SpeechNICOLA WILLIS (National): This bill is emblematic of the Government's lack of a plan to deal with Delta in our communities. Because the very reason we are having to have a COVID response bill—that by the way had its first reading under urgency: a comment made by many select committee submissions who raised concern at that process—the very reason a bill has had to progress in that way is that the Government in this matter as with so many matters of our COVID response has taken a just in time; sorry it's a bit late" approach. And it's not good enough Madam Speaker.I want to in this contribution focus on a couple of parts of the bill that National thinks are particularly egregious and those are the provisions relating to the delaying of local government elections and intervening into private contracts and making changes to the Property Law Act. I will also return to this issue of process which we think is significant and which we think could cause problems down the line in terms of the provisions in this legislation. So first of all delaying local government elections. This bill allows local government elections to be delayed for up to a year into 2023. Now members of this House are aware of it because we have studied this piece of legislation but was this announced by the Government in one of its COVID announcements? No it wasn't. This was not something that the Government sought to highlight and we on this side of the House think that it is pretty poor form that that significant change to electoral law was snuck in in this omnibus measure—and in fact in a way that will have a binding long-term effect on electoral law. We also think that this delay speaks to the Government's lack of confidence in its own plan—Hon Scott Simpson: What plan?NICOLA WILLIS: —because why is it that the Government is envisaging having—well my colleague the Hon Scott Simpson says "Well what plan?" And he's absolutely right because actually a Government with a plan would have ensured that we had vaccination rates that meant Aucklanders today weren't heading into day 63 of lockdown and a Government with a plan wouldn't be saying "Well we may need to delay local government elections for up to a year." So the Government hasn't at any stage done a good job of setting out what exactly the concerns and anxieties are that they have that have led them to introduce these rather dramatic provisions. The second part of this bill that National takes particular issue with are the changes to the Property Law Act which are in Schedule 6 of this bill. This inserts a clause into commercial leases requiring rent to be paid in certain circumstances. It is a direct intervention into private contracts. Not only that it is a retrospective intervention that was not telegraphed or signalled by Ministers and which submitters said may wreak havoc in the relationships between commercial landlords and their tenants. Now when the Minister of Finance appeared before the Finance and Expenditure Committee to discuss COVID response some weeks ago when we first headed into lockdown I asked him "Was he or his agencies considering steps to help out landlords and renters in difficult situations as a result of COVID"—so particularly those people for example who can't access their business premise but are required to keep paying rent. And what National of course has proposed as a solution to that is a rental support package a direct approach to account for the fact that Government intervention is wreaking havoc for many businesses for many tenants for many landlords. When I asked the Minister of Finance Grant Robertson about that he said that they were considering a range of options and almost laughed off the idea that they would look at intervening into private contracts—and is it any wonder that he did because this is actually an extreme step. There was nothing at that hearing that telegraphed this level of intervention. Of course we know the history of these clauses which are these are clauses that those who understand commercial dealings who understand the importance of private contracts worked hard to oppose last year when the Government mused about introducing them. And yet still they haven't learnt. So National opposes those measures and we advocate for a rental support package that would mean that private contracts could stand but support was available. It sets a very bad precedent when the Government is happy to introduce under urgency under the cover of lockdown changes that intervene into private contracts. I will and members on this side of the House will remember this when the members opposite try and say that they stand on the side of business. You cannot be on the side of business if you take retrospective steps of this sort that create uncertainty for all involved. Finally as I said I would I do want to raise questions about the process applied to this bill because actually I think what New Zealanders have seen—and not the least of which at the vaccination Super Saturday this weekend—is that where appropriate National has been prepared to work constructively with the Government on its COVID response. In fact my colleague Chris Bishop has made a number of constructive suggestions which tend to end up as Government policy—whether it's rapid antigen testing whether it's saliva testing whether it's reforming managed isolation and quarantine these are all things that we have been very constructive about. But in order to keep that spirit it is vitally important that the Government show that they are prepared to put their proposals to appropriate parliamentary scrutiny that they telegraph them well in advance and provide members of the public absolutely fulsome opportunities to submit on what are significant law changes. That has not been provided for with this bill and those who sat on the select committee have noted that many submitters asked themselves "Why the urgency?" And I would put to you Madam Speaker what I said at the beginning of this contribution which is that we have here a seat-of-their-pants just-in-time Government who didn't plan for Delta to come to New Zealand who didn't roll out vaccinations fast who were complacent who sat back. Now New Zealanders are paying the price and this legislation is but one example of it."