McAnulty KieranKIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. You know it has been a great privilege—DEPUTY SPEAKER: —and he has four minutes and 25 seconds.KIERAN McANULTY: Oh thanks very much Madam Speaker. As I've been going around the Wairarapa electorate over the last couple of weeks something has struck me and that is the absolute confidence that the general public have in this Government and that is as a response to both the Budget and the successful—Matt Doocey: You need to get out of Wellington.Hon Scott Simpson: You need to get out more.KIERAN McANULTY: —response to COVID-19. And my opponents on the other side of the House heckle. They can't even do heckling in unison. This is a display yet again of what we've seen from this side of the House. National's response to this Budget has been somewhat of a pantomime. One bloke could stand up and say We should spend more." and another bloke could stand up and say "But what about the debt?" They aren't even unified in a position of opposition because they know deep down that this Government has succeeded where most other Governments across the world have not.As I sat there on the Epidemic Response Committee post this Budget I reflected on the position that the Opposition took to the response to COVID-19. They said we should be like Australia and yet Australia continues to be in a position where they themselves cannot open up the borders between states. They said we should have been like Singapore and yet we know that they unfortunately have seen exponential growth in cases after opening up their economy. They even said that we should be like Sweden and then one week later they stopped talking about Sweden.The fact is that this Budget is evident every single day. If the Opposition members bothered to go out and about in their electorates they would hear from small-business owners that said it was the wage subsidy that kept them open it was the wage subsidy that managed to keep their staff on so that now that we are opening up they are ready to put rubber on the road and they are ready to hit the ground running. That is certainly the case in the Wairarapa. If the members wish to come and spend their money in South Wairarapa in Greytown Featherston and Martinborough they would see retail they would see hospitality and they would see accommodation places booming because people are able to do so because as the Prime Minister said right at the start of this response: "The best economic response was a successful health response." Act hard and act early and this is what you'll see.That is what Professor Sir David Skegg said to the Epidemic Response Committee: that New Zealand was the only Western nation in the world with an opportunity to eliminate COVID-19 and the Opposition scoffs. I remember in her contribution to this debate on the Budget Judith Collins said that New Zealand did not act fast and did not act hard and did not act early. That is despite the fact that we closed our borders to foreigners 21 days after our first case—it was 56 in Australia it was 51 in Canada and it was 60 in the USA. So for Judith Collins to stand in her response to this Budget and state that and fail to back it up with facts I think that sums up the Opposition's response to this matter.You can also see the same point if you look at how long it took to get lockdown in place: 27 days after our first case it was 54 in the UK and 55 in France. And of course the timing of the first economic package—what this Budget has built upon 19 days after the first case. I acknowledge the work of the finance Minister the Hon Grant Robertson in putting together a package that has saved jobs and saved businesses and kept economies like that in Wairarapa going and then followed it up with the response in the Budget: an extension to the wage subsidy which the Opposition continues to scoff. I invite them to talk to small businesses—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry to interrupt the member. I call the Hon Grant Robertson."