Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you Mr Speaker and I want to start my contribution by saying thank you to the Minister for COVID-19 Response for actually explaining what the problem is that we are dealing with here. I have read the bill I have read his six-paragraph legislative statement and I have read the departmental disclosure statement and for the life of me it has been very difficult to actually understand why we are legislating because all three documents that I've just referred to actually don't explain with the precision and clarity that he just did what the actual problem is.Hon Chris Hipkins: I'm from the Government; I'm here to help.CHRIS BISHOP: Labour Governments always say they're here to help; sometimes you find the help's not so good. So thank you to the Minister for doing that.Look we're going to oppose this bill on the Opposition.Hon Chris Hipkins: But you think everyone should be charged.CHRIS BISHOP: No no no no—just no; well we oppose it for a few reasons. The first is that it is still not clear that this is actually necessary. The second is as a matter of principle retrospective law is a bad thing. This is the second time this week that Parliament has been put into urgency to pass laws to make good something that should have been fixed in the first place. So we are going to oppose it and unless there is a fuller explanation from the Government as to exactly what the problem is here that we are trying to solve we don't think that it is a good idea to pass retrospective legislation. What this does is basically change the law as it was when people came in from Australia back to August last year. Very short bill as the Minister makes clear but it does it so retrospectively.There are a lot of questions that I have really for the Government and perhaps we can get into them in the second reading stage which will follow forthwith and perhaps in the committee of the whole House stage. But one obvious one is: when did the Government find out that this was an issue this issue of Australians coming into New Zealand and having their—Hon Chris Hipkins: About three weeks ago.CHRIS BISHOP: What's that?Hon Chris Hipkins: About three weeks ago.CHRIS BISHOP: About three weeks ago" OK. Three weeks ago. So it's not so urgent that it had to be fixed three weeks ago or two weeks ago or one week ago but it is apparently so significantly urgent that—and I can see my colleague Michael Woodhouse has gone over to talk to the Minister because no doubt he has done what I've done which is read the legislation and read the disclosure statement and gone "This is very confusing and it doesn't actually explain what we're trying to fix." So apparently it wasn't so urgent that we had to fix it three weeks ago or two weeks ago or one week ago. Instead what's really happened is the Government is embarrassed because yet again we are having to go and fix the law to fix a stuff-up. The Government is embarrassed so what they are going to do is ram it through under the cover of Budget urgency on a Friday morning. Here we are at 9.30 on a Friday morning the press gallery is all hungover and the front pages have been—Shanan Halbert: Be kind.CHRIS BISHOP: What's that?Shanan Halbert: Be kind about our press friends.CHRIS BISHOP: I'm a truth teller Mr Halbert; I'm a truth seeker on this side of the House. So the front pages have all been done. The Government has done their Budget thing. The front pages have been published. Happy days all round. Everyone is getting ready for the weekend. Instead we're here on Friday morning with Parliament still in session unusually ramming through this dirty little bill to fix something that the Government got wrong back in August last year. The Government's hope is that no one will notice that it is for the second time this week that we are passing retrospective legislation and frankly they are probably right: not that many people will notice actually. But you know that is a little bit depressing.So the Minister tells us that the Government found out three weeks ago that there was a mistake. My question is why they didn't do something three weeks ago because if it is something that is so urgent that we have to be in Budget urgency for it you might have thought that it would have been done a few weeks ago. But instead we are here using the cover—it is really just an excuse—of Budget urgency to fix up this problem.Hon Chris Hipkins: So cynical.CHRIS BISHOP: Well "So cynical" says the Minister with a big grin on his face. Well having worked for the Leader of the House before yes I am that cynical Mr Hipkins. I know exactly how these things work.The second thing that obviously comes out of this is: how many people are actually affected by it? The Minister says 600 to 650. Again I do have a genuine question: why is that not in any of the legislation or any of the material published? That material is useful for the House's information but it's not—Hon Chris Hipkins: That's why I gave it to you. CHRIS BISHOP: —in the legislative statement—I know that's why you read it out but you know we shouldn't have to tune in to your first reading speech at 9.20 for the public to find out about it. It is not in the departmental disclosure statement which has four appendices which all say "insert data here" and "more information to come" and "this information will come later". It is not in any of the very very poorly drafted departmental disclosure material. And it is not in the bill itself. So it turns out it is 600 to 650; OK fair enough. No idea of the quantum of the cost that we are being asked to fix. No idea about any of that. The Minister says it is impossible to estimate with any exactitude exactly how much money may have been charged that shouldn't have been charged. So we've got no real idea about how many people are affected by this and no idea about the quantum that is an issue for the Government.So where are we at? This is a very strange situation where we have a bill that doesn't make a lot of sense. The Government can't really explain what problem is being fixed. It doesn't know how many people are affected by the problem. It doesn't know how much money is at issue. In fact it can't really articulate what the public policy problem is. But yet here we are on Friday morning in Budget urgency passing a bill that we don't really know what it does. And I'm sorry that is a terrible way to make law—I really think that is a terrible way to make law. And as a matter of principle I don't think the Parliament should agree to it. The first overriding principle is that Parliament should very rarely do things retrospectively. That is the first principle. This bill breaches that. For those newer members there on the other side if you go and read the legislative guidelines and you go and do your constitutional law 101 that is the first thing they'll tell you. If you go and talk to people who are the experts in these things they'll say "Be very hesitant Parliament before you make retrospective legislation." Well here we are on Friday morning under Budget urgency passing retrospective legislation. OK sometimes it is justified but you've got to have a good reason for it to be justified. So then you turn to the reasons. Well what are the reasons here?If you read the legislative statement it says "Cabinet's policy intent with regard to charging MIQ fees for Australians is clear"—well I mean that is actually a debatable point; I'm not sure it is clear to be honest—"Australians who are ordinarily residents of New Zealand the same liability to MIQ fees all other Australians are expected to be liable for fees under provisions in the COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill regulations related to temporary entry class visas including critical workers and critical health workers." But nowhere is there is an explanation as to what has actually happened.Apparently 600 or 650 people—we're told; we're not sure of the exact number—may have been charged fees that they shouldn't have been charged. So Parliament's solution to that is just to say "Oh well that's definitely the case; they shouldn't have been charged in the first place and we're just going to retrospectively change the law to make sure that that was the case." Well does that public policy problem justify retrospective legislation? Frankly I am utterly unconvinced that that is the case. I have no real idea why we are doing this. The Government in a very short contribution couldn't really articulate much of a case for it either to be honest.So all in all this is a weird little bill at a strange time in the Parliament. Doesn't it say it all really about the Government's priorities? We're in Budget urgency—Budget urgency is like the one time when the Government can put the House into urgency and no one objects because it's the Budget apparently; it is like a special carved-off time when urgency is justified for whatever you like—and the Government's not using it to do anything particularly constructive; instead the Government is using it to ram through a bill that will be finished by 1 o'clock this afternoon to retrospectively change a law to fix a problem that they can't even articulate is actually an issue. What a strange little time in the nation's history."