Sepuloni CarmelHon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): I want to start off by acknowledging the spirit of New Zealanders and the huge amount of compassion kindness understanding and resilience that we're seeing out there in the face of COVID-19.Yesterday I saw a person who runs their own business. They are a caterer. They have lost a lot of business already because they work on film and TV series sets and they spoke to me about the fact that they are already looking for ways to diversify. They understand that this is happening internationally and so of course we are impacted as a country. But then they spoke to me about their concerns for other New Zealanders. I've spoken to many New Zealanders who had organised once-in-a-lifetime trips overseas in the upcoming months and now know that that may not be a reality for them but despite being disappointed they have said that they understand the measures that we as a Government have taken—they respect those measures and all they want is for the best interests of New Zealanders to be served.I have seen people go out of their way to look out for the best interests of their communities. In fact I saw online someone put a letter in their neighbours' letterboxes saying Dear neighbours as we face uncertain times because of COVID-19 we think it's important that we all pull together and look to help one another if needed in the coming weeks and months. Although we don't know each other well now is a great time to come together as a local community and offer support should anyone need it. We are happy to run errands help with washing and to cook meals for anyone who is unwell or self-isolating. If you are willing to be part of a community support group with a focus on helping us get through this bloody virus as best we can then please message us or drop a note in our letterbox." And that is the spirit of New Zealanders that we are seeing at this time and I commend that.I also commend the great amount of effort and work that has been put in by our public sector. I am the Minister for Social Development but I see it across the board whether it be the Ministry of Health the Ministry of Education Inland Revenue the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment Treasury—all ministries are working they are agile and they are doing us proud I think and we need to acknowledge their work.Already we have made announcements that impact or are being undertaken across Government agencies and I know that even with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) we have had many people working long hours including 40 of my staff who were in the Wellington office on the weekend to work out the detail and mechanics around some of the things we are doing and there are many things. We've spoken about some of them today. There will be the wage subsidy that the Ministry of Social Development will administer the self-isolation subsidy. There is already the rapid response teams in 16 regions—we're looking to roll them out; in nine they are already standing up. There is the Government helpline that MSD is running and actually just yesterday they received 4500 phone calls. There is the stand-down period that will be dropped as of 23 March and we are also seeing a fiscal stimulus package in the form of benefit increases and also a doubling of the winter energy payment.That is just some of what this Government is doing. And yes as Ministers we needed to act quickly to agree on policies that we could move forward and that would have a positive impact in response to COVID-19. But we could not do that by ourselves; we needed the efforts of all of those people as well to support us.At this time I do recognise those that are experiencing uncertainty whether it be those that are business owners or those that are employees and wondering what will come next. I also recognise our social services and the fact that many of them have already indicated to us that they are experiencing a level of demand due to the extenuating circumstances. There are lots of New Zealanders out there that are working to not only look after themselves but to look after others and I want to acknowledge that today.We heard at the beginning from the first National Party speaker that the Opposition has a role in holding us to account. Nobody in this House would disagree but during trying times we all have the responsibility to work together in the best interest of our country."