Watts SimonSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): The last speaker—the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall—says It's not too late for the Opposition to change their mind." Well I want to let her into a little bit of a secret and that is the Opposition will not be changing their mind. We are strongly opposed to this bill. It is a great shame because normally as bills go through this House we would have had the opportunity to go through a select committee process and I'm sure looking at this bill it would have gone through the Finance and Expenditure Committee of which I'm a member—and I see a number of my colleagues around the room in there. But of course this bill has not been through any due process. It has not been through a select committee process and so we are here under urgency reviewing a bill which is absolutely full of holes.This evening in my short call I'm going to run everyone through at home where the issues are in this bill. And I want to reinforce to those people at home that think that this Government has got a plan that this Government has been thinking about this bill for a long time that this Government when they drafted this bill have considered a lot of options and have been very thoughtful—I'm going to sadly put the facts on the table to show that actually this bill has been made up on the hoof. It is a bill that has been made up probably only in the last four to six weeks and it is absolutely categorically clear that this bill is full of holes. And that shows a Government that doesn't have a plan. It is not clear in terms of what they're trying to deliver and more importantly they don't have a sense of what the reality is on the ground for hard-working Kiwis.Today we heard the outlining of Government spending related to this of which this bill is going to contribute in the region of $6.5 billion this year alone. That is the single biggest outlay of Government spending and this bill in terms of its fiscal cost will account for about $800 million of that spend. And I want to quote to you some of the words around in the supplementary analysis report of this and I'll tell you what: of course we didn't have the bill till only prior to the first reading unlike this Government which had been working on this for about four to six weeks. But I only got to page 3 and I got five points so let's just go through those and work those through.The fiscal cost of payments is expected to be $747 million. This is based on a payment of $350 to an estimated 2.136 million recipients. That estimate is highly uncertain because the size of the eligible population is unknown. Well how about that? So we've got a policy here that actually is targeting a population that the officials have indicated—they're not even sure how many people are there. So given the fact that they don't know how big the eligible population is they've put a round number of $800 million because of the uncertainty around that estimate. So that's the first example. For those sitting at home going "Well you know this is tough; it's a tough business. Everyone's under pressure at the moment." Well that just gives you an indication that even the fiscal costs of this bill haven't been well thought through or actually haven't got any real substantive basis in order to back them up.The second aspect goes right back in the executive summary of the supplementary analysis around the options analysis so you'd expect that the Government would consider a number of options to deal with the problem of a cost of living crisis that is impacting Kiwis and has been around for pretty much most of this year. But oh no no. They haven't. The line at the top on page 2 reads "The Treasury recommended against progressing a broad-based payment." So even the Treasury do not support this bill if you look at the first line of page 2 of that analysis. And they go on to provide the details why which is all pretty sensible stuff. But of course a Government that is well known for not listening for not taking on feedback and for thinking that they know best had just kept on trucking on and continuing with this bill.I now want to move to the next category in the report which talks about the eligible population. The eligible population criteria for this bill is like a sieve right. It is just full of holes and we'll get into that in the committee of the whole House stage. But I want to just cover off the key element here. Again I quote: "Inland Revenue was not able to accurately forecast the number of eligible individuals for the 2021/22 tax year."—i.e. IRD the department which is going to be responsible for implementing these payments on 1 August if they are lucky are not able to forecast who is going to be eligible for this payment. This is not a joke. Just for those that are at home watching this thinking "Maybe I've flicked onto a wrong channel and am looking at bloopers within Parliament or something like that." This is no joke. This is the reality of a Government who is completely out of touch a Government and a Minister who are not over the detail and what this shows is this bill has been thought up on the hoof probably as a result of a bad poll. These guys have got desperate. They've gone "Oh crikey we haven't got anything to deal with that issue. What have we got? Let's have a go at this." And their own officials—whose heads are down at the moment going "Crikey what are we going to say to the Minister in the committee stage?"—are saying this is not able to accurately forecast that. It's in the supplementary analysis report. That's the facts; that's where it is. And I'm hearing on the other side a little bit of comment that they don't seem to believe it. They just need to read their own report.I want to go on as well because I've covered three. But let's talk about the administrative impacts of this bill—again in that report. And again the Inland Revenue officials have provided some guidance on this. "This payment"—and I quote—"would require Inland Revenue to devote a significant number of their frontline staff to deliver the payment and manage the contact-seeking support about this payment during one of Inland Revenue's busiest periods." Just think about that. Let's just throw this payment to individuals in New Zealand—2 million or so people—at the busiest time for Inland Revenue but that Government doesn't care about those Public Service individuals they don't care about the burden that this will place on them and they absolutely wouldn't even understand the reality and the implications of implementing a bill. And what they've gone on to say—the Inland Revenue has anticipated that the resources required in order to implement this are in the region of 750 full-time equivalent hours being required—and I quote—"in the weeks of 1 August 1 September and 1 October."—750 resources. Where are these people going to come from? Well I can tell you where they're going to come from: they're not going to come from anywhere because the Minister has not got over the detail. He's come up with a plan he's come up with a policy and a bill but he has not thought through the detail on how this is going to be implemented. And I haven't even talked about the fact that this bill in terms of $27 a week—as I mentioned to you before—is about 9 litres of fuel for the Toyota Corolla. That is the extent. I heard before—one of the people said "It doesn't even get you an Uber Eats for a week." This is inconsequential in terms of what real hard-working Kiwis across this country are facing in terms of cost pressures on their lives right now. The ASB Bank has outlined that the cost of living increase for food alone for most families in this country is in the region of $150 a week. Twenty seven dollars for those under $70000 and again the criteria is pretty loose. You only have to be in New Zealand and a New Zealand tax resident. Do you have to be a permanent resident? Do you have to be a resident in New Zealand or actually can you be someone from overseas who's working here on a working holiday visa and still get the payment? Well I would be interested to hear the answer for that from the Minister in the next stage because when hard-working Kiwis at home find out the reality that this is just another example of policy that has not been thought out policy that is not going to deliver the outcomes required for hard-working Kiwis they are going to be even more disappointed in a Government that they do not trust. I've given an insight a little bit into five key areas within the first three pages of a document provided by officials in regard to this bill. I think it categorically proves and substantiates that this bill has been made up on the hoof. It is a broken bill built on a backward Budget by a Government that doesn't have a plan a Government that is out of touch with hard-working Kiwis across this country. National opposes this bill."