David Cormack
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The curious case of the Loans in the Night-Time
🕑 Added 2020-05-10 23:47:27 +0000 UTCA week and a half ago (or 9 years in COVID time), the Government passed a bill it didn't mean to. It passed a bill enabling Inland Revenue to issue billions of dollars in loans to small businesses, bypassing the banks who, lets face it, are banks and will always be massive bankers.
Jenée Tibshraeny wrote a good summation over at interest.co.nz.
Finance Minister Grant Robinson said that the fault lay with the Parliamentary Counsel Office who tables bills to be voted on. He said they tabled a version of the bills that included the loans component, but that was an old version. The current version should not have had that in it.
Grant's quote:
"The bill that was put up by the Parliamentary Counsel Office and was tabled in the House was incorrect, and the Parliamentary Counsel Office have apologised for that,"
So far, so incompetent.
But the question that wasn't asked by anyone as far as I can see, is why was PCO given a version of the bill that included the loan component, and then why was that suddenly the "wrong" version? Something must have happened between the PCO being given the bill and it going to the house for debate for the loans to be taken out.
Because of Jenée's eagle-eyed vision in spotting the loan provision in the bill, an urgent Cabinet was called for the Thursday night to agree to the terms. Which is funny, because I'm told by someone who would know that at a previous Cabinet meeting, NZFirst had blocked the loans scheme, pending more work.
This is why there was going to be more work done on the loan scheme before it was hopefully going to be announced the next week.
Quite why NZFirst would block this loan scheme when it's likely to be a liferaft to so many small businesses is beyond me. I thought they were trying to pitch themselves as the party of business? As reported by the Herald, NZFirst also blocked a bill that would have forced commercial lease holders into negotiating with their tenants if the businesses could prove losses from COVID-19.
Blocking one bill that would help small business might be acceptable, but going out and trying to stop two? Just who are NZFirst's masters?
Edit: someone has pointed out to me that Caniwi Capital are one of NZ First's biggest donors. Caniwi has commercial property investments.
Comments
David Cormack
thanks, it was definitely a self-five moment.
Taylor Fairey
5 stars for the post title
J Lindsay
I think NZ First are the party of NZ First....
