Twyford PhilHon PHIL TWYFORD (Minister of Transport): Thank you Madam Chair. I will make some comments about aviation and the strenuous efforts that the Government undertook in the months following the COVID outbreak to protect the country's supply chains and ensure that our aviation system continued to function. It was very clear that aviation was going to be one of the first and the worst affected. In fact we saw during March really the global aviation system shutting down in large part and for an isolated country like New Zealand that relies on our global connectivity through aviation this posed a really serious threat. So one of the first measures the Government took was to put in place a $600 million aviation support package. That included capital injections into the likes of airways to ensure that our civil aviation network kept operating; six-months' relief from paying passenger-based levies—a bit hard to generate your revenue when you haven't got any passengers coming through your airports and flying. We put in place a $10 million freight capacity scheme and that to my mind was one of the really successful early initiatives in the COVID time. I want to acknowledge New Zealand Trade and Enterprise our export agency who worked on the ground with their customers who rely on aviation to get sensitive and high value exports to their markets and they worked very hard with the Ministry of Transport to put in place that short-term scheme which kept a number of flights operating getting high-value exports to market but also essential items like medical supplies coming into the country when we were in the midst of a pretty severe lockdown. That work has continued and $320 million was put towards funding the international airfreight capacity scheme—so a much bigger programme organised by the Ministry of Transport. It involved six airlines Air New Zealand and several of the internationals flying into New Zealand on scheduled services and the real merit of the scheme was I think that it was market led if you like. It was supporting the airlines by topping up individual routes to ensure that each flight was commercially viable. What we discovered early on was that 80 percent of the freight pre-COVID that had been coming into New Zealand was coming in the belly hold of passenger aircraft. So effectively air passenger services had been subsidising our vital airfreight routes. So the country's gone into lockdown. There were almost zero people coming across the border in those early weeks. This approach of topping up these particular freight routes ensured that we were connected to the likes of Los Angeles Shanghai Sydney Melbourne the Gulf and kept New Zealand's vital air freight supply lines open.Let me say a couple of other things in relation to public transport. With only essential industries working in lockdown level 4 and some still major restrictions under level 3 and significant and understandable public concern about close social contact there was very little demand for public transport in our major cities. So the economics of providing public transport more or less collapsed given as members will know 50 percent of the cost of public transport is funded through the fare box through the tickets the fares that we pay to use the trains and the buses and the ferries. So the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi had to step up to make sure the public transport services continued because how else would essential workers get to and from work. So a pretty significant sum of money in the region of $100 million was spent by Waka Kotahi over the last six months. Ensuring that our public transport services could continue at a time when local government are also suffering a hit to their revenues because of COVID really needed the Government to step up and make sure that public transport continued. I'm pleased to say that we've seen in fact somewhat faster than a number of other countries around the world public transport demand has returned in our major cities.