Bayly Andrew; Parker DavidANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you Madam Chair. Gee we're in for an exciting tonight. We've got Christopher Penk here freshly shorn looking good Brylcreem in his hair and we've even got the Minister in charge of the bill in the House and it's very good to see you Minister Parker.Hon Member: I bet he's got the right speech.ANDREW BAYLY: He has. I want to talk about one of my tabled amendments. I've got four of them tonight and I'm looking forward to talking on each of them. The first one the first one—Hon Member: We're looking forward to it as well.ANDREW BAYLY: I'm just—again?Hon Member: We're looking forward to it as well.ANDREW BAYLY: Oh very good! Thank you. I'm honoured. The first one I want to talk about is a change to clause 5(1) and it's a new section 7AAB(3)(C). I want to insert and I'm proposing that we insert after (b)(i)—this is I'm just looking at the Minister here just to help him reference it 7AAB(3)(b)(i)—insert a third element which is to say that the change to the COVID payments needs to be made and announced by no later than 11.59 p.m. on Thursday 25 November 2021.As the Minister's well aware the Government has signalled its intent to shift to a new COVID framework at 11.59 p.m. on Thursday 2 November. We think that it's very very important that businesses have the opportunity to know what's going to happen to them. It is too late to leave it until 2 November. We think this should be brought forward so they've got the ability to plan much more quickly. We're going into a Christmas period. People are going to have a huge amount of staffing issues and they've got stock issues—how they get sufficient stock—because at the moment many of those businesses won't even know whether they can open or not.Of course we've talked today with the Minister of Finance asking questions of him—both today and yesterday—about giving us certainty giving business owners certainty around will they be operating and will they be operating under a red alert level or orange level? There's no certainty. So we think it's imperative that the business owners and their staff have much more clarity.The Government has had a long time to prepare for this; they made the initial announcement on 22 October—that's over a month ago. This is saying that it is wrong that the Government is still passing pieces of legislation without knowing and without telling people what to expect. Because we don't even know what type of payment's going to go forward and what they are proposing because we do know that there will be a change; that is clear. But the changes are very unclear. So we think it's important that this happens as speedily as possible so that businesses have got time to prepare. Businesses are not like armies and Government servants who can just swing into action; they have to make sure they've got everything in place if they're going to be able to trade. As I said before: stock people marketing booking media if they're going to have to do it all that type of stuff all the key requirements if you need to reactivate your business quickly. Many of them have been in lockdown. As we know I think tomorrow's the 100th day of lockdown.This is what we think should be happening. I'd love to hear the Minister's response on this—whether in fact we should be bringing it forward—and if he's not prepared to do that can he tell us why he's not prepared to do it? And more importantly when is he going to let business owners and their staff know what the new COVID rule changes and the financial support arrangements are going to be? Because most people wouldn't have one iota and as the Minister knows 65 percent of New Zealanders do not understand the proposed new traffic light system.Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Revenue): Sorry to disappoint the member but we won't be supporting that amendment because it would ruin the legislative scheme and would effectively prevent decisions being made after Thursday 25 November. It would effectively mean that future resurgence support payments if needed could not be made.Hon Member: Only if you don't activate.Hon DAVID PARKER: That's not correct.