Suits push out the T-shirts

By ADAM GIFFORD

It being an e-commerce summit, the ponytails and T-shirts are going to outnumber the suits and ties, right?

Wrong. E-commerce is commerce with some new tools attached, and those paying the registration fee to get into the Aotea Centre were the people driving the commerce, not the people driving the tools.

Not that it was all suits crowding the aisles. There was a fair smattering of casually dressed entrepreneurs wanting to see where things are going, or looking for the contacts to take their idea or product that much further.

In a world where you will supposedly get whatever you want by clicking on a screen, there's a huge amount of bandwidth in a network of live, warm human beings looking each other in the eye. It's a pity the bandwidth of Auckland's biggest conference venue is so low, and its rooms so inadequate for running events of this type. Registrations closed days ago.

The summit was a chance for the Government to lay out its e-commerce strategy and emphasise again its willingness to talk to business. Those attending welcomed the attitude, but it was also clear no one was hanging around waiting for the Government to act.

Ian Taylor of Dunedin company Animation Research, who was found in a corner demonstrating the latest version of Virtual Spectator, said the industry moved fast and Governments would not take the same risks as entrepreneurs.

There are things, though, that only Governments can do. When digital commentator Don Tapscott, speaking over a video link from Canada, said the tax regime should be used to encourage talented people to stay in the country, his comments earned applause.

This is not what the Government's e-commerce document meant when it talked about ensuring an appropriate tax environment that takes into account the sector's growth.

Information Technology, Commerce and Communications Minister Paul Swain said that related to whether the huge potential tax leakage meant GST should be collected on electronic transactions. The question of where cyber companies were based also raised huge issues for nation states in terms of their tax bases being eroded.

Mr Swain said the questions had been put in the broad tax review, which is due to report by 2002. But some of these issues would probably have to be sorted out through international agreements.

National's Information Technology spokesman Maurice Williamson said the e-commerce policy strategy appeared to cover the major issues.

Many New Zealand businesses were working frantically on being efficient in an industrial-age structure, not realising that they could easily benefit in this new economy.

He criticised the Treasury, saying that senior officials there continued to believe that everything should be left to the market.

"Markets fail in a revolutionary environment, and my view is the world has started undergoing the most structural revolution - bigger than [the] industrial revolution."

Any strategy was doomed unless the Government intervened in education to ensure there were more science and technology graduates.

Herald Online feature: e-commerce summit

Official e-commerce summit website