Watts Simon; Rurawhe AdrianSIMON WATTS (National—North Shore): On behalf of National and as a member of Parliament for North Shore it is my pleasure to take a short call on the Matariki public holiday bill today. I want to say just first up that National very much support in concept having a Matariki public holiday. The Māori New Year and a celebration of that special day for all New Zealanders is an important opportunity for us as a country to come together and honour some of our important history for all New Zealanders. This holiday obviously honours how Māori navigated using the stars back in the past in order to come to this great country and we acknowledge the importance of this public holiday.As a father of two young boys both at primary school I enjoy along with my wife the much involvement that they have with this holiday at their school and the other celebrations that we have in our local community of the North Shore around this day. So I want to make it very clear that the concept of Matariki as a public holiday is a concept that we support. However the challenge that we have and we are opposing this bill is for the reason that the party of this Government on that side of the House has not been able to tell us what they will do or take away instead of this. The simple reason is because New Zealand has been and is currently going through a significant economic shock as a result of COVID-19. And if you separate the concept that we should have a public holiday for Matariki which I said the National Party supports the conversation then leads to how do we effect that change? And the challenge that we have put on the table is the cost of this public holiday to the economy and to businesses in New Zealand is in the region of just under half a billion dollars at a time when our economy is under significant pressure.A couple of weeks ago Minister Robertson and Minister Nash received a letter from Mark Wilson the owner of The Grange in Takapuna. It was on behalf of 450 businesses nationwide across this country who employ nearly 10000 people in the hospitality sector. Mark wrote a letter on behalf of those individuals because they are all struggling. The hospitality sector is struggling significantly because this Government has not supported them. They have left them out in the cold and they continue to do so today. And the cost of this public holiday in absence of taking another one away or finding the savings from business somewhere else—such as reducing the cost burden that has been placed by this Government on them—places the cost of this holiday squarely at the feet of our business community. And while we support the public holiday we do not support increasing costs and increasing burden on our business community. Why? Because they are hurting and they employ hard-working Kiwis in this country and do not deserve that extra burden right now.So what we have simply asked the Government to do is to identify what other public holiday they will take away to replace this. We support that. We would work absolutely with the Government in order to come up with that process. But you don't get anything for free. There is a cost to adding one additional day. So quite simply take another one away and everyone would be happy. But this Government has failed to take any accountability around making that decision. It is easy to spend money but it is very difficult to make it and that side of the House have no idea in terms of the pressures that our business community are currently under—and particularly our hospitality sector.I want to go back to that letter to Minister Robertson and Minister Nash. Their reply to those 450 businesses was a copy-and-paste letter from both of them. The letters from both of those offices was pretty much similar in a copy and paste and Minister Nash even attached an attachment which was some mental health phone numbers that the businesses might wish to consider if they were suffering from stress and anxiety as a result of financial pressure on these businesses. That is completely unacceptable. It is completely out of touch and it shows that this Government on that side of the House has no appreciation for the pain and agony that many Kiwis in our country are currently facing as a result of failure by that Government to take action when it really counts. And so what we are talking about today—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.