Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. One of the criticisms last year of the Government was that it was somewhat tin-eared to the concerns of business about the non-staffing cost impacts of the COVID lockdown. The Government's response which was fair enough was to say Well we poured billions of dollars into the wage subsidy." The difficulty with that for business was that the wage subsidy treated employers effectively as pass-through agents between the Government and the employees in order to sustain jobs and that worked. But it would be wrong to say that that was a support for the business itself for all of the non-staff impacts and costs that were incurred.Many businesses did go to the wall. Some survived by the skin of their teeth and they will be pretty damn terrified I think at the prospect of an extended level 3 lockdown. It's bad enough just for three days. So it's good that the Government has responded by acknowledging that actually even in the short-term alert level rises that we're experiencing this week there are costs on business and they seek to address that and support businesses through this time.There are two matters though I think that make it difficult for the Opposition to dive deeply into the details of this bill. One is the fact that we received all of the documentation at about 10.30 this morning so a prudent sort of diligent analysis of where we're going with this is difficult. I say that without judgment because I've been there before and we are in unusual times. The second part of this is that almost all of the details that the Minister of Revenue has discussed in his press release and in his first reading speech are about matters that aren't in the bill. The bill is actually blindingly simple in that it creates effectively a regulating-making power in certain circumstances. Actually one needs to go to the legislative statement or the regulatory impact statement to understand what the Government's intentions are in that regard—or whatever it's called. So look that's not a criticism either except that effectively what the Government is doing is giving itself the power to pay anything in these circumstances if the Order in Council is passed and the instructions are given to the Inland Revenue Department. Now I don't expect that they would and perhaps they would say that they are giving themselves something of some flexibility but there's no doubt that this is a quite extraordinary bill and it's not how taxation bills are normally done. We've got primary legislation to say who would be an overseas donee for goodness' sake and yet we are giving this tremendous ability to move or not move in certain circumstances by Order in Council. Yes it's an instrument it's a—what's it called? A particular instrument that the House will have some influence over?Chris Bishop: A confirmable instrument. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Thank you. A confirmable instrument thank you Mr Bishop. But I don't know that under normal circumstances this would be considered good legislation. Now for all of that—and I should say now—the National Party will be supporting this bill and unless there are some great revelations of terror that will be for all stages but we will have a number of questions about how the Government intends to manage this. And we also have some concerns actually about the framework not being mindful of the lessons that should have been learnt out of the wage subsidy and I want to touch on two of these. So last year there was criticism including by us and the business community that the initial framework for the wage subsidy targeted small and medium businesses. But there were just as many thousands of jobs if not more that were at risk of being lost to big business inside big business. So rightly in my view Government extended the scope of the wage subsidy to include all businesses. Then it actually joined criticism of some of those businesses for the fact that they actually did better than they thought they were going to. They weren't bound to repay the wage subsidy but there was some kind of public shaming exercise into which some larger businesses actually paid money back.Now I said at the time that that was a function of a lack of detail that could be forgiven and I criticised the Minister. I said if he wanted to find somebody to blame for that he should look in the mirror and that was true but perhaps a bit harsh given the speed with which the wage subsidy had to be stood up. There is no such excuse this time and actually this time the opposite has happened. We are arbitrarily restricting this to businesses with 50 staff or fewer. That is the definition of a small to medium sized enterprise 50 staff or fewer. So large businesses who may nevertheless be struggling with a lockdown of seven days or more at level 2 aren't eligible. Now the other difficulty I have with this framework is that the criticism of the wage subsidy was that it wasn't timed with the revenue cycle. Actually one of the reasons some of those businesses did better and others didn't was depending on the nature of their work. So for goods industries orders were just not filled for a period of time and then they rebounded very strongly when those orders were filled. Service industries on the other hand particularly tourism and hospitality would never get back the lost business caused by the lockdown and that's what we have now only it's a much more acute calculus where a 30 percent reduction in revenue in one week gets compared with the six weeks prior. Now that's a very very sharp calculation. Now the week after next Briscoes—well we won't actually call it Briscoes; the $2 Shop in the next suburb may well rebound quite quickly from that and indeed their cash flow needs were probably significantly lower than potentially the restaurant that employs 30 staff and will never get that revenue back. So we support this but we think it could have been more targeted. It's kind of one of those broad brushes that could have been forgiven last time we did this—yeah last year—but actually a lot more thought could have gone into the way in which the calculus for genuine loss as a consequence of a short-term lockdown could have been made. I see the Minister nodding and I want to pursue this conversation because actually while I kind of mildly criticise the fact that we're giving a secondary power an Order in Council power maybe there is an opportunity to get a bit more nuanced in the calculation because we've already spent an eye-watering amount of money. Perhaps the difference between the left and the right is the difference between a universalism approach versus a targeted approach. National is unashamedly wanting the taxpayers' funds to be targeted at those who most need it whether it's for jobseeker supports or business supports of this nature and this doesn't do that according to my reading of it.The other thing I have a question about is the inter-relationship between a level 2 lockdown seven days or more and levels 3 and 4 for several days more because the grant is a one-off for one event but there's nothing to suggest that an alert level 2 period could be several weeks. Now it may be unlikely but it's not implausible. What could happen and this is where it gets tricky for the regions is a level 3 or 4 lockdown could be pursued for six weeks in Auckland for example whereas the rest of the country might be at level 2. Now the restrictions on Aucklanders travelling could have a significant impact on the people of the Coromandel or Queenstown or others. I sense the Minister may have a response in his second reading speech on this because my understanding and I'm very open for another member to correct me on this or for the Minister at second reading is that we could have a one-off grant to a business in level 2 but an ongoing wage subsidy for businesses in level 3 and 4—Hon Grant Robertson: You can get that no matter where you are. So if Auckland's in level 3 or 4 anyone can get it.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Ah OK. Well I may have misread that in the press release so I do appreciate the Minister clarifying that and I hope Hansard staff have caught it.Hon Grant Robertson: We'll come back to it.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: We can come back to that. I think that's somewhat reassuring because there did appear to be a sort of a gap in my understanding. Look with all of that I do have concerns about the targeting and I want to make sure that companies that are legitimately entitled to claim the grant are then not criticised or even penalised by the IRD if indeed they rebound a bit stronger than they might have foreseen when they applied for it. But with that I look forward to the continued discussion on it and I commend the bill."