Webb DuncanFinanceDr DUNCAN WEBB (Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee): Thank you Madam Chair and I must say it is a real pleasure to stand in this somewhat new procedure and after that very lengthy and eloquent introduction. The annual review process I think in the Finance and Expenditure Committee went very well. I do think that the various departments and Ministers had a very good opportunity and were thoroughly questioned by members of both the Government party and other parties around the House as in fact the finance sector annual review shows—a compendious document of some 54 pages which I must say must meet some kind of record for an annual review document. But I think it's really useful for members of the public to be able to read the reviews of all of those departments and entities together. I do think you can't really understand necessarily for example the Treasury review unless you're reading at the same time the Reserve Bank review because those two things are so closely connected. I did think that those two reviews being heard close together by the same committee was really useful. Obviously there was a lot of questioning around the COVID response roll-out and I would expect Minister Robertson to perhaps address some of those things in the course of this debate. I do think there was a general consensus over the high speed high trust model which was used by Treasury particularly around the wage subsidy. Obviously there's ongoing post hoc examination of that process and given the speed at which things were moving it did appear that Government generally—Government entities—had to learn new ways of making decisions. Treasury was very forthcoming that it couldn't fall back on a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis that would take months to complete when things were happening daily and weekly. So the implementation there of that wage subsidy in a matter of weeks on that high-trust model along with I think the transparency—the fact that the recipients of all of those wage subsidies were available to be seen by all—the media and this is of course an important part of what goes on in Government scrutinised that information and some entities were essentially shamed into fronting up. I think that was a really good aspect of that which came out of annual reviews. And of course the flip side of that and that decision-making process—I think it's really important always to ask the what if" question and I'd invite the Minister to do that: to say "If we hadn't done it that way how would we have done it? What kind of chilling effect would there have been on business activity and employment in particular?" Of course we do know that the Government borrowed a large sum of money over the course and that that borrowing has not yet ended and that there may be instances—we don't know what the future holds—where further funds may need to be borrowed to ensure that we have a strong and resilient well-functioning economy into the future. That of course was a focus of discussion and the Minister may well want to comment on that. I do note that when we came to discuss the Reserve Bank—and Treasury to an extent as well—house prices were a focus. Of course this Government has a stated objective of sustained moderation in house prices. I note that the annual reviews were held before the Government's housing announcements and of course there wasn't anything in the annual reviews which prefaced that but it was very clear that the levers there—the demand-side aspects of that were touched on as important; the tax framework was touched on as important. For completion the Minister may want to fill out that. I also just want to note the role that the IRD played in the COVID response as well and also the fact that their business transformation project that they've been undergoing for many years put them in a position where they were able to respond—where they had the technical infrastructure to do that. Having said that they were challenged on the outcomes of business transformation—whether it was on time whether it was delivering whether it was on budget and also importantly the impact on the workforce and how that is being handled and I think it's quite appropriate that that happened. But look very good annual reviews ones that the Opposition participated in well. Thank you Madam Chair."