Faafoi KrisHon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Justice): I can't substantively respond to some of the technical questions that the—sorry I'll take my mask off—member Stuart Smith has asked but I would note some of the comments that he made around the time-change range in the bill and some of the comments he made around what officials may or may not have said as to why delays happen. It's pretty obvious that the ability of the Government to progress some issues has been delayed by the COVID situation and that's not the only work programme that unfortunately has had delays to it. So all I can say to the member is that from the Government's perspective that is the reason why the date has been changed.I think we've come to the point in the morning where we should resume the debate around Schedule 6 of the bill around the changes to the Property Law Act. When the debate last night on 27 October came to an end there was a mood in the House which I thought was unfitting for the situation that is out there in the market around making this a landlords versus tenants tussle. I want to reiterate some of the comments that I made at the outset of this debate and thank both landlords and tenants and the overwhelming number of those landlords and tenants who have found within their current contracts whether they have rent relief clauses or not—and my understanding from the discussions that I have had is that many do now—and have managed to come to an amicable arrangement to meet a fair proportion of rent. I want to reiterate some of the things that I said last night. Some landlords have foregone all rent; some landlords have foregone partial rent. I've heard the odd outlier story of some landlords who have not only foregone rent but also assisted financially some of their tenants because of the longstanding relationship that they have but also in order to make sure that there is a tenant in the future when alert level settings can return to where those businesses can resume trading.The situation we have with this bill and the changes that are made in the Supplementary Order Paper I believe strike the right balance given the feedback to the Finance and Expenditure Committee at the select committee period to ensure that some of the concerns that landlords had around making sure that there was an actual revenue loss on the part of a tenant are taken into consideration. Another change in the bill is making sure that there is an onus for engagement because in many cases that are unsettled at this stage one party has refused to engage with the other and tried to aggressively enforce the lease as it stands. Obviously the debate will flow this morning about the decision around retrospectivity of 18 August which is the effective date of the alert level change more recently.I would again stress that there is an issue to fix. There are a number—and it is a minority but still a significant number—of small and medium sized enterprises who are unable to come to an arrangement with their landlord on a fair proportion of rent. So there is an issue to deal with—Andrew Bayly: Yeah so what is it?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: —and that is that many of those businesses—in the very electorate that the member Mr Bayly represents and around the country—where there is an alert level setting which prevents them from physically being able to access their premises are up against the wall. We've heard about the stress. We've heard about the strain and the mental health impacts that the current alert levels have had on those businesses and I want to acknowledge the work of the Deputy Prime Minister already in the assistance through the resurgence payments and the wage subsidy payments—$4.8 billion of resurgence payments and wage subsidy payments already to date and we're on the verge of essentially doubling the assistance that can be made to those businesses. Something needs to be done and we believe it is a high bar that has been met and there is justification to make sure that those parties come together—Andrew Bayly: Why didn't you do it last year?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: —themselves and get to that fair proportion of rent. I hear Mr Bayly saying Well why didn't you do that last year?" So is Mr Bayly saying that he agrees with us doing it but we should've done it earlier or does he think we shouldn't have done it at all? Because Mr Bayly's solution to this problem is to not get the parties involved together but to let the taxpayer pay 50 percent of the outstanding rent that may be at play. So I just want to outline the absurdity of that and some of the promises that the Opposition have made. Their plan is to increase support and reduce spending and reduce debt. Now Mr Bayly you can't have it both ways. So why don't you stand up here and say that your solution to this is making sure that taxpayers pay 50 percent of the outstanding rent and that will come from taxpayers and that will increase debts under National which makes your whole economic plan that you announced a couple of weeks ago a complete absurdity."