Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. Well where to begin after that! Actually it's a pleasure to rise in support of my colleague Ms Parmar's bill. We hear from the Government side—they always think they've got the answer. They've got a lot of talk but they don't often have the actual answer. Every time they think they're going to do something it's the big thing that's going to change the world. They talk about tax credits—and I'm going to come back to that—as if it's going to change the world and suddenly make New Zealand the average or above in the OECD.But in actual fact what it takes is what we when we were in Government showed over nine years—you make small pragmatic and practical changes that help businesses become more competitive particularly smaller businesses which are the predominant businesses in New Zealand. You help them become more competitive you protect their intellectual property and you make them more successful and you make New Zealand more successful. Ms Parmar's bill does not save the world. It is not intended to do that. It is intended to provide a measure so that the majority of businesses—the small businesses in New Zealand—can invest in their own development and can protect the intellectual property they create. Instead the members on the Government side start talking about R & D tax credits. I'm mindful of the words that were attributed—perhaps erroneously—to Albert Einstein. He said or he purportedly said that The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result". Well the last Labour Government instituted R & D tax credits with such a weak definition of what research and development was that businesses the length and breadth of New Zealand were able to game that system. The Minister there introduced it and businesses were able to game that system. I know this because I was selling in the IT industry at the time and my customers told me how they were gaming the system to claim their credits. The Government now reintroduces the same system and tries to tell New Zealand it's suddenly going to work. Well that is absolute codswallop. It's absolute tripe. What we have instead is a member of the Opposition introducing a member's bill that is intended not to save the world in one fell swoop but to provide a pragmatic and practical step that smaller businesses in New Zealand will be in a position where using a second-tier patent system they will one be able to afford to seek protection of their intellectual property (IP) and two they will have the means to do so. When I was first given the privilege by Simon Bridges as the new Leader of the Opposition to have the shadow portfolio of commerce and consumer affairs the very first people I sought to engage with were intellectual property lawyers and one of the first firms I met with was the largest genuinely New Zealand - owned and controlled intellectual property law firm in New Zealand headquartered in Auckland. I met with him. He had much to say about what we had done when we were in Government and he took the time to educate me on how we could have done more and better. But one point he absolutely made clear: he was aware of Ms Parmar's bill. He was aware of the bill going into the ballot and his comments to me were "It won't solve all of our problems but it is a good step." One thing he said New Zealand businesses don't do well is that they do not protect the intellectual property they create. They don't do it because one it's enormously expensive to seek international patents under the system as it stands and two they've just not been used to an environment where that is part of what a business does. So the case studies he was speaking to me about were things that he had witnessed. He said to me "Brett if you go to Fieldays and you see all those people walking around with cameras they are not tourists looking at your Fieldays in Hamilton and thinking 'Isn't this great?'. They're agents on behalf of overseas companies taking photographs of the stuff New Zealanders have created because they're really certain that those New Zealanders won't have protected the IP. They can copy it and just get away with it." Well here we go. We've got a member with a member's bill who's giving a pragmatic step to get those small Kiwi businesses a chance to protect the stuff they create. They are more likely to use this. Those guys think it's wrong. Well 59 countries around the world think it's right. You might think that 20-odd academics are wrong on the waka-jumping bill. Are you really saying that 59 countries around the world have got this wrong? Maybe you should rethink Mr Faafoi and get your hands out of your pockets."