3. Question No. 3—FinanceGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu) to the Minister of FinanceQuestion No. 3—Finance3. GREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu) to the Minister of Finance: What recent actions has he taken to support the New Zealand economy under the current COVID-19 restrictions?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): With the re-emergence of COVID-19 in the community the Government is again moving quickly to cushion the blow for businesses and workers. Yesterday I announced criteria for a new nationwide wage subsidy covering the period that Auckland is at COVID-19 alert level 3 along with the removal of the revenue drop test for the COVID-19 Leave Support Scheme and an extension of the mortgage deferral scheme from its current end date of 27 September to 31 March 2021. The criteria for the new wage subsidy are similar to the current extension: a business must have had or is predicting to have a revenue drop due to COVID-19 of at least 40 percent. For this new scheme the revenue drop applies for any consecutive period of at least 14 days within 12 August and 10 September compared to last year. These measures will help support cash flow and confidence while we take the necessary public health measures to bring the virus back under control.Greg O'Connor: What impact will the new wage subsidy have on the economy and on the Government's finances?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The cost of the new wage subsidy scheme is estimated to be $510 million. In addition the current wage subsidy extension is still open for applications until 1 September. Treasury estimates we will see a potential increase in the uptake of the current extension so that the combined cost of the new scheme and the extension is $1.6 billion. Treasury estimates that about 930000 workers will be supported by the two schemes. Uptake of the wage subsidy extension has been lower than anticipated due to the economy outperforming expectations meaning that these new costs will be covered by the underspends in the existing wage subsidy. Therefore we will not be dipping into the $14 billion that has been set aside from the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund.Hon Gerry Brownlee: All borrowed.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: We are able to manage these demands because of this Government's careful fiscal management leading up to and through this one-in-100-year shock. Yes Mr Brownlee and that's exactly what businesses have been calling for and your finance spokesperson just suggested we do.Greg O'Connor: How do these new measures support the Government's public health response to COVID-19?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The new wage subsidy scheme helps cushion the blow to households and businesses while public health measures take effect. We have always said that the best economic response is a public health response. By supporting businesses and keeping workers attached to their jobs we can facilitate the necessary current restrictions so that once the virus is under control again the economy is able to get back up and running quickly and bounce back strongly. We've seen this play out before in the positive data for June and July when we did operate under lower restrictions after the lockdown. This includes the New Zealand Activity Index and the BNZ-BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index and the BNZ-BusinessNZ Performance of Services Index. We are once again going hard and early in our economic response as in our health response so that New Zealand is well placed to recover quickly from this particular outbreak.