Robertson GrantGENERAL DEBATEHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Today I want to talk about selflessness and selfishness. I want to say to all of the New Zealanders who have backed the Government's elimination strategy and stayed home to save lives working from home where that is possible for them that we thank them for their selflessness. It is heartening to see the vast bulk of New Zealanders doing the right thing by their friends by their family and by their communities. And it is this approach of selflessness that has allowed New Zealand to have one of the lowest mortality rates in the world from COVID one of the lowest hospitalisation rates in the world from COVID and at the same time be one of a handful of countries in the world that has had an economy operating at pre - COVID-19 levels and seen unemployment reduce to 4 percent. It is that strong position that allows the Government to be able to continue to support New Zealanders through this outbreak and for us to bounce back from it.I also want to thank the good people of Northland and Auckland for their continued heavy lifting and selflessness through this period. We all know the pressure that alert level 4 puts on families and businesses and communities and we thank the people of Auckland and Northland for their selflessness.I want to thank particularly today our Pacific community who have been through this outbreak victims of racist attacks. They have been involved in this outbreak through no fault of their own but have consistently stepped up to be tested to support one another and to ensure that we encircle this outbreak. I want to give particular thanks to Pacific social service agencies such as The Cause Collective and South Seas and also the churches that have looked after one another.I want to really acknowledge the selflessness of our essential workforce. This is the group of people who are daily supporting us leaving their bubbles and the security of that to ensure that the rest of us are able to be kept safe and to be kept fed. I particularly acknowledge our healthcare workers who have stepped up to do testing vaccinating and continue to provide support to New Zealanders when they are unwell. I want to give a special shout-out to those who work in our managed isolation and quarantine facilities 24/7 making sure that New Zealanders are kept safe. I also think of the stories I have heard from funeral directors who in alert level 4 went the extra mile to make sure that families had an opportunity to be a part of the final resting of their relatives. There is no more traumatic time and those people have stepped up. Our supermarket workers our supermarket deliverers the Student Volunteer Army who are going out of their way to make sure some of our most isolated New Zealanders have the food they need and the social contact that is there. Our police our emergency services our public servants who have done a remarkable job. The Ministry of Social Development as one example is processing 14 applications every minute for the last 11 days to ensure that the wage subsidy scheme is being paid out. I want to acknowledge the selflessness of our social service providers across the motu: our iwi providers our Pasifika community providers our family violence protection and support providers who have all continued to work throughout alert level 4 making sure that New Zealanders feel safe.And finally much closer to home in the selflessness category is the staff of the Parliamentary Service who have had to leave their bubbles including during an alert level 4 day to come into this Parliament to enable it to operate. I want to make sure they know that they have our support because sadly they have had to come here because of the selfishness of the Opposition in this Parliament because Judith Collins decided to ignore a proposal that was developed in part by her colleague Chris Bishop that would have seen a virtual Parliament built off the virtual committees that we have had. But no the vanity and ego of the Opposition was more important to them than the health and safety of people who work at Parliament. It was more important than setting an example for how businesses could operate virtually and for what? To throw misleading accusations and take contradictory positions. But that's no surprise from this Opposition who've had more positions on the COVID-19 response than a Chris Hipkins exercise guide!We can and should do better by the people of New Zealand to use the technology we have. On this side of the House we will remain resolutely focused on supporting New Zealanders to get through COVID-19 to make sure they are healthy and that we respond and we rebound as we have before. We are all in this together: he waka eke noa.