Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (National): Well as much as we would all love to hear that continue as that member digs her own grave I see that Minister Faafoi welcomes the contribution from Julie Anne Genter who in that contribution has denounced private enterprise—Hon Julie Anne Genter: No no no—property ownership is not private enterprise.NICOLA WILLIS: —denounced private enterprise as being feudalistic who has denounced commercial endeavour and has questioned the very basis—Hon Julie Anne Genter: Land theft colonisation.NICOLA WILLIS: —of business and its contribution to civil society in New Zealand. And what has provoked her to make these claims and ask these questions? It is Minister Faafoi's amendments in this bill that have given her cause for hope that communism and socialism may yet replace private enterprise and endeavour in New Zealand. And is it any wonder that she has been given pause to ask those questions when the bill we are debating in front of us retrospectively alters the terms of private contracts?Hon Julie Anne Genter: Sort of like the colonisers did with the tangata whenua of New Zealand.NICOLA WILLIS: It takes the sanctity of the private contracts and all that it represents and it retrospectively puts the great hand of the State—CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Can we calm down? It's five minutes to 10.NICOLA WILLIS: I'll just note for the members at home who may be watching the camera that I have I think quite steadfastly ignored the constant barrage from the honourable member Julie Anne Genter throughout this contribution. She has much to say and I would encourage those watching—CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! I dealt with the matter; no need to relitigate it.NICOLA WILLIS: What we have here is the Government putting the mighty hand of the State into private contracts. And what we know is that this is something that this Government—so mightily enforced by the agents of socialism and communism on their left: the Greens—has contemplated in the past did contemplate in the past when there were lockdowns but rejected as a course of action. So it is right and proper that we ask what has changed that the Government now believes this is appropriate.And I want to note a few things. I want to note that there has been no regulatory impact assessment of the impact these changes will have in terms of the precedent that they set in terms of the uncertainty that they introduce to those signing leases in the future that this Government with its great hand of the State may in future choose to intervene and in any roughshod way. I note that there has not even been a cost-benefit analysis of this change. In fact the Ministry of Justice in the documents we are given access to in the House notes that the reason they couldn't conduct that cost-benefit analysis was that the size and the scale of the problem is not clear. So what we have is one of the grandest undermining of the principle on which commerce operates in this country which is the basis of private contract undermined in order to address a problem the scale and size of which is not even clear and for which costs and benefits of the intervention have not been assessed.What we then have is this curious admission that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade were asked for their input due to the need to consider international obligations. And I'll just let you reflect on that because what that suggests is that the gravity of this change is understood—it is understood as not only having implications here in our domestic market but it is understood to have implications for the way the rest of the world views this country because when we trade with other countries it is very important that they think that this is a place where private contract is upheld. Members in this House know there are countries around the world where the arm of the State does reach down into business regularly and we are nervous about those States and business has difficulty in those States and we here in New Zealand do not want to be one of them. So a very important principle is at stake.Now my colleague Andrew Bayly has put forward a very good alternative and it is frankly lazy of members opposite to suggest that we don't stand with those small businesses who are suffering and to suggest that we don't want to help them. We want to help them and we have offered constructive alternative ways in which the State could do that. But we do not think that it is justified to intervene into the sanctity of private contract to do so retrospectively to play to the Julie Anne Genters of this world who would have New Zealanders believe that business in and of itself is a corrupt endeavour. We do not stand for that here. On this side of the House we believe in commercial enterprise we believe in contract and we believe this clause is wrong.CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! It's come time for me to leave the Chair. The committee—[Interruption] I'm on my feet. Kia ora. The committee will resume at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning for the extended sitting. Pō mārie. Debate interrupted.Sitting suspended from 9.59 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Thursday)