Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. I've been reading through the regulatory impact statement of the bill in the last twenty—Hon Grant Robertson: Unwise course of action.CHRIS BISHOP: Unwise" says the Minister of Finance. Well that's slightly worrying although I suspect his tongue was lodged firmly in his cheek on that one—and of course I'd have had a little bit longer to read the regulatory impact statement if I'd got a copy of the bill more than at the start of our National Party caucus meeting. But I've said enough about that. I just want to make a couple of points—and I suspect they are better for the committee stage but I'll make them in the second reading speech because we are about to proceed to the committee stage. The first is just around the 30 percent threshold in the bill and I note page 17 of the regulatory impact statement which doesn't go into very much detail about how that was devised but it does say that "Officials looked at zero data on revenue drops experienced by firms month to month throughout 2020 which informed our understanding of the alert level impacts." That was from zero. And then alongside "Information on the uptake of various wage subsidies allowed us to estimate the number of firms facing significant revenue drops at different alert levels and that led to the 30 percent revenue drop test."It doesn't really say how that was devised just beyond "We looked at the data and we got to 30." It doesn't give us anything more granular than that. It would be good I think to see some data in an anonymised way of course in a general way as to the number of firms that experienced drops of a particular amount and things like that. [Interruption] What's that?Hon Grant Robertson: The wage subsidy scheme data will give you some of that.CHRIS BISHOP: Yeah well that's true. It would be helpful to see it perhaps in the regulatory impact statement. So I just make that point that there's not a huge degree of analysis there and I think that would be good. The second point is just around the regional targeting and I've been pondering as the Minister has been speaking around you know whether or not it would have been a better idea to allow for regions that are affected in—like we're in a moment or you know if there was an outbreak somewhere else in the country you know down South heaven forbid in Dunedin.David Seymour: Cheese rolls.CHRIS BISHOP: Yeah well Mr Seymour always talks about cheese rolls. I prefer to think of Dunedin as the home of the Dunedin Sound as the Minister of Finance I know will appreciate. But I've been pondering the question of regional targeting and I think on balance the Government has probably got it right in that it's very difficult just because of the way businesses work in New Zealand and people coming in from different parts of the country and selling to various different other parts and customers in different parts and workers in different parts. I think would be very difficult and would lead to you know real questions on the margins and probably questions from the Opposition around why some people were included and some other people weren't and in the spirit of good faith and the bonhomie that is affecting the House at the moment I strongly suspect that would be the case. So I suspect that is probably the right decision. Hon Grant Robertson: I'm glad we all joined in that thought process. CHRIS BISHOP: Oh well that's good. The other thing I was intrigued to note in the regulatory impact statement was that Ministers considered the Eat Out to Help Out scheme from the United Kingdom which is something that various people have put forward. It was really interesting and I just want to flag now that we will certainly be lodging Official Information Act (OIA) requests around that. I don't know if you can lodge an OIA request via the House. I suppose I just have.Hon Grant Robertson: Just tweet it.CHRIS BISHOP: I could just tweet it. It turns out you can tweet Official Information Act requests. I don't intend to tweet it. I'll drop you an email Mr Robertson.Hon Grant Robertson: Very kind indeed.CHRIS BISHOP: Very kind indeed. But I will be interested in the analysis on that. But I think it is probably right that at higher alert levels subsidising people to leave their house and eat out does run contrary—Todd Muller: Unless it was the Lower Hutt—CHRIS BISHOP: Well I'm always in favour of subsidising Lower Hutt eateries Mr Muller. David Seymour: I'll volunteer for a pilot scheme.CHRIS BISHOP: Mr Seymour represents an electorate in New Zealand with some of the finest restaurants in the country so there's no need to incentivise you Mr Seymour to get out and about in the Epsom electorate. But I think it is probably right that incentivising people at those higher alert levels is the wrong thing to do. The only other point I'd make is that again I think it is probably right that the scheme is essentially loaded in favour of small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) for the reasons that the Minister has outlined previously around the bigger balance sheets that larger companies have noting of course what he says which is that they're not ineligible from claiming it's just that the support is front-loaded at the smaller end of the scale for SMEs.Mr Woodhouse has already discussed with the Minister the seven-day versus 14-day issue and again I think reading some of the analysis in the regulatory impact statement—Hon Member: Come on.CHRIS BISHOP: Well members are saying "Come on." I mean I think we are having a genuinely good dialogue between the first and second readings around the bill. I mean this is literally the purpose of Parliament but if members opposite don't think so then that's—[Interruption] Yeah that's right. [Interruption] Ha ha! I could get involved in talking about the Wairarapa food Mr McAnulty but given you represent an electorate I like very much I'll choose not to. Thank you very much.Bill read a second time."