Hipkins ChrisHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): What New Zealanders have achieved over the last seven weeks is as humbling as it is impressive. We moved hard and fast as the COVID outbreak started to arrive in New Zealand. We moved into lockdown far sooner than other countries did and as a result of that we didn't just flatten the curve we squashed it. All New Zealanders—all 5 million New Zealanders—who have made significant sacrifices over the last seven weeks can reflect on that period with a significant degree of pride. It was an enormous act of compassion towards one another where healthy people stayed home—healthy people in fact offered up their freedoms and liberties the things that they would normally take for granted because they recognised that some who were less fortunate some who were more at risk needed their protection and that the way that they could protect them was to stay home and save lives. And New Zealanders did it and they did it willingly and the fact that we are in such a good position as we move into level 2 tomorrow is a reflection of the hard work and the contribution that all New Zealanders have made.Level 4 and then latterly level 3 have been really challenging times for New Zealanders. I want to particularly acknowledge all of those who have had difficult domestic arrangements during the lockdown period. For people who have been in large families in small households it will have had its challenges. For those who have young children at home—I can speak from personal experience that has its challenges. Families haven't been able to rely on the things they normally would rely on. They can't take their kids to the playground. They can't even take a drive down to the supermarket with their kids in order to fill in a little bit of time. The sorts of things that families would normally do haven't been on offer during the lockdown period and that's come at a significant cost to New Zealanders. I think the fact that we have survived through that that we have marched through that with the spirit that New Zealanders have with everything from the bear hunts—remember the bear hunts in the first few weeks of the lockdown?—to the Easter egg hunts to standing at dawn at the end of our driveways on Anzac Day shows I think that New Zealanders have embraced the spirit of the COVID-19 lockdown in a way that we can all be incredibly proud of.But COVID-19 is not gone yet and the risk of a further spike in cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand continues to be with us and we have to remain vigilant and we have to continue to do our bit. There will be some New Zealanders who think Mission accomplished job done." My message to them is: don't speak too soon. We've still got a way to go. And so for some of those New Zealanders who were a bit gung-ho going into the lockdown in the first place and who are very gung-ho coming out of it on the other side my message to them is: think about your fellow New Zealanders. You might not feel a great sense of risk to you but actually there'll be people around you who are still at risk and we all need to take action to keep them safe.Our restrictions at level 2 are significantly less than they were at level 4 and then at level 3. The move from level 4 to level 3 was a relatively minor one compared to the move that we will make tonight when we move from level 3 to level 2. We will get much much more freedom now than we have had over the last seven weeks and we all need to be responsible in how we use that. I do trust New Zealanders—that they are going to do the right thing. In fact to some extent as the Minister of Education I've got a little bit of a concern that New Zealanders are going to be a bit too slow in moving to level 2 and that there'll still be quite a lot of kids kept at home for no good reason because their parents are a little bit nervous. I can understand that and I do think we're going to need to take a little bit of a tolerant approach to that at the moment. It is safe for parents at level 2 to send their kids back into school and into early childhood education environments. The Government would not have made this decision if it wasn't safe for them to do so and we do need them to send their kids back because it's good for their learning and we need them to go back to work because it's good for the overall health of New Zealand's economy and society. But I can understand their nervousness and I think that we'll need to show some tolerance towards one another as all New Zealanders adjust to the new realities under alert level 2.I think that New Zealanders have shown over the last seven weeks that we do appreciate how significant the challenge of COVID-19 is. We've seen the headlines from around the world and we have collectively as a team of 5 million said "That will not be us." We need to keep that spirit alive in the coming weeks as we continue to make sure that we don't see a big outbreak of COVID-19 here in Aotearoa New Zealand."