Robertson GrantHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Indeed I wish to make a ministerial statement under Standing Order 356 regarding the Government's economic response to the recent outbreak of COVID-19.Yesterday Cabinet agreed to the details of a new nationwide wage subsidy scheme to assist workers and businesses as the country works together to contain the recent COVID-19 outbreak. The new wage subsidy is for two weeks of support at the same rate as the existing wage subsidy extension. To qualify for the new subsidy a firm must have had or be predicting a revenue drop of at least 40 percent for any consecutive period of at least 14 days within the period of 12 August to 10 September compared to a similar period last year.The cost of the new scheme is estimated to be $510 million. The cost will be covered by the underspend in the wage subsidy appropriation so we will not be dipping into the $14 billion that has been set aside from the COVID response and recovery fund. It is important to note that the existing wage subsidy extension is still open for applications until 1 September. Some firms who may have thought that they were not eligible for this scheme may wish to reconsider in light of the impact of the current restrictions on their business.We have made the new scheme available nationwide for several reasons. First Auckland represents around 38 percent of New Zealand's GDP and many businesses around the country rely on customers from Auckland so the level 3 restrictions in Auckland clearly flow through to other parts of the country. This is especially so for tourism operators. We also recognise the impact that alert level 2 settings around the rest of the country are having on the hospitality and retail sector and we want to make sure that we're supporting them as well.Cabinet has also agreed to a change to the leave support scheme which financially supports people who have to self-isolate but cannot work from home. The 30 percent revenue drop test and the negatively impacted test for the scheme are being dropped. It is essential that we remove any barriers to taking a test and going into self-isolation if required. The scheme gives confidence to workers and businesses that they will be supported if they are required to self-isolate.I have also asked officials to continue work to ensure the full package of measures available to businesses and workers is sustainable and adaptable to different alert levels. Underpinning these support measures is the Government's focus on protecting jobs and supporting the country's health response. We acknowledge the cost that comes with this health response with estimates of the weekly economic cost of the current restrictions ranging widely from $300 million to $600 million.We continue to believe however that the best economic response to this pandemic is a strong public health response. We have already seen the benefits of this approach in economic data for June and July with the country under level 1. The BNZ-BusinessNZ Performance of Services Index and the BNZ-BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index both showed strong and expanding results for June and July particularly when compared with our international peers. Likewise the New Zealand Activity Index for June and July was up 0.6 percent and 2 percent on the same year respectively in June and July.The strategy that got us these results—of going hard and early to get the virus under control—continues to be what we are pursuing. The support measures agreed by Cabinet yesterday will support households and businesses through the next couple of weeks so that once the virus is brought back under control we can all recover more quickly and bounce back strongly again.