Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Well thank you very much Madam Speaker and I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to this bill but not in opposition to the Government that is trying to solve a very urgent and difficult problem. The problem that they're trying to solve is that the unemployment insurance such as we have it in the form of jobseeker support has been a rip-off for a long time and a lot of people thought that even though they knew this it would be OK because it wouldn't happen to them. What we're seeing now is tens of thousands of people suddenly dependent on a very very small benefit in comparison with the taxes that they have paid in often over many years. So there is a need to ensure that what people get paid out is somehow proportional to what they've been paying in and there's no proportionality in this legislation that we've had to date. The bill on the table tonight is designed so the Government can basically say We acknowledge there's a problem and we want to give some people who have lost their job more recently more money." Now I can understand they're very bluntly coming at the problem. The reason I oppose the bill is that we don't vote on the intentions of the Government; we vote on what the bill actually does and what the bill does as far as we can tell is it legitimises an incredibly blunt response where if you earn less than $100000 or if your partner does then you get money. If you lost your job on one side of a date then you get money; if you lost your job on the other side of a certain date you don't get money and it is just such a blunt instrument. It's going to create as some of the other members have said massive and perceptible unfairness and it's going to build resentment as it does it. I've thought a little bit about what the Government could do and how it might use this legislation counting COVID payments as income if it had the wit to do it. I think the long-term solution for New Zealand out of this crisis and this realisation that what you get out of unemployment insurance is nothing like what you pay in is that we're actually going to end up looking to the Canadians and following their model and how does that work? Well it's very simple. You pay in a percentage of your income and if you become unemployed you get 55 percent of your income. So there's actually some fairness and proportionality to what you pay in and what you get out. How simple and how fair is that? Of course there are a lot of other adjustments built into it. Depending on how much unemployment there is in your region they'll tell you how long you're eligible to stay on it and what sort of work sanctions you have. Well that makes a lot of sense because it means that people get treated fairly based on the circumstances they face and how much they've paid in in the past. It's not the kind of blunt tool that creates unfairness that we have proposed in this bill tonight. So my message to the Government and ACT's message to the Government is that we understand the problem you've got folks and it's a big one. How do you make a welfare system that's not fit for purpose work in a short period of time for a major problem that is affecting people up and down New Zealand—an inadequate benefit system for this kind of event? Well my next message to the Government is: nice try but must try harder. A much more elaborate scheme much more proportional to need and much fairer could have been designed in the time available. But as with some of the other COVID programmes such as the business loans scheme which nobody took up this one's been done on the fly. It's been done bluntly and I'm afraid to say to the Minister it's shonky work. So for that reason ACT can't support it but I hope the Government will take the message and try a bit harder. Shonky work; not shonky person. Hon Member: The member is shonky. DAVID SEYMOUR: Bitter bitter."