Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National): We also look forward to that discussion in the committee because what has just been put on the record by the Minister of Housing is an utterly ridiculous and preposterous suggestion—that anybody would be making any suggestions at the moment that our borders should not be managed at a time when there is a pandemic of this nature affecting the country. While there will be questions about the quality of that border management there is no question that firstly those people who want to return to New Zealand who have a right to New Zealand citizens and residents should be able to do so unimpeded but recognising that in coming to this country coming back to this country having chosen to live away generally for quite an extended period of time then there should be some contribution to the costs for the privilege of re-joining the team of 5 million. That is not an unreasonable position to take.While the Minister gave a speech that would make a lot of people think that there were some hefty and serious charges coming the reality is that it's a schedule-based bill and that those charges are somewhat discretionary on the Minister and the signalling so far has been that very few are going to be required to pay. One of the most annoying things about the Government's position is that it is very much an attack on the productive sector of New Zealand. If a business person takes the risk leaves these shores goes to market tries to establish a new line of sales that will be to the benefit of New Zealand then when they return they have to meet the costs according to this Government of their isolation even though the benefit of their activity falls to the team of 5 million. The reality is that someone returning from a long life in the UK or Britain or anywhere in Europe or anywhere else in the world for that matter is coming here because they see benefit in returning home. The benefit accrues to them and for them to be required to pay a relatively small amount of the $5700 costs incurred by the taxpayer for each person going into managed isolation seems perfectly reasonable.I don't know how the Government can justify making people who are adding to the productive value of the country pay and those who are coming here to take advantage of the COVID-free nature of the country currently not paying at all. I just really think that in the committee stage there will be quite a teasing out of that. There are some other aspects of the bill that we find very useful. It is as a mechanism for being able to enact our policy a good bill and we will be supporting it for that reason.I think there is a limited understanding by New Zealanders about how long this may go on for and part of that is caused because of the international situation being somewhat uncertain. For the Government to suggest that somehow an Opposition party is going to take a position on how long that might go on for is utterly ridiculous. Our point has simply been that in an environment where this may go on for quite some time beyond even the discovery of a vaccine—quite some time beyond that—therefore looking at some future date in the 2020s before our borders return anywhere near to what they were prior to the March lockdown then why wouldn't we want to have a more permanent regime that was going to ensure the costs that are borne internally by people who are contributing to the economy here are not spread or exacerbated or grown as a result of people wanting to come here to make their lives back in New Zealand—remembering at all times many of these people are people who chose to make their lives outside of New Zealand?When it comes to the issues around seasonal work particularly you would say some of the more highly skilled agricultural workers when it comes to various other aspects of input into the New Zealand economy then clearly having some flexibility about who should pay and where they should pay is reasonable. What is unreasonable is the Government's outright position that a New Zealander leaving this country to travel for business purposes must meet all of their costs upon return. I think those are things that we will want to discuss further in the committee stage.We also believe that there is a problem when people abscond from their quarantine. It seems to me that if there is no price on quarantine then there is no value put on it by some people—very limited numbers but when they go they end up costing a heap. They will always get caught and they will always be a massive amount of expense chasing around after where they've been to protect the people who they've come in contact with. Well why shouldn't that fall as a charge on those people? It doesn't seem to me that it's unreasonable. And yet this bill while it might allow that to happen is silent on that particular issue.We intend to put up a Supplementary Order Paper that makes it implicit that if someone absconds from managed isolation they will be encumbered with the costs that are met by the taxpayer to ensure that their reckless behaviour does not unduly affect the rest of the community. There'll be other matters that come up in in this committee process that's coming and we look forward to having those discussions with the Minister but I state again: so far $479 million has been allocated for the cost of border management right out to 31 December. You have to ask: if you translated that into community facilities or something like that what would the country be able to get for the $479 million? A great deal—we'd get a stadium in Christchurch completely paid for you'd get all sorts of other facilities around the country covered off. It's not an insignificant amount of money; it's huge. Remember just divide that amount of money by $5 million and you'll get a figure that is put on the head of every single New Zealander to meet the cost of this isolation. For the Government to have said that they will interpret the schedules of this bill to recover only about 2 percent of that cost I think is somewhat reckless—I think it's unreasonable and quite unfair for the vast majority of New Zealanders.The other point is that we were told initially that the cost per head of managed isolation was around about $4000. That's already gone out by $1700 to $5700. As the facilities come under more and more pressure and there is a limited number of places to go it is for anyone to speculate just how that figure per head might go and how much over the half a billion dollars for the next few months that big $479 million might go. If that figure's annualised we're talking about over a billion dollars for managed isolation and we all know that it's going to be more than one year that this goes on; it could be many many years so as a sunk cost for the taxpayer of New Zealand it is a massive problem.Let's be clear though: asking people to pay even if it's through some payment scheme for some of their own managed isolation does not prevent New Zealanders returning to this country. As long as they are open and they are able to come in and they are required to comply—not a problem. The problem comes when it comes to paying for it and our view is that the individuals the families should be paying more of a contribution to those very large costs. I say again: $479 million allocated till 31 December—annualise it and it's approaching a billion dollars. This is not a small cost and is should be more widely shared.