9. Question No. 9—FinanceHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of FinanceQuestion No. 9—Finance9. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Finance: Is he confident the Government is doing all it can to reduce the economic damage caused by the current lockdown restrictions?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): I am confident that the Government's overall strategy is the right one to support businesses and the economy through the current restrictions as we have done throughout this global pandemic. The current alert level 3 restrictions in Auckland and alert level 2 in the rest of the country are in place to reduce the economic damage caused by COVID-19 being in our community. Getting on top of the virus quickly allows us to open up the economy more quickly as has been indicated by the New Zealand Activity Index showing higher activity in June and July compared to last year. One part of what we're doing to reduce the economic impact of COVID-19 on the economy is the more than $13 billion of wage subsidy payments over 22 weeks. Our response has always struck a balance between providing the support that is needed in a timely fashion with our responsibilities to manage New Zealand through this one-in-100-year economic shock in a sustainable way.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Why doesn't the Government extend the wage subsidy further to cover the extended level 3 lockdown in Auckland?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: This matter was covered both in answers in the House yesterday and indeed by the Prime Minister today. There has been 22 weeks of payment for businesses that are affected in Auckland. During that period only just over nine weeks of that has been spent under either level 3 or level 4. That is a significant investment in those businesses and we continue to support them through other means as well.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Is a reason he's not further extending the wage subsidy for the extended level 3 lockdown because he's mindful of the debt we're taking—We are borrowing every single dollar we are paying out"?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I said in my answer we take seriously the balance that needs to be struck in making sure that we support New Zealanders through this in a timely fashion with our overall responsibilities to now and future generations of New Zealanders. We have taken on a significant amount of debt to do this. I'm unaware at this point of the member's position on how much debt he thinks we should be taking on.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he agree that Government debt eventually needs to be paid back?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Well Government debt does need to be paid down. It's very rare in New Zealand's history for us to have got to the point where we had almost no public debt. I believe Sir Michael Cullen got us in terms of as a percentage of GDP as close as we've got in history. But we have to manage debt carefully—for example the record of this Government speaks to that: the fact that we inherited 21.7 percent net debt and we reduced that to under 20 percent.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Will he rule out cancelling or writing off any of the Government debt that has been bought by the Reserve Bank as long as he is the Minister of Finance?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That is definitely not my intention.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Rather than his intention—SPEAKER: Order! Order! I am going to ask the member to answer the question again because I mean there's no requirement for yes/no answers but that answer could have been taken either as a positive or a negative response to the question.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: No.SPEAKER: That's much clearer.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Sorry so he won't rule out cancelling or writing off any Government debt that has been bought by the Reserve Bank? Is that his answer?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It is not my intention to write off any of that debt.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Just clarifying: rather than his intentions will he rule out cancelling or writing off any Government debt that has been bought by the Reserve Bank as long as he is the Minister of Finance?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I am ruling that out yes.SPEAKER: Right that concludes oral questions. [Interruption] Sorry? Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. SPEAKER: Oh no I apologise. It concludes supplementaries from one side not all of the questions yes. Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh sorry it's not a question—no I'll wait till—SPEAKER: No we've got a couple more questions. I've been slightly obsessing on making sure that the Opposition get a fair number and I forgot that we do have Government questions as well."