Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Madam Speaker. I did put on record in the first reading—but it appears the Minister wasn't listening—a clear distinction between the job loss cover package which as one of the speakers quite rightly said in the first reading the Hon Paula Bennett introduced in the Christchurch earthquakes. It's the Ministry of Social Development's own website that actually talks about the job loss cover. That is the equivalent of the wage subsidy. So when the Government was looking for solutions to support employers who weren't able to open the doors to keep people employed the wage subsidy is a great solution because—absolutely—first and foremost we want to make sure people are connected with employment. So the job loss cover that the Minister referred to actually is the wage subsidy. So Minister it would be really helpful to not confuse the two or to be blatantly political in terms of misrepresenting it. So the job loss cover in the Canterbury earthquakes was temporary and it was the wage subsidy. What followed that as I said before was an increase across the board for every beneficiary depending on whether they were single partnered or had children and the Minister has said they have lifted benefits in response to COVID-19 by $25 a week. Actually she's also admitted they were going to do that anyway in the Budget so that wasn't actually a COVID-19 response. Actually in the House that's something that the Minister has already referred to. But in terms of income support in a time of crisis you absolutely need to tailor a response to that set of circumstances. What we have here is the very real effect of having as many businesses locked down for longer periods of time than for example in Australia which is we will see greater levels of job loss right? So we will see greater levels of job loss. So the first thing we would have liked to have seen—because obviously the Government has choices about how they spend money and this wasn't in the Budget even though the Budget was only two weeks ago. The $590 million could have gone to the tourism industry to keep people in tourism jobs. It could have gone to the redeployment plan. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes but this is a second reading so we stick quite closely to the bill. Hon LOUISE UPSTON: So in terms of this income support bill actually it is inaccurate to describe it as a technical piece of legislation. There is $590 million that goes along with this piece of legislation. What we have seen and what we are reasonably puzzled about in terms of the process is why two weeks after a Budget legislation is being introduced under urgency all stages being passed today and tomorrow with no public opportunity for scrutiny. So the Minister quite rightly said we've been very constructive as an Opposition. We encouraged the lockdown; we encouraged the lockdown to be earlier. We wanted to make sure that people were getting support through things like the wage subsidy but part of that is actually being able to be involved in the scrutiny of legislation that is then part of the next steps in recovery. So it is still puzzling and the Minister hasn't answered the question as to why it is being introduced in urgency why it's being done now and why when there's been several months now into this crisis and there was a known quantity unfortunately of people losing their jobs there wasn't a situation where the legislation could have been scrutinised like the other COVID-19 legislation was through a select committee for even a week—even a week—because then you have the ability and the House has the ability and the public have the ability to tease out some of these issues. It's not that often that National and the Greens agree with welfare policy and we both agree this is not fair. So if I think about the contact that I have had from people receiving benefits—someone who has been on supported living payment for years—why is it that they aren't entitled to more during this crisis? Why is it that the person who's newly unemployed whose partner's potentially earning a hundred grand and who has got a $29000 redundancy payment is entitled to twice the amount of the person on the supported living payment? I listened to your speech Jan Logie and I accept it was probably a very hard one for you to give and I know you are very connected to the very people that will miss out as a result of this bill. You made the comment that in a crisis like this you would expect that we are all in it together. Unfortunately this legislation doesn't do that. So in my electorate a third of the workforce in Taupō are in tourism and there's no mistake: we're expecting a significant impact on the tourism industry. If someone was employed in the tourism industry in the second week of February and they lost their job because the borders to China were closed they're not entitled to this support but if you lost your job in early May you are. So how is that fair? We'll continue to raise the issue of fairness and whether it's someone on a supported living payment whether it is a sole parent who's lost their job who doesn't have the resources of the sorts of people that are getting twice the level of support proposed by this. It might be someone who's got a mortgage who has the opportunity to get a break on their mortgage for six months or the opportunity to get an overdraft to kind of cover them through this rough patch—and I fully accept it will be rough. But for the people that will get twice as much benefit under this piece of legislation many have many more resources than the person who's on supported living payment and has been for 10 or 20 or 30 years. So yeah if we want to have a debate in this House about how we better support people let's have a proper process. Let's have a proper debate about what it is that people need during a time of crisis but actually everyone; not just some. My colleague talked about migrants. Where was the consideration for migrants if there's an interest in supporting people who've lost their employment? If it was a proposal that was just looking at the fact that a partner had kept their job why wasn't that a consideration at the job seeker rate? Why does it have to be twice the rate that another job seeker is getting? These are the sorts of issues that if you'd had Action Against Poverty if you'd had the Salvation Army or if you'd had the Children's Commissioner in front of the select committee we could have actually pulled those issues out. Actually as we've seen a lot of those advocates who stand alongside the people outside the Ministry of Social Development's office and outside Work and Income—the beneficiary advocates—they're pretty angry today. They're pretty angry because this is clearly a piece of legislation that disadvantages and treats the most vulnerable New Zealanders unfairly and that's why it's on the issue of fairness that National isn't supporting this legislation. It is not the job loss cover of the Canterbury earthquakes. That was the wage subsidy which of course we support. [Interruption] No don't misrepresent me. The members of the Government don't understand their political history. This is about making sure that those who are the most vulnerable in New Zealand right now are treated fairly. Actually they'll have no voice in this—they'll have no voice in this—Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Ah! Hon LOUISE UPSTON: —and I'm sorry that this bores the member opposite. Generally she's quite enthusiastic for groups like that to be able to have their say in Parliament but unfortunately they don't. Even if it was a shortened process they would have had the ability—Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Read the bill—it's a technical bill. Hon LOUISE UPSTON: A technical bill: $590 million—$590 million. Did you get that? Yeah. So it is a change to the Social Security Act that comes with a price tag of $590 million. You could have actually spread that across every beneficiary. This Government chose not to.