Sepuloni CarmelHon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): Times have changed and the way we talk to each other has changed as well. Recently we were driving through West Auckland; I was driving my husband was in the passenger seat. A car cut in front of us and nearly caused us to have an accident. My husband told me to drive up next to them; I said no. We accidentally did anyway. He wound down the window—I was so worried about what he'd say—and he yelled out the window Be kind!" That is not the type of road rage we would have seen a few years ago.Prior to 2020 the term "lockdown" had a different meaning for me too. I associated it with someone being incarcerated in prison and our team of 5 million have all had our own personal experiences in our homes during COVID lockdown. Many of mine revolved around Zoom—or "Zui" or "Zono" as some people like to call it—and one of those being this kind of TikTok move that I created on numerous occasions when I had to push the seven-year-old out of the shot. Or another Zoom situation when we had a Zoom caucus and I could smell smoke and walked out of the room to discover that that same son had thought it was a good idea to set paper on fire in the bedroom and throw it out the window—at least he threw it out the window! And unlike Damien O'Connor who struggled to learn how to unmute himself during Zoom calls I on too many occasions had to be reminded that unfortunately I wasn't on mute. It was a new way of operating for so many of us. We ran the country via Zoom—at its peak for me nearly 15 Zoom calls in a day. By the 10th one sometimes it wasn't coffee that my kind husband was putting in my coffee cup whilst I continued that Zoom meeting.We as a Government had to act quickly and we did. During this period I had my own Ashley Bloomfield and her name is Debbie Power the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD). We spoke sometimes 10 times a day—this on top of the Zoom calls. Turns out we had quite a lot to talk about. The development and implementation of the wage subsidy implementing benefit increases and the doubling of the winter energy payment alongside what was already in train and due to be rolled out on 1 April which was lifting abatement thresholds indexing benefits to wages and getting rid of that sanction section 192. We also had to talk about adapting our systems and service delivery away from face-to-face appointments and towards more effective online and phone support. We also had to talk about resourcing our social services who were providing essential services to support vulnerable New Zealanders during that time. We also had to talk about the granting of benefits and hardship support to those who had lost jobs as well as how we could build and expand employment services to help redeploy them quickly into employment. And on top of that we had to talk about the development of the COVID job-loss cover scheme. These are some of the things that kept me on the phone with Debbie quite regularly.The Minister of Finance during this time also became quite a regular phone buddy and unusually was much more responsive to my phone call. Anyone who knows Minister Robertson knows that in the months of March April and often the beginning of May it's very difficult to get him to respond to any phone calls as he prepares the Budget and tries to ignore all of our Budget bids. So things were moving at such an incredibly fast pace and those updates were frequent.MSD like so many other agencies had a critical role to play in supporting New Zealanders during this unprecedented event and I want to acknowledge that support. I'll never forget visiting the Ellerslie MSD processing centre just before we went into level 4 alert. They were already run off their feet and I wanted to express my gratitude for their efforts. What stuck with me from that visit was the MSD staff member who told me how proud they all were to have a role in supporting New Zealanders at this time and how they were just rolling up their sleeves and getting stuck in like any good Kiwi does during hard times.That attitude extended to all tiers of our agency—those on the front line working long hours into the late night on the weekend; those in the policy backrooms working seven days a week sometimes 12 hours a day rolling out every response at an unprecedented pace that our Government put in front of them in terms of requests. It has been heartening on a number of occasions to hear the very generous praise for the MSD staff's efforts from a number of quarters not least of which has been the Opposition and I acknowledge the positive feedback. The fact that praise didn't extend to me as Minister doesn't hurt my feelings at all! So again to Debbie Power and the MSD team I say thank you.COVID remains a threat and we cannot be complacent but I am reminded of our collective efforts and what we have achieved as a country every time now that I attend a gathering. On Saturday I attended the one-year birthday celebration of an early childhood education centre in my electorate. When I looked around and I saw over a hundred people gathered—grandparents parents children—I felt a deep sense of appreciation for the fact that we are safe and able to come together in our west Auckland community. Each time we have sat in this House as MPs since lockdown talking arguing laughing we're reminded that there are Parliaments around the world that are still not able to meet—another reason for us to recognise what has been achieved and to never take our roles or this place for granted. A couple of weeks ago I attended a packed-out free New Zealand Symphony Orchestra performance here in Wellington and I was absolutely cognisant of the fact that ours at this time is one of the only if not the only national symphony orchestras in the world that is able to perform to audiences of this size in this manner.Before we could gather safely I also recognise the ways in which Kiwis reached out to Kiwis. Our arts sector—the Royal New Zealand Ballet moved online. I think they grew their audience tenfold. There were kapa haka chats set up through social media. Musicians generously shared their talents with us on social media. DJs held online gigs. I want to acknowledge King Kapisi for providing me and my husband with the best mix of music during our end-of-week garage drinks—aka date night during lockdown. There were of course a number of people not known for their artistic talents who did dance numbers that kept us all sufficiently entertained—a special mention to New Zealand boxer Joseph Parker for sharing his moves with the nation. Our artists never stopped but we do recognise the impact that COVID has had on so many of our artists—their jobs their income their ability to do what they love—and that's why it's been a privilege to also have the opportunity to work alongside our Prime Minister our Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage and also our other Associate Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage Grant Robertson to develop what has been a very substantial arts recovery package for this sector. We know that that will go some way towards supporting people to get off the ground.To all our essential workers thank you. It's unfortunate it took a global pandemic for so many people to recognise the value of the work that they do—our supermarket workers our healthcare workers our social services.I acknowledge all the agencies I have had some responsibility for: the Office for Disability Issues who I think punch well above their weight; the Ministry for Culture and Heritage the Ministry for Pacific Peoples the Social Wellbeing Agency ACC and of course the Ministry of Social Development. To add to this I must say thank you to my political staff and my electorate staff. They are like family to me. I'm proud of what we've been able to achieve with an eye on what has been this Government's priority and that is wellbeing. I hope to be able to be part of a Government that will continue this crucial work.I want now to turn to our Prime Minister. When we look around the world it's hard to ignore the suffering that many are enduring due to this thing called coronavirus. When I look at us and our team of 5 million I am so grateful for the fact that we are safe. Going into lockdown some of us were concerned about New Zealand's ability to be compliant—let's be honest; Kiwis are not always the most compliant—but the lockdown worked and we are where we are because we took the risk seriously and we committed. We had each other's backs and we held and continued to hold each other to account but a large part of why we all bought in was because of the leadership of our Prime Minister. She earned the trust of the public. At every point she leant back on evidence to make decisions and she communicated clearly with the nation to ensure that we were on the same waka. Without this leadership we could be in the same distressing situation as many countries in the world. I acknowledge our Prime Minister. We hope to continue the good work that we're doing. Let's keep moving."