Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I stand for the National Party to support this urgent bill: the COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Other Regulatory Urgent Measures) Bill. We are supporting this bill—with a little bit of anxiety because it is a bill dealing with taxation changes. Normally you would want to spend a lot of time making sure that you get it right because just about every time you go anywhere near the tax Act you find that you make more mistakes than you don't and you have to come back and fix them. And so in a perfect world we would have had more time about this. Obviously it needs to be in before 7 May. I still argue we probably could have had a two- or three-day select committee process to just give people a little bit of a chance to look at the detail particularly around the temporary loss carrying back regime and to make sure that it covers all bases. But we are where we are and we are here to support the Government in trying to get these measures through so I'll confine my comments to this temporary loss carry-back regime.I suppose the broader point is one that we're under a period of real pressure for small and medium sized enterprises particularly. We've just got to remember that we've made decisions in the interests of the nation around public health which have meant that many businesses have been forced to close. I heard on Radio New Zealand this morning somebody saying Oh well you know what's all this worry about small businesses? They like to capitalise the gains and socialise the losses and perhaps we shouldn't be spending so much money on them." I think that's a very unfair thing to think and to say because ultimately what we're dealing with is businesses that have been told that in the national interest they cannot trade for an extended period of time and that is the justification for the rest of society many of whom have carried on relatively unscathed from an economic point of view to help those businesses through to relieve the pressure so as to save jobs. We're not going to save every job but we can reduce the economic carnage somewhat. So this proposal the temporary loss carry-back regime is one element of the broader effort to try and help those companies. So if they were in profit in the last couple of years and they've fallen to a loss-making situation in this year which many of course will have then they'll be able to even out those losses and gains over a couple of years and thereby get some money back. That will help a few businesses.I would make the point though that it certainly won't help every business every small business—particularly at the small end of town many businesses are owned by mum and dad owners and they take most of the profits of the company in the form of a salary for an owner-operator and the actual company itself may not have any profit at all. It wouldn't necessarily mean that it's not a profitable business; it's just that the profits were taken in the form of salary and tax was paid in that respect. So there'll be a kind of a random element to it at that smaller end of town where some businesses will benefit from this better than others. But in so far as it goes the Government's estimated it might be worth $3 billion—I'd be interested to see how it pans out; it may be or it may be less but it is one thing that will help.I suppose it's a bit like some of the other options that were announced: the loans guarantee which has had a pretty modest impact and the wage subsidy which has been very substantial: $10 billion. But it is important to make the point that most of that money is going to the workers as opposed to the companies themselves which are struggling with many other costs whether there may be rent or many ongoing lease costs or utility bills—all those sorts of things. Those are the sorts of things that some of this tax money—in the circumstances of the companies that get it—will be able to help with. I suppose the broader point that we would make is that it is necessary for the Government to go further in terms of offering relief to those businesses most affected because we have got to remember that there are many companies out there right now that for the national interest have had zero revenue now for coming up to six weeks and they don't know how many more weeks they're going to have zero revenue. It could be one or two weeks; it could be longer. These are on the back of decisions that were made—and we heard today the Australian Prime Minister described them as extreme economic measures more extreme economic measures than have been taken in Australia.SPEAKER: Order! Order!Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Yeah well and that is why Mr Speaker this bill is important and it is why we support it given that the Government has made those decisions. They have been cautious with the lockdown. They have extended the lockdown. We hear very much the mantra of this Government: that we went hard and that we went early. We can debate both of those things—about the earliness—but we can't debate about the hardness. They certainly did go hard. They went a lot harder than Australia and as a result of that the economic consequences will be severe. This bill is an attempt to try and reduce that pain by getting some cash back in the hands of small businesses. The broad point I'd make is yes thank you very much. We agree with that and we support it but we make the point that its impact will be—it will vary enormously between companies just depending on the way that they are structured and the way that they are organised. It will help some companies but it won't be anywhere near enough to help a lot of companies get through this difficult period and as a result of that many Kiwis will lose their jobs. So we support the Government in this bill and we encourage them to go further. Thank you."