van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise today in opposition to the COVID-19 Response (Management Measures) Legislation Bill. I do so on behalf of the ACT Party for two main reasons: firstly because of the actual content of the bill and secondly because of the process that it's gone through.This bill in particular shows the real reason why Parliament needs the ACT Party. Only one month ago the Government brought this bill to the House and only ACT was the only party to vote against it. Only ACT was the party that said that we cannot possibly support this based on our principles and that's because the ACT Party stands firmly in favour of having a country where we know that our laws are reliable where we know what our laws actually say on any given day and where we have the rule of law upheld—where we know that we have property rights and we know what those rights are. This bill violates that. We are proud to constantly stand opposed to this bill. We need more people in Parliament who are consistent on their principles that rushing law through Parliament is the wrong thing to do and especially that rushing through retrospective legislation that interferes with private contracts is the wrong thing to do. I'm glad that our friends over here in the National Party have come on board but it would have been great to have them alongside us in that first reading. I'm glad they've come on board though.This bill—not all of it is bad. It does actually point to a few things that are common-sense changes. There are a range of initiatives here that we actually have no problem with and that's because they adequately look at the situation a lot of New Zealanders faced themselves under lockdown. It's really hard to do some of the most basic tasks under a lockdown. If you think of a few examples one is the Heart Foundation's fundraisers which they can't do in person and so there needed to be some changes to be able to enable them to do those online and I think that's a good change to make. The second example was the High Court. We're changing some of the rules around the courts to ensure that some of the workload could be shifted from the District Court to the High Court and I think that's a good thing to do. Another was some changes to e-signatures. Those are some common-sense changes. Well just this morning we had the committee of the whole House—doesn't feel that long ago because it's not—and that's what's happening when you have rushed law. But we saw some massive changes go through. As Chris Bishop pointed out before they were pretty much the same size as the original bill—the number of changes that were put forward by the Minister in charge of this legislation—and I think that shows why it's so wrong to rush through laws because you can get so much wrong if you're rushing it through Parliament.But I'm very glad to see that one of the amendments that was put forward is a removal of a provision that was in the original bill which would have delayed the local body elections and I just have to question why that was even in there. Does anybody from the Labour Party know why that was in there? Complete silence. No one—none at all—and it's because potentially this Government is just too addicted to power. It just started to put so many things into an omnibus bill. It thought Here's a great chance. Maybe one day this is something that we'd like to get through." But alas the ACT Party was there to point out that it should never have been there in the first place and we are glad to show them that it was wrong and that it should have been removed. That's what happens when you have too much power with a majority Government who wants to rush through legislation and it shows the importance of having an Opposition with principles that's willing to stand up for New Zealanders' rights. They just cannot justify why that was there in the original bill.The main reason why we oppose this bill is because of the property law changes that were set out in it. Normally when you pass a law in New Zealand you can't be done for it if you broke the law in the past. This says that that sort of principle doesn't matter. What the Government is now saying is that it doesn't matter when you signed a commercial lease contract the law says that there's now a new law. It doesn't matter what you agreed to in the past there's now a new law and you just have to follow the law that we've currently just done. It's called retrospective legislation and it's a dangerous precedent to set in the New Zealand Parliament. What the Government is saying is that "You think that your rights are secure but now we're telling you that they're not." and the ACT Party believes in the rule of law and we believe that that should be upheld.The second part that we opposed was the rushed law and that's because we believe in due process. So for context for anybody watching usually a law has a six-month select committee process. This was done within a few weeks. We had a shortened select committee which meant that people who would be affected by this law didn't have the time to make a submission to the select committee. They didn't have the time to read through all of the impacts that this law—all of the different changes that were put in this one law—could have on their lives to make an acceptable viewpoint stated in a select committee process. I think people should be allowed to voice their views in Parliament but also have the time to be even able to articulate that.There was also no regulatory impact statement because it was rushed through so fast. That's another problem. We didn't have the basic checks and balances of what were the costs what were the benefits—how do we weigh up the costs versus the benefits? That's never a good way to make a law if you can't do that.So in summary the ACT Party opposes this flawed piece of legislation because of the way it was passed through Parliament without due process and because of the property law changes. Thank you Mr Speaker."