Robertson GrantHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): It became clear from the very earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic that there were no costless decisions facing any Government in the world. In New Zealand as we looked around the world and we saw the increasing hospitalisations and death rates in other countries the Government decided quickly that we needed to move against that. That meant investing significant sums of money to support New Zealanders to stay home to be able to stay attached to their jobs. At no point in this process did we take any of those decisions lightly.As we now look 18 months into the pandemic New Zealanders can be proud of the approach that they have taken to COVID-19. It is one that has left us in a position of having one of the lowest mortality rates from COVID-19 in the world one of the lowest hospitalisation rates from COVID-19 in the world one of the fewest days of restrictions of any country in the world and an economy that has thrived to the extent that today Standard & Poor's indicate that New Zealand and Singapore are the only two countries in the Asia-Pacific that they forecast to continue growing through the second half of 2021.Each of those decisions came with a cost itself. Some of that cost is borne by everyday New Zealanders who have to abide by alert level restrictions some of it is borne by businesses who are restricted in the amount that they can trade and some of it is borne by New Zealanders offshore who cannot easily return to New Zealand. But all of that sacrifice is worth it today when we can say that tragically it is 27 people who have died—but it is only 27 people who have died.We have a plan to reconnect New Zealanders to the world. We announced it at the beginning of August. It is a plan that continues the careful and cautious approach to balance the risks that we face with making sure that New Zealand comes through this pandemic together. It is a careful plan and it is one that we're rolling out and it stands in direct contrast to the risky rushed and reckless job we saw come out from the National Party today. Judith Collins called it vigorous suppression" having clearly mixed up her caucus notes with her COVID notes. Her approach and the National Party's approach today should not come as any surprise because throughout this pandemic we have seen the National Party flip-flop around and try and move too quickly. They're like a group of children in the back seat of the car yelling "Are we there yet?"It's a global pandemic it's still going and we continue to need an approach that carefully balances all of the considerations not one that comes out as the National Party did today with no numbers—no numbers about how many people they expect to come in when they open up the borders; no numbers about what that means for hospitalisations or for deaths. But we can help them here because they said they based their plan on the United Kingdom's. Well if we compare that using a per head of population measure that would mean for example 16000 cases a week 460 hospitalisations a week 54 deaths a week. These aren't the numbers you'll see in the National Party's documents today because they've rushed it out. They want to get ahead of the game they say. All that does is expose New Zealanders to risk.And we've heard a lot over this day about what a Kiwi Christmas is about. Well for most New Zealanders that's spending time with their families that's making sure that they can enjoy what a summer is in New Zealand and all of that is at risk from the plan that the National Party put up in front of us today. If there's one thing that Judith Collins achieved today it's to rewrite the old Christmas tune: on the first day of Christmas National gave to me: COVID. That's where their nursery rhyme ends today when it comes to the National Party. On this side of the House what we want for New Zealanders is a continuation of the things that make people want to come back to New Zealand for Christmas—that we look after people that we value people's lives that we support their businesses.We have as all countries in the world have had to meet an enormous one-in-100-year challenge. There are no costless decisions. There are no easy decisions. But what we don't need is risky rushed and reckless policies that the National Party are promising today. What this country knows is that this Government will continue to support them and their families to come out the other side of COVID-19 stronger as we have shown over the last year."