Lee MelissaMELISSA LEE (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's always a pleasure to rise to speak on bills that the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee have worked on. It is also an opportunity for me to acknowledge the chair who has just sat down. I have to concur with him that the select committee does in fact work very hard—although it's a very small committee but a very tight-knit committee and very focused on the work that we do. I'd like to commend the chair because he is a fair chair. I'm not so sure if I'm actually helping his political career by saying that. But he is an excellent chair and respected by everyone in that committee I have to actually say.On to the bill the third reading of the Retail Payment System Bill. Obviously my colleague Andrew Bayly had actually said the National Party on this side of the House supports the bill—we wouldn't have if it wasn't something that benefits the consumers or if it was a terrible bill. But I think the issue that he was actually raising was the situation currently in New Zealand. I know that Andrew actually speaks with lots of passion and lots of whoomph and sometimes I wish I had his energy level as well. But this bill—as the Minister the Hon Dr David Clark; Andrew Bayly; and Jamie Strange have said—reduces the amount of fees that both consumers pay and merchants have to absorb. And I think that's a really really good thing. Anything that supports our consumers to pay less—and we've all seen it I think. I'll give you an example. When I was purchasing an air ticket to go back home to visit my family in Korea I tried to use an American Express and the travel agent basically said Oh that's going to incur a certain amount of percentage extra than what you pay." And I thought that's ridiculous; that was a ridiculous amount of money that I had to pay for the whole family to travel. But if you give me Visa it will be a slightly lower percentage. So I went for the slightly lesser percentage surcharge to actually get a cheaper deal.But surcharging has actually been around for quite a long time. This bill actually reduces that surcharging by retailers who actually get those fees charged by the issuers of the cards in interchange fees and I think that is a wonderful thing. I think it will help everyone.However although the initial cap on the card fee—reducing it's a really really good first step. But in terms of retailers and small businesses as Andrew said they have been hit really really hard. Even before they were doing it tough before COVID-19 actually hit. But even with COVID-19 before the Delta lockdown happened 12000 businesses closed permanently. I think what we were actually saying is that if the Government is so focused in reducing cost and improving the lot for small businesses there might be better things that they could have done instead of just reducing the cap for the interchange fee—that's what we're actually talking about.In particular the hospitality sector and the retail travel that I just talked about—I mean travellers. A lot of ethnic-community businesses deal with inbound travel businesses. A while back especially after the initial lockdown I had a meeting with about a dozen inbound tour operators whose businesses were absolutely decimated they could no longer actually operate. The stress that they're under—and I have never actually seen grown businessmen who happen to be of Korean descent sit in front of a woman particularly a woman and an MP and cry. It is so stressful for these small businesses trying to sustain their business run a business and to earn a living for their family.This is where this Government has actually failed them. The mental health situation of these families the businesses that have failed—how are we supposed to resurrect these people's lives? Yep it's a pandemic it's affected everyone around the world—but what is this Government doing to help those small businesses that have actually collapsed? They've poured their life savings into it. They've worked day and night to grow their business. They've often not taken salaries for themselves trying to grow their business. And yet tourism is only now just opening up.I know the announcement was made today that from the end of July we will actually have people coming into New Zealand—the New Zealand border's going to be open. But at the moment it is only open to visa-free countries. That means that even we members of Parliament can't meet with people—other MPs from around the world or politicians or Ministers—who want to come to New Zealand.This particular bill deals with retail payment systems and it is a very small part of a huge industry called the small to medium sized enterprise sector which is the largest sector that drives the New Zealand economy. It is the engine—the literal business engines—that drives the big engine called the New Zealand economy. I wish—I wish—that the Government would be a little bit more ambitious than reducing and putting a cap on retail payment systems. However we support the move—however little it is—to benefit the consumers and the business sector. Madam Speaker I commend the bill to the House."