Grant Robertson says National's plan to "change the rules of the game" to claw back unneeded wage subsidy funds will undermine business confidence.
During Wednesday night's Newshub Leaders Debate, National leader Judith Collins took aim at the Government's wage subsidy scheme, implemented at haste to support businesses whose incomes dried up as the country went into lockdown earlier this year.
"We may have to change a law," she said, to get companies that emerged unscathed to give the money back.
"I would have thought we would have a lot of support in Parliament to do that."
Robertson - Finance Minister and Labour's finance spokesperson - told Magic Talk on Thursday the Government had already got back "close to half a billion dollars" without any need for tougher rules.
"That's been a result of either people voluntarily coming forward and saying 'you know what, things didn't turn out quite as bad as we'd predicted'. We've also got auditors going through to make sure everybody who did get it, deserved to get it. That money is coming back in."
He said Collins' comments were unwise.
"I was very surprised actually to hear what Judith Collins said - as a party that claims to be close to business, that respects business, she would inject the kind of uncertainty she put on the table last night to those businesses, to say that she'd swoop in and change the law. In the climate we're in now, that's really going to put the cat among the pigeons for those businesses.
"We did a deal, and that deal was that people keep their employees on if they took the wage subsidy. It was to give cashflow and confidence and see those employees retained. That's the deal we made and we're going to stick to that deal.
"People can look themselves in the eye and the mirror and decide whether if maybe they did do better, they should pay it back. But the idea the Government would swoop in and change the rules of the game part way through? That's not a good recipe for business."
Asked why the rules weren't tougher to begin with, Robertson said they prioritised speed - getting cash into people's hands before their businesses collapsed. He said the approach paid off, with forecast unemployment for New Zealand much lower than other countries like the US and Australia, where support offered hasn't been so generous or swift.
The latest data shows $14 billion has been paid out in the wage subsidy scheme, supporting about 1.7 million jobs in total. There are still 120,000 jobs being supported by current payments.
In the week ending September 18, $448 million had been refunded to the Government.
"2020 hindsight is great, but I don't think we can undo the deal that we've done here," said Robertson. "I think that would have a huge undermining of business confidence, and I'm very surprised that somebody from a party that supports business, would propose what Judith Collins is doing."
BusinessNZ chief executive Kirk Hope told Stuff National's plan would create "a huge amount of uncertainty for businesses", and the Ministry of Social Development said it already had the power to request the money back if it turns out businesses didn't meet the criteria, whatever they believed when they applied for the scheme.
Correction: This story was amended on October 2 to remove an incorrect figure regarding The Warehouse Group's annual profit. The figure quoted was for 2019, not 2020.
