Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): No one else is willing. I've got to earn my salary before dinner break.Kieran McAnulty: Speak to the bill.DAVID SEYMOUR: Well you know it would be easier if the member would lead by example. He's telling me to speak to the bill; I haven't heard him make a contribution so far. I would like to also just remind this House that expenditures as a result of COVID-19 are real. We have slipped into a world over the past year or so where it almost seems as though money is not real. A billion dollars is not a lot of money any more." I heard somebody say and it's no surprise when you've got a Reserve Bank that is prepared to first of all speculate about going to negative interest rates where it will actually pay people to borrow money off them. And when that doesn't quite seem possible they'll do what they call large-scale asset purchases where they effectively buy pieces of paper off the Government in return for newly minted New Zealand dollars. And when that didn't work we have the funding for lending programme where the Reserve Bank basically goes along to commercial banks and says "Would you like some money? Can you lend it to someone? If you can we'll give you whatever you want at a very competitive rate."These policies have real consequences. One of the consequences of spending or of inflating the money supply the way that the Reserve Bank has over the past year is a huge boost in asset prices. We're talking equities on the stock market and we're particularly talking real property. The effects of that have been quite extraordinary—you know we've had a Labour Government preside over a $121000 increase in the median house price. You know the Labour Party was formed on the West Coast to stand up for working people against owners and that Government has watched people who work have to pay another $121000 at the median to people who own—throughout their lifetime. That's what this median price means and it's partly a failure to get the supply side of housing more elastic but really it's a result—in the short run—of monetary policy. I think it's worth talking about some of the impacts of paying out money the way this bill proposes because it can seem like the Government's handling of COVID-19 doesn't have financial consequences that if the Reserve Bank prints enough money then maybe things will end happily ever after. That is wrong. It is critical that we actually are aware of the price signals that tell us something about our choices not just in ordinary life—if I buy this it costs more or if I buy this I save money or if I don't buy something I save even more—but actually for Government policy.It's critical that the Government has an impact on its balance sheet that if it makes a lockdown decision then it pays a cost on its balance sheet just the way that it has an impact and a cost for people and their households their livelihoods and their business their healthcare their participation in education—it has costs right across the board and it's important that the Government actually faces a cost too. With the minor exception I should add that the way we've been running monetary policy in this country over the last year or so the connection between the costs of Government actions and the decisions that they make have actually been seriously disconnected. The real costs funnily enough have been paid in inflationary terms by a whole generation of people who have seen property ownership in this country sail away from them. And even in this environment of cheap money even with the economy having performed better than forecast we still see a Government that's going to go from 20 percent of GDP to 50 percent—or thereabouts—of GDP and net core Crown debt.Now just to put that in perspective that's about $90 billion of additional money that future taxpayers have to pay back at some point because there's no such thing as free money in the long term. Maybe in the short run we have low interest rates but in the long term New Zealanders know that if they borrow money then they have to pay it back. And that is one of the impacts of this decision. You know this is a decision that ACT supports because we don't think that businesses should pay the cost of the Government's policies themselves when the purpose is to benefit everybody. But we should never forget the debt that we're putting on to future generations and the costs of monetising that debt for those generations who are trying to buy assets like homes.If we forget what that sounds like or what sort of money that really is here's a few ways you could look at it: $90 billion is $90000 per million people; if you have a household of five people then this Government has effectively increased debt by $90000—$18000 per citizen. That is the effect of the Government's borrowing over the couple of years of the COVID period. Now that's not to say that we shouldn't have done it. In the case of this policy it's the right thing to do. But I think it would be a real failing of this House that is here with the legal right to raise taxes—no taxation without representation they like to sell me—if we didn't talk about the impact that this bill and others through the COVID period have had on young New Zealanders and will continue to have on young New Zealanders for decades to come. Eighteen thousand dollars a person 90 grand for a family of five. That is significant. And I think it's important that when we make a decision like this—we're already rushing it under urgency because we mentioned the Government wasn't quite ready despite having six months nine months of COVID to think about this happening—it would be absolutely remiss not to remember the people that end up paying for these COVID expenditures. So I feel I've made my point and I will commend the bill to the House. But lest we ever forget those young people—many of whom got home from school if their school wasn't closed—who are going to remember this oh so clearly as they pay it back over decades to come. Thank you Madam Speaker."