Little Andrew; Mallard TrevorHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a great pleasure to take a call on the COVID-19 Response (Further Management Measures) Legislation Bill. I can agree with the member who's just resumed his seat Paul Goldsmith that this is no doubt utterly extraordinary circumstances for New Zealand and for any Government in office at the time. We've had to respond to a situation that pretty much every other country around the world is having to face but do so in a way that understands and respects and is sensitive to the needs of New Zealanders and our peculiar circumstances. Our particular circumstances are this is a condition that is largely imported. With a border like ours and New Zealand as a destination that it is not only for its expatriates but for tourists a lot of people cross our border and that is how the virus made its way here. So the measures we've had to take in response knowing what we knew at the time and know now—because knowledge about the virus is changing by the week and by the day. We have responded and taken measures to protect New Zealand and its interests and there's no question that the more we understand about this virus and until we get the ultimate control mechanism which is a vaccine then some measures that we have in place now are going to last for some considerable period of time. That will have an impact on sectors in our economy. So it was vital absolutely vital with the support of members opposite that we put in place the initial set of protections—this is after the controls on the border and a variety of other measures. But those measures are in place to sustain and support business—and we've done that. Bucket-loads of cash frankly have been provided to support business to get through this very difficult phase. That's the immediate phase. Then there will be the next phase of response for those businesses and those communities who have all done the right thing. Then there'll have to be as we move down the alert levels a range of other measures as we start to get back to something closely resembling normality. But we'll still be a significant way off that.Then there is the really long-term stuff which is what we do which is the real jobs-generating stuff knowing that there will be workers displaced from their current jobs and some sectors will be worse affected than others. It's the investment that the State can encourage and provide and also work alongside private investment to get new endeavours of new activities and new investments up and running that's going to generate those future jobs. This bill is partway between the initial responses and the next wave of responses to enable measures to be put in place rules to be put in place that allow public organisations and private organisations to make decisions make judgments and get on and do their thing. So that's what this is about. In relation to the Property Law Act which comes under my responsibility as the Minister of Justice we have been very concerned—and it was predictable that it would happen; that businesses that were forced to cease trading and therefore couldn't cover their overheads beyond just their wage costs which could be supported through the wage subsidy scheme were going to need some assistance to manage that relationship with their landlord. Of course it's not just the tenants either. There are some landlords who are somewhat vulnerable too. If your small business is as a landlord with a tenant who is a big multinational corporate actually you as the landlord are not the one with the whip hand necessarily; it's the tenant. So these measures in relation to the Property Law Act are about pushing out the time frames by which a landlord could issue a notice of termination for breach of covenant principally the covenant requiring the tenants to pay their rent to provide a breathing space and hope that the parties will take the opportunity to come to terms understanding that this is an extraordinary set of circumstances and so that the landlord who thinks there's a bunch of other tenants queuing up to take their premises when actually that queue isn't very long—in fact there's no queue at all—might be able to come to terms with their tenants.I'm announcing this—the signal was very clear and I'm pleased to say at least anecdotally the response I've had has been very good. Many landlords have responded many tenants have responded and they've been able to come to terms and reach agreements. But it is fair to say too that there is some residual effort required to deal with those landlords and tenants who haven't been able to reach agreement and work is under way in Government to explore and to look for a solution that will deal with that but that is not in this bill. But Schedule 14 of this bill covers those changes to the Property Law Act.Another area that is my specific responsibility is the Coroners Act. There is a small administrative change if you like to deal with the situation where a person had died and it is assessed as most likely as a result of the virus but they have not been able to return a positive test or even be tested prior to their death and this allows a coroner to order a test to be taken so that it can be determined that that death is associated with COVID-19. So those changes appear in Schedule 6.In Schedule 15 there are changes to some of the time frames under the Local Government Act because—would you believe it—less than a year after the last local body elections there are some by-elections that have to be held and this is simply not a time to be running by-elections with the difficulties of people getting their post getting their mail and what have you and officials and potential candidates being able to communicate with their constituency. So there have been some pragmatic judgments made about some changes to time frames to allow that to happen.Another area that is of specific interest to me is in Schedule 8 the changes to the Courts (Remote Participation) Act in relation to Corrections to allow where audiovisual link facilities are not available audio-only means to be used to conduct hearings and get decisions made in those crucial areas.So this bill deals with I think some very practical questions that might be around for some time. It makes it appropriate to make these changes to this legislation—changes that could not be made under the Epidemic Preparedness Act and the immediate management order provision under that legislation. So this bill makes some very useful changes. It is good that it has got to this point good that the bill we're debating is the one that in fact the House should expect to pass—because we have learnt from last week. On that note I commend the bill to the House.SPEAKER: The Hon Roger McClay—Todd McClay.