Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. This is an unedifying little time in the Parliament and I have to say it is disrespectful to the Parliament what the Government has done here. I acknowledge the Government has the numbers obviously but it is disrespectful to Parliament the way this has happened on a couple of grounds. The first is that to use Budget urgency for this is inappropriate. Normally urgency following a Budget relates to the Budget. Now that was OK yesterday. We had the taxation bill that adjusts the minimum family tax credit because of the changes to benefit levels in the Budget. That's a consequential amendment in relation to it—fair enough. The House has gone into urgency for that. But instead what we're doing here as a Parliament is considering something wholly unrelated to the Budget or only it would be fair to say tangentially related to the Budget. It's basically fixing a stuff-up by the officials from August last year—so that's the first thing—and using the cloak of Budget urgency I think is inappropriate.The second point in relation to the process and why it's inappropriate is that this is something that I think should have been the subject of at least some cross-party consultation. Now Michael Woodhouse in his committee stage contribution made reference to the fact that there's actually been pretty good dialogue between the two major parties in relation to COVID. That's something that I've tried to keep up as the COVID spokesperson now and to be fair to the Minister he's been pretty good at that as well. So for those that are listening out there in the public domain there's a lot of heat and a lot of back and forth in the public domain but actually sort of behind the bike sheds in the grindstone there's quite a bit of work that goes on in this place.Hon Chris Hipkins: What are you accusing me of?CHRIS BISHOP: Yeah maybe that wasn't the right language. I need one of Anna Lorck's Beroccas to perk me up a bit.Hon Chris Hipkins: It'd need more than a Berocca.CHRIS BISHOP: More than a Berocca—I certainly only had one coffee this morning. But there's actually quite a bit of work that goes on behind the scenes and I think it would have been good for the Government to reach out to us and other parties as well in relation to this and we could have facilitated a reasonably easy passage. I mean it's not like we were going to stop it obviously. We weren't going to vote against it. The third point is this really should have gone to a select committee. The exigency of the situation doesn't mean that we have to ram it through all stages immediately. It could have easily gone to a committee for a week or maybe two or maybe even a month because actually it is a tricky technical issue and as we've discovered through various stages of the debate the Government is not really sure what they're doing. They're not actually really sure what they're fixing. It took the Minister to explain in his first reading speech actually what the Parliament's being asked to consider because as we've made reference to a number of times the legislative statement is inadequate. There's just no other way to describe it—it is inadequate. The departmental disclosure statement is inadequate and the explanatory note to the bill actually raises more questions than answers.So I do want to make a point to the officials and to the Government that Parliament is entitled to expect better than what we have been dished up in terms of explanation particularly when it comes to complicated issues to do with immigration law. No one is denying it's a complicated area. It's technical it's finicky and of course the relationship between managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) and the immigration regulations is a complicated one. But that needs to be explained to the Parliament so that Parliament can actually understand what we're fixing or at least looking to fix. So I think the process here has been very shoddy.We learnt during the committee stage that no one has actually challenged this. The Minister admitted that he found out about it through the MIQ fees framework review which seems to be taking for ever because we've got 7 million bucks of overdue MIQ fees—if you define overdue as post - 90 days payment—$4 million of which by the way is from last year. So there's quite a bit of money outstanding that the Government's not going after. The Government's been doing this review about how they're going to do that and in the process of doing that which seems to be taking for ever we learnt from the Minister that the Government discovered that people may have been charged things illegally. As I said during I think it was my second reading speech that presents a number of options for the Government. The most obvious option is to go back and find those people and refund them. We learnt from the Minister during the committee stage debate which I was listening to outside the House that basically the Government thinks that's just too difficult and then we further learnt that it's too difficult because we don't actually know who those people are. Simon Watts my colleague from the North Shore—Nicola Grigg: The honourable Simon Watts.CHRIS BISHOP: —is doing a very good job. Well he's not the Hon" yet Nicola Grigg but he will be in time we hope. But we learnt during the committee stage that the Government doesn't actually know how many people are affected by it. I've got to say I find that staggering. The Government's turned up here on the Friday after the Budget and they're asking us to retrospectively validate illegal activity and they don't know how many people it affects. It could be 600 it could be 650—we don't actually know. We don't know what the quantum is. It could be $1.5 million it could be $3.5 million. We don't actually know. I mean that is an extraordinary thing for the—Nicola Grigg: Embarrassing.CHRIS BISHOP: —Government to do. It is embarrassing as Nicola Grigg rightly notes. It's deeply embarrassing.I made some ill-judged remarks around the ability of the press gallery—Hon Michael Woodhouse: That'll be the headline tomorrow.CHRIS BISHOP: —to notice. Well I hope that's not the headline tomorrow. I made some ill-judged remarks about that but the reality is the Government will get away with it. We know that. They've got the numbers and frankly it's all a bit technical and it's pretty tricky but it is wrong. Governments should not turn up to Parliament after Budget urgency and say "Hey by the way it turns out our officials broke the law on a number of occasions. We can't tell you how many people it affects. We don't know how much money it involves. We don't actually know how we made the mistake. But hey Parliament would you mind fixing the law for us retrospectively?" I mean that is just inappropriate and that's what the Government is asking the Parliament to do. I think it's shameful frankly and we're not going to vote for it. The Act Party is on the side of principle and I congratulate them for that. [Interruption] Oh there's much gnashing of teeth but they're on the side of principle. But it's very disappointing to see the Green Party which likes to turn around all the time and—Simon Court: You could just abstain.CHRIS BISHOP: —rage on about principle. Well at least they're not abstaining—that's a good point. That's a good point that at least they're not abstaining. In the first bill we did under urgency—the tax bill—the Greens said they were going to abstain which was pretty amazing. They made this big song and dance during that debate around how the coalition agreement with the Labour Party says that they can either vote for or against or they can abstain in relation to their agreement with the Labour Party and that was this great big victory and rather than just make a decision and make a call for or against the Budget they abstained which I think frankly is a bit of a dereliction of duty. It's a bit of a dereliction of duty. I mean you're sent to this place not to basically wave things through and just say "Oh well we actually can't make up our minds."; you're actually sent to this place to make a positive or negative decision. So I think that's a bit sad and the Greens are voting for this as well. Some of the arguments mustered by the Government during this debate have been woeful. They've been woeful. I mean at one point we had Ingrid Leary saying basically "We'd rather just go on and do something else on our Friday." Well that is a pathetic argument. Administrative convenience for the Government is not a justification for retrospective validation of legislation.So what it all boils down to is this: no one challenged this law. It may actually not be illegal because if you read the explanatory note it's equivocal on the point. So assuming it is illegal no one challenged it. The Government doesn't know how many people it affects they don't know how much money it's potentially cost the taxpayer and they don't know exactly what went wrong and when it went wrong. All we know is that three weeks ago the Minister discovered a potential anomaly in the MIQ regulations and so here we are on a Friday going through all stages with no select committee amending through primary legislation the regulations to fix something that may or may not actually be an issue. It's bizarre it's unedifying and we're not going to stand for it."