McClay ToddHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Thank you. Madam Speaker thank you very much. It's very kind of the Minister; I appreciate it. It's the first opportunity since Parliament's come back for me to speak other than at question time and so I want to make the case to the Minister very strongly about what is needed for the wider business community particularly small businesses in New Zealand and landlords. It's not just only here where support is needed; this is a subset of great concern and economic harm that's been done throughout the world but in this case in New Zealand as a result of the effects of this virus and the effects of the economy having been shut down.I do so because for every single small business in New Zealand and every single landlord that's finding it tough behind them are the people that they employ or just them themselves. And I want to be very clear that when we talk about business sometimes if someone reads about it in the newspaper it sounds like we're talking about large corporations—actually the heart and soul of the New Zealand economy is small business. We have more small businesses per capita than almost any other country at least in countries of the OECD and these are the people that put their lives their hearts and their minds into working hard every single day to provide for their families for others who are being so hard done by by the effects of this virus.So when we talked to the Minister of Finance five weeks ago in the committee around what was needed around businesses and particularly the interaction with landlords he did say at the time that he was working on it and the next week would bring forward some things that would help and assist. There was an announcement about two weeks later but I would say to him that I don't think it's landed as well as it needs to. I'm not being political here; what I'm saying is that there are so many businesses and landlords who are struggling and have uncertainty and they can't wait for another two or three or four weeks. They need to have the certainty of what support is available to them today as their debt grows and for many of them they haven't traded for five weeks and won't be able to trade for the next two weeks. Even after that if level 3 is lifted in two weeks' time the amount of trade that they will have through their doors will be significantly less than it was before. Some of them will be facing drops of 50 60 70 percent of their turnover but at the same time their costs have not gone up.I do recognise and National supported the subsidy that was given to employers for employees but that money has gone directly to the employees as they sit at home. As we heard on the committee today people who have been at home have been supported by the taxpayer during the lockdown—which is important; they needed that certainty—but for their businesses that hasn't been productive and ultimately their costs have continued.We heard today from people who said the rent is still there even though they've negotiated with their landlord and the landlord has done everything that they can. Their rent is still there and the hire purchases are still there and all of the other fees and costs that they would have have remained and they're building up. So for small businesses in New Zealand we know that they'll be facing tens of thousands of dollars of debt over that four or five weeks and for anybody in retail that debt continues to increase and for many of them—that were viable businesses that were good businesses before—that debt will be too much for them to continue and we will lose small businesses in New Zealand where we could otherwise avoid that loss.When I talk about job losses in this House I'm talking about people that own businesses who might employ a few who have borrowed previously from the bank to finance their business and they have put up personal financial guarantees and they have put up their homes against the debt that that business now has incurred and if they don't lose their business they will many of them lose their homes as well.So I say to the Minister that actually as he talks about moving away from support for everybody to more targeted support we need to stop talking about the landlords as if they are bad people. We heard from Reg Hennessy in Rotorua that all the landlords he knows in Rotorua are individuals—perhaps a couple who have invested and they own a property that is rented out and the business they've rented it to is struggling because of the lockdown. These aren't big companies that own a lot of properties; these are people who have invested their life savings and they need support as much as the workers have had support—these small businesses need support. It is direct financial cash support that's needed not things through their tax that eventually might happen; it's not about depreciation which will help some but for today it won't do anything because the banks are not lending in the way that we hoped that they would. There is a cash-flow problem coming and for the landlords actually nothing has been done except for some demonising and people saying that they're not doing everything that they can.I don't accept that. I think the landlords I know are working very hard have been as generous as they can be but they are facing challenges in exactly the same way small businesses are and they need the finance Minister to step up and help them.