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Parliament passed the wrong law yesterday. Finance Minister Grant Robertson tried to minimise the error saying that the Government had always intended to bring the loan scheme forward.
National Finance spokesperson Paul Goldsmith disputed Robertson’s version of what went wrong.
“Robertson’s story doesn’t seem to tally with the events, that we were sent a version of the bill which did not include the small business cash flow scheme with the clear message that this was the bill that was being introduced
“The minister’s speech made no reference to the scheme, we were told by the clerk that the bill that was tabled did have reference to the scheme”.
At some point, the bill with the scheme included was approved and then tabled.
[…]. ACT’s David Seymour said the episode had shaken his faith in the Government
“In fairness we all signed up to it when we gave leave for the bill to be passed urgently and voted for it, however we did that with great faith in the Government and it now appears our faith may have been misplaced,” Seymour said.
He said MPs had operated on a “high trust” model with the Government so far, by backing many of its decisions during the Covid-19 crisis, but the blunder meant they would have to move to a “low trust” model”.
