Rurawhe AdrianDr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take this call. It appears that saying words like research and development" and words like "innovation" makes you sound smart and fashionable. Obviously the Labour Government is quite smart so they like to use such words in their speeches especially in their Budget speeches and they used these words "research and development" and "innovation" in Budget 2020 as well. But when you look through their speeches to see what is there to support research and development and innovation there is nothing and it's quite disappointing to see that those words are used for there is no substance to support actual research and development and innovation in Budget 2020. I would like to talk about some specific things here. The first thing I would like to talk about is the wage subsidy scheme. So yes the wage subsidy scheme we know has been good for businesses. Businesses wanted that. That kind of support was welcomed by businesses but we know that the criteria that were set up for the wage subsidy scheme didn't fit for research and development companies that are in a pre-revenue phase because the conditions are that the company that will be accessing the wage subsidy should have experienced a drop in revenue—that is of 30 percent. The second is if they are new companies then it's fine because obviously they haven't had any revenue in the last year.But for research and development start-up companies we know that these companies go through a pre-revenue phase for a number of years. So for a number of years they don't have any revenue so how could they prove that drop of 30 percent in their revenue to access that wage subsidy scheme? Obviously they were left out and this was brought to my attention by the research and development start-up sector. I took it up with the Minister of Research Science and Innovation. I wrote a letter to the Minister on 31 March. Then it was covered in media on 6 and 7 April and it appeared that the Minister was going to act on it ASAP. But then on 28 April I had not received any reply and I followed up with the Minister of Research Science and Innovation. I was told by her office that I would be getting a reply by the end of that week; there was no reply by the end of that week. Then what I noticed on 11 May very quietly the website was updated to allow research and development companies in the pre-revenue phase to access the wage subsidy scheme. So during this COVID-19 crisis we on this side have been working with the Government. We have been trying our best but from their side it's been all politics—just politics. So that became part of Budget 2020. I didn't get a reply from the Minister's office about that. Actually I'm really happy that now that the start-up R & D sector in the pre-revenue phase is able to access the wage subsidy scheme but it took us so much effort to contact the Minister and get a response. I didn't get a response but in terms of resolving the issue that has been resolved. They had to wait until this Budget 2020 for this issue to be resolved. The second issue I would like to talk about is vaccine research by our scientists here in New Zealand. Our scientists have been begging—actually begging—to this Government. They have been asking for $10 million so that they can do this research so that they can join the global effort to develop a vaccine. This Government kept dismissing their call—yes they kept dismissing their call. It was the last week of April when I called on the Government to support our scientists to develop a vaccine. We should understand that vaccine development goes through several phases and it's not a successful vaccine until it has finished all those phases successfully and is available for intervention. So our scientists were lagging behind. They kept asking this Government to give them the $10 million to start that work and finally they were so fed up that they started their work without that funding. So in Budget 2020 that money was given but we can see all around the world Governments have been so proactive in supporting their scientists and we didn't see that from this Government here in New Zealand. So the question is does this Government actually trust our scientists? I'm really worried about our scientific community because we don't want to lose these scientists to other economies. It's quite disappointing the way this Government has treated our scientific community. There are so many other issues that I would like to talk about. The next issue in this limited time is the loan scheme that they have announced but we know that this sector doesn't need—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time has expired."