COVID-19 Response (Further Management Measures) Legislation Bill (No 2)

Thank you, Madam Chair. We had a brief debate on the first and second readings of this bill, the COVID-19 Response (Further Management Measures) Legislation Bill (No 2), and in my first reading address, of course, I set out what the bill does. There were a few questions raised during the run up to this committee stage, which I thought I’d address now, particularly around why the necessity for some of the time frames that have been provided for.

The bill provides to extend certain deadlines for the 2019-20 financial year by up to two months, including those for annual reporting and auditing by public sector agencies, local entities, local authorities, council-controlled organisations; amending the Public Finance Act, the Crown Entities Act, the State-Owned Enterprises Act, the Local Government Act 2002, and the Crown Research Institutes Act; and it extends from November 2020 to no later than September 2021 the deadline under the Public Finance Act 1989 for Treasury to appear before the Minister of Finance and for the Minister to then present to the House of Representatives the statement of the long-term fiscal position.

Taking that last one first, I think the reasons for that are obvious. Our long-term fiscal position has changed quite dramatically as a result of COVID-19, and some more time to digest that and to make sure that that plan is as robust as possible is required. In terms of extending the deadline by two months, the issue was raised by Michael Woodhouse where he said, surely, big organisations like State-owned enterprises should be able to adapt. Of course, many of the functional activity that is undertaken within them—they lost two months’ worth of time for that, if you combine level 4 and level 3 together. That was about two months of time that they lost. It wasn’t just the enterprises themselves but the others that they rely on, including those who conduct the audits, for example.

The Office of the Auditor-General has indicated support for this, because the office itself won’t be able to complete all of the audits that they are required to do by the time frames that they are required under the current law to do them. So this, basically, just reflects the reality that having lost two months to the lockdown, we’re simply extending the deadlines out by two months.

Thank you, Mr Chair, for allowing me to take a call in this committee of the whole House debate. I don’t intend to ask too many questions, but I want to ask the Minister directly about an amendment here in the name of my colleague the Hon Gerry Brownlee. It has just been tabled. I’m not sure exactly of the number of the amendment but, essentially, the it relates to the fact that because we are dealing with this in urgency, we haven’t had any select committee process and we haven’t had time to really process the implications of these, we, in fact, insert clause 2A, which, essentially, makes sure that any amendments to this bill should be reconfirmed by Parliament before April next year.

I think that this is an important thing to talk about, because we’ve got a lot of changes in this legislation, but the situation will look very different in six months’ time when the wage subsidy will be off. So I think it’s more appropriate to be able to come back to Parliament within the six months and to reconfirm that, in fact, these changes are still valid but possibly look at other changes too. And we’ve talked, in the first and second readings, about some that we would have liked to have been considered in respect to the tax changes in depreciation. But the situation will look quite different, so I think it’s not unreasonable to ask that in the dying days of this Parliament—

💬 Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: Dying hours.

—dying hours of this Parliament—we, in fact, ask that the next Parliament reconfirm these changes and potentially look at other changes that can help reduce the compliance and burden for small businesses throughout New Zealand.

I do have a question for the Minister as to whether we can insert clause 2A, which, essentially, gives effect to the provision that would mean that Parliament must reconfirm these changes by 1 April next year.

I think there’s a certain irony in the Opposition tabling an amendment that creates more bureaucracy into a bill that is designed to help people navigate the bureaucracy as a result of COVID-19. The Government doesn’t support the amendment. It is unnecessary. It will result in an additional parliamentary process to do something that everybody around the House, including the Opposition, thinks is a common-sense change.

All of these changes are designed to simply provide a little bit of greater flexibility for a defined period of time. This bill doesn’t have an ongoing effect. It is only as a result of the response to COVID-19. So, for example, in the time frames we’re talking about, by the time they’re seeking reconfirmation of the bill, most of those time frames will have already passed or we would have already gone past those time frames. So it would be completely unnecessary to reconfirm the bill.

Of course, the Parliament, at any point in the future, has the opportunity to revisit these matters if the Parliament chooses to do so.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d just like to add further to the points made by my colleague Dan Bidois. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have this amendment in terms of actually just setting down a reconfirmation day. I don’t believe that it is actually going to add more bureaucracy. As my colleague has stated, we know that actually there could be some changes in any of these areas in terms of Inland Revenue or ACC, and having the ability to have that date down just to come back and to reconfirm that in this Parliament is actually very reasonable. Thank you.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Gerry Brownlee be agreed to:

insert after clause 2 the following new clause:

2A Confirmation of Act

This Act and the amendments made by it are repealed on 1 April 2021 if no resolution is passed to continue the Act by the House of Representatives prior to that date.