O'Connor DamienHon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Labour): Mr Speaker thank you very much and I acknowledge my colleague who's provided me with some time. Like every member of Parliament here we represent an economy based on half a million small businesses. This is an important piece of legislation and I've been asking myself: why are we doing this? Because last year once again since 2003 the World Bank has been conducting a survey across 190 economies: which country is the easiest to do business in? New Zealand. Consistent. I have been proud to say that around the world as I've promoted our country to exporters to importers to investors. We are the easiest country in the world in which to do business and that is something we should be proud of. After the Labour Government—last year this judgment and once again.So all the rhetoric all the ranting we hear over there about the Labour Government imposing costs and difficulties on small businesses it's simply not true. We are the easiest country in the world. The reality is there are greater expectations in part because of lawyers because of international trade because of food safety because of a whole lot of other expectations from discerning customers around the world. There are more requests.This is the easiest country in the world in which to run a business. But over that side of the House you've got some naive people—very very naive. They on the one hand say Oh the market will determine how things roll through." Well listen to market signals. Well the reality is that an emerging and evolving market ends up with some dominant players. It might be in road contracting it could be in dairy industry or meat industry it could be in areas of health it could be in banking. In fact you know four big players. There have been many people who've come to the House. If they'd had the chance to come to the select committee and say "It's pretty unfair. We're a small business and we get beaten up by the big business"—because that's human nature and that's normal commercial evolution.If you're a small business you want to be a big business and you do your best. In fact there's a good member over the other side of the House—he's a new member: David MacLeod—who was part of an organisation that actually moved forward in exactly the normal way of commercial evolution. If you're big you exert your dominance. Fonterra said "We're going to pay 90 days not 30 days. We're going to pay in 90 days." Outrageous—outrageous. Why did they do it? Because they could. To be fair to him—and I think he is a good member and I know he looks very uncomfortable with the passage of some of the Government's legislation and changes so I know he's a good member. I'm not sure whether he's on the board—I think he was. Fonterra did a U-turn. They realised that in spite of their ability to pay in 90 days they said there was backlash there was outrage and in fact they changed it—and good on them and I acknowledge that.But there are other big dominant players across this economy that won't do a U-turn because they don't have to. Fonterra's a cooperative and they had many farmer members who had friends who were small-business people and they said "This is unfair. You pay the farmers on the 20th of the month but you don't pay us until the 20th of the third month." So we brought in legislation to ensure that small businesses had a fair go and this coalition Government—ACT National and New Zealand First—is removing the protection for half a million small businesses across this country. Not all of them will be affected because they may have a good relationship with a supplier or customer or whatever but there will be some who will be unfairly affected.We are in this Parliament to protect those who can't stand up for themselves. The Minister says "Oh you know you can go for the fair trade Act. There's other pieces of legislation." A small business at a time of global inflation when the economy's being squeezed by the Reserve Bank doesn't have the spare cash to get the data and to go to court.So this is a ridiculous piece of legislation being passed through urgency that will undermine the rights of half a million small businesses across our economy. It is outrageous and how any one of those members over there can stand up and say that they are here for enterprise when under a Labour Government this economy was the best for doing business across the globe—across the globe; across the globe—by the World Bank standings. This will reverse that position."