Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to the COVID-19 Response (Further Management Measures) Legislation Bill. We just heard from Jan Logie of the Green Party that politics at its best is when all the politicians agree. That may be true in North Korea but it is not true in New Zealand and nor should it be. The truth is that activity does not equal productivity. So while it is right and proper to give thanks to the officials who have worked so hard at all hours over the weekend and while it's right to give thanks to the Hon Michael Woodhouse who was chairing the Epidemic Response Committee for his efforts—and to all other members of the committee actually—we can't necessarily credit them with a good outcome.I opposed this legislation on the first reading for a couple of reasons: (1) it's not good process but (2) while there are parts of it that are very good to support it is to support other parts that are very bad. One of those parts is the so-called safe harbour provision which removes the requirement of directors not to trade while insolvent—or at least that's how it was initially sold to us.I want to try to recollect the extraordinary conversation that was had between members of the committee and officials that Brett Hudson in his speech partly referred to. It went something like this. It's a requirement that the problem we're solving—by introducing this safe harbour provision what we're trying to do here is inform directors that they don't have strict liabilities for trading while insolvent as is the case in Australia. The simple question that we asked is Is it the case that this committee has been asked to change the law to what the law is?" "Yes" was the answer. And then we said "Well if the problem is that directors don't understand what the current law is then isn't the answer to tell directors what the law is and won't it make it more difficult if we change the law and then presumably these directors who don't understand the law will have to have a new law explained to them?"Now if people are finding this difficult to follow I can understand that because I think everyone in that conversation was struggling to see what the purpose is and what is actually trying to be achieved through these changes to directors' liabilities. Certainly there was no reassurance from officials that they knew what problem they were trying to solve or that the solution being proffered would actually solve them. When we asked professionals who actually were directors from the field—people who did the work that we're trying to make easier with this legislation—they said "Well it's true. Through cases such as Mainzeal there certainly are confusions around what the requirements and liabilities of directors are but the last thing we want is change particularly at this point in time."So I admire people for burning the midnight oil and working through the weekend and the officials for what they've done but the fact remains that I can't support this bill when it's got provisions in it that I opposed on the first reading raised the question of what the problem was and whether or not this would have more adverse consequences than expected went and asked the officials on the committee what they were trying to do and then heard from the private sector that actually the last thing they want was this change. Now I read in the select committee's report that actually they thought that on balance this was the least worst option. Well that's not good enough. Then we move to the other really substantial change in this piece of legislation which relates to the time frames or limits that are allowed for either banks cancelling mortgages on commercial landlords or commercial landlords moving on tenants. This suffers from not quite as bad a problem as what the safe harbour legislation introduces but the problem is that if anything it is going to undermine the basis on which the overwhelming majority of landlords and tenants in the commercial space have come to agreements that work for them. It's not good enough to say "Well if anything it will just give them a little bit more leeway—so no harm no foul." We find ourselves again as a Parliament being asked by the Government to pass legislation that simply does not have a clearly defined purpose and has no analysis—no regulatory impact analysis; no regulatory impact statement; no analysis of what the effects the unintended consequences of the legislation are likely to be. That's a great shame because I'd like to support this legislation for the sake of all the good things that it does do.I'll give you some examples of those. It's absolutely right to extend the licence period for licensed firearm owners. There is an admittedly small minority of people whose licence in a 120-month cycle happens to be due now this month. But for those people it's very worrying and I think that's a commendable part of the bill.It's certainly true that there are certain charities which do really great work and we know who they are who are reliant on running raffles and of course they should be able to do that online. The real question is why it's been prohibited for so long not why we're legalising it now. There are certainly requirements for local government democracy that people are able to participate in elections and do council business online rather than in person which in the context of COVID-19 would be a risk. So it is certainly true that it's with some regret that I'm opposing this bill because there are certainly parts including the ones that I just listed which are noble and worthwhile. In a way I'm pleased to know that the bill looks set to pass for those reasons but I cannot support the parts of it that have no clear problem definition and are more likely to do damage than they are to help anybody. It's worth noting how we got here because I know people will get up—I know Kiritapu Allan is just about to get up and say "Oh no. We heard a totally different version of events." Well I just put on record what I heard is true—Kiritapu Allan: That's correct. That's what I'm going to say.DAVID SEYMOUR: —and I'd love to see how she can possibly dispute it. She's now indicating that she might actually agree with me just to be difficult. We can look forward—Kiritapu Allan should be grateful. I'm trying to build up some suspense so people will want to listen to her speech for a change. She should be grateful.She might also say "Well it was difficult because we're under pressure and we had to act fast." It's worth asking the question why we have to act fast. Some people say it's because there's a pandemic. Well actually the fact is the Government has been behind the people every step of the way through this crisis. We hear repetitively ad nauseam that we went hard and went early. Going hard and going early looks like Taiwan who told the World Health Organization of their concerns about human transmission in December last year and who had their full public health response in play by 20 January. When I said on 26 February that maybe this is becoming a problem and the Prime Minister shouldn't be in Fiji for three days—she should be here working on the problem—people in the media said "Oh David Seymour is scaremongering." Well I look forward to hearing an apology from those editorial writers in the media because the reason we're here today legislating at the speed of light and in my view making mistakes is because the Government's response has been so slow that Parliament is having to play catch-up. The people who ultimately suffer from that are not us in Parliament but those people who end up with poorly considered and inferior laws to follow.With that I cannot support this bill. Thank you.DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call Kiritapu Allan."