Collins JudithHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Oh thank you Madam Speaker. Look I just wondered if that member who's resumed her seat has even read the bill that she's supposedly spoken to. It sounded more like a campaign speech from New Zealand First from 2002 when they went all over the country telling everybody that the Government—and that was the Government that they were part of—was allowing land to be sold to foreigners. I have no idea where those foreigners were taking that land but apparently they were. Of course the issue then in those days was not the usual bogeymen for the New Zealand First Party of the Chinese investor but in that case it was the American investors because they were the bad people in those days. I think it's very important for the Parliament to consider one of the other comments made by the member who's resumed her seat and that is that she said that there's a lot of people who are going to basically go broke in this country—Hon Tracey Martin: No I didn't. Don't mislead the House. Hon JUDITH COLLINS: —there are a lot of businesses that are going to find it very hard and there's not much capital floating around. I think that's a very good paraphrase and a very fair thing. Hon Tracey Martin: I didn't say any of those things actually. Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Well she's now denying she's said that so obviously she thinks there's lots of capital floating around and there's lots of people who aren't going to go broke. Well I've got some news for the member who's resumed her seat and that is that that's actually pretty much the whole world at the moment. So there is not a lot of cash floating around the world or looking for a home to be in and that's one of the problems that we've got in New Zealand. So this is legislation very much modelled on the legislation from the Liberal-National Government in Australia which of course went to the extent of forming a grand coalition to deal with the COVID-19 situation unlike the current Government in New Zealand. I think one of the things that they've said there was that they were worried about fire sales as well of Australian assets which are really productive assets and people can understand that. I can understand that people feel very frightened that this is going to happen. One of the problems that we have is that we have a lot of small and medium sized businesses in New Zealand and we have some larger businesses too that will actually end up closing if they can't get investment. It's all very well to rail against the foreign-owned banks—as the member who's resumed her seat often does through her party—but actually it was the foreign-owned banks that helped get us through the global financial crisis as well as a very good National-led Government. But I think it's really important to understand that people do have concerns that there may be situations where there can be a New Zealand investor in interests and businesses but you just need to be very careful about who is this New Zealand investor. Is it going to be some form of State control and ownership of everything that's productive? Who is going to take up the slack that's going to be left? So what's going to be the—Hon Andrew Little: We're not going to have the dancing Cossacks surely? It's not the dancing Cossacks again—please. Hon JUDITH COLLINS: The Hon Andrew Little says it's not going to be the dancing Cossacks. Well I'm pleased that it's not going to be the dancing Cossacks because I must say it might be time to bring them out if it is. But it is important to consider that this is a very genuine concern. We certainly would never on this side talk about the dancing Cossacks but if the member really wants to I am happy to do that all day long—if he really wants to. But it is important to understand that if someone is to have a New Zealand business and they need capital what are they supposed to do? The Government says you can borrow it. Well what if there's not enough asset value there to borrow against or if there is not enough income to pay the bills? These are the issues. So does that then mean that the business would have to actually close and the answer would be yes because of course they would be trading insolvently in many cases. So there are issues here that we need to be very careful about. We have in the National Party not seen this bill until really effectively now and we have not been able to go through it as a caucus yet to consider the ramifications of it all. So we have decided because we are aware of the concerns that will be out in the community about a fire sale of some of the big New Zealand assets where the Government's interventions may in fact have harmed those assets that we do need to consider whether or not something of this bill can actually be saved in select committee. We are assured by the fact that it is going to a select committee which is better than no select committee unlike some legislation these days just passed recently—in fact yesterday—and what I would like to say is that in the select committee we're going to be asking some very hard questions around the fact that there seems to be no limit no threshold where there is this intervention. That's something I think of great concern to people. If it's a big billion-dollar thing people might then consider it. But also what if it's an asset that's of a million dollars or half a million dollars which actually to be frank is about the price of a house? So we do need to be very careful. We will look at this very genuinely in the select committee and we will look to see if we can find some way in which to support it further. But we give no guarantees whatsoever other than to treat it in a very serious sober and careful way.