O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. Hon Member: What a great speech.SIMON O'CONNOR: Yeah quite an emotional speech there—it's a good construction: highs lows moving the protagonist through what's important. I think it's unfortunate there hasn't actually been a reason put forward by that member resuming her seat Anahila Kanongata'a-Suisuiki of why this is a good bill because actually in many ways there are good aspects to this bill. It is providing support to people. But on this side of the House we have raised a number of issues that need to be addressed and it's unfortunate that the Minister in her own speech thought that the Opposition was again wasting time. Nothing could be opposite.Hon Carmel Sepuloni: I didn't say that at any point.SIMON O'CONNOR: Well I think the phrase was that it was drawing things out. I think it's been important for the Opposition—excuse me Madam Speaker. [Member clears throat] Sorry. That's better. That's not to be mistaken for any emotion on the topic. We've been raising some important questions through what's been a fairly rushed process.As we went through the committee stage—and I note no changes were made—we had been raising issues around the revocation of this bill. It came out in committee stage very clearly that our Minister for Social Development—and it goes by any Government—has enormous powers to create generate and change benefit payments or in this case to create new payments. And as this particular piece of legislation does it enables any payment to be deemed as income which is actually quite a smart and clever move to make sure that a person who receives this COVID-19 payment is still entitled importantly to get other support measures through the Ministry of Social Development (MSD).We weren't unfortunately due to speed able to tease out whether or not treating this as income will have any consequences to other non-MSD payments such as Housing New Zealand for example. So we haven't I think really and thoroughly gone through this. I still remain worried that the way that this bill is structured and the language used is going to see this payment continue in some shape or form which may or may not be related to COVID-19. I think that's a potential problem not because giving money to people who need assistance is a bad thing but because when we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars we should make sure it is done with probity and done to best support people. I'm still a bit concerned—I wasn't able to bring it up in the committee of the whole House—that the bill starts on 8 June. Obviously the quicker the better at one level but I still am a little nervous for what was put forward by officials in the departmental report that no testing has been done on whether this can actually be implemented efficiently. They're confident I believe that it should be OK but unfortunately we've seen in the social development space some problems in the past of getting things right. I think I do want to add to what the Hon Louise Upston has noted: we are concerned and remain concerned on this side of the House that the way that this income is being treated does create a discriminatory framework primarily based on date. I know the likes of the Hon Tracey Martin discussed this if you will with me—is discussed" the right word? I don't know.Hon Tracey Martin: Interacted.SIMON O'CONNOR: Interacted with me last evening. But I still find that the 1 March date of which this income has to be tested is relatively arbitrary. Again I just want to put it very clearly on the House's record that the pandemic was declared at the end of January by the World Health Organization. New Zealand closed its border to China on 3 February and then we fully closed the border obviously as we all know later into March so 1 March itself strikes me as arbitrary. The idea that a person can be receiving this payment as income while their partner could be earning up to about $100000 a year I still think is not quite the right line. Personally I'd like to have seen a graduated approach. The redundancy payment set at $30000—again I always want to acknowledge that there has to be a line but I would have liked to have seen this bill introduce some graduated approach to that some transitional approach. I think as well there's a whole question for me—an oddity if you will—of how this is going to affect students that a student is able to now receive this payment as income while also receiving their student allowance. So it's all a little bit messy to me. So we're not supporting this bill—not because we believe people are going to be OK with nothing. This side of the House is very keen that support is actually given. We're incredibly conscious that—a $50000; sorry not $50000; gosh I'm really undercooking that—a $50 billion blank cheque has been written by the Government. We'd just like to have seen it better targeted and as I say not to be discriminatory to people particularly those who have lost their jobs in the days prior to 1 March. CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Just before I call the Hon Tracey Martin can I just say in regard to use by members of languages other than one of our three official languages I think all members in the House would welcome the diversity of contribution but if a member does use a language other than one of our three official languages then it's appropriate for them to then translate directly into one of our three official languages for the benefit of other members and also for the public record."