Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Chair. I mean the first obvious question to ask in relation to this is what possible confidence could the Minister for Trade and Export Growth give to the business community that the process will be fast and efficient and reasonably costless because every example of bureaucracy that has been handled by this Government has not been quick and the overall effect of the overseas investment approach—and I acknowledge that that has been something that's been a problem for a number of years—has been anything but quick. So I'd be interested to know on what basis he is confident that it would be quick and efficient and easy for businesses to get clearances under this regime because remember we're not just talking about large businesses of scale; we're talking about every business.We're talking about the hairdresser in Eketāhuna or Invercargill or the—Hon Member: Closed by COVID.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: What? Hon Member: She's closed by COVID.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Oh she's closed. She closed already. Sorry but maybe the local cafe in Taumarunui the pie shop in Taumarunui—all these businesses may be struggling—Hon Member: What about Parnell Road?Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Certainly in Parnell Road they could be struggling because they haven't got the visiting ships. All these little businesses could be struggling—a lot of them are struggling throughout this country at the moment as we're going through a severe economic challenge. And the simple and most important thing that businesses need access to is capital is equity sometimes—Hon Member: Customers.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well customers first. Well customers would be handy but of course you know the refusal to open up the economy quickly makes it difficult. So all the customers in the world will come along and that would be great but businesses are still struggling. So there'll be a number of businesses small and large up and down the country that will be looking for extra capital. If it comes from domestic savings that's well and good but there will be many that will turn to overseas. And it may well be as I keep referring to the sister-in-law or the brother-in-law who lives in India or China or the US or somewhere else that's related to the people that own businesses or that they know—their acquaintances. Or it could be much broader in terms of financial markets. If we make it difficult—and mark my words it will be difficult because you have uncertainty around a 10-day period—and if for whatever reason somebody thinks there's something at issue it could be 40 days. You've got to get some advice before you send in all your bits and pieces and it adds costs and uncertainty and it puts sand in the gears of investment that we need to save jobs in this country. That's what this is all about. It's about saving jobs and encouraging investment for people to grow.So I'd like to know what confidence he's got on that. I'd like to know what effort has been made to understand the costs of this both direct cost to the businesses involved and cost to the administration—so somewhere somehow there has to be an army of bureaucrats. We've got no idea—no idea how many businesses will be caught by this. The officials told us they had no idea how many thousands of businesses get equity infusions from offshore when we're talking about the 500000 small businesses in New Zealand. We've got no idea. But somewhere an army of bureaucrat officials in Wellington will have to go through all these and triage them as the previous Minister said. How much is it going to cost the officialdom; how much is it going to cost the businesses themselves—so that we have a sense of whether it stacks up? Like I said—we said it all at the start—yes there may be an argument for large and consequential businesses but to include everybody is extreme. And the Minister stands up and says Oh well Stuff has been sold for $1." Well it's not impossible to design a regime that has a threshold around the revenues of a company: $100 million - plus revenue or 500 employees. There are different ways to cut this rather than including potentially every single business in the country and making it more difficult for businesses to get access to the capital and equity infusions that they need to stay afloat and to keep employing New Zealanders. And on that basis there are three or four useful questions that I'd like to hear some answers to. Thank you."