Bridges Simon; Faafoi KrisHon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): I want to ask the Minister some questions about the commercial leasing arrangements that he has in this bill. I want to start by outlining what I think's a reasonable position and a position for the Opposition which is that actually what he's doing is an unprincipled interference in contract law. We hear from the Minister about fairness all the time. Fairness this fairness that fairness everything—well you know we see it from them don't we? There's fair pay there's fair wage—everything's fair. I sometimes wonder if that's spelled f-e-a-r but anyway we won't get into that in this bill. I just want to make the point that actually when Minister Faafoi and actually any Minister or MP over that side including the Prime Minister uses the word fair"—f-a-i-r—they're using it politically and in no other way than that. Fairness is very much in the eye of the beholder. I'd go further: I'd say they're weasel words from the Government. I'll give the Minister an example which I don't think any reasonable person could say is fair but it is exactly what his bill is going to lead to more and more of. It's a real example of an elderly couple. One of them is 76 and one of them is 82. They own a commercial unit in Howick. It is their nest egg. It's their big asset. It's the thing that they supplement the superannuation rations with. Following the Government's announcement they received an email from their tenants who are a law firm asking for a 50 percent rent—an outgoing reduction. The law firm's got a good 11 or so staff who work there and who are all working from home and the position of the elderly couple is that they simply cannot afford rent reduction or mediation or arbitration. They sit there powerless saying "What can we do? What are we going to do?" and yet that is exactly the situation that this Government is forcing on them in the name of fairness to the poor old renter when the reality is that renters can be prosperous law firms. They can be multinationals like Amazon or they can be all manner of things and yet he's tilted naively it seems to me—and in the name of that weasel word "fairness"—the balance in favour of the renters throughout this without thinking that through in any way shape or form. I'd also just make the point while I'm talking about this so-called fairness that what we'll also see—because we saw it the last time round we had lockdown we will see a situation where renters right now yes they are doing it tough some of them very tough. They might be a purveyor of books or shampoo or whatever it is and it'll be tough. But what will happen when the lockdown ends is that the next quarter and the quarter after that will be some of the best they've ever had and there's no clawback in this. The poor old landlord who often is not the fat cat with 20 commercial buildings—and there's a few of them; I acknowledge that—but there'll be the little man and lady in Howick with one property and they have no ability to claw back even though the renters actually are doing very nicely thank you very much. Yes they had loss in the quarters of lockdown and then not the others. This is a very simplistic naive and actually I think unprincipled approach here. I'm going to ask the questions I want answered sequentially. I'm going to sit down and give the Minister an opportunity to answer them. The first is simply—there's nothing tricky about this. It's a simple sort of a thing I think we deserve to know and that is: who has the Minister and his ministry consulted with over these aspects of the bill and in what time frame did he do that? The reason I ask is I have here—speaking of law firms—Minter Ellison's submission to this truncated shortened committee saying "We wish to record our concerns with the following features of the Proposed PLA Amendment which we consider unnecessarily damage democratic and economic rights and freedoms … We say 'unnecessarily damage' because we think much of the harm associated with these features could have been prevented from a more transparent and accessible consultation and submission process." So it could have been prevented. It wouldn't have been as harmful this law in terms of that simplistic naive approach I've talked about with "a more transparent and accessible consultation and submission process." The New Zealand Law Society also go on to make a similar comment. Here's what they say: "we are concerned at the very limited consultation period for this Bill. It seems to us a number of the matters in the Bill could have been anticipated earlier and a greater opportunity for response would provide more considered legislation." So who did the Minister or his ministry consult with and what was the time frame for that and does he think it was remotely adequate? Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Justice): I thank the member for his questions. Can I first deal with some of the points he made in the first half of his speech. As I made the point last night the changes to the bill will ensure that the revenue losses of the tenant have to be taken into consideration where the fair proportion is being calculated whether that's between the two parties themselves or if they come to some form of arrangement through mediation or if a decision by an arbitrator has been come to. So if it were the likes of a big Australian-owned bank or a company like Amazon as Mr Bridges said they would be in a much different position to some of the small retail shop owners who are really feeling the pinch. So we've heard some feedback from the likes of the Hospitality Association and retailers who are welcoming these changes because it is those small retailers small operations who are—I think from my understanding of the situation—going to be benefiting from the changes in this bill. That is why these changes are being made.I asked my officials to engage with the likes of the Auckland District Law Society and the Law Society—very quickly actually—to make sure that these changes could be included in this bill. Because if the Opposition hadn't noticed we're into month 20 of a global pandemic and you know our businesses are under strain. In making sure that we give them the certainty from that especially given the last lockdown or the lockdown that we're currently experiencing the time frames that the member was talking about would not have met some of the expectations of those who are needing help more urgently than that. The Government wasn't prepared and we wanted to make sure it acted swiftly so we could give some certainty and hope for those small businesses to continue operating."