SpeechHon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): I rise to support this bill—an extraordinarily broad piece of legislation. Mercifully I will not be taking my full allotted time but I want to talk about some of the significant provisions.I want to start speaking very briefly about insolvency and corporate law support for businesses to survive and the development which has already been elaborated upon by Minister Kris Faafoi about the concept of a safe harbour. Whilst it is important for firms—whether they are large or whether they are modest—that the directors feel that they have the latitude to continue to maintain the firm's operations despite the threat of liquidity crunches or insolvency Kiwi businesses and the men and women in those businesses need to strike a balance. It would be a very very dismal outcome if in actual fact firms are already insolvent and they continue to trade racking up bills with their suppliers that will never be paid. So whilst this provision does give the necessary latitude and it removes the fear of litigation and statutory action being taken against directors it does impose upon those directors an additional duty—largely unenforceable—of judgment to be very very careful with the decisions that they make. They don't actually have under this bill—the directors—a carte blanche level of entitlement to engage in reckless behaviour but much is the fiscal cost of slip between company cup and debtor lip.In relation to the mortgage support for commercial renters and landlords this is a vexed issue. Obviously tenants and many of us as members of the House have received stories of woe in the sense that income's dried up. The medical emergency has shrunk revenue and it's caused an enormous amount of stress amongst people who love their businesses derive not only their livelihood but virtually a sense of being and the pride associated with taking an idea—whether it's in tourism or retail whatever the service is that's being offered—and building up a nest egg and building up a sense of esteem and all that has been severely disrupted as we've managed our way through the COVID crisis. This particular provision will assist both landlords and leaseholders to work together to resolve their problems. Many landlords are up to the gills in debt and they do depend on the cash flow from those that occupy their buildings to service the debts that they have against their assets. Not only do we expect a level of common sense; it may come to pass that further work is required in this area because inevitably what we might like to see as an act of pragmatism and economic kindness may not necessarily come to pass.In terms of local government elections—of course we think about the own election in the House but more on that at a later date—this enables widespread participation at local elections that could be disrupted. It's a moot point as to how long restrictions are going to impact on us in terms of our ability to move freely around—a key entitlement that Kiwis have taken for granted—but having said that this bill reminds us that when it's been necessary for us to act in a collective fashion we have done so over the last four or five weeks. But it's important that these statutory processes continue—i.e. the ability to elect from the community our representatives and they not be halted because of inflexibility in various laws.So I stand once again and I say that our party supports this piece of legislation.