Goldsmith Paul; Mallard TrevorGENERAL DEBATEHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Today we've had the devastating assessment from the Reserve Bank just at 2 o'clock predicting that 150000 jobs will be lost across this country over the next three months to September. That's 150000 families that will be affected hugely by the crisis that has been started by the COVID-19. We'll be paying a very heavy price for that virus and our response to it. Lives will be capsized a huge number of small businesses will fall over and it won't be because the owners of those businesses weren't up to it or that they shouldn't have been in business; it will be because they've been told that they can't trade—for 49 days now seven weeks. They haven't been able to open up and make a living—they've wanted to and they haven't been able to—and there will be many many families and businesses across this country under enormous stress and that'll be having an impact on their wellbeing. So we're going a day before the Budget at a time of real economic challenges for this country and so there are two relevant questions that we should be considering. One is: are we making the situation worse than we need to be? And secondly: how do we get out of it? Those are the critical questions that New Zealanders will be asking.And so on the first—look we've supported many of the things that this Government has done in response to this crisis. The move to level 4 at the start was something that many New Zealanders supported and the wage subsidy got cash into the hands of many businesses quickly and sustained many jobs at the start. But it quickly became very obvious as we looked over each passing week and looked across the Tasman where they didn't stop many of their people working in construction for example—a huge part of the economy carried on as normal—and it was quickly apparent that the outcomes in health terms were manageable; in fact very similar. So there is a question to be raised about the speed and agility with which the Government responded. I was shocked—Hon Andrew Little: He's got to dig his head out of the sand.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: The Minister may grumble and complain but I was shocked when I saw the papers from Cabinet on 14 April talking about whether to move out of level 4. There was absolutely no reference to what was happening across the Tasman. And that I think was a bit slow to react.Secondly it's a question of effective support for small businesses. Like I say there's been very great success with the wage subsidy. Of course most of that money has gone to workers rather than to the businesses and businesses when they're being forced to shut down have had to continue paying their rents—Hon Andrew Little: Who paid the workers? Oh the business did!Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yeah and they need to continue to pay their rents and they need to continue to be able to pay all the many other costs that businesses have to face. [Interruption] And we've had a slight implication from this side of the House that it's somehow the businesses' fault that they can't trade but they have been told that they can't and that is why getting cash into the hands of those businesses has been essential. There's been a number of rinky-dink schemes put together with low interest rate loans—the Government sharing 80 percent of the loans through the banks—which have been a complete flop and haven't worked. There have been others that have been slow to come about and so we are hoping that tomorrow in the Budget there will be some more effective relief for those businesses.The second question is about how we make it productive in this one-metre world or the two-metre world that we're operating in and if we get that overly rigid it will be difficult. Even at level 2 which we're going into tomorrow—and level 1 hopefully which we'll get to in a few weeks' time—there are still many Kiwis who won't be able to work and they won't be able to work productively. That will cost more jobs and make it more difficult for New Zealand families. So we need to respond quickly and effectively. Then as we come out of this we need a clear growth plan and it can't just be a Budget tomorrow to which the answer and the plan is simply spend spend spend because that will help in some instances but the quality of the spending is critical and the delivery of projects that are announced is also critical. This Government does have a record of being very good at making a lot of announcements particularly around shovel-ready infrastructure. And we've had Mr Jones wielding the shovel all around the country for a very long time and announcing things three or four times maybe five times and I no doubt anticipate on Monday he'll be wheeling himself out into the regions and announcing a whole lot of projects again. But New Zealanders have to be aware that the delivery of this Government hasn't matched the announcements and that's the critical thing.So we want to see announcements about support for businesses in order to continue to save jobs and we want to see projects that are actually delivered. And most importantly we need a Government that trusts New Zealanders—that trusts New Zealanders to make the judgment about how they and their family and their businesses can get themselves back up on their feet quickly. We don't assume that the Government has all the answers but the Government does its job in creating an environment where people feel confident to invest in their businesses—they know that they're not going to be overtaxed; they're not going to be over-regulated; that the rules won't change all the time; that they can invest with confidence; and that they will be supported by a Government that invests in good quality infrastructure such as the ultra-fast broadband that we invested in over the years. It'll be interesting to see who comes up next from the Government. If they repeat the fake news that we heard from the Prime Minister today that somehow people are suggesting swingeing cuts and austerity to essential services—there is not a soul on this side of the House that is talking about cuts to essential services.SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.