McClay ToddHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Mr Speaker thank you very much. I too stand to support this legislation and echo the comments of my colleague David Seymour who I think has it just about exactly correct. We do so because for all New Zealanders they need certainty as much certainty as possible after what's happened over the last five weeks. Secondly we know that for so many individuals businesses and the individuals who own those businesses they're going through very difficult times; actually this House cannot give them enough certainty today because they are not aware of what the next steps will be in as far as the economic harm that's been done to our economy as a result of the Government's shutdown.But there are a number of provisions in this legislation that are going to help. The temporary loss carry-back will be of help to some but unfortunately not enough. The reason for that is if you take a small business in New Zealand very few of them actually who use their accountants run large profits and so a lot of them will have paid a lot of tax last year. I did ask the Minister when he was before the committee I think a week ago the number of businesses in New Zealand that forecast to be able to have these temporary losses carried back so that they would get a refund. He was able to talk about the value—the cost" I think he said—to the Government how much the Government was giving out but not the number. It's the number that is very important because we are a country of small businesses; we're a country of small-business men and women. There will be some larger corporations that will be able to use this and claim a larger share of the amount of the tax the Government will be giving back than necessarily should be the case for the number—the great number—of small businesses that need help.If we just take a small business that maybe made $10000 or $20000 profit last year which sounds modest to some but for a small business in New Zealand for a shopkeeper or somebody that runs a flower shop or a butcher shop or maybe a greengrocer that hasn't been able to open for the last five weeks—and it will be more than seven weeks until they can open—if they have made $20000 worth of profit in the last year they get to carry forward only about $5600. Whilst that will be a start for them if they are losing money this year that will be a start for them that's nowhere near enough to help them with the significant costs they have incurred or have built up over that last seven weeks of the lockdown.Equally we've been talking a lot about what other support is needed. I would have liked to have seen in this bill with more urgency other things that would help small businesses.SPEAKER: Talk about what's in the bill.Hon TODD McCLAY: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I accept that the scope can be very narrow but what we have agreed with the Government is all stages of this legislation in less than one hour.SPEAKER: I've been pretty liberal on the member in the first three minutes of his speech. I'm not going to be doctrinaire but I am going to ask the member to address the bill as it's emerged from the committee.Hon TODD McCLAY: Well Mr Speaker thank you very much. So the only treatment for small businesses in here that will help them—because this is a measure to help small businesses in New Zealand as a result of the significant economic harm that has been done to them as a result of the lockdown—largely is if they had paid tax previously they can bring it forward. Over and above that there is not significant assistance for them. What this bill should be doing in addition to that is providing so very very much more.Now the challenge that we have is in the 10 minutes available to us to talk about only the part of this bill that is going to help actually does a great injustice to all of those New Zealanders who have been suffering. So I implore the Government—and the Opposition's supporting this because it is an important step forward and will do things for them—to do so very much more.I ask the Minister to think about changing this legislation. Well the problem we have is he can't because we are putting it through in less than one hour. So the injustice that is done to New Zealanders in this Parliament not being able to have a full and frank debate does not outweigh the urgency of putting this through so that support can be there but the Minister could have taken a little bit more time and sent it to committee for a day or two to see what additions could have been done to help so very much more—albeit that's not the case here today.One of the things that I think we need to be very mindful of is that the Government is passing this legislation to try and keep New Zealanders in jobs in work. So if you look at the support that's available to businesses through this cashing out of losses it means that more businesses we hope will survive. Every time a business is able to continue to trade it means the owners keep their jobs and their livelihoods and it also means that the people they employ do as well. There are very many more ways that the Government needs to look to support New Zealanders to keep their jobs and keep in work. We've seen just this week suggestions of significant job loss on the part of Air New Zealand. Air New Zealand are struggling because they have no revenue virtually as so many other businesses in New Zealand. I don't believe they will be able to use this to the degree that we would want them to—this carrying forward of any profits they've had previously. But if it was more generous than this or had looked more closely then there was the chance that actually they could and every single person in New Zealand that now faces an uncertain future as a result of redundancy could well keep their job. I'm trying to remember whether Air New Zealand had a profit last year or a loss; either way they are in a loss-making situation now. There could well be some relief for them in this but not the same degree of relief there could have been when the Government provided them with a $900 million loan facility which is very important. Unfortunately they appear to be paying the Government about 6 percent in interest more than if they had gone to the market to get that money. We see that Qantas has borrowed a similar amount of money at a much lower rate. That would have meant if they had actually gone to the market—or the Government had been in a position to do so rather than relying upon whether they made a profit and they can carry it forward and get a refund and a loss—indeed they would have had about $54 million more available to them over the next year to invest their company and to perhaps keep more New Zealanders working with Air New Zealand.The final point that I want to make is I think it is appropriate that the Government is looking to help New Zealanders who through no fault of their own are not able to get back to the country and therefore their pensions and other entitlements around support from the State won't be available to them. Indeed I encourage the Government to look more broadly and more widely at how we can help New Zealanders than just this measure. I think it's appropriate and I do think it's very important but there will be many New Zealanders overseas—but so many more in New Zealand—who are going to struggle more than anybody would want them to.This is a good start. The Opposition the National Party is happy to support this legislation. But at the same time I implore the Government on behalf of New Zealanders who are doing it hard with their businesses who still can't open New Zealanders who are sitting at home who soon as we go to level 2 will be able to go out and go back to the workplace and will find that their jobs no longer exist—I implore the Government to do much much more much more quickly than what is in this legislation. Thank you."