It's coming up to almost 11 months for me now as the MP for North Shore. I'm proud to represent our local community and keep up the work on my three portfolios - Shadow Spokesperson for ACC, Shadow Associate Health and now Shadow Associate Revenue.

Coming from a background in finance and international banking, I've already hit the ground running in my new Associate Revenue portfolio. I am designing sensible tax policies that will fuel economic growth, create jobs, ease the tax burden on New Zealanders, and reduce the cost of compliance on business.

Along with National's Shadow Treasurer Andrew Bayly, I have called for the government to urgently offer support to struggling businesses by extending the COVID loss carry-back scheme. 

This scheme allows businesses to carry back losses to previous financial years where they made profits to aid cash flow. Businesses are doing it tough under lockdown, and they need support from this government to make sure they stay afloat.

Adding my expertise to the Covid team

Like many of you, the lockdown has provided time to think about the future. The course we chart from here as a community and country is critical. 

I'm working with Covid-19 Response Spokesperson Chris Bishop, Erica Stanford, Dr Shane Reti, and others to plan for the subsequent phases of our Covid response. 

The key to our success is to vaccinate and vaccinate fast, it's great to see such high vaccination numbers in recent weeks, but this should have been happening months ago as it has been in other OECD countries.

We also need pragmatic health and economic solutions. Rapid testing made available for essential workers and purpose-built MIQ facilities, which the National Party has called for since the election.

Covid-19 isn't going away, and we need to do the work now to chart out how we protect New Zealand and re-open ourselves to the rest of the world safely. Keep an eye out for more in this area.

Supporting our local businesses

My electorate office and I have been checking in on businesses and community groups across the North Shore. In total, we've phoned over 450 during the lockdown and assisted with accessing support and providing advocacy. 

The Shore is a great place to do business, which is why we have such a solid small business community, but this most recent lockdown is hitting hard. Problems like delays in receiving the wage subsidy and paying for fixed costs (such as rent and rates) make staying afloat more difficult the longer this lockdown continues.

If you're a business owner in need of assistance, my office is here to help. We can assist in connecting you with support from all the government departments and advocate for you if you need help.

Email: [email protected] 

Phone: 09 486 0005