Robertson GrantHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Thank you Madam Chair and I appreciate actually the opportunity for the latter of the member's two questions to respond and talk through what we are doing in that space. Just to ensure though for the first part of his comments: on 29 February 2020 which was the most up-to-date set of Government financial statements that we had to prior to COVID—that was the statements for the eight months to that date—we had net core Crown debt at 19.2 percent of GDP and we had the operating balance before gains and losses showing a surplus of $1.4 billion. So I do just want to indicate to the member that we were as a country in a strong position going into COVID-19. I am on the record as having said a number of times that we can look back over successive Governments to credit people for the way in which we were disciplined in our spending the way in which we managed to keep New Zealand's accounts in such a way that we were able to respond but I just think it's important to have that most up-to-date data.In terms of the member's second question I do think this is a really interesting area of debate and one where we're very happily working with the Auditor-General on this. The issue that the Auditor-General is essentially raising is one about the way in which the Public Finance Act (PFA) works in terms of expenditure by Government agencies. So the annual review debate of which we are now part is the opportunity for Parliament to work its way through the expenditure of each Government agency via its appropriation or appropriations. That is where you get down into the detailed analysis of a particular programme or a particular project. That is exactly the system created by our Public Finance Act—arguably the system that the Auditor-General has oversight of as well. What Treasury does is get the aggregate of the spending of those Government agencies and work out whether they are spending against the appropriation at the correct level. They do not play the role or have not certainly in the way in which the Public Finance Act is set up of going through project by project. That is quite simply what was set up when the Public Finance Act was passed in 1989. So Treasury's job is not the one that the member is asking it to perform.Having said that when we have such a significant amount of money—$50 billion being spent—in a time of crisis where there's a great deal of urgency where imperfect information is available it is I do believe incumbent on us as a Government to be able to do more than we are required to do under the PFA. But I want to make absolutely clear in response to the comments made by the member that the Auditor-General has not expressed concern about where the money was appropriated properly or expressed concern about whether the Public Finance Act obligations have been met. Far from it in fact; they have concluded and agreed that that is right. But what we have been doing is working with Treasury to source more information from individual Government agencies so that we are in a stronger position to be able to say how much of the money that has been allocated has actually been spent outside of the normal financial review process. The issue the member is partly frustrated by here is of course that the financial review process goes for financial years and so it stops at 30 June 2020 when in fact a large amount of the expenditure is now in the financial year which we will review at a later date in this House.All of this goes to point out that the process here is the one that we have under law. We're now working with the Auditor-General about what additional information can be provided and Treasury will be seeking to publish that additional information in the very near future.