Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): That's all right Madam Speaker. I know. We've just had a nice dinner—Glen Bennett: Unforgettable [sings].ANDREW BAYLY: —together. Ha ha! This is one of these bills that the Minister is rapidly trying to get through the House before the end of this session. Actually it's five weeks and one day before this House comes to a close. And this is one of those bills that a Minister wants to be able to stand up and say I did it I did it I did it. Well I did it." Even though we know that it's absolutely a waste of time because when we sat in the room and listened to all the submissions even the officials have acknowledged they do not know the scale of the problem; they have not been able to quantify it. But hey this is one for the Minister to talk up. I think it's probably the only thing that this Minister for Small Business has actually done for small business and what a catalogue of issues and impositions they have placed on small businesses over the last few years. At the very same dinner that the Speaker and I have just attended I just listened to a very well-known business owner promoter and founder of a large company talk about the misery of being a businessman in New Zealand at the moment where there's an avalanche of regulation that has come on. And of course this is just another example of that. But of course you know if you're a small-business owner in New Zealand you've had the issue about lack of talent: you can't get people; you've had an unsupportive Government who've locked people out of the country and don't happen to allow immigration; they are taking apart the vocational training organisations in New Zealand. So we've had that. We've had all their imposition of costs because this Government only sees small businesses as a cash cow to fund their whole range of useless projects in the main. We've seen all of the issues around how to actually just ruin the lives of mums and dads who mostly run and own these businesses alongside their employees. We've seen how more difficult it is to employ people and we've seen the rapid escalation of costs imposed on them. And many of them are now at a stage that they are up to here and let's hope there is a change in October because there will be many small businesses—as this owner just pointed out at the dinner—who are now contemplating selling their businesses because of the environment that the Labour Government has imposed over the last six years.Now we oppose this bill and quite rightly so because there is no requirement for this bill. And the prime reason for this is that there are four independent highly credible credit-assessment companies in New Zealand who you can go to today and get in real time the same data that this so-called piece of legislation will enact and for a sheer cost of $33 per application. For 33 bucks you can go to one of the four and say "I'd like to know about the credit assessment of X Y Z Ltd." And of course what that will mean is that not only will you get the most up-to-date real-time data—not like this that potentially could be six months out of date—but secondly you get a much more enriched form of data about that firm. You can actually ask for even more than just how often they pay. You can ask them a lot more about the nature of the operations what they do who the creditors are who the debtors are who the directors are—all that sort of information. But this is a Government that does not understand business. And this is going to be run by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE). They've told us that they are looking at going out and employing a whole lot of IT consultants at a cost of between we think—the estimate I asked of some of the credit-assessment agencies who are really in the market: "What would it cost MBIE to set up a package like this? What would it cost them to set up an IT programme like this?" And they estimate between $3 million to $5 million. And of course the Government has a wonderful opportunity and a wonderful experience in terms of delivering projects that will enable this to take place. And of course then there's the operating costs if MBIE were to run this programme to deliver on the impact of this bill. And that again is estimated well into the millions. And this is just a recipe. As this bill goes through—and it looks like the Labour Government's going to shove it through—if that goes through they should have picked up on my Supplementary Order Paper which said it should be up for a formal review within two years. This is something we will do because ultimately we think if you need to find out about a firm and if you need to make a credit assessment go and get the independent assessment for $33 because that's a much better outcome than what this bill delivers. And the whole thing about this bill really is this issue around trying to solve this issue. And of course Australia and the UK have got it. I spoke to the Australians about this bill and what they've done. They had a similar arrangement back in 2020. No doubt that's where the Labour Minister—the previous one—sort of got the bright idea to do this. And of course the Australians are reviewing that right now—right now—because what they found in some of the sectors even though they've had this in operation for two years is that the companies were actually paying slower than before they started this process.So this is the model that the Labour Government thinks "Oh look I'll pick this up and put this into New Zealand." And by the way even if they do it which they seem like they're going to do what about the cost on business? We talked about this cost and it's between $1000 to maybe $3000. And of course they're required to do that every six months. So all we've done is burden these people even more. And of course then we've got the issue of fines and all that sort of stuff on the directors. It is just a cascade of more regulation on our small businesses.Labour should learn from its mistakes. Do not keep imposing regulations on small business. Let them thrive because when they thrive they go out they expand they employ more people and ultimately—Labour should work this out—they are more profitable and that means there's more money for the Government. But for some reason let's sock it to them let's regulate let's make the environment much harder and let's hope—oh don't worry about the growth in the tax revenue; we'll just take the money off them anyway. And that is why this Government has failed so appallingly with small-business owners in New Zealand. That's why small-business owners in the main will never vote for Labour again because of—I don't know what it is with Labour—this just unrelenting desire to take money off them and see them as a cash cow. They are not. They are the fundamental plank the fundamental benchmark the platform for the economy in New Zealand. That's what it's about. But don't worry about it; Labour knows best! That is why this is such a bad piece of legislation and I am so concerned for New Zealand. I am concerned that we are going to see many people just say "This is too difficult for us."Joseph Mooney: Yeah they already are.ANDREW BAYLY: They are already saying it. And so I think for us if we were to win the election the biggest thing is we've got to provide small-business owners with the confidence and the understanding that they are important and they are to be valued and not only them as owners but also their staff and their members. And remember just who provides the money to them: their customers—their customers. And that is what we will have to do. And this bill does not do that. This bill is a continual assault on the hard-working New Zealanders hard-working families that own our businesses. I feel so so concerned about the fabric of our business community in New Zealand that I am just worried that they are going to lose hope. But I'm saying to you do not lose hope because we will support you we will look after you we will help you grow because we want you to grow. We want New Zealand to be successful because when New Zealand's successful everyone succeeds. And that is what we need to achieve in New Zealand. And that is not what has occurred under this Labour Government for the past six years."