Hipkins ChrisBUDGET DEBATEDebate resumed from 3 June on the Appropriation (2020/21 Estimates) Bill.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): It is a great time to be a New Zealander. When you look at what is happening around the rest of the world New Zealanders can be rightly proud of how we have tackled COVID-19. We only need to look at some of our friends across the Ditch but even further afield in the United States in Italy across Europe and in the UK to see the devastation that COVID-19 can cause. [Interruption]SPEAKER: Order!Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Thousands of deaths health systems overrun economies shut down for a prolonged period of time—that is a fate that we have avoided here in New Zealand.SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume his seat. I'm going to start his speech again because of consistent ignoring of my requests for members to be seated.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It is a great time to be a New Zealander. As we look around the world we can see the devastation that COVID-19 has inflicted on other countries. We look at Italy we look at the UK and the US we look across Europe and we see what an impact COVID-19 could have had on our country if we hadn't gone hard and gone early as we did as a country. We banded together as a people by staying apart and staying at home. We are now one of the best-placed countries in the world to recover economically because of the sacrifices that New Zealanders have made and because we have driven COVID-19 out of our country. We didn't do it as a Government; we did it as a team of 5 million. I want to pay tribute to every New Zealander and the sacrifices that every New Zealander made during that lockdown period.I do not believe as the National Party have argued that New Zealanders are suffering from Stockholm syndrome—as argued by the National Party health spokesperson Michael Woodhouse. I do not believe that New Zealanders took this action and made the sacrifices they made because they somehow felt manipulated into it. I believe that New Zealanders did that because they saw how serious the situation was—because they saw what kind of impact COVID-19 could have had on New Zealand. They saw how our health system could have been overrun how thousands of our fellow Kiwis could have lost their lives and New Zealanders agreed New Zealanders took action willingly because we didn't want to see that happen here in New Zealand. It was a very selfless act on the part of New Zealanders. I can understand why the National Party whose primary foundation is based on appealing to people's self-interest might have some difficulty in understanding why New Zealanders behaved in that way. New Zealanders behaved in that way because they believe in a fair society where we look after one another and that is exactly what we have done in recent months. We can all be very rightly proud of that. Now is the time when we need to continue to act with caution. We need to make sure that the sacrifices that we've made as a country are not made in vain. We do not want to see COVID-19 get a foothold here in New Zealand after we have successfully driven it out and that is one of the reasons why all action around the border needs to be taken with great care. Let's consider what that might look like if there was an alternative Government—if somehow on becoming leader of the National Party Todd Muller had also become the Prime Minister of New Zealand. He said he would have moved with urgency to reopen the border to countries like China. He would have moved with urgency to open up the trans-Tasman bubble. We have said as a country as a Government that we do want to see a trans-Tasman bubble at such time as it is safe to do so but let's look at some of those statistics and let's see whether it's safe to do so now. We've talked in the House today about whether or not we've got community transmission in New Zealand. Our testing results would suggest we don't have community transmission in New Zealand because where there have been positive tests in recent weeks we've been able to identify how those people who tested positive got COVID-19 in the first place. Let's look at what's happening therefore in Australia. Let's first of all say they have 490 active cases in Australia—358 in New South Wales and 90 in Victoria. But let's look at the community transmission statistics in Australia. They have published the Australian Government have published the number of days since there was last a detected case of community transmission—that is a new positive test result where they don't know how the person got it which means they picked it up from someone who hasn't otherwise been identified as having COVID-19. Within the last 48 hours the state of Victoria has reported new cases of community transmission. Within the last seven days the state of New South Wales has reported new cases of community transmission.We have to proceed with caution when it comes to reopening our border. Of course we want to open our border to our mates in Australia as quickly as we safely can. There are benefits for both countries to do that. But we should not throw caution to the wind in doing so. We should not play Russian roulette with the health of New Zealanders by saying as the National Party have been arguing that we should simply get on with it and reopen the border. All of the sacrifices New Zealanders have made in recent months would be in vain if we simply said Come one; come all. Come across the border and bring COVID-19 with you." That's not the sort of risk our Government is willing to take but it is clear from the comments of the new Leader of the Opposition that that is exactly the sort of risk that he would be willing to take. He would be willing to put New Zealand back—right back to the start before lockdown as we saw the number of COVID-19 cases in New Zealand escalating day by day. He would go back to that in the name of reopening the economy to the rest of the world and reopening the border. That's not something we will do on this side of the House. We will proceed with caution. We will make sure that we lock in the gains that we have had because we do not want to see all of the sacrifice New Zealanders have made over the last month go up in smoke through premature action like reopening the border. It is vitally important that New Zealanders as we get back to a life that looks a lot more like normal can lock in that. We don't want to go back. No New Zealanders want to go back to lockdown—to level 3 or to level 4. We as a Government have a responsibility to take actions that are sensible that are cautious and that ensure that doesn't happen.I want to acknowledge the particular contribution to our COVID-19 effort that is being made by employers up and down New Zealand. I know how difficult it is for them. I know how many small-business owners will be lying awake in bed at night thinking "What happens when the wage subsidy ends? How will I continue to support my staff?" I know that that's happening now and that those people take their responsibilities to their employees incredibly seriously. And I know that they will have sacrificed a lot. There are people out there now—small-business owners—who have mortgaged their own homes to keep their businesses going during the COVID-19 period. I want to take my hat off to them and I want to say thank you for the sacrifice that you have made. As our team of 5 million has demonstrated we can do this if we are unified if we work together and if we support each other.My message to all New Zealanders is now is a great time as restrictions continue to be eased to explore your own backyard for a period of time. If you've never been to Queenstown go. If you haven't taken your kids to see the geysers in Rotorua go now. Go and explore New Zealand and see what's on offer. It's going cheap at the moment and now's a good time to holiday locally. Have that weekend away that you've been thinking about for a long time. To our retired New Zealanders many of whom spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year going and exploring the rest of the world explore home for a little bit. Grab a campervan and go on a trip around the South Island. There's campervans going cheap at the moment as well. We spend billions of dollars a year as a country going and exploring the rest of the world; let's spend that money locally. Let's support our local businesses. Let's get that cash flow through their door so that they can thrive even despite the fact that we've got border restrictions in place.Let's also continue to back the businesses that are taking on and training the future workforce of New Zealand. I really want to acknowledge those employers who have worked so hard to keep their apprentices on board during lockdown. What we saw after the global financial crisis is that apprentices were often the first ones to go. They were the first ones to be laid off. We are working very very hard as a Government to ensure that that does not happen as a result of COVID-19. We want to keep every one of those apprentices in work if we can. That's why we've abolished the fees for people doing trades and vocational education—whether it's on the job or off the job—in those areas where we've got critical skill shortages and we're going to have more announcements very very soon about providing additional financial support to those businesses that are taking on new apprentices or who have apprentices in the early part of their apprenticeship because we know that those people are the ones who are most at risk because they're the ones that employers have to put the most work into. That is a big sacrifice for them and we want to back them as they continue to do that. We don't want to see what we saw after the global financial crisis where apprentices were laid off and we suffered the effects of that as a country over the next decade as we continued to experience critical skill shortages. We want to make sure we keep our apprentices on board and that we actually are building the workforce up that we need for the future of this country so that when it comes to infrastructure development and all those other things we can get on and do it because we've got the skilled workers here in New Zealand that we need to make those projects happen. New Zealanders have done an incredible thing over the last three months and we can all be proud of our collective efforts."