McClay ToddHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Madam Speaker thank you very much. Normally on this side of the House all MPs start a speech in a debate like this saying We welcome the opportunity to speak on the issue." But in the case of this Budget it's very hard to welcome it and the reason for that is it has a very very large amount of money the Government is committing to spend backed up by one of the largest amounts of debt this country has ever seen but what it will deliver on is a bit like KiwiBuild; it's very very hard to see.I'm going to come to some of these issues in a moment but to the last speaker Jo Luxton who spends a bit of time every second or third week down in the South Island the thing that happens here is that actually when it comes to active campaigning—when it comes to active campaigning—it is important to get out and listen to the public just to talk to them. Andrew Falloon is a great hard-working MP who has spent the last three years in his electorate up and down that electorate talking to farmers listening to them finding the things they need to do talking about the things that they need in that electorate that this Government has failed to deliver on. The top of the list was actually KiwiBuild houses because they were promised 100000 houses by Labour before the last election and they don't talk about KiwiBuild any more although I do notice in the Budget there are 8000 houses. Well actually you would imagine if you were going to do 100000 houses in the KiwiBuild over 10 years that would equate to be something like 10000 houses a year. We are now almost to the end of the third year and they haven't even done the 8000 that they promised to in this Budget and so therein lies the problem.The biggest issue that we have with the Budget is that whilst there has been support for the public and some in business it hasn't gone far enough and it actually is not delivering the help that they need to make sure that particularly small businesses and tourism in New Zealand those businesses can survive. One of the last speakers said "Well you know actually when we talk about the wage subsidy and businesses you have to look after the workers." Well the thing about small businesses in New Zealand—and 97 percent of every business in New Zealand is a small business and the vast majority have fewer than 20 employees—is they are run by hard-working mum and dad New Zealanders the people that live in our streets and our suburbs who actually put their life's effort and their savings their security and their houses into these businesses. They work hard to use that to employ people but also to feed their kids and to pay for their education and many other things. They are the everyday Kiwis that actually need more than anything else help from this Government in this Budget. I fear far far too many of them are being let down.We have had the wage subsidy and without doubt during lockdown the Opposition—National—supported that. It was very important that New Zealanders had some certainty when they were locked away in their houses after the Government closed the economy down for eight weeks. But that didn't help the business; what it did was kept people at least on the payroll. For every single small business in New Zealand bar a few their costs continued and their debt went up. There are examples of cafes in parts of New Zealand that do very well and might employ 20 25 30 people that over the lockdown ran up $120000 to $150000 worth of debt. They were helped with the cost of their employees and they were grateful for that. It was necessary but what was needed was much more help so these businesses didn't come out the other end and now have a weight of debt upon them. Not their fault; nothing they could do about it; they weren't allowed to open. Now that they are opening they're finding the turnover is much much less than it was.These costs are the rent. We heard from Grant Robertson probably 10 weeks ago now that he was going to come forward with a package of support for small business particularly and landlords to help them through the crisis—and this was an economic crisis I'm talking about now—and actually we are still waiting because whilst there have been some things the Government has delivered around small business and landlords particularly it hasn't gone to the heart of the problem of the great debts that have been created. Guess what! Many landlords in New Zealand are small-business people as well people who've worked hard and have invested in a commercial property and they too are suffering.The one thing that small businesses in New Zealand don't need more of is debt no matter how cheap it is. So when the Government says "We'll help you rearrange your debt and move it sideways and we'll lend you some money for a first year interest-free and then a lower interest rate thereafter." that wasn't what they needed. What they actually needed was direct financial assistance—cash-flow assistance—to help them get through. I fear we are going to see far too many of these small businesses closed in the coming weeks and months—far more than is necessary to have closed with just that little bit of extra help and understanding from the Government.Every time we question the Minister or we raise it as an issue or say they should be doing more they go straight back to the wage subsidy. Well the wage subsidy helped but during lockdown it was unproductive help because they were giving support to a business to pay workers who weren't able to work. So it wasn't helping that business. We do now see that some of them are back at work and therefore the subsidy is there. It's about to run out and the Government has announced an extension of that but here is the challenge: these businesses need to show that they have had a fall of 50 percent in revenue over the last two months. There'll be many that have great debts that are growing and it may not be 50 percent any more yet their costs are high their debt's high the cost of serving the debt is very very high and at the same time they have had no direct financial assistance from the Government.In the area of tourism this is going to be a catastrophe unless the Minister Kelvin Davis steps up with an actual plan. I questioned him in the House today on this. I asked him as Minister what his personal plan was. It is good to see that he's able to read what his officials have given him; I give him credit for that. He's much better at reading today than he was two years ago when he became the Minister. But for the entire sector that used to be a $40 billion industry—I apologise Madam Speaker I almost made you laugh there. For—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): No you didn't actually. I found it really unnecessary to be honest.Hon TODD McCLAY: Did you? Well—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): It wasn't laughing.Hon TODD McCLAY: Were you not? Well it looked like a smile. I apologise; I haven't seen them very often.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): It was like a grimace.Hon TODD McCLAY: The point here is—was it a grimace?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Correct.Hon TODD McCLAY: Was it really? Well they normally go downwards not upwards. But I'll continue with my speech. The point here though is that there are 400000 people that are employed more widely in the tourism sector in New Zealand. It was a $40 billion industry primarily made up of smaller businesses up and down the country. We see today that one of the larger hotel chains has just announced 900 employees have lost their jobs. What they need from that Minister is not that he is reading out the things that his officials are giving him. What they actually need is a real plan not something that he says is coming and we're consulting and we're talking but a real plan today. He said that there was $400 million in the Budget and that's been welcomed. It's a very very good start but it's not a big start because with 400000 employees that's about a thousand dollars per job. For many of these businesses they will continue to struggle unless they see there is a plan and there is an opportunity for them to have more visitors through their door.We take KiwiRail as an example. KiwiRail got $1.2 billion in the Budget. That's $300000 per job. Nowhere near as many people employed of course. But I think the Government should have put that the other way round; $1.2 billion would have shown a real commitment from this Minister to the tourism industry and some of those 900 people that have lost their jobs in that hotel chain over the last few days may well still have been employed.When I say an actual plan it doesn't mean that the Minister has to have every answer today. That would be asking too much. But what he could do for instance is send a very clear signal to the sector that he hopes—the Government hopes—in three months or in six months to have the trans-Tasman border opened under the condition that it could open. The reason for that is if it is in three months the entire ski season would gear up and would start talking to Australia marketing themselves there and there could be hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Australians that come to New Zealand safely every weekend to spend money in these tourism ventures.I was asked a while ago "Will they come?" Well they won't be going to Bali and they won't be having their holidays in South-east Asia. New Zealand is seen to be safe. Actually the rate of the epidemic in Australia and New Zealand tracked almost identically. They were able to keep their economy open a lot more. As soon as that trans-Tasman border is open the tourism sector will breathe a sigh of relief. What they need to hear from the Minister and the Government today is what the plan is when they hope to have it open because if it is six months away then the tourism sector can plan to that. If it is longer they can plan to that. But actually I don't think it has to be longer. If it can be three months then many of them will talk to their bank managers they will talk to their staff they will look to how they market themselves and they can make a plan. The worst thing in business actually is uncertainty and sometimes a no is as good as a yes if it comes quickly. In this case the Government is not saying no and they're not saying yes; they're leaving them hanging. For those 900 people in that hotel chain that lost their jobs this week I feel for them. They need a full-time plan not a part-time Minister.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Dr Deborah Russell—this is a split call."