SpeechDAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It's a pleasure to take a call in this debate in what has been—no doubt we've all received correspondence from New Zealanders abroad and in New Zealand concerned about this issue so really happy to take a call in this debate. I certainly want to start out by acknowledging all of those in our quarantine and managed isolation facilities who are serving whether it's police officers military personnel the raft of staff that are involved. Thank you on behalf of all of us here in our Parliament for the work that you're doing.But I do want to just raise a story that I had from a constituent who I spoke to the other day. This constituent had just come back from overseas and was put in the quarantine isolation and I asked her How was it?" and she said "Oh it was pretty good actually. They flew me down to Christchurch. They put me up at a four-star hotel. I had three meals a day. I had gluten-free options and nice bed sheet changes and all the facilities I could ever dream of." I thought to myself "Well that's pretty good—a pretty good experience for most." Then it was made clear the other day just how much that bill costs the New Zealand taxpayer: as we know $5700 per person per stay. Right now the bill is running just over the $200 million mark.So I think this is an important aspect to set the framework to help recover some of that cost. I mean I think going out there to the average punter on the streets in New Zealand and saying "Well do you think that New Zealanders coming home should bear some of the burden of their managed isolation?" most New Zealanders would say yes. That's what the public polls say and certainly that's what the mood is on the street of Northcote where I am a member of Parliament certainly is. So I think that the idea of this to set the framework to enable that cost burden to be reduced for the taxpayer is something that ultimately we're here to look at today because unfortunately it's not any time soon that the borders are going to be open.We were talking to some major airlines recently and you know it's going to be another year or two before international routes open up. So we're going to be dealing with managed isolation and quarantining for some time and in that time the cost is going to mount up. So whatever we can do to help recover that cost and on this side of the House we're actually fine with that. If you have the ability to pay and the willingness to pay and you receive a service as my colleague down here was talking about service then you should pay. That's what our position has always been about in the National Party and that's why we've fought very hard to get ideas like this brought to the House. I certainly acknowledge the work that Judith Collins and Simon Bridges and Todd Muller have done over the last few months to raise this in the public debate because it has been important and this is why we're actually here talking about this today.But what has been announced in this bill we certainly have some issues with and we do think that we can strengthen it. We hope that the member that was just speaking before will consider our Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that we've got lined up later on this evening. These SOPs would do the following: would enable high-income people who possibly could get exemptions to actually not get those exemptions and pay some of the cost and burden of that managed isolation. Another SOP seeks to make sure that if you escape managed isolation you actually bear the cost of that isolation and the costs involved with escaping as well. I think that that is fair and equitable. That side of the House always talks about fair and equitable policies. I think—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I'm going to let the member know that he's mentioned the SOPs—they can't be debated until the committee stage so we'll just move on.DAN BIDOIS: OK excellent—thank you Mr Speaker. So as I said we've got some changes that we want to make to this legislation. Of course we would've liked to see more uniformity less chances for exemption. As Michael Woodhouse my colleague here made very very clear the very small cost that is actually going to be recovered is minuscule compared to the costs for the taxpayer—$10 million versus the $200 million that taxpayers have already spent and the other more than $250 million that will be spent by the end of this year. So we do hope that these will be debated and considered later on.Certainly the other thing to note is around the shortness of time that we're here. I must say that this is at least the 10th or 11th time since I've been a member of Parliament in this House where we've debated stuff far too late. This Government has had a lot of time to consider this legislation and here we are on the second or third to last day of Parliament having to rush this through in urgency having no due process for a select committee to hear from various groups that may be impacted adversely from this legislation. I just think that it's an affront to the democracy that we have in New Zealand that this House is considering such rushed and poorly drafted legislation in such a short time frame.So we'll certainly support this in the House. It's been something that we have been pushing for some time. We hope to get some more discussion and debate later on around how to strengthen this bill but National commends this bill to the House."