Robertson Grant; Rurawhe AdrianHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Can I begin my contribution by echoing comments made by a number of other members and thank those who work both at our border keeping New Zealanders safe but also the bevy of officials who spring into action when we do have an outbreak or a resurgence like this. As I came into work on Sunday I noticed that Mr Bishop was at the gym which is excellent for him. That had been my plan obviously but upon coming in here on Sunday I saw the faces of the people that I have seen a few times over the last year or so in here in their weekend making sure that we had all of the plans in place to be able to lift the alert levels as we did on Sunday evening. Those people are working extraordinary hours. They are genuine servants of the New Zealand public and I want to lay on the record today my admiration for them and the fact that they have kept this up and kept up their role as part of New Zealand's ability to limit the impact of COVID in such an extraordinary way alongside the terrific border workforce that we have.The decision to lift our alert levels on Sunday evening was taken in accordance with the plans that we developed over the course of the last year. The situation distinguishes itself from a couple of cases that we had towards the end of last year and I think in the context of the member's motion for an urgent debate it's important to explore that a little because I think it helps explain exactly why we did do what we did. When we think about the cases that we saw last year all of them we were quickly able to identify at least the location of the source—that being a managed isolation and quarantine facility or in the case of the Defence Force worker a particular event. That allowed us to have a great deal of confidence about the fact that our very robust systems of testing and contact tracing could manage the situation. When we came to the decision that we faced on Sunday we faced a very high level of uncertainty and the advice that we were receiving from the public health experts in those meetings and in those discussions was that because we had a high level of uncertainty and we were dealing with and working in a world with the so-called UK and South African variants it also heightened the level of uncertainty and the level of risk because those variants are more transmissible. And so in the face of that the responsible action the action that New Zealanders would expect of us was to lift the alert levels in the way that we did.These are not decisions taken lightly. We debate them. We look at the public health advice that we are getting. We weigh it against the consequences of for example asking people in Auckland to stay home asking businesses not to operate restricting the operations of businesses in other parts of New Zealand by moving to level 2 for those. We have developed a great deal of knowledge of this over the last period of time. For example the question of balancing the economic consequences with putting in place these kinds of restrictions and the health benefits of that and the economic benefits of that is something we come to learn. We stand by the view that the very best economic response to COVID-19 is a strong public health response and that has been borne out in the results for New Zealand. In the September quarter we actually had higher rates of economic activity than we did before COVID and the Bank of New Zealand's economists tell us that there were only three other economies in the world who could claim that—China Taiwan and Ireland. So we are right there in terms of our economic response because our public health response is strong. And the short-term pain that is felt in alert level increases such as those that we're going through at the moment is well and truly eclipsed by the economic benefits that we have by the fact that we have had a long period of time through our summer where New Zealanders have not only had the opportunity to enjoy summer but we have seen strong economic activity across a range of sectors from construction through to retail. We know that the best economic response is the kind of swift and decisive public health response we saw on Sunday.When we take these decisions that is what we bear in mind. I did note that in the speech of the mover of the motion he did try to make those comparisons as to whether or not we could do better. Of course as Mr Bishop has said we must continuously improve our response. This is not something that countries and the world have had a lot of experience with. Yes severe acute respiratory syndrome gave some good lessons for people but mainly the world has had to work on this as we go. We've said before there is no playbook. So of course we will make improvements as we go. But I do think it's worth dwelling just for a moment in response to the mover's words to say that on most indices New Zealand is there in the top three or four countries. If I may just take two briefly. The Bloomberg index which looks at mainly the health response from testing and so on through to cases and fatalities and access to vaccines and so on New Zealand is number one. [Interruption] The Bloomberg index. It could be renamed that Mr Bishop. And there's the Lowy Institute's work which is actually fascinating for those who want to spend some time analysing it. It not only looks at the health responses; it also looks at the economic responses and then weights them by region—this being one of Mr Seymour's common criticisms about the fact that we were in the fortunate position of being at the tail end of the first cases for a country to get. So there's weightings within that—and guess what? In that one New Zealand rates at number one ahead of Vietnam and Taiwan. And actually while we're on Taiwan it's a country that's done a remarkable job an economy that's done a remarkable job of its response. They have had outbreaks through December and January and into February so every economy in the world every country in the world has to respond to the fact that this virus is a tricky virus and one where there will be outbreaks. So yes of course we can always do better and we must always do better. But as a country we can be extremely proud of the way in which we have dealt with this and that is recognised around the world. Returning briefly to a couple of points made in the debate about the specific set of circumstances the problem we have at the moment is identifying what is case zero. Mr Bishop alluded to this. So yes there is somebody who works in a laundry that launders material that comes off flights. People such as myself will go Well there you go." We will hear from Dr Verrall later in the debate and I'm sure she will be able to work through some of the concerns and issues that people have raised about things like fomite transmission. While that remains a possibility and an investigating point for us we do have to accept that it is people-to-people contact that is the primary way in which this is transmitted and that Mr Bishop is why there is such a focus in the advice we have had on air-side. Because even if a person is a baggage handler they are in the air-side they are in the space in which there are people who are coming in and transiting and so forth through the country. That is not to dismiss the question of fomite transmission and we've spent a lot of time talking about it and it is being investigated. But I just make the point that the public health advice remains that it is people-to-people transmission that is the most likely and the most risky situation. Hence why those rules have been made the way they are. But as part of our continuous improvement process we're now looking at whether or not a facility such as a laundry does need to be looked at. So we constantly look to evolve what we're doing.The decision to lift alert levels that was taken on Sunday was a precautionary position—absolutely. We've had a great couple of days in terms of the fact we don't have any more community cases so far. We have had a huge number of tests that are being processed right now as we speak and as we move into tomorrow we'll be able to use that information to be able to decide whether or not we can come down from the alert levels we are in. But we are doing that out of an abundance of caution and in the spirit of and in line with how we have dealt with this in the past year and the plans that we have. It is vitally important that New Zealanders have confidence that we will stick to our plan. It is very easy to change your mind constantly about whether you want the borders open or whether you want the borders closed and whether or not New Zealanders have done enough. We will keep working on it. We will keep improving it but we will also stick to our plan and in sticking to our plan we have taken a precautionary approach here. I thank New Zealanders for their fortitude. I thank New Zealanders for going along with the alert level framework. We will stick with them and will make sure that New Zealanders stay safe from COVID-19.DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. I call Dr Shane Reti—five minutes."