McClay ToddHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Thank you Mr Speaker. Consumers around New Zealand had such high hopes for David Clark as the consumer and commerce Minister. Nine and a bit years ago when he made his speeches down in Dunedin to be selected for the Labour Party to come here I'm sure he started his speech by saying The reason I want to go to Parliament is to set some standards." because that's all we heard there.Look we will be supporting this because it is a very small step in the right direction but when it comes to steps in the right direction this is one of the tiniest ones this Government and this Minister might have made. He introduced this piece of legislation as a proud father of a tiny little bill of significance he said but of great insignificance to retailers and consumers in New Zealand. You see during the campaign last year when Labour announced this the day after or the day before they said "There's $2.8 billion worth of costs we're going to impose upon business in New Zealand if we're re-elected. But don't worry we're going to fix these tiny little fees that merchants have to pay and that will fix it." You see Minister Clark just said that actually the fees that merchants pay when it comes to credit card transaction in New Zealand compared to Australia are higher. What he didn't tell the consumer was rents are higher in New Zealand than Australia. House prices are higher in New Zealand than Australia. Food prices are higher in New Zealand than Australia. Petrol is higher here transport costs are higher cars cost more hotels costs more electricity costs more doctors visits cost more medicine costs more—but don't worry we're going to set a standard for the amount that Skycity can charge you as a result of the card that you may use when you get there. So it will level the playing field to some degree for smaller merchants compared to larger merchants but what we also heard from Minister Clark was that envy of people who had done well. He's saying rich people benefit because poorer people end up paying those same fees when it comes to the use of the cards and some fanciful rewards scheme. So he's going to set a standard to perhaps deal with that but actually nothing in as far as consumers are concerned when it comes to rents houses petrol electricity—all the other things that mean the cost of living in New Zealand has gone up so very very much that people are struggling and that we have such a thing as the working poor. What that means is people having to choose to pay their bills before they feed their kids often because under this Government actually prices have run away. But don't worry. The solution is at heart. We're going to jump on board and beat up on a couple of credit card companies that charge a small percentage on a transaction because that is a solution. Now there is no question that actually where there is a charge it should be fair it should be equitable. I do notice in some of the submissions that have already been received in the one year the Minister has been considering this legislation to fix it for consumers that actually the transaction costs by two of the credit card companies he mentioned at least on their network Visa and Mastercard have fallen by almost 18 percent. That suggests to me something's happening in the market probably around competition—could be a number of other things. But in effect there are so many other things that this Government should be doing to help consumers than this very very small piece of legislation that the Minister spent 10 minutes talking about. You see Kiwis were doing it very hard long before the effects of COVID long before the now 270 days that New Zealand has been in some form of restriction imposed by this Government. You see in Auckland there's not very many small businesses that are sitting there losing sleep because of the cost of the transactions that they have to consider if ever the Government finds a way to allow them to get back to business. Most businesses in New Zealand are struggling; they are not trading at the moment—in Auckland sorry you're not trading at the moment. They need all sorts of other consideration from the Government than this piece of legislation a small-time fix for the retail payment system. I hope that the Government will allow the full period of time for this piece of legislation this bill to be before the committee because it was announced more than a year and a half ago and it has taken the Minister almost a year from when he thought to get around to doing something to bring legislation before the House and all of a sudden we have a sense that he might rush it through because this is the big fix. I think it is very important that we hear from all of those who are engaged in the sector: the banks themselves who run the system the credit card companies that actually do have costs upon them—and they want to find ways to minimise these so that people can enjoy different ways of paying for the goods and services they may consume. But to leave it to the Government by way of setting standards I don't think is the very best way. So the committee will need to take a full period of time to allow proper submissions and full consideration of this unless the Minister is saying that this is so urgent to fix the ailments the businesses suffer as a result of the $2.8 billion of costs annually this Government has imposed upon them through extra regulation extra cost and the effects of the extended long-term lockdown that Auckland businesses are facing but almost every business in New Zealand is suffering from.This is a very small piece of legislation. If it goes a small way to levelling the playing field and assisting small businesses with some of their costs we'll take the time in the committee to consider it we'll work through it. But very very clearly when it comes to commerce and consumer affairs I hope the tin is not empty. I hope Minister Clark has more to bring to the House. I hope that there is a step change—a step change that will shake these things up and make everything work all of the time. I'm sure that actually he didn't start his speech when he went for selection in Dunedin almost 11 years ago with "Send me to Parliament. I want to set some standards when it comes to retail payment systems in New Zealand.""