whereas apps, which will be no doubt developed in the future, will be able to do that for you, as well as being able to change banks.

In terms of the banks and the 10-minute loans that are available overseas, as the Hon Andrew Bayly mentioned in his speech, as well as other innovations in the banking sector, we do not have the same access to those things as the countries that we like to compare ourselves do, so it is time we made those changes. And I think this ties in very well with the banking inquiry that’s coming up, that the financial expenditure select committee will be doing.

So help is on its way. This is a great tool that we’re going to be passing through, and I really look forward to the progress of this bill, and I commend it with great pride to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m grateful for the opportunity to speak to this bill, the Customer and Product Data Bill. I too am also a member of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, so I look forward to—depending on how things go—seeing this bill come through to that committee for further examination as well. I also want to look at where this bill came from, and the genesis of this bill was from the work of former Ministers of Commerce and Consumer Affairs David Clark and Duncan Webb, so I wanted to acknowledge their work in getting the ball rolling for this bill.

Now, I think, when we look at a bill like this, it’s very important to not lose sight of the fact that people are not products. There’s a risk that if we don’t get a bill like this right, we miss that point and we turn people into products. If we look at what the purpose of this bill is, the purpose of this bill should surely be to empower consumers, to give consumers greater control over their data, to give consumers the ability to compare prices—prices on things like interest rates on mortgages—to allow consumers to compare prices and to bring new entrants into the market; so, to create the opportunities that give consumers the nimbleness to pivot, to move, and that empower new entrants to step into the market, to create greater competition, to create better value. It also enables the opportunity for open banking to be pursued, making it easier for consumers, for people, to move banks. That also should, hopefully, make banking and the banking sector more competitive, and that will be good for people. The other thing I think that we need to think about is that the information that this will give people will also give people options, and that will give people power.

One of the things I think we need to think about when we have this bill come to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee is to look at what could be missing, what some of the unintended consequences could be. I’ll come back to my earlier point about the risk is that we turn people into products. There’s some elements of this bill, although I’ll be supporting it, that look slightly upside down, that turn people into units. You see that even in the shift of naming from what the similar bill we had was, and was called, through to what it’s called now. I think there’s something wrong with Governments that think about people as units or products. I think we need to think about that and we need to think about the core values that we as a Government, or that we in Parliament and at select committee level, want to bring to the assessment of bills such as this.

I’ll finish on two final points. One is that I want, as a thought experiment, to imagine what might happen for New Zealand at the moment if we brought the same open banking approach to an open voting approach—where we see people feel that their interest rates are no longer the one that they want to go with and they are then more able to shift a bank. Imagine if we had a similar system where the Government that people had ended up with wasn’t quite the Government that they were expecting, or pursuing the policies or platforms that they were expecting, and they could look elsewhere and shift their support to a different political party. We may well be living in a very different New Zealand if that was the case today. I’ve certainly, over the most recent recess, had the opportunity to speak to a lot of people in my community and around New Zealand who didn’t vote for a lot of the things that they are seeing being moved through this Government at the moment.

I’ll finish by saying that I will support this with caution—with caution—because the original bill was initiated to support consumers, to give consumers more power, to give consumers more information, to give people that power. There’s a risk that this bill in its current form has morphed into something that is just there to back business. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise in support of this Customer and Product Data Bill.

Dan Bidois: A good bill.

Dr VANESSA WEENINK: It is a great bill in the name of the excellent Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, the Hon Andrew Bayly. This is about choice and competition: greater choice in the banking sector and greater choice in the electricity and communications sector. Anybody who has ever tried to change banks will feel quite grateful that we are progressing this bill. I, for one, have done it once in my life and it was a painful experience, and I would not recommend it to anybody. It’s very difficult to get everything organised and there is no clarity.

We need more competition. We need to strengthen the economy. This is one of the ways that we’re doing that. We’re simplifying processes, we’re making it easier for businesses to get things done, we’re making it easier for consumers to make decisions. This, along with some of the other work that is going to be progressed through the committee, through the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act and the Financial Markets (Conduct of Institutions) Amendment Act, will also help with all of these elements for business and consumers.

This is an excellent bill that’s well supported around the House. I’m looking forward to seeing this come through the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee and seeing if there’s anything we can do to improve or enhance the bill in any way. I’m sure it’s so well done that we will just pass it all the way through, and I’m looking forward to that process. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you. I’m pleased to support the Customer and Product Data Bill. This bill came through with strong intellectual vigour that was given to it by David Clark and then given to it by Duncan Webb, and it’s come through with the full support of the House, as I understand it, today.

I’m extremely pleased to see a bill like this, because I think it makes a practical difference. But I also think it’s really nice to see a positive bill come through this House. This makes a difference. It’s not cutting down, it’s not—at the moment—subject to lobby groups; this is a bill that actually will support ordinary New Zealanders. In my experience, they have been woefully supported in this area.

I agree with my colleague across the House, who is also on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, that those experiences that we’ve probably all had with the lack of transparency on data are serious. It builds into a few things that need to go on in a complex society. This is a new area. This is something where there has been a gap, and, unfortunately, we’ve been actually put in a situation where, really, we have had people take advantage of that; not everybody takes advantage of that, but certainly big, sophisticated organisations do. So our job, as Parliament, is always to be looking for those vulnerabilities and making sure that we’re looking after people.

I am thrilled to see this bill come through. I will be on that select committee and I’ll be zealously guarding the needs of the ordinary New Zealanders when we look at the detail, because we, sure as eggs, will have people lobby us on that committee to try and water it down, to try and say it’s too hard. That is just not acceptable. We need to stand up to that. Part of our job as a Parliament is to be savvy about that, to not actually look at the lobbyists in a naïve way, and to be using our judgment about whose interests the people that give us submissions serve. We need to make sure that this is something that we hold the feet to the fire of those groups on, hold the banks to account on, and hold to account other groups that have that kind of capacity to use data in a way that supports them, not consumers. We have to hold them to account.

I am thrilled to see this bill, and I am hoping that we’ll do everything and it will be the beginning of a recognition of the need to proactively and positively protect New Zealand citizens from the kind of abuse that can happen if you’re a powerful group with a lot more power than the average consumer. That’s our job as a Parliament. And that’s actually the job of the Government, but it’s also the job of the Opposition, so I’m pleased to see that this is something that we’ve come together on today and I’m absolutely thrilled to see the first piece of legislation I can remember, actually, in this term of Parliament that’s a positive step to protect consumers. Thank you; I am pleased to commend this to the House.

Madam Speaker, it’s a pleasure to rise and tautoko the previous comments from members across this House to support the Customer and Product Data Bill, in the name of my very good friend and colleague Andrew Bayly.

Information asymmetry creates market power and anti-competitive behaviour and it’s in that vein that this bill seeks to address these key issues in some of our biggest and most important sectors in the domestic economy in New Zealand. As my colleague Dr Vanessa Weenink said quite aptly, this is about choice and competition in those particular sectors, whether it is telecommunications, banking, or electricity providers.

As a member of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, I’m very, very excited about this bill. This bill is a bill, as Helen White mentioned, that will make a significant difference to the competitive nature of those sectors. I welcome the introduction of this bill from the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs and I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

The question is, That the Customer and Product Data Bill be considered by the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee.