Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): It's a shame the Minister of Revenue didn't take a call to give a greater clarity on what the bill actually does because on the reading of it you could simply say that what this does is it shifts the ability of the Government to give financial support to businesses under certain circumstances—[Takes off mask] Sorry I'm so used to wearing the thing Madam Chair. You get addicted to them and I think you start to enjoy the lack of oxygen and I'm sure it's causing idiot behaviour all over the country. It would seem that the bill is supposed to extend the Government's ability to offer financial support to businesses under certain circumstances. Well at the moment we know those circumstances are tied to the alert levels. But what we have here is a bill that may be activated by an Order in Council at some point but it also goes beyond just businesses to anybody apparently who is financially disadvantaged due to the COVID health restrictions that might be in place at the time. Overlaying that is the very strong assertion made no less than three times today in the House by the Prime Minister that says that under every traffic light colour businesses will be able to operate. Of course it's easy to say that a business can open its doors. That doesn't mean that under say a red system or the orange system the normal custom that they might have expected would come through the door but there's no explanation here no clarity in this bill about where the parameters of that support might begin and end. So a question I've got for the Minister is: what sort of advice was given to Cabinet when the bill was put to Cabinet for consideration? What sort of advice did the Minister get from presumably Treasury—some of the most clever people in the country by their own proclamation—that made him decide this bill should go ahead? There must have been some estimate of how many businesses were likely to need the support under the traffic light system whether that be at the red level or the orange level. What is also not clear in here is: would the provisions of this bill should it become an Act still apply if the traffic light is at green because there's no prohibition here on any particular level inside that system?We've heard repeatedly today just how much everyone should appreciate that traffic light system. Well I can't believe that there are no Labour members on the other side of the House who aren't getting the same calls that we are from people asking the simple question: How does this work? What are we supposed to do? How do we check people when they come through the door? What's our legal authority to require people to show us their status? And if someone slips through and we suddenly got a drop in a hospitality venue from the several hundred that might be there down to the mere 100 or the 50 who do we choose to go out—how do we do all that sort of thing?"So for anybody to say that there's clarity in that traffic light system there is a huge amount of delusion in their own assessment of that position. So it's a simple question for the Minister and I hope that he will take a call and answer it: what was the advice that made the Government say—even though the Prime Minister can stand up and say that under the traffic light system every business can operate with no problem at all what was it that the Government or the Cabinet considered? What were the numbers they considered that made them decide that we needed to have a bill in the House today under urgency so that it's ready in time for the implementation of the traffic light system so that there can be claims made for that assistance and then what are the levels of the assistance? Are they exactly the same as they are now? Is the criteria the same? It's very clear in here that they have to meet criteria but there's nothing in the bill to suggest that the criteria is any different to the bill that currently operates. But the current bill of course is only operational with the alert system. So perhaps also the Minister might be able to clarify what legislative advice they got that said that actually this is all that's needed to transfer from one system to the other and then we might be able to get an idea of whether or not this is just a have to sort of convince people that the Government cares as opposed to a genuine COVID measure."