Mitchell Mark; Rurawhe AdrianHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you Mr Speaker. I just want to start by saying that in his speech to the House the Minister of Finance Grant Robertson said that he was very kindly going to keep the Air New Zealand route to Kerikeri open for me. But I don't think he realises that Kerikeri is three hours away from my house so I don't know if it's really going to be that useful for me. Maybe a service out of Dairy Flat would be better.When I first read this letter I thought it was an April Fool's letter and I started to go through it. It opened with a profound statement. It said: I recognise that the last 12 months has been an incredibly challenging time for Air New Zealand". Well I'm pretty sure they understand that when their revenue went almost to zero overnight when we were hit as a country with COVID. It then went on to say "The Crown has provided significant support to Air New Zealand through this period in a variety of ways including provision of the Crown Standby Loan Facility." That is true and I'm going to come back to that point and to the comment that one of the Cabinet Ministers made to me today around it. But then I go on to more of the bullet points: "To be a 'national airline' continuing in operation to support economic development including access to international markets for our exporters and international tourism". That's great coming from a Government that had a Cabinet Minister turn around and say that our tourism sector was cocky. Now all of a sudden they want to support them through the letter to Air New Zealand. "To maintain a comprehensive domestic … network that allows people and goods to move across New Zealand in a timely fashion and at a reasonable cost;". Well I'll tell you what. If the Minister of Finance wants to send a letter to the board and the chair of Air New Zealand then maybe they should start delivering some of their projects in a timely fashion and at a reasonable cost. "To demonstrate [its] … commitment to environmental sustainability including engaging with the development of new aviation fuels for New Zealand;" This is from a Government that's delivered five electric cars and is returning us to coal telling Air New Zealand to make that investment. Then we go to "To enhance its role as a leader for best practice workplace relations given that it's one of New Zealand's largest employers." This again from a Government that just had a union come out and talk about taking a vote of no confidence in a senior Cabinet Minister. To me sending a letter like this to Air New Zealand—not only as it's been laid out very seriously by my colleagues Michael Woodhouse and Andrew Bayly they want to have a look at themselves and first of all be able to deliver this for the country themselves before they start sending letters laid out like this to our national carrier. I want to come back to the provision of the Crown standby loan facility because one of their Cabinet Ministers today told me "You know what? There's no better time for us as the Government to be borrowing money because capital is so cheap—it's so cheap." That's true. Capital is very cheap. But I want to come now to a very serious point and that was the fact that Air New Zealand appeared in front of the select committee this year in February and we had the new chief executive officer Greg Foran and Dame Therese Walsh. I wanted to acknowledge them and thank them for the front-line services that Air New Zealand do provide us as a country and I asked them this question: "There's a couple of things I want to explore around the loan facility that's been set up by the Government between … [them] and the Government understanding that they are … [a] major shareholder. … I just wanted to seek some clarity around the fact that at the onset of COVID-19 you secured a $900 million loan facility from the Government at 7 percent to 9 percent interest rate. That was in two tranches the first being 600k at 7 percent and the second 300k at 8 … [and] with both rates increasing to 1 percent or a 1 percent increase if the facility remained after 12 months. Around the same time Qantas secured financing in Australia of a bit over a billion dollars [that's] in Australian dollars at [a rate of] 2.75 percent for up to 10 years." And when you convert that into salaries and wages that's $50 million that we could have saved if we had entered into an agreement like that with the New Zealand Government.Dame Therese Walsh was very interesting. She said this: "So look I think the context needs to be put around this and that is that we were in a trading halt [they were in a full trading halt] in an extreme situation where our revenue was going from 100 percent to close to zero …. So I think that context is important. We'd made a decision that we needed to approach the Government for a lifeline … There was a discussion and negotiation around the interest rates that you've referred to. And obviously as a company we wish to pay the lowest cost of lending and funding that we can but the Government also had to take its position and view on that matter. As I've said before it wasn't the most significant item at that moment. And I agree with you that it's certainly money … we would prefer to keep; however it was part of the negotiation at … [that] time."Why has the Government—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired."