THURSDAY, 30 APRIL 2020
The Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.
Karakia.
BUSINESS STATEMENT
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): Next week, the House will continue to sit in a fashion that's consistent with the country being at COVID-19 alert level 3. The Government has undertaken not to advance most aspects of its normal legislative programme at this time. The House will consider legislation relating to COVID-19, including the COVID-19 Response (Further Management Measures) Amendment Bill, which will receive its first reading. There are likely to be other bills on immigration and remuneration. The annual review debate will continue, examining portfolios including foreign affairs, education, and others to be agreed between the parties.
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): Thank you for the outline of the business under our different arrangements next week. Look, is there a chance that those bills would be available to the Opposition a little sooner than the bills that we're dealing with this afternoon, which have only become available this morning? We are using processes that now allow the law to reflect the support that's required for New Zealanders relating to this, but I think it would be valuable and part of good order if we could see those bills a little sooner than was the case today.
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): The biggest constraint that we have is just the speed of drafting of the legislation, but, as we did with the bill today, whilst I was unable to get the bill to the Opposition earlier, I was able to get them a summary, and I'm certainly happy to provide the Opposition, hopefully this afternoon, with a summary of the likely content of those bills even if I can't give them the exact bills.





CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSE (EMISSIONS TRADING REFORM) AMENDMENT BILL
Instruction to Environment Committee
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I seek leave for the date by which the Environment Committee must finally report back to the House on the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Reform) Amendment Bill to be extended from 1 May 2020 to 4 May 2020.
SPEAKER: Leave has been sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is none.





STANDING ORDERS
Sessional
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I seek leave to amend the sessional order adopted by the House on 25 March so that the cessation date specified in rule 3 is extended from 28 April 2020 to 4 June 2020. To explain the effect of this, it continues the practice that we made in the last sitting block, extending the deadlines for replies to written questions and responses to select committee reports. 
SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.





ORAL QUESTIONS
QUESTIONS TO MINISTERSQuestion No. 1—Prime Minister
1. Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government's statements and actions?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes, particularly in regard to the way this Government has responded promptly to the challenges presented through COVID-19, whether it's the work that's going through the House today to give roughly $3 billion worth of tax refunds back to business, particularly small businesses, to support them, or it's our mental health response, where we've supported and funded apps and other mechanisms like telehealth services that are available through isolation. We have looked at, and responded quickly to, every element of pain that COVID-19 has caused New Zealand.
Hon Simon Bridges: Does she accept that every day New Zealand remains in level 3 means more businesses failing and more jobs lost?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I accept that any day that we move prematurely into a different alert level poses a risk to New Zealand's economy and a risk to New Zealanders' health.
Hon Simon Bridges: Quite the reverse.
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If we move too soon—and this is supported by Treasury—we risk yo-yoing between levels, and that would be damaging to our economy and to our people. I had a conversation just today with Prime Minister Scott Morrison. We talked about that exact thing—the need for all of us to move with caution.
Hon Simon Bridges: Does she agree with Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who, in the last 24 hours, has stated that he sees New Zealand's approach as involving "much more extreme economic measures" and that's why he's not going to do that?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Two points to make: actually, where we are now, there are some real similarities in the levels that we are at now. Second point: New Zealand has always responded to what is happening here with our population and our cases, and that hasn't been comparable at those times with Australia. And, thirdly, Prime Minister Morrison often has had to give those responses because people have compared the results in New Zealand and Australia, often favourably around the approach that New Zealand has taken.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Prime Minister, as a matter of policy formation, what intellectual credibility would she give to the view that you can smash the curve whilst leaving businesses unaffected?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I think you can see around the world that there are economic impacts to successfully taking on COVID-19—
Hon Simon Bridges: Nobody said that.
Hon Todd McClay: Who said that? Whose view is that?
Rt Hon Winston Peters: What a hypocrite.
SPEAKER: Order! No. The right honourable gentleman knows that that expression should not be levelled at any other member. He will withdraw and apologise.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: I withdraw and apologise.
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We can see around the world there are economic consequences to an effective response to COVID-19, but there are also economic consequences if you don't get it right. You stay in lockdown for longer; the impact on business and jobs is much harsher. Our approach has always been: go hard, go early, get it right the first time. The other thing is I've seen the commentary from the likes of Sir Peter Gluckman at the Epidemic Response Committee today. He shared the exact same cautious approach that we have been taking. No one wants to risk the gains that we have made. No one wants a second wave of infection.
Hon Simon Bridges: Does she agree that New Zealand has taken a more extreme approach economically than Australia?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, I've challenged the characterisation that the member's made at different times of Australia and New Zealand in the House. But I've also pointed out that we have had a different experience of COVID-19 in New Zealand, and we have a different population. I would have thought the member would like us to follow our own path on behalf of our own people rather than just replicating what others have done, because it hasn't necessarily been a successful template in all parts of the world. 
Hon Simon Bridges: Why does she keep telling us she's the best in the world?
SPEAKER: Order! Order! She's the cat's mother. 
Hon Simon Bridges: Why doesn't Cabinet continuously review the need to remain in level 3 instead of arbitrarily waiting two weeks to make the decision?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Because, as epidemiologists and scientists and health professionals have continually told us, there are cycles of infection—that if you don't allow a cycle of infection, then you're less likely to see whether or not you still have transmission of COVID-19 and whether or not we can safely move. I do want to give some caution to the member opposite. He was the one, when we went into lockdown level 4, that agreed we would not want to move at a pace that would mean that we would damage New Zealand's health and economy. He appears now to be advocating that we move with haste. No one in the world at the moment is risking their economy or health by moving more rapidly than the science or the evidence or the officials suggest.
Hon Simon Bridges: What did she say to the 160 workers at Farmers who today have been made redundant because her Government has shut their stores down for at least seven weeks?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I would say to any worker who is affected currently by COVID-19 that, first, we've put in place $10 billion worth of support so far to try and keep those workers in their jobs. Secondly, the approach we've taken has always been to speed up the opportunity for us to reopen the economy as soon as possible. But the third point is I will not risk their health—I will not risk their family's health—by moving before we are sure that we can confidently do so.
Hon Simon Bridges: What does she say to the managing director of Farmers, David Norman, who says the longer the New Zealand stores are locked down, the more job losses there will be?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: All the way along, we have known and appreciated the huge impact of an effective response to COVID-19. That's why we've never wanted to be in lockdown longer than we needed to. It's also why we put in place a 12-week wage subsidy that is worth over $10 billion to support employers, large and small, to keep their employees connected to their work. And our hope is that if we continue to see success, we will be able to move through the alert levels and get people back into work. Seventy-five percent of economic activity has returned now, though.
David Seymour: Can the Prime Minister tell the House succinctly how her Government will balance health and economic considerations in the decision to move from level 3 to level 2, and when?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The economic goal has to be reducing as much as possible the amount of time spent in the most restricted levels. The best way to do that is to ensure that you have confidence in your health response, that you do not have community transmission, and that you do not risk yo-yoing back from one level to another. Treasury scenarios demonstrate to us the economic impact of doing that, which is why they supported the decision that we made to have an extra few days at level 4, as we did, to try and lock in the gains that we have made.
Hon Simon Bridges: Isn't it entirely misleading to say that 75 percent of economic activity is up and running, when even Treasury acknowledges that's not so—that it's theoretical—and the reality of that, productively, will be much lower?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That's Treasury's estimate. If you wish to challenge that, I suggest you do that directly with Treasury.
Hon Simon Bridges: Why does she think the Farmers stores in Australia are able to remain open for longer and will be able to open again this week, meaning there will be fewer job losses in Australia than New Zealand?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I do think it's too soon to make any comparisons around the relative impact of the difference between, indeed, State approaches, let alone the approach of Australia versus New Zealand as a whole. I think we should allow New Zealand and Australia to let this run its course, and see then the full economic and health impacts. But I don't apologise for taking an approach that's specific to New Zealand, to the cases we had here, and to our own population.
Hon Grant Robertson: In light of that last supplementary question, can the Prime Minister confirm reports in the Australian media that as at 17 April, only an extra 1.7 percent of workers had gone on to New Zealand's job seeker benefit, while in Australia the number was 3.8 percent?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I can confirm that, which is why I do believe it's important that we allow a bit more time before we start making any crude comparisons like that. I don't think it's helpful, necessarily, for the member opposite to be talking down the work that we are all doing to try and gear ourselves back up as quickly and safely as possible.
Hon Simon Bridges: What does she say to the man from Lower Hutt who messaged me last night saying, "I'm now on the wage subsidy, which came to $420 in the hand a week. We have a mortgage and six children. I was earning over 50k in an industry which I've been in for 25 years. Tonight we fed our children a pumpkin for dinner. Power bill, mortgage, insurance, school fees—and it's gone. Tomorrow we're having porridge for dinner. When can we get back to level 2 so we can get back to earning our salaries?"?
Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Obviously, that is an employee who very unfortunately is either working in retail or hospitality areas where there is high risk still. What we want to do is make sure that when we're in a position to open up those parts of the economy, we can do it for good and we don't keep yo-yoing between the different levels. If that is an individual where we can provide any additional support through our social services, I would really encourage him to make sure that they are in touch with their relevant MP to make sure that they are getting all that they are entitled to.




Question No. 2—Education
2. KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What steps is the Government taking to bring forward education infrastructure projects to help stimulate regional economies?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Today, the Government announced upgrades for a further 600 small or remote State schools and kura. This is an additional $160 million property improvement programme that will begin rolling out this year. The upgrades include the installation of LED lights, acoustic panelling, ceiling insulation, and other things in our small and remote schools. We want students to be learning in warm classrooms, we want teachers to have workplaces where the noise levels are more controllable, and we want schools to be able to save on their power bills so that they can invest in learning. So this initiative is part of the Government's programme to bring forward infrastructure projects to create and support jobs for businesses and reboot our local economies. The list of schools who will benefit from the programme will be announced by the Ministry of Education on their website this week, and every school on the list will also be contacted.
Marama Davidson: How many schools will benefit from the first wave of the Sustainability Contestable Fund?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Very good news—today, the Government has announced that 53 schools have been successful in the first wave of the sustainability fund, with $2.5 million being spent on projects that will help them save money and reduce emissions. Nearly half of the 53 approved applications were for solar panels on schools. Other projects include things like rainwater collection, water conservation initiatives, and different ways to compost and recycle. The sustainability fund will open again for a second round of applications on 22 June, where a further $2.5 million will be allocated to further sustainability projects in schools.
Kiritapu Allan: What construction is resuming in schools across the country over the next few days?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Now that we're in alert level 3, construction work will be restarting this week in almost 250 schools around the country. As well as this, construction will start on another $100 million worth of school property projects. These include things like the major redevelopment to address weathertightness and other building issues at Flaxmere College in Hastings; six new roll-growth classrooms each at Clendon Park School and Rowandale School in Manurewa; replacing fire-damaged buildings at Westland High School; a new 10-classroom block at Beachlands School in Hunua; the rebuild of Banks Avenue School in Christchurch; and the redevelopment of Hagley College in Christchurch, Maniototo Area School in Ranfurly, and Ngaruawahia High School.
Kiritapu Allan: What support is the Government giving the construction industry on existing school property projects after we went into level 4?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Government acknowledges the difficulty some building and construction players experienced during the COVID level 4 lockdown. The Ministry of Education is temporarily lifting its retention requirements, which releases an extra $23 million earlier in the process to help relieve some of the financial strain construction firms are under. The release will cover 246 projects at 237 schools across the country and will help to ease the cash flow and go some way to reducing the impact of the lockdown on those firms.




Question No. 3—Finance
3. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Finance: What lessons for the New Zealand economy, if any, has he taken from the Australian response to COVID-19?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): It is too early to draw definitive lessons from the economy from either New Zealand or Australia's response to COVID-19. What we can say is that both countries have done a good job of getting the virus under control, which gives both countries the best possible chance for their economies to recover.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he accept that one of the key lessons from Australia's approach is that effective contact tracing allows more of the economy to safely open up more quickly, thereby saving jobs.
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I think both sides of the Tasman would agree that contact tracing is a very important part of the response to COVID-19. It's certainly a significant one that we've been discussing in this House this week, so it is an important part of the overall response.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Why is a contact tracing app taking so long to develop here?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The member, if he has questions about the contact tracing app, is better off directing those to the Minister of Health, because the Ministry of Health has been responsible for that. We have made significant improvements and strides in our contact tracing over the last little while, and that will continue, but, for detailed matters on that, the member needs to ask the responsible Minister.
SPEAKER: I probably should have ruled it out.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he agree with Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison's assessment that New Zealand has imposed "more extreme economic measures"? 
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: What New Zealand has done is put in place a regime that is appropriate for our country, and I am particularly proud of the response of New Zealanders in general in keeping this virus under control. I think we should focus on what we can do for our people here.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Could he just explain why we are so different to Australians?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Mr Speaker, I don't quite know where to start that. Size would be one place—
SPEAKER: It could be a thesis, couldn't it, really?
Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Size is one place to start. But also, as the Prime Minister has just said, the fact is that New Zealand has our own unique population of people with a unique set of circumstances in the way that we live and who we are, and we have taken decisions that are appropriate for us. I would note that, for example, what New Zealand has done is front-loaded the fiscal stimulus and the fiscal response that we've done. So I think in the financial year that we're in now, around 70 percent of New Zealand's response will be spent, whereas in Australia it's around 33 percent. So we're making sure that, actually, we're getting money into the pockets of New Zealanders. The Australian JobKeeper programme has not put any money yet into the pockets of Australians; we have $10.6 billion in the pockets of New Zealanders.




Question No. 4—Health
4. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: Does he agree with statements made by Professor Des Gorman to the Epidemic Response Committee yesterday and, if not, what comments from Professor Gorman does he disagree with?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): As the member will understand, as I'm not a member of the committee, I did not see Professor Gorman's submission. I have seen reports of what he said, though—some of which I agree with, such as his comment that there had been chronic under-investment in public health. I disagree with his view that we were "spectacularly complacent". The Government and New Zealanders have taken this pandemic incredibly seriously. We have gone hard and early, and we have collectively managed to stop community transfer of COVID-19, for now.
Hon Michael Woodhouse: Would he agree with Professor Gorman regarding border closure that "we went early but soft."?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: No. New Zealand took early action at the border, starting on 3 February with restrictions on travel from China. At every step, we took into consideration the best available scientific and health advice. It simply would not have been possible to introduce quarantine for all New Zealanders returning to the country in mid-February; there are not enough hotel rooms in the whole country to handle the volume of people that were returning. Our approach has worked, and I think the results speak for themselves.
Hon Michael Woodhouse: Is Professor Gorman's assertion that the current alert level is due "to a lack of confidence in either community surveillance, contact tracing, or isolation capacity" correct, and, if so, which one does he lack confidence in?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Could the member please repeat the question.
Hon Michael Woodhouse: Is Professor Gorman's assertion that we are currently in level 3 because of "a lack of confidence in either community surveillance, contact tracing, or isolation capacity" correct, and, if so, which one does he lack confidence in?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: No.
Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does he agree with Professor Gorman that the three-day close-contact target should be 100 percent and not 80 percent?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I'm not quite sure that that is accurate. We are tracking our close contacts very successfully, currently, and I think Dr Verrall has made the right recommendations.
Hon Michael Woodhouse: Does he agree that "we've been successful because of high compliance with social distancing" and not because of our contact tracing, and, if so, does he think the Government's let the team of 5 million down by not doing its bit soon enough?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: In respect of the second part of the question, no; in respect of the first part, I do want to thank New Zealanders for their extraordinary efforts in the lockdown. We have successfully managed to squash community transmission for now, and I think that extraordinary effort is thanks to the hard work of ordinary and everyday New Zealanders.




Question No. 5—Education
5. CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green) to the Minister of Education: Does the Government consider that supporting students and the tertiary education sector is an important part of the response to COVID-19?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Yes. That's why the Government moved quickly, as a first step, to double course-related costs to $2,000 for students to draw down support themselves, as that was the quickest way that we could get additional funding to them. We also moved to ensure that they continue to receive the same level of support over an eight-week study break to buffer any disruption that may be caused by COVID-19. We provided tertiary education organisations with a guarantee that their 2020 funding will not be impacted by any loss of domestic students as a result of COVID-19. That ensures that $2 billion in committed Vote Tertiary Education funding will continue to be paid. Tertiary education providers are one of the few sectors that have guaranteed funding during the disruption caused by COVID-19. There are also likely to be increases in enrolments later this year and in 2021 as a result of the economic effects of COVID-19.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Is the Minister concerned, then, that some tertiary education institutes are charging rent for accommodation that students are not able to live in?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes, I am concerned about that, and it is quite a complex situation. In some cases, those accommodation providers are the universities themselves, the tertiary providers themselves. In other cases, they're third-party providers that are contracted to the universities, and then in other cases, they're entirely private operations. So it's quite a complex set of arrangements. The living arrangements themselves are also different. For example, in some cases, students are renting a room in a hostel or a hall of residence. In other cases, they might be renting a room in an apartment. So it's quite a complex sector. Some of the providers there are accessing the wage subsidy and continuing to charge students their full room rent during that time, which I find utterly unacceptable.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Does he think that more financial support should be provided for students so that they do not need to take on more debt to support themselves through COVID-19?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Government is looking at ways that we can provide additional support to students, and we're also asking tertiary providers to also be looking at ways that they can support their student communities through this crisis. As new opportunities arise to increase financial support, I'll continue to push for those.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Speaking to new opportunities, does he support the New Zealand Union of Students' Associations' call for a universal student allowance?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Whilst some members on this side of the House have argued over quite a long period of time for things like a universal student allowance, in the current climate, it is really important that we channel additional financial support to the people who need it most in these economic times. So that's where the Government's priority is at this point.
Chlöe Swarbrick: Will, then, the Government invest more in the tertiary education sector, and in student support, as part of its response to COVID-19, given the importance of training and education in allowing people to take on new career and job opportunities?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: There is a Budget coming up in a very short period of time, and I can indicate to the member that the Government is very much focused on ensuring that retraining opportunities, and support for those who do need to undertake retraining and upskilling as a result of the economic crisis, will be an integral part of the Government's response.
Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could I ask the Minister: is it a fact that an unparalleled 100-year crisis of the nature that COVID-19 has inflicted upon our economy means that he may be, as Minister of Education, struggling to fund all the demands made of him?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: That is true, although I'd quite happily fund them all; it's the gentleman to my left who's more of the impediment to that.




Question No. 6—Regional Economic Development
6. CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South) to the Minister for Regional Economic Development: Does he stand by his policies and statements in relation to regional economic development?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Minister for Regional Economic Development: I most certainly do, particularly the statement about how the previous National administration wilfully neglected the regions for nine long years.
Chris Bishop: Has the Government sought advice from officials on making changes to the criteria for the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) in light of COVID-19, and, if so, what did the advice say?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Minister, any sound, wise, and experienced Minister would do that facing any crisis, and the crisis of the nature of COVID-19 meant that we had to refocus our priorities. Most certainly we did, and I cannot believe anyone would rise in this House asking that question.
Chris Bishop: Well, in light of that answer, what changes to the Provincial Growth Fund criteria have been made by the Government?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Minister, just take one. For example, we know that tourism is struggling because, amongst other things, international travel will not be happening. Then we've got health and security issues and a number of things like the factor of units to keep the operations going all around provincial New Zealand where tourism is concerned. So of course we're refocusing and repurposing with respect to those initial initiatives where we were supporting tourism. It doesn't mean that they're not going to be supported long term, but in the short term, right here, right now, we're taking the smart commercial decisions that any wise Government would take.
Hon Tracey Martin: Is the PGF focused on the aim to drive a revival in manufacturing in New Zealand?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Minister, most certainly. We're a Government that came to power with manufacturing in decline, and now, one of the great experiences—
Hon Paul Goldsmith: Bring back import licensing. Let's make TVs. Let's make cars.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —or lessons of the global crisis caused by COVID-19—it's no use making a lot of silly sounds from Epsom when the commercial experience that you have as a member of Parliament is precisely zero. Perhaps that member, if he wants to shout out in the House every day, could get up and tell the country what commercial experience he's got, and, having none, please keep his mouth shut while someone who has got commercial experience seeks to tell him what we're doing. Now, here's the real purpose.
Hon Members: Who's that?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I have.
Hon Simon Bridges: When was that?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Mr Bridges, I made more money in my law firm than you ever made, right? I made more in one month than you made in six months. That's a fact. Now, back to your point. If you want to make a silly challenge like that, I'm up to it. But here's the point: manufacturing was in decline, and we're going to revive manufacturing because all of a sudden a whole lot of people realise that a call a long time ago to restore New Zealand manufacturing is now making compelling common sense.
Hon Tracey Martin: Is the PGF focused on supporting New Zealand businesses to add value in New Zealand to our raw materials?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Minister, that's a brilliant question—take, for example, sending logs offshore in their most raw, unprocessed state for tens of thousands of jobs for some other economy, and six to sometimes 20 times the added value offshore. We seek to add value in that product onshore, New Zealand first, and all around provincial New Zealand where forestry is our mainstay. It will cause an economic and employment and wealth revival. This is common sense. As with all of our primary products, where we can add value, we should add it here and get the top market price, not allow it to go to some other economy. That has always been a wise national strategy.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does the Government support the decision of Air New Zealand, in which it's a 52 percent shareholder, to close its regional maintenance base in Nelson permanently, with the loss of over 100 high-value manufacturing jobs that he seeks to champion?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Minister, what a fascinating question, given that the construction of the ownership of Air New Zealand was the National Party's policy, not any policy of any party on this side of the House. He would not know that, of course. That's his level of experience when it comes to commerce as well. But here's the same question—and if he thinks the Government is a 52 percent shareholder today, then he knows nothing about what's just happened. The third thing is Mr Foran is a leading commercial mind that came to Air New Zealand, and we're prepared to give him a chance to make that airline a great success once again, having been saved for the umpteenth time by the Minister of Finance and the taxpayer.
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Supplementary.
SPEAKER: I want to ask Dr Smith just to wait. I know it's sometimes hard to predict. Wait until the—
Hon Dr Nick Smith: A good part of the answers is simply abuse.
SPEAKER: I'm going to stand up. The member will sit down. I'm going to require him to wait until the Minister acting for the Minister for Regional Economic Development has finished his answer before he stands up in that way. If he wants the abuse to stop, I think he should talk to a number of his colleagues who are interjecting in the absolute knowledge that they're going to set that abuse off.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think your somewhat lecturing tone there to the House is unreasonable. There's been a good degree of decorum in here as reasonable questions have been answered. That was a very reasonable question from Dr Smith, as were questions earlier today. To be greeted with a barrage of personal insult is, I think, somewhat unbecoming for the nature of the House, particularly at this difficult time, and particularly when you're asking a question that is sensitive to so many New Zealanders who are about to lose their jobs.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Can I just say this: every time I've visited the House since I've come back, in the last day or two, to answer a question, I've been met with a whole lot of hectoring and interjections, and the audience out there in New Zealand should know that about three or four people are shouting across themselves at this side of the House. Now, I've got a famous line for them, and it's Elvis Presley's famous quote: if you're looking for trouble, you've come to the right place.
Hon Paul Goldsmith: I think if we look at the transcript of the Hansard, you will find that that member started personal attacks first and we only responded to his personal attacks.
SPEAKER: Well, I think in that particular case—certainly, if we take the question time as a whole, as opposed to just that supplementary—that is not accurate. The member answering the question initially responded to a couple of interjections, at least one of which came from that member. In responding to Mr Brownlee's point of order, I do look forward to—and I hope that we can have—more decorum in the House. I don't think members will find another member with more familial interest in the Air New Zealand redundancies than me. And I just want to make it clear: go back to my original point, and that is that the normal courtesy of letting members answer their questions before someone stands up, unless they have a point of order, will be the way that we continue to run the House.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: Just not wanting to prolong the point of order, the reply that was given by the Rt Hon Winston Peters was allowed to stand, and I simply want to make it clear to him that the country is in trouble at the moment and we are not looking for more. We just want answers. That's not an unreasonable position for an Opposition to take when a Government has so much leeway as they have at the present time to do the extraordinary things that are required of them.
SPEAKER: OK. Well, I'll deal with that now. The member knows absolutely it's not a point of order, but I think in any case, I'll ask the Minister acting for the Minister for Regional Economic Development to take that on. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: What is his response to the petition to the Minister for Regional Economic Development, signed by over 15,000 people in just a week, seeking that the Government's $900 million of financial support to Air New Zealand be tagged to retaining the regional maintenance facility in Nelson and the over 100 high-paying jobs?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Minister, my response is that any opportunity for an intervention like that has been constrained, outlawed, and prohibited by the structure the National Party set up in the ownership of Air New Zealand. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: It just did a $900 million—
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It deliberately—no. Excuse me. If you'll just wait—and Mr Brownlee wanted an answer. If you deliberately take a Minister and a Government out of the decision-making power of a business like that, which is what the structure is—and it's unique; as a State-owned enterprise (SOE), it's a structure different to any other one—then how can you now intervene? The member's asked me as a Minister to step up and do that. That is, be part and parcel of the everyday decision-making process of an airline, whilst the operation legally that they're existing under prohibits the Minister from doing anything like that.
Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That answer demonstrates the problem that I outlined before. We are here just to get answers. To be given a lecture like that that is fundamentally wrong and to have that accepted on the Hansard record as being reasonable in this circumstance is not good for the decorum of the House or for the people who are actually wanting to get information from this process. I know in normal times you might get away with a bland answer like that, but it is a fact that in this case it is Government Ministers who negotiated directly with Air New Zealand the arrangements around the $900 million and also made sure it's partly equity-based if they can't meet those payments. To say they have no opportunity to put conditions around a loan or the eventual transfer of equity is plain wrong.
SPEAKER: OK. I think now for the third time, the member has made an intervention which may or may not be factually correct, but cannot be characterised as a point of order. Members cannot stand up on a point of order in order to disagree with an answer, and I'm sure the member knows it. The solution for the member, as he is aware, is to ask another supplementary. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith: Has the Minister for Regional Economic Development made any statements publicly or directly to Air New Zealand on the significant loss of over 100 high-value manufacturing jobs from the permanent closure of the regional maintenance facility in Nelson, given his propensity to previously make all sorts of comments about Air New Zealand's business?
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: On behalf of the Minister, and being aware of that last sarcastic addition to the question, the Minister makes it very clear that unlike any other Minister, he has been more profoundly interested in the provincial existence and survival of Air New Zealand services, and still is. But the real point, again, is this: the proscription that says he cannot get involved in everyday decision-making was written by the National Party. And to stand up here today and say that we should forget about that, when its ownership structure is unique—when its ownership structure is—
Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was: had the Minister made any statements publicly—
SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. We will wait until we get to the end of the member's answer before we prejudge whether he's answered it or not.
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Again, on behalf of the Minister, the opportunity to make the kind of statement being invited now, no matter how sympathetic as a Minister I might be towards what is happening around the provinces—dare I say it, the services of the provinces and the workforce in the provinces where Air New Zealand's concerned—I am nevertheless constrained by a proscription that was put in place by a previous Government, namely the National Government, which, unlike any other SOE, says I cannot do what the member is asking.




Question No. 7—Health
7. Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by all his statements and actions around coronavirus screening at the border?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): In their full context, yes, noting that primary responsibility for border control sits with the Minister of Customs. 
Dr Shane Reti: Is the new passenger arrival card, with coronavirus questions that he describes in written answers, an important border screening tool, and has it screened tens of thousands of arrivals? 
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I don't have the details of that particular customs tool in front of me, but I can advise him that the Ministry of Health certainly had input into it, and collection of that information has been important to our efforts. 
Dr Shane Reti: Why does the new passengers arrival card ask about fever, cough, and difficulty breathing when written questions show he was advised by the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) that fever, cough, and a sore throat are the main symptoms? 
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Obviously, this is a very detailed question in respect of a broader primary question, but what I can tell the member, certainly—and I'd be happy, if he wants to put specific questions down, to provide further detail—is that the customs screening generally is interested not just in coronavirus. We are of course particularly interested in coronavirus right now, but we are also interested in other infectious diseases that might present at the border, and always have been as a country. 
Dr Shane Reti: Has New Zealand's new passenger arrivals card been asking the wrong symptoms screening question, given he was advised in written questions from me, No. 4971, that nearly half of the cases in New Zealand present with a sore throat? 
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: At every point, we have taken decisions based on the best medical and scientific advice. I can assure the member that there is very thorough screening going on at the airport, and conversations are being had to ensure that we are quarantining where appropriate and putting people into managed self-isolation. A very thorough regime is in place, and I want to take this opportunity to thank all of those at the border who are involved in this effort. It is incredibly important to the success that we have had as a country in getting the reproduction rate of that virus right down. 
Dr Shane Reti: Will he commit to working with ESR to redo the passenger arrival card so that our borders can be better protected? 
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I will commit to the Ministry of Health continuing to work with experts to make sure that all of our systems are optimised. Of course, this virus has presented a rapidly evolving situation, and along the way we continue to learn more things about it and its presentation. So, of course, naturally, there will be ongoing conversations. 




Question No. 8—Health
8. PAUL EAGLE (Labour—Rongotai) to the Minister of Health: How has New Zealand built up its contact tracing capacity?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): Traditionally, all contact tracing in New Zealand has been done at a local level by public health units. These units are staffed by highly skilled professionals and they have done a good job. But in the face of COVID-19, it was clear that we needed to ramp up our contact tracing capacity. That led to the establishment of the National Close Contact Service on 24 March, the first time contact tracing has been centralised and conducted at a national level. The national service has more than 200 trained staff and can make 5,000 calls per day, which can be scaled up to 10,000 if required. And that is on top of the excellent ongoing work of our public health units.
Paul Eagle: Has New Zealand now achieved the gold standard for contact tracing?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Contact tracing is one of the key public health measures we can take to keep COVID-19 at bay. The Government has invested a total of $70 million to strengthen and expand our contact tracing, which is now operating on a dedicated information technology platform, the National Contact Tracing Solution. The Director-General of Health has assured New Zealanders that our contact tracing is now gold standard.
Paul Eagle: What is being done to ensure our contact tracing continues to be fit for purpose?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: As members will be aware, Otago University's Dr Ayesha Verrall conducted a rapid audit of contact tracing. Work is under way to implement all of her recommendations. Yesterday, appointments were also finalised for a section 11 committee to advise me on our progress. That committee will be chaired by Sir Brian Roche, with members Dr Phillip Hill, Warren Moitara, Dr Marion Paw, and Liz Reid. I want to thank Sir Brian and his team for agreeing to take on this important task.




Question No. 9—Education
9. NICOLA WILLIS (National) to the Minister of Education: Will guidance be available for early learning services about how they will be expected to operate under COVID-19 alert level 2; if so, when will that advice be available?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): As I said yesterday, guidance for the shift from alert level 3 to alert level 2 has already been published. This was consulted on with the sector before it was sent out. The Ministry of Education has continued to have regular meetings with individual providers as they normally would do—and representative bodies—and more detailed guidance will be disseminated around the middle of next week. 
Nicola Willis: Will parents be able to safely return their children to normal hours of early childhood education attendance at alert level 2?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: What I can speak to is the very high-level principles that were set out in the Government's alert level framework, and people can find that on covid19.govt.nz. That envisages that schools and early learning services will be reopened more or less completely at alert level 2, with some exceptions. For those who are at high risk, there will still be some provisions to support them to learn from home using distance learning, and to support learning from home with school and early childhood staff. Further information, of course, is going to be released in due course.
Nicola Willis: What guidelines is the Government considering to ensure early childhood services can operate safely with full attendance at alert level 2?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Ministry of Education has been working very closely with the Ministry of Health—and regional public health officials, in particular—alongside the sector leadership in early childhood education to ensure that both the guidelines are clear and that services have any additional support that they need in order to be able to operate at alert level 2. 
Nicola Willis: Does he think any early childhood education services will close as a result of COVID-19 - related enrolment and financial pressure?
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No, I don't think it will be directly as a result of COVID-19, because the Government is continuing to provide the full subsidies for those services, even where they only have one or two or even no children attending those early childhood services. Where their parent revenue—the fees charged to parents—makes up more than 30 percent of their income, they have been eligible to apply for the wage subsidy, and several of those services have already done so. So I don't think that that will be the reason for some services experiencing financial difficulty. I do want to acknowledge, though, that even before COVID-19, there were some small community-based early childhood services that had been experiencing financial difficulties, and that the COVID-19 situation has simply brought that into even starker relief.




Question No. 10—Health
10. MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri) to the Minister of Health: Why, as of February 2020, has the Government only spent $3.2m of the promised $455m announced in Budget 2019 for a new frontline mental health service, and why in the recent re-announcement of $40m for this new frontline mental health service was the rollout not expected to be completed until the middle of 2021?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): In answer to the first part of the question, the total investment of $455 million is for a national roll-out over four years, and that roll-out will continue thereafter. A total of $25 million has been allocated to service delivery in 2019-20, and the $3.2 million distributed to providers as at February 2020 that the member refers to relates to sustaining the 22 previously pilot sites providing services through general practice and continuation of other existing primary mental health and addiction supports. I'd also note that this Government has also funded other new initiatives, including Mana Ake, which has helped around 5,000 primary and intermediate aged children in Canterbury in Kaikōura, and Piki, which is providing mental health support for 18- to 24-year-olds in Wellington and Wairarapa, which is not to mention nurses in schools across the country. We've also put more into acute services, mental health, alcohol and drug support, and building new mental health facilities. And in answer to the second part of the member's question, it was not a re-announcement; these are new contracts we're announcing for new services that will serve a population of 1.5 million once it is fully rolled out. It does take time to train new workforces and establish new services.
Matt Doocey: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Why is the Minister using the excuse of available workforce when New Zealand Association of Counsellors accredited primary care counsellors contracted to DHBs are being told there is no funding available to respond to the growing demand of mental health referrals as a result of the impacts of COVID-19?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: What I would say is that, first off, I want to thank those who are working in this response, because they've been working tirelessly through COVID-19. A number of additional access points have been set up, and that includes, of course, the Mentemia app—35,000 downloads in just 10 days—Melon, which is an online resource that's being supervised by counsellors; and Sparklers at Home—48,000 people have accessed that uniquely in a month. And Wise Group has stood up an app. These responses are there to support New Zealanders' immediate needs in response to COVID-19. The Government has already allocated an additional $15 million to support the psychosocial wellbeing of New Zealanders during this outbreak. In terms of a specific issue the member might be raising, a specific instance, I'd be happy to hear more from him if he wants to put a question down in writing.
Matt Doocey: Is the Minister's new front-line mental health service, announced in 2019 but only to be partially rolled out by the middle of 2021—14 months away—too late for the many people described by New Zealand Medical Association chair, Dr Kim Baddock, at the Epidemic Response Committee last week, when she said her colleagues have seen a huge increase in the amount of mental issues they are facing?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I would refer to some of those things I've mentioned in my previous answer. The uptake of those services has been extraordinary in a short period of time, and I think bears witness to the appropriateness of them rolling out during the COVID period. I'd also note that the 1737 number has helped tens of thousands of New Zealanders this year and has scaled up significantly. So the Government has responded quite specifically to the situation we find ourselves in. I would also note that already 18,000 free sessions have been delivered to New Zealanders by this new front-line service. Many of those people might not have received this support in a timely fashion without this new service. And we're rolling it out nationwide. By the middle of next year, a population of 1.5 million people will have access to a new service at their local GP for free. This service was simply not available previously. The demand for mental health services had nearly doubled—or perhaps over doubled—in a decade, and the support for services had only gone up by around half the amount needed. So introducing this new free service for Kiwis is something that is timely, and I believe the uptake rates of these services indicate that they are providing a unique and important service for New Zealanders that was not previously available.
Matt Doocey: Why is the Minister saying that there is more funding available for mental health services when, at the recent DHB annual reviews, DHB representatives said they couldn't point to where the money is exactly and they think the $1.9 billion hasn't flowed out yet?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I can't answer for those unnamed representatives the member speaks of, but what I would say is, of course, that the DHBs received over $200 million more in the ring-fenced mental health fund. So $200 million is certainly not nothing, and that's in their annual budget, and they received $200 million more the year before as well. So, on average, I think it's $103 million more per annum that has gone into DHBs specifically for mental health—off the top of my head—on top of the $1.3 billion, which, of course, is being rolled out over a four- or five-year period. So the member will, of course, know that our record as a country is of under-investment in this area. I'm very proud to be a part of a Government that is for the first time taking mental health seriously.
Matt Doocey: Which of the following statements does he consider most correct: the New Zealand Association of Counsellors president, Christine Macfarlane, who said the Government's latest mental health announcement is a total waste of taxpayers' money, or, following the Minister's interview on his announcement on Saturday, Newshub Nation reporter Simon Shepherd saying this has got a slight KiwiBuild flavour about it?
Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I disagree with the first comment, and I certainly haven't seen the second.




Question No. 11—Revenue
11. KIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour) to the Minister of Revenue: What recent tax measures, if any, has he announced to support businesses affected by COVID-19?
Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Revenue): The last time I was in this House, we announced—
SPEAKER: Tidy your shirt up, will you? Your collar. Thank you.
Hon STUART NASH: —it's been five weeks since I've had to wear a tie, Mr Speaker—a $2.8 billion business tax package to help cushion New Zealanders from the worst economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak. We restored depreciation deductions from commercial buildings, increased the provisional tax threshold to relieve the compliance burden for small businesses, and allowed the immediate write-off for low-value assets. These measures are now law. Since then, we've also announced a $3.1 billion tax loss carry-back scheme and changed the rules to the loss continuity regime. That provides an estimated $60 million in annual savings to business. This package delivers the single biggest Government support package to businesses, via the tax system, in modern New Zealand history.
Kiritapu Allan: How does the loss carry-back scheme help support businesses affected by COVID-19?
Hon STUART NASH: The loss carry-back scheme means that businesses will get a refund from some of the tax paid in the previous year. The changes mean tax could start flowing to businesses, via the tax system, as early as next week. Tax refunds will be a cash lifeline for businesses with non-wage fixed costs, like rent, interest, and insurance. Some don't want to take on extra debt with a bank loan. Without this support, these otherwise viable small to medium enterprises may be forced to close. Many small and medium businesses are feeling the pain now. We are moving urgently to get tax into their hands as quickly as possible. As the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have said, we are constantly monitoring the situation for businesses, and adjusting our support as required.
Kiritapu Allan: What responses has he seen in reaction to the loss carry-back scheme?
Hon STUART NASH: Overall, this policy has been positively received. The loss carry-back scheme "provides significant cash support to businesses [that] can be accessed relatively quickly.", says John Cuthbertson of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand. Kirk Hope, Business New Zealand, says the loss carry-back scheme "will be a significant help for many firms" with cash-flow problems. MYOB New Zealand country manager, Ingrid Cronin-Knight, said many smaller local businesses are staring down the barrel of a loss this year, and the Government scheme could make a difference, and—I quote—"the ability to offset a forecast loss in the current year against the previous year's tax will give them more options to reduce cost and free up cash."
Hon Gerry Brownlee: But they have to trade unprofitably to get it.
Hon STUART NASH: This is an unprecedented global event, Mr Brownlee, and will have a significant impact on our economy. We are pulling out all stops to protect the health of New Zealanders and the health of the economy,




Question No. 12—Building and Construction
12. ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua) to the Minister for Building and Construction: Does she expect builders and their apprentices can fully resume work as lockdown restrictions are lifted?
Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media) on behalf of the Minister for Building and Construction: The Government has been working for some time to minimise the impact of COVID-19 and its economic consequences on construction firms and workers. We've been working to ensure people can return to work as promptly and safely as possible. Construction Health and Safety New Zealand, in conjunction with the joint Government and industry Construction Sector Accord, published detailed construction health and safety standards and protocols to help develop a control plan. While everyone wants to get back to a work site, we must do it safely. A return to a higher alert level is the worst-case scenario for the industry and our economy. Anyone wanting more information on those protocols can visit building.govt.nz, where a full range of advice is available to them on how to operate under alert levels 3, 2, and 1.
Andrew Bayly: Does she have an estimate of how many of the 250,000 builders and apprentices are currently back at work?
Hon KRIS FAAFOI: On behalf of the Minister, I don't have that number on me at the moment, but as I said, some clear guidelines were given to the construction sector over a week ago in order to ensure that they could return to work sites safely at level 3. My understanding of the situation is because of issues like social distancing on building work sites, that would in some cases mean that not everyone who would normally be on a work site could, to ensure the safety of those people on that work site. But, hopefully, if New Zealand pulls together through level 3, we can ensure more people can get back to building sites in order to work safely and continue economic activity.
Andrew Bayly: Does she agree with the reports I've been receiving from the building industry that a large number of the 25,000 building apprentices will be laid off before the end of the year?
Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I've seen media reports to that effect, and all I could say to that is that I think it is too early to tell exactly what those numbers might be. As has been mentioned by many Ministers as the House has resumed, there is going to be an economic impact across all sectors. Exactly what that is at this stage is hard to tell, but the Government is absolutely focused on making sure that we can protect every job that we can possible. But we have said from the outset that it is going to be difficult to save every job. One thing that we do want to make sure we can do—and other Ministers are working on this issue, especially in relation to apprentices—is making sure that we make a commitment to upskilling and retraining people if they find themselves out of work and in need of a new career.
Andrew Bayly: What reports has she seen on the number of building consents that could have been processed during the five-week lockdown but weren't and are still outstanding?
Hon KRIS FAAFOI: On behalf of the Minister, I don't have that number on me at the moment, but I'm happy for the member to submit that as a written question. Obviously, economic activity has slowed down as a result of being in lockdown for the last five to six weeks, and I would expect that a number like that would have reduced.
 





COVID-19 RESPONSE (TAXATION AND OTHER REGULATORY URGENT MEASURES) BILL
Introduction
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): Following discussions across the House, I seek leave for the introduction and the passing through all stages of the COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Other Regulatory Urgent Measures) Bill, and that there be no debate on the first and second readings and no committee stage of this bill.
SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? And, while we're considering the matter, the Minister of Revenue will get that desk cleaned up. There appears to be no objection.





First Reading 
Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Revenue): I move, That the COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Other Regulatory Urgent Measures) Bill be now read a first time. 
Bill read a first time.





Second Reading
Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Revenue): I move, That the COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Other Regulatory Urgent Measures) Bill be now read a second time. 
Bill read a second time.





Third Reading
Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Revenue): I move, That the COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Other Regulatory Urgent Measures) Bill be now read a third time. 
The proposed tax measures in this bill add to the support and aim to help sustain individuals and businesses during the global pandemic and economic crisis. With over $23 billion in support, the coalition Government has launched the most significant peacetime economic plan in modern New Zealand history to cushion the impact of COVID-19 in the fight to support Kiwis' jobs and the domestic economy from the virus. The Government is united in doing everything we can to support New Zealand workers and businesses. We need our businesses to stay solvent to help with the economic recovery as we emerge from this health crisis. 
We are also supporting business to help people in work so that, no matter what happens, as many New Zealanders as possible can continue to provide for their families and contribute to their local communities. The support already provided through the tax system alone is substantial, and this support includes $2 billion in tax deductions to landlords through depreciation on commercial buildings; the removal of 95,000 taxpayers from the provisional tax regime by raising the tax threshold to $5,000; allowing businesses to claim back more for spending on low-value assets like laptops and phones; and allowing interest to be waived. 
These measures provide wide-scale support and protection in response to the coronavirus. But we must also not overlook the fact that some sectors, individuals, and businesses face unique difficulties which we can and must help alleviate. This cross-Government omnibus bill therefore contains some non-tax proposals aimed at supporting New Zealanders to get through this crisis.
I'll provide a quick overview of the proposals in the bill. Loss carry-back: under existing tax loss continuity rules, business losses can be carried forward to reduce taxable income in future years. This helps prevent over-taxation, but, for businesses facing difficult times ahead, carrying the loss forward postpones the benefit of being able to claim losses and means that a business would still incur a tax liability from the previous year. Carrying a loss forward also carries the risk that a business may lose that loss through ownership changes, which is especially relevant in a time where ownership adjustments may be required to support businesses. 
The Government is aware that many businesses might have made a profit in the 2019-20 year, but then, due to the virus, have a large loss from 2020-21 to carry forward as would be the usual procedure under the current rules. We are therefore proposing a loss carry-back measure which would enable businesses to offset the loss made in the current year against the profit made in the previous year. This loss carry-back policy will also help established businesses which have been profitable but will dip into loss because of the COVID-induced economic downturn. We want to help those businesses. They are viable but vulnerable. 
Businesses will get a refund of some of the tax already paid in the previous year, thereby having a positive impact on their cash flow in the current year, when this really counts. They're still paying the right amount of tax in terms of the profit they've made over those two years, but they are able to take advantage of their losses now. This is an urgent measure. The next instalment of provisional tax is due on 7 May, and we want those businesses to know what they have to do and what their options are. 
Administrative flexibility for Inland Revenue: the Government is proposing a law change to give Inland Revenue the discretion to quickly provide an extension to due dates or time frames or to modify other administrative requirements for taxpayers affected by COVID-19. This could, for example, include extending deadlines where an affected taxpayer has difficulty filing tax returns or paying provisional or terminal tax. This could cover any taxpayer affected by COVID-19 and could apply to individuals, companies, trusts, or so on. It would allow the IRD to anticipate new issues for compliance as they arise and to act swiftly. It could be applied for any time frame or procedural requirement across all tax or social policy obligations set out in the revenue Acts. We're proposing that this discretionary power be limited to an 18-month period, would operate retrospectively, and only apply to the benefit of the taxpayer. This measure is also urgent because of a number of practical issues with compliance that have already arisen due to COVID-19, and we don't want taxpayers stressing about this.
Benefit to Kiwis overseas: because of lockdown travel restrictions, some New Zealanders have been stranded overseas and forced to be away from home much longer than they intended. For some, this means they could be at risk of losing their pension and benefit payments. The Minister for Social Development has made a welfare programme to ensure that equivalent payments of New Zealand superannuation, veterans pension, main benefits, orphans benefit, unsupported child benefit, and supplementary assistance can be made from the date that the person had expected to return to New Zealand, even if they have not made it home yet. The bill proposes that these payments will be subject to the same tax and child support rules as the payments they normally receive from the Ministry of Social Development. This would also cover any Working for Families entitlements. The bill represents a cross-Government response to the economic upheaval. 
So I now turn to some other non-tax measures. Credit contracts legislation amendment: the Government also proposes to change the timing of various measures introduced by the Credit Contracts Legislation Amendment Act 2019. Some protections relating to high cost loans only are proposed to be moved forward. They are: a limit on the accumulation of interest in fees capped at 100 percent of loan principal, a prohibition on charging compound interest, and a cap on default fees. These protections were intended to commence from 1 June 2020. These protections were always important and now they are urgent. The proposed new commencement date would be the day after the bill receives Royal assent. 
This bill also enables a delay of broader reforms in the amendment Act. These were to come into force from 1 April 2021. The bill therefore shifts the backstop commencement date to April 2023, but the reforms can be brought into force prior to that date by Order in Council. For efficiency, the bill also provides for the coming into force of a range of technical and other provisions of the amendment Act, which would otherwise have been brought into force by an Order in Council. 
Animal welfare: people who own or care for animals perform many routine procedures on animals such as docking lambs' tails. These surgical procedures are currently performed by non-veterinarians. However, an amendment to the Animal Welfare Act 1999, due to come into effect soon, will require these types of procedures to become veterinarian only. The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) had intended to discuss new regulations with owners and people in charge of animals before the amendment came into effect. These regulations would allow non-veterinarians to continue to perform some procedures under certain circumstances. However, the lockdown has prevented this. 
This bill now proposes to delay the date the amendment to the Animal Welfare Act comes into effect and therefore the immediate need for regulations to align with the amendment. This will allow people who own animals or are in charge of animals to continue to undertake these procedures and allow MPI time to have those discussions with stakeholders once lockdown regulations have eased. 
The final measure I wish to mention relates to State-owned enterprises. Extension of time frame for providing plan documents: State-owned enterprises, departments, and Crown entities are required to prepare and finalise a number of planning documents for responsible Ministers by 30 June 2020 or 1 May 2020 for statements of corporate intent and statements of performance expectations. Meeting this requirement is going to be challenging under the current restrictions, and these entities are likely to find themselves in breach of the State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986, the Public Finance Act 1989, and the Crown Entities Act 2004. The Government is therefore proposing that if responsible or shareholding Ministers are satisfied that certain criteria are met, the SOE be allowed up to three months to produce these planning documents. 
In conclusion, the effects of the coronavirus are being felt in different parts of our economy and society in different ways. This cross-Government bill is one which is urgently needed for a cross-section of society, because we must do our best for all New Zealanders. I commend this bill to the House.





Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand for the National Party to support this urgent bill: the COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Other Regulatory Urgent Measures) Bill. We are supporting this bill—with a little bit of anxiety because it is a bill dealing with taxation changes. 
Normally, you would want to spend a lot of time making sure that you get it right because just about every time you go anywhere near the tax Act, you find that you make more mistakes than you don't and you have to come back and fix them. And so in a perfect world, we would have had more time about this. Obviously, it needs to be in before 7 May. I still argue we probably could have had a two- or three-day select committee process to just give people a little bit of a chance to look at the detail, particularly around the temporary loss carrying back regime and to make sure that it covers all bases. But we are where we are and we are here to support the Government in trying to get these measures through, so I'll confine my comments to this temporary loss carry-back regime.
I suppose the broader point is one that we're under a period of real pressure for small and medium sized enterprises particularly. We've just got to remember that we've made decisions in the interests of the nation around public health which have meant that many businesses have been forced to close. I heard on Radio New Zealand this morning somebody saying, "Oh, well, you know, what's all this worry about small businesses? They like to capitalise the gains and socialise the losses and perhaps we shouldn't be spending so much money on them." 
I think that's a very unfair thing to think and to say, because, ultimately, what we're dealing with is businesses that have been told that, in the national interest, they cannot trade for an extended period of time and that is the justification for the rest of society, many of whom have carried on relatively unscathed from an economic point of view, to help those businesses through to relieve the pressure so as to save jobs. We're not going to save every job but we can reduce the economic carnage somewhat. 
So this proposal, the temporary loss carry-back regime, is one element of the broader effort to try and help those companies. So if they were in profit in the last couple of years and they've fallen to a loss-making situation in this year, which many of course will have, then they'll be able to even out those losses and gains over a couple of years and thereby get some money back. That will help a few businesses.
I would make the point, though, that it certainly won't help every business, every small business—particularly at the small end of town, many businesses are owned by mum and dad owners, and they take most of the profits of the company in the form of a salary for an owner-operator, and the actual company itself may not have any profit at all. It wouldn't necessarily mean that it's not a profitable business; it's just that the profits were taken in the form of salary and tax was paid in that respect. 
So there'll be a kind of a random element to it at that smaller end of town where some businesses will benefit from this better than others. But, in so far as it goes, the Government's estimated it might be worth $3 billion—I'd be interested to see how it pans out; it may be, or it may be less, but it is one thing that will help.
I suppose it's a bit like some of the other options that were announced: the loans guarantee, which has had a pretty modest impact, and the wage subsidy, which has been very substantial: $10 billion. But it is important to make the point that most of that money is going to the workers as opposed to the companies themselves, which are struggling with many other costs, whether there may be rent or many ongoing lease costs or utility bills—all those sorts of things. Those are the sorts of things that some of this tax money—in the circumstances of the companies that get it—will be able to help with. 
I suppose the broader point that we would make is that it is necessary for the Government to go further in terms of offering relief to those businesses most affected, because we have got to remember that there are many companies out there right now that for the national interest have had zero revenue now for coming up to six weeks, and they don't know how many more weeks they're going to have zero revenue. It could be one or two weeks; it could be longer. These are on the back of decisions that were made—and we heard today the Australian Prime Minister described them as extreme economic measures, more extreme economic measures than have been taken in Australia.
SPEAKER: Order! Order!
Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yeah, well, and that is why, Mr Speaker, this bill is important, and it is why we support it, given that the Government has made those decisions. 
They have been cautious with the lockdown. They have extended the lockdown. We hear very much the mantra of this Government: that we went hard, and that we went early. We can debate both of those things—about the earliness—but we can't debate about the hardness. They certainly did go hard. They went a lot harder than Australia, and as a result of that the economic consequences will be severe. This bill is an attempt to try and reduce that pain by getting some cash back in the hands of small businesses. 
The broad point I'd make is, yes, thank you very much. We agree with that and we support it, but we make the point that its impact will be—it will vary enormously between companies, just depending on the way that they are structured and the way that they are organised. It will help some companies, but it won't be anywhere near enough to help a lot of companies get through this difficult period, and, as a result of that, many Kiwis will lose their jobs. So we support the Government in this bill and we encourage them to go further. Thank you.





CHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It's a pleasure to rise and speak on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand in this one contribution that we will be making to this taxation bill today, the COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Other Regulatory Urgent Measures) Bill. It is a rare circumstance in this Chamber that we do find consensus across the floor, but, of course, what has been elucidated by the Minister of Revenue is that these are extraordinary times and it is incredibly important that we are providing immediate relief, particularly for those small businesses.
Of course, the Minister himself has outlined that this bill broadly does two things, the first of which is to implement targeted measures for those economically impacted by COVID-19, particularly business and small business. The second is measures to address regulatory compliance issues that COVID-19 has prompted or exposed, particularly pertaining to that first broad subset of issues. We have, of course, loss carry-backs, which the Minister spoke to in quite a lot of depth, which is, basically, access to previous tax payments as cash refunds from a forecasted loss offset against the tax paid on profit from the previous year. There is also administrative flexibility for Inland Revenue, and tax treatment for New Zealanders who are stranded overseas during this pandemic.
I think it's also important to speak to one of the seemingly more minor or technical amendments that this piece of legislation creates—that being bringing forward the commencement date of the Credit Contracts Act, and this is a really important thing, particularly for cracking down on loan sharks by way of enabling us to protect our most vulnerable consumers, who are often exploited by those seeking to exploit that vulnerability, that need for immediate access to cash. So, of course, the Greens are incredibly in favour of that amendment.
Just in summation of why the Greens are standing today and supporting this bill along with, I understand, every other member in the Chamber: I want to refer to some of the kind of broader economic thoughts that have been raised by other speakers thus far, noting as well that the Minister of Revenue himself has spoken to the need for greater economic investment, transformation, and obviously that there are further circumstances and context shifts that we will be facing. Here, inside of this legislation, we can see that there is primarily a focus, of course, on those small businesses that are going to be immediately impacted, and only a so-called minor or technical focus on those vulnerable consumers. And here I think that we see the way that balance is regularly, perhaps far too often, struck in pieces of legislation and policy like this.
It so happens that oftentimes those who have access to the levers of power, those who have the wealth to do things like lobby, are those who end up with the kinds of changes that they need to see in legislation to ensure that they don't end up losing out.
I want to reflect on the statement that was made by the Secretary for Education, Iona Holsted, who said that this pandemic didn't cause inequity but in fact exposed it. This is where moving forward with pieces like this COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Other Regulatory Urgent Measures) Bill, we recognise where the breadth of focus has thus far gone. And we recognise the importance, moving forward, of focusing on equity and reducing that wealth gap, which existed far before this pandemic.
Just in conclusion, it's pretty obvious here that in measures such as this, we are borrowing from the future and that we need to be investing that wisely. We have the opportunity to break the routine of so-called normality, which upheld that inequality we took for granted, which was already fraying under pressure far before this pandemic came into effect. 
The Greens are proud to support this legislation and hope that it is just the beginning of broader reforms to come.





DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Well, thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in support of the COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Other Regulatory Urgent Measures) Bill, and I think it's a bill worth supporting for some of the clauses that provide relief to businesses struggling with cash flow at this time. 
I have to say that while the urgency of the situation is obvious to everybody, it needs to be clear to everybody that we are legislating at the speed of light. Normally, a bill like this would be drafted over several months in consultation with different interest groups by the Government, and through the full machinery of Government it would go through a Cabinet process over several weeks, it would be introduced to Parliament, it would sit there for several days so that everybody could study it, and then it would be debated for the first time and debated a second time and a third time, with public consultation and committees in between—a process that usually takes a year. Today, we've had this bill put on the Table and we have to make a decision and vote on it almost straight away, and we should always be wary of that, particularly when we get into issues as complex and as notorious for creating unintended consequences as taxation law. 
Why support it? Well, because the temporary loss carry-back scheme, allowing businesses that had paid company tax in a prior year to access that tax—effectively, bringing tax paid on last year's profits back to this year as a refund—will be vital to a lot of businesses. It's worth noting that a lot of smaller businesses don't often record a lot of profit. They actually cycle income in and out of their owner, which could just be one person—and, often, one person who has put their house up to secure loans to that business—and they won't benefit from this, which is why I was pleased to see something called a small-business cash-flow scheme. 
That sounds fantastic, but what I'd say to the Minister of Revenue is that given the speed of the lawmaking, there's going to have to be some really good communication about how this works, because we've seen it with the case of the business loan guarantee. It's taken three or four weeks before it's emerged what some of the details are and how much is really guaranteed, and where in the order of creditors the Government and the Crown versus the borrower actually falls. What borrowers have found in that case is that they actually may have to personally guarantee 100 percent. The Government only guarantees 80 percent after all other avenues such as personal guarantees have been exhausted, and that's a communications issue, because it's really taken three weeks for most people to understand it. So this small-business cash-flow scheme sounds great; I just hope that the Government does enough communication so that people can understand it and access it. 
Similarly, tax policy treatment of pension and benefit equivalent payments—a very sensible thing for a Government to do. A lot of New Zealanders—I know people, and I have constituents stranded overseas through no fault of their own, and they don't want to be treated differently from the point of view of taxation due to those circumstances beyond their control. 
I'll just comment briefly on the credit contracts Act legislation being brought into force earlier. As a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, I was heavily involved in that bill being made, and I have to say my judgment was that the Government made a call that was wrong to ignore all the advice it had previously received that capping rates of interest would not actually achieve what it wanted, because there were so many workarounds. All it would do is make loans more administratively burdensome and not actually reduce the interest charged, and that's been the experience of the UK. I don't really understand why. Some unkind people might say that for political expediency, the Government abandoned that advice and introduced it, but I don't think it's a very good bill, and I'm not sure that it's going to have the effects intended. But it was going to happen anyway, so we support it in this instance. 
So it's a bill that is going to have some help—a few hits, a few misses—but, on the whole, it is worthwhile supporting, and so I commend it to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker. 





Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Mr Speaker, thank you very much. I too stand to support this legislation, and echo the comments of my colleague David Seymour, who I think has it just about exactly correct. We do so because for all New Zealanders, they need certainty, as much certainty as possible, after what's happened over the last five weeks. Secondly, we know that for so many individuals, businesses, and the individuals who own those businesses, they're going through very difficult times; actually, this House cannot give them enough certainty today, because they are not aware of what the next steps will be in as far as the economic harm that's been done to our economy as a result of the Government's shutdown.
But there are a number of provisions in this legislation that are going to help. The temporary loss carry-back will be of help to some, but unfortunately not enough. The reason for that is if you take a small business in New Zealand, very few of them, actually, who use their accountants run large profits, and so a lot of them will have paid a lot of tax last year. I did ask the Minister, when he was before the committee, I think, a week ago, the number of businesses in New Zealand that forecast to be able to have these temporary losses carried back so that they would get a refund. He was able to talk about the value—"the cost", I think he said—to the Government, how much the Government was giving out, but not the number. It's the number that is very important because we are a country of small businesses; we're a country of small-business men and women. There will be some larger corporations that will be able to use this and claim a larger share of the amount of the tax the Government will be giving back than necessarily should be the case for the number—the great number—of small businesses that need help.
If we just take a small business that maybe made $10,000 or $20,000 profit last year, which sounds modest to some, but for a small business in New Zealand, for a shopkeeper or somebody that runs a flower shop or a butcher shop or maybe a greengrocer that hasn't been able to open for the last five weeks—and it will be more than seven weeks until they can open—if they have made $20,000 worth of profit in the last year, they get to carry forward only about $5,600. Whilst that will be a start for them, if they are losing money this year that will be a start for them that's nowhere near enough to help them with the significant costs they have incurred or have built up over that last seven weeks of the lockdown.
Equally, we've been talking a lot about what other support is needed. I would have liked to have seen in this bill, with more urgency, other things that would help small businesses.
SPEAKER: Talk about what's in the bill.
Hon TODD McCLAY: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I accept that the scope can be very narrow, but what we have agreed with the Government is all stages of this legislation in less than one hour.
SPEAKER: I've been pretty liberal on the member in the first three minutes of his speech. I'm not going to be doctrinaire but I am going to ask the member to address the bill as it's emerged from the committee.
Hon TODD McCLAY: Well, Mr Speaker, thank you very much. So the only treatment for small businesses in here that will help them—because this is a measure to help small businesses in New Zealand, as a result of the significant economic harm that has been done to them as a result of the lockdown—largely, is if they had paid tax previously, they can bring it forward. Over and above that, there is not significant assistance for them. What this bill should be doing, in addition to that, is providing so very, very much more.
Now, the challenge that we have is in the 10 minutes available to us to talk about only the part of this bill that is going to help actually does a great injustice to all of those New Zealanders who have been suffering. So I implore the Government—and the Opposition's supporting this because it is an important step forward and will do things for them—to do so very much more.
I ask the Minister to think about changing this legislation. Well, the problem we have is he can't, because we are putting it through in less than one hour. So the injustice that is done to New Zealanders in this Parliament not being able to have a full and frank debate does not outweigh the urgency of putting this through so that support can be there, but the Minister could have taken a little bit more time and sent it to committee for a day or two to see what additions could have been done to help so very much more—albeit that's not the case here today.
One of the things that I think we need to be very mindful of is that the Government is passing this legislation to try and keep New Zealanders in jobs, in work. So if you look at the support that's available to businesses through this cashing out of losses, it means that more businesses, we hope, will survive. Every time a business is able to continue to trade, it means the owners keep their jobs and their livelihoods, and it also means that the people they employ do, as well. There are very many more ways that the Government needs to look to support New Zealanders to keep their jobs and keep in work. 
We've seen, just this week, suggestions of significant job loss on the part of Air New Zealand. Air New Zealand are struggling because they have no revenue, virtually, as so many other businesses in New Zealand. I don't believe they will be able to use this to the degree that we would want them to—this carrying forward of any profits they've had previously. But if it was more generous than this, or had looked more closely, then there was the chance that actually they could, and every single person in New Zealand that now faces an uncertain future as a result of redundancy could well keep their job. I'm trying to remember whether Air New Zealand had a profit last year or a loss; either way they are in a loss-making situation now. There could well be some relief for them in this, but not the same degree of relief there could have been when the Government provided them with a $900 million loan facility, which is very important. Unfortunately, they appear to be paying the Government about 6 percent in interest more than if they had gone to the market to get that money. We see that Qantas has borrowed a similar amount of money at a much lower rate. That would have meant if they had actually gone to the market—or the Government had been in a position to do so rather than relying upon whether they made a profit and they can carry it forward and get a refund and a loss—indeed they would have had about $54 million more available to them over the next year to invest their company and to perhaps keep more New Zealanders working with Air New Zealand.
The final point that I want to make is I think it is appropriate that the Government is looking to help New Zealanders who, through no fault of their own, are not able to get back to the country, and therefore their pensions, and other entitlements around support from the State, won't be available to them. Indeed, I encourage the Government to look more broadly and more widely at how we can help New Zealanders than just this measure. I think it's appropriate and I do think it's very important, but there will be many New Zealanders overseas—but so many more in New Zealand—who are going to struggle more than anybody would want them to.
This is a good start. The Opposition, the National Party, is happy to support this legislation. But at the same time, I implore the Government, on behalf of New Zealanders who are doing it hard with their businesses who still can't open, New Zealanders who are sitting at home who soon, as we go to level 2, will be able to go out and go back to the workplace and will find that their jobs no longer exist—I implore the Government to do much, much more, much more quickly than what is in this legislation. Thank you.





ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The first thing I'd just like to say—obviously, we're going to support this bill, but I think we've missed an opportunity. I received a copy of this bill, which is not insignificant, at 1.39 this afternoon, and here we are a couple of hours later having to give a speech on it, and it is quite a detailed bill. So I think we have lost a little bit of the opportunity to be able to work collaboratively with the Government and to have proper opportunity to discuss this and work through it. Obviously, there is no select committee stage and there is, in fact, no proper Parliament stage to go through all three readings and the committee of the whole House. So my first point is I wish we could've had the opportunity to collaborate with the Government, because I think we could've improved this bill.
The second point I want to make is one that I made yesterday when the Minister of Finance was lauding the success of this major part of reform to help businesses in their hour of need. There is no doubt that this bill gives some support to small businesses, but in my mind, I believe that there is a tendency to gild the lily about this bill. What this bill is about is the Government acting as a temporary bank in terms of banking losses that companies would be making, and allowing them to claim it in the preceding year rather than delaying it until next year. In terms of a cash payment, that is all we've done, is changed the timing of when that occurs. The actual net cost to the Government of this scheme, using the $1.3 billion, is actually the cost of one year's financing, $3.1 billion—or, in other terms, a $90 million cost to the Government. That is the net cost to the Government of this package, and so it should be described as a $90 million bill. But I do accept the proposition that by doing and acting as a bank, the Government, effectively, is giving the opportunity for businesses to access or, in effect, pay less tax than they would've otherwise been required to do so by a period of one year. That is useful in the time of need we've got right now.
But my second, or third point, actually, is I can't understand where the $3.1 billion comes from. We actually haven't had an explanation of it. If you look at the projections for the 2020 tax year, it was expected that corporate tax would generate $14.5 billion. So we've got this figure of $3.1 billion that's been quoted ad nauseum. I do not understand how that is justified and what the basis is for it, and, hopefully, the Minister of Revenue might be able to shed some light on it. But that represents roughly 20 percent of all the profits, so does that mean that 80 percent of companies are still going to have to pay full company tax, or that this is the only portion that they're entitled to claim against last year's profits? That is an aspect of this bill I haven't had any explanation on, either yesterday or today.
I think, just explaining the bill—and a number of the members have done it, and very adequately and well—what this bill provides for is that either in the 2019-20 income year, and we're just at the close of the 2019-20 year, if you've got a March balance date, or the 2020-21 income year, you can look at your situation and reassess your losses. The bill provides, though, that you may only claim it back retrospectively against one year's profit; and that's the issue with this, because for many companies, they may have made a profit last year but the loss this year will be substantially greater than that. Therefore, this mechanism is quite mean, in a way, because it hasn't actually given the ability for companies to recover all tax losses. Now, again, I'm not underplaying the benefit of this scheme, but I think if we'd been able to work collaboratively with the Government, we might've been able to make it a fairer scheme.
It's generous in the sense that it allows you to look at two financial years, but you have to make the choice against which preceding company's year you will use it, and that is an issue both in terms of the accessibility of the tax deductibility, but also it actually brings into play a lot of the implementation issues. This is where we should've had scrutiny in the Finance and Expenditure Committee, because if you anticipate that you're going to make a tax loss in either the 2019 or the 2020 or 2021 income year, you will need to reassess or re-estimate your tax in the preceding year. So that's OK, but for those doing so, you're potentially at risk for use of money at 8.6 percent, and the issue with that is that you need to make a re-estimate of the 2020 tax year now before you can carry it back to 2019, and you have to do it before 7 May, which is only in a few days' time. So if you're going to apply it for this financial year, in the next seven days you are required to sit down and re-estimate your profit or your loss and actually then go and make an adjustment through the IRD. Now, that's not easy, and that's not easy particularly in the environment that many people find themselves where they don't know what the current trading is—if they're a retailer, haven't even reopened, and they're probably not going to reopen before 7 May. So it places on those entities a lot of concern and administration burden, right at a time when they're probably more worried about how they're going to survive.
I think, also—and this is getting into a little bit of the technical side of it—to be able to access those losses, you will have to have required imputation credits, and, again, if you haven't got the imputation credits, you may not be able to access all of the losses. But for those small to medium sized enterprises that don't always rely on keeping the profits in their company, what they do in many cases—and most small businesses in New Zealand do this—is they actually strip out the profits in part by way of salaries to their shareholders. Now, if the shareholder salary is nil or reduced, there's a need to make a revised provisional tax payment before 7 May, and the issue with that is it then gives rise to things like interest on shareholder current accounts that may be overdrawn, and it also gives rise to how you then have to change your accounts if you're a business and what that means for the banking arrangements you may have with your bank, because what you're effectively doing is changing prior-period profits.
The other aspect to it is if the shareholders are changing their remuneration—and it's all legitimate under this arrangement—they will then have to reassess ACC. So whilst on the face of it this bill looks like it's going to provide a lot of benefit to people, the reality is, actually, it's quite a difficult ability for companies to be able to access, and it requires quite a lot of work right now. In many cases, businesses will not be entitled to actually access all the tax losses that they may be going to generate in this coming financial year, and I think that's a shame. I think if we'd had the opportunity, as I said before, to be able to work together, it might've been more helpful.
Now, the last little bit I want to cover is the issue of child support payments, and, again, this bill refers to it in Part 1. The issue with child support payments is that they're set at March during the course of each year, and they're set for 12 months starting from 1 April. Now, of course, with the COVID crisis, those arrangements and what's happened in April mean that many people, parents, have lost their jobs and their situations have changed entirely. Something I've spoken to the commissioner about that is very, very important is that those who have got revised child support payments need to be able to address those very quickly and make an application to the IRD, but in many cases, the IRD can't actually reduce those payments. They've got limited capacity and capability around that. So it is an issue that people need to get in touch with the IRD about and to make them aware of the changed circumstances so that children do not miss out.
Bill read a third time.





SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE
Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I seek leave for the House to now adjourn for the day.
SPEAKER: Is there any objection? There is none. 
The House adjourned at 3.53 p.m.