Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): Madam Chair thank you for the ability to talk in this committee of the whole House stage. As other speakers have addressed this is the first and only time that we will have to meaningfully chew through the substance and the content of this legislation. So I would really like to have a meaningful genuine and authentic engagement with the Minister on the substance of this legislation given that this is the only meaningful ability that we will have as the House to scrutinise this in lieu of having a select committee stage.So I guess to that effect I intend here to start a little bit broader in drilling down into the purpose and the drivers behind this legislation and then also to address some of the really important points about why this is occurring under urgency. Then we'll get to some specifics. But I would really appreciate it if the Minister would meaningfully engage with these points because they're not just matters of political rhetoric. They are indeed questions that I believe the public deserves to have meaningful answers to and if I might add it feels as though—as other speakers have alluded to—there is a sense of obfuscation and not a whole lot of clarity that the public and definitely members of Parliament have on why it is that we're doing what we're doing today under urgency no less.So my first question for the Minister is a really clear one and it is: where has this come from? I understand the technical point that this is contained within the New Zealand First and National coalition agreement but what was the driving force behind that? I understand that at question time we've had a bit of a back and forth about the potential engagement of industry or otherwise. But as I said in my second reading speech the only entities or organisations that we can meaningfully identify in the public realm who were opposed to the Government in the last term passing the legislation were the likes of New Zealand First—the only party I might add of Government to propose that the legislation should be repealed—and the tobacco industry. Notably the tobacco industry was backing a campaign that was fronted by those dairy owners. So my first question for the Minister is a really salient and important one and goes the heart of this bill: where did this come from who asked for it and who was asking New Zealand First to take this into Government and to put it on the 100-day plan?The next question flows quite logically from that and that is: why is this going through under urgency? Why is it necessary because we've had other pieces of legislation introduced in the first 100 days but they're going through select committee processes. This bill doesn't from what I can ascertain need to go through this urgency process where we're going to pass it in the blink of an eye and—as I've said before—therefore this provides us right here and now with the only opportunity to have that meaningful input with the Minister and through the Minister with her officials. All of us here I think on the Opposition benches really would have benefited from a meaningful opportunity to engage with officials on the intention the evidence and the purpose behind this legislation at that select committee stage. But in lieu of that this is all we've got. So the second question for the Minister is: why is this occurring under urgency?Just to unpack that a little bit more we have heard from the Minister in many question times and also in her first and second reading speech that this is very much part and parcel of the Government's broader process and agenda here. They're taking pieces of legislation that the former Government passed they're shredding them and they tell us Well wait and see." In a few months' time there'll be a Cabinet paper containing God knows what and we might end up with some form of replacement but we have no meaningful ability to scrutinise what that replacement might actually be so we revert to the status quo in the meantime.So why is it necessary for this to go through under urgency? As previous speakers have alluded to in the departmental disclosure statement we have here at paragraph 2.5 a point from departmental officials saying that there has not been any analysis on potential costs and benefit yet we have it—to be read contemporaneously with Official Information Act requests from Treasury and officials advising the Government—that there is going to be an approximate $500 million increase in revenue. So why is it that the Minister is not allowing these changes to bed in and then—I don't know—potentially reviewing their efficacy as would typically be the case? Actually I'd point the Minister to one of the clauses that we got in the legislation which is presently being repealed which required the Ministry of Health to review the efficacy of the legislation which is something that I managed to get in through the Health Committee process because these were novel world-first measures.So my two questions to the Minister—and I'm really appealing to her here to engage with members of Parliament on this—are: where has this come from and what was it that meant that New Zealand First picked this up and ran with it and had it so fundamentally important to them that it was not only in the coalition agreement with National for a foundation pillar of this Government but was included in the 100-day plan? More so than that why is it that every stage of this is going through under urgency—what is she afraid of?"