Good afternoon stay 20 of our covert 19 early level. Four lockdown today, I am joined by the finance minister grant Robertson, who will shortly make some comments about the Treasury scenarios for our economy, which were released earlier today by the Treasury. But I want to start by a recording that we have had a sad and sobering reminder of the need to stay the course today, with four more deaths from covert 19 in the last 24 hours, our deadliest day. To date, we always knew there would be more deaths even at level four, and especially in cases where the virus enters a vulnerable community like an aged care facility. It is, however, a reminder of how much worse the spread and death toll would be. Had we not taken the actions we have taken to break the chain of transmission, the Director General of Health – and I have spoken frequently today and I want to reiterate the actions he is leading in an area where every country has faced vulnerability, in particular the requirement For all DHBs to audit arrangements in aged care facilities to ensure compliance with covert protocols and procedures, there should also help to identify any issues with supply and best practice use of PPE. He has also initiated a review into aged care facilities. We covered has already been present, as he said, covered 19 is prison and less than 1 % of our aged care facilities, a stark contrast to the situation in many other countries, but, as we have seen at Rosewood, we now know how devastating it can be when It gets there, the review will look at Rosewood, but also the facilities we containment has been successful and we have had aged care facilities who have successfully managed to contain covert 19. It is timely and I do endorse the quick action taken by the Director General on. This was something I absolutely agreed with and supported. As I say I said use today, this is likely to be the most challenging week we face and lockdown. As we see the beginnings of success in terms of getting the virus under control and numbers coming down sitting alongside an increase in the number of deaths over the weekend – and today I have seen some commentary – that is not unexpected commentary that reflects our success to date And stamping out the virus as reason enough to take our foot off the pedal, it is not, as the director-general said, we are successfully over the peak. That is not the same thing as being out of the woods in the meantime. This week, the Ministry of Health continues to undertake more analysis of the testing done to date. Seeking that D H B’s, expand testing once again and further strengthening contact, tracing efforts and the information around cases, or it has not been possible to identify the source of the case now, while a small number, these cases, the ones of possible community transmission, are the most Important to understand and have under control if we are to move out of level 4 with confidence. We’Ve also been reminded over the Easter break of the need for continued enforcement of aleut libel for rules to give you a quick update of the numbers to date under level 4, there have been 1400 M 52 breaches. So far, police have made 169 prosecutions. We did anticipate this would rise over time with the police having used warnings but progressed up the chain when those warnings have not been heard. Thousands of motorists were stopped at 661. Easter chick points, and I note the road toll was zero. The last time this occurred was in 2012. Most New Zealanders understand that now is not the time to lit up. We must not squander the good work that everyone has put in over the last 20 days. I’Ll now turn to an announcement that relates to tertiary education. As a government precoded 19, we already had a very strong focus on trades training, in particular with vocational education reforms and two years free trades training, the foundations for more New Zealanders and rolling and vocational education have already been put in place. But we know we will need to do much more to support tens of thousands of New Zealanders to retrain to get back into the workforce, possibly in an entirely different job. Education will be key to our economic recovery. Today can confirm an immediate package of support for our tertiary students to continue and stay in their studies. We know these students often use part-time work to fund their education work, which is no longer there. They are also facing the loss of support payments due to a learning break of more than three weeks as the providers put in place, alternative forms of teaching. That’S. Why cabinet has made some really practical decisions today to help cover extra costs by increasing the student loan amount available, for course, related costs for full-time students from $ 1,000 to $ 2,000 on a temporary basis to continued support payments such as student loans and allowances for Students unable to study online for up to eight weeks and we’ve made technical changes to ensure that, where students receive partial tuition, free refunds in 2020, because their course has been discontinued due to Kove at 19, this will not affect their future entitlement to student loans and, Where students are unable to complete a course of study in 2020, due to covert 19, this will not affect their entitlement to fees free to share study. We do not want to see students unfairly disadvantage from discontinued courses. This gives flexibility during the lockdown period and for four weeks beyond the extra support will be available from tomorrow. The Minister of Education, Chris Hopkins Minister of Education, Chris Hopkins, will release more detail, but I know he would want to thank all those in the sector, particularly student representatives, who have hidden their insights and supported their fellow students. I thank you too, and particularly want to acknowledge the other work that students are doing at this time to help our most vulnerable, including I’m told the student volunteer, Army’s contactless food ordering and delivery services for over 65s they’re medically vulnerable in families of healthcare workers or Health care workers themselves, of course, tomorrow, is officially this that of Tim too, and I want to also thank our teachers for putting in place the distance learning to help parents during the start of the school Tim under lockdown. I think we’re all doing a bit of learning at this time, hopefully having Suzie Cato back on our Telly’s, will lighten the load for many I’ll now hand over to Minister Robertson for an update before taking questions. Minister Rawat, sir. Thank You, Prime Minister. Today, the Treasury released a number of scenarios for the possible impact on the economy based on potential different times spent at different alert levels: the state of the global economy in the level of fiscal response from the government. They cover a wide range of scenarios based on previously released public health modelling and lead to a wide range of potential outcomes. It is important to note that these are not like normal Treasury forecasts or even projections. The comparative data points we use for those are just not there. They are rather stylized examples of what the impact might be in different scenarios. They also do not foreshadow any government decisions to exit the lockdown. These were we made, as the Prime Minister has announced on April 20. These scenarios show the government was right in our decision to go hard and go early in the fight against covert 19, and they continue to show that the best protection for the economy is to fight the virus. As the Prime Minister has said, we can all be cautiously optimistic about the impact of the work we’re all doing, but some of the forecasts show what could happen if we don’t stick to the current alert for level rules or if we have to stay in it. For longer or return to level 4 at some point in the future, the scenarios also show just how important the government’s actions to date, such as the wage subsidy scheme, have been in cushioning the blow of the impact of Cova 19 on the economy and why? There is a need for further significant investment to support businesses and households, as we have signaled that we will be doing as you can see in the two scenarios, 1a and 2a. How important it is for this continued investment to protect jobs and support businesses, for example. Under scenario 1 unemployment Peaks, their 359,000 or 13.5 percent, the June 2020 quarter scenario, one a includes an extra twenty billion dollars of government support for workers and businesses and shows unemployment peaking at two hundred and twenty-four thousand or eight point three percent. In the current quarter, before reducing to five percent next year – importantly in scenario, one a with that additional government investment unemployment is only above two hundred thousand once in the quarter that I’ve mentioned. This shows the importance of us continuing to invest and there’s a country. We are in a good position to be able to do so and it D it at less than twenty percent of GDP is compares favorably to the OECD average of above seventy percent. We begin this journey from a strong, strong starting position. We are continuing to work on the next stages of our support for New Zealand, businesses and households, and tomorrow I will talk about our next steps and our plan to support businesses to take questions. The what we’ll be announcing this week will be in the area of further support for businesses and in particular, looking at how we use the tech system to continue to support small businesses, particularly beyond there. Our focus has to be on how we position for recovery initially – and I’ve mentioned before when I’ve been here, the different sector packages that we’re looking to develop, to be able to support those sectors that are particularly affected. Were also looking into what comes next after the wage subsidy scheme, and obviously the front-loading of that scheme was important. A 12-week lump sum payment gives both businesses workers and ourselves time to plan and prepare for those next steps. So we’re continuing to look at what we can do to support households as well as what we can do to support businesses and, in particular sector’s use of 200 jobs being cut at King’s enemy today. The government’s, I think, one of the points. Of course that’s been raised is that whilst covert may not be entirely responsible for some of what we’re seeing in some places, it’s exacerbated existing issues. We are looking at bringing in a response to that very shortly, and but really it will be. The first stage will be bringing before we then look to longer-term solutions that take us beyond the covert environment, we’re in right now. What I would say is that when we have for want of a better tuna phrase, you know issues that have pre-existed before covert. We’Ve got to make sure that we’re supporting, ultimately, a sector that can continue to provide for the public to make sure that there are robust journalism, contestable information and advice to the public. And this highlights the kind of environment where that’s really necessary. But at the same time, wherever tizen revenue can also disappear, so, yes, we will be moving quite quickly. We have been in regular contact with the media, large media outlets around what we’re working on and they’ve, given us a sense of the estate Asst and we’ve. Of course, had that in mind, as we’ve worked up those packages, it’s not a scenario that I foresee at all, and certainly that level of unemployment would not be acceptable to me as the Ministry of Finance, nor I’m sure to the Prime Minister. I simply don’t see that scenario playing out, but it is a good indication of why it is so important that we stick to the rules and we emerge from level four as soon as we possibly can. The whole point of the whole point of a strategy of going hard and going early is so that we do not have prolonged periods as the Treasuries run scenarios on of being in lockdown, and we can see overseas countries that are in lockdown at the moment that are Extending for very long periods of time, the reason we moved quickly was to avoid those situations scenario where New Zealand’s unemployment stays roughly below 10 %. Is that is a promising that now well, ultimately, all of us want unemployment to be as low as possible. What we simply rule out is the idea that we would be in lockdown at level four for six months. Look, I mean what they show is the significant impact that cover 19 is having on not only our economy but the global economy, and it is important to note that the variables that Treasury used when they were preparing these scenarios were not just how long we were In each elute level, it was also what state was the global economy in and how much fiscal and put with the government have so they’re extremely sobering. The point is, we have already put in significant resources around six points, three percent of GDP into our recovery and response plan, and there is more to come and we’ve signaled from the beginning that the package we announced – you know – I think it back on the 17th Of March was only the first stage, we’ve continued to roll out more and there will be more to come. Well again, you can take a look at the scenarios that are here and you can see in that scenario, one for example, and one a that things do come back relatively quickly as we move out, but clearly they’ll still be restrictions on the economy at the level. Three and some at level two as well also there are sectors of our economy that we all know will be fundamentally change from this, such as tourism, as we’ve discussed before, so those impacts will last over a period of time. The great news for New Zealanders is that we are in a strong position to be able to invest significant resources in supporting households and supporting businesses and other sectors to get through this. These are just scenarios that the Treasury has developed in a stylized form based on a set of assumptions. I wouldn’t ascribe any of them to a particular point in terms of the budget process. I would just indicate that the Treasury has endeavoured to do what many people have asked to try and sketch out what the impact of the economy would be with those different variables in place and will produce the budget on the 14th of May. I certainly will, we’ll talk more in the lead-up to the budget of the kind of response we’re looking at. I think you’ve seen from what we’ve already done in terms of the investments we’ve made across the board from wage subsidy scheme through to the the tax changes and the support for vulnerable people that we’re prepared to spend the money we need to to get New Zealanders Through this, we do that, with an eye to our long-term health of our economy and we’ll at budget time, be able to announce the full details of that. I think that’s probably a billion dollar question nowadays, rather than a million dollar one, we are working towards making sure that we keep unemployment as low as possible. The whole point of the wage subsidy scheme has been to protect people connected to their jobs. We now want, as we move through the different levels of the framework, be able to establish more economic activity, have people coming back in to work and, at the same time, working on those recovery plans that start to redeploy people to different industries, retrain people. So our belief is that if we execute our plan, if we stick to making sure we’re supporting businesses and households, we can come out with a good outcome for New Zealand. And certainly one of my main reasons for being in politics is about keeping people and work. And jobs, and so I will make sure that whatever we do is focused around there I’ll go over em. You know I’ve come down the back, I’m to Jason, and this is one of the devastating effects of covert that we are losing. People to it and loved ones aren’t be given the chance to be with them when that happens, but that’s because we don’t want to lose more people. Ppe is not failsafe and ultimately I need to rely on clinicians making those incredibly tough decisions, because I know that I would find it incredibly difficult to tell a family member there. You know we’ll come back to you, no problem. I do worry about your sleep ages with Kiwi lives and making a decision on the Cova 19 lockdown, especially we don’t insure rapid contact, tracing and complete surveillance testing. How confident are you so two, two quick things on contact tracing. We absolutely agree with the imperative that our contact tracing has to be second to none. We had dr

Aja virile come in and undertake their audit around our contact tracing. For that very reason, there is more work for us to do off the back of there, because it will continue to be a critical part of our response. So I don’t disagree with David Skaggs on that on the second point, around the knowledge that data and testing bring us you’ll have seen now. The Ministry of Health is making available that at a regional level, the Director General of Health is an all gone out to DHBs and reiterated once again that we want to up the testing that we are seeing in particular regions, and so is even saying. Look, if someone presents with a runny nose, test them and basically tests the people who are coming through with sore throats, regardless of whether they have a cost test them, so that we can continue to build that data. What we’re not saying at the moment is tis someone who have absolutely no symptoms randomly, and that seems to be the consistent advice from all medical professionals um. Mr

Robinson this morning that you said that any additional spending would have a well-being lens could you go into some detail about what that actually means in practical I’m said that Jason you don’t recall the last two years of budgets in that regard what that means is we look not just at our our financial well-being but also our well-being as people what the Treasury like to call human capital the environment natural capital and in the strength of our communities social capital and I think you can see in terms of the impact of covert 19 why it’s necessary to do that absolutely there’s a focus on the economy getting people back into work getting jobs going getting productive investment infrastructure under way but there’s also the impact on the other parts of our lives the Minister for arts culture and heritage has been very keen to make sure I’m aware of the impact on the arts sector the same within the sports sector right across our society we are seeing these impacts so the approach we’re taking as we look towards the budget there’s not only just about rebuilding those core economic ideas it’s also about the society we want to live we of course have to make a decision that we can have confidence and and we have to have confidence that we won’t be squandering all of the work and sacrifice that has gone into the past 20 days by New Zealanders I don’t take lightly that decision will keep making sure that we’re doing everything we can to have the best data available and as I say we won’t take that decision lightly sorry that’ll be the way it’s accounted for by tree it’s because this to the student loan has King councillors capital within our accounts because we will get a Peck eventually this is simple accounting quick but it’s essentially the sloop Student Loan Scheme in that just discretionary optin option of the additional loan facility them getting two thousand rather than one thousand four of course related costs here we have substantial capital especially those that have already settled their treaty settlements just could play a big role and stimulating the Maori economy post lockdown what will the government be doing to help provide support or work with those here we n do know that to help stimulate the economy yeah and this is where we you know in a postcode environment we do need to start thinking about what New Zealand’s economy will need to look like in order to make the most of what will be often the domestic opportunities we have but also some of the trade opportunities that will emerge as well particularly in food production and so that’s where we as a government need to work at that a wee level to make the most of the thinking we’re doing now around what the future of New Zealand’s economy will look like in a postcode world and so that’s something we were looking to reach out we’re doing it sector by sector and I’d expect us to do the same with yeah this is where I’d say it’s the same thing and so I think because I’ve seen turn or testing there’s been an assumption that unless it has it try to it’s not happening Sentinel testing actually happens in a much smaller scale than what we’re doing with our testing at the moment through covert nineteen my recollection is it’s in this low hundreds maybe 200 tests and so of course the quantum of data that we’re getting through covert testing and the proportion of that that is negative really is giving us a form of surveillance around our wider community what we’re finding those we need to enrich that data and areas where we might not have as much testing so areas where there haven’t been a lot of cases we haven’t had as much testing happening which is why the Director General has now gone out to those areas and said actually don’t wait for a cough don’t wait for anything that require a temperature if there’s a runny nose test if there’s a sore throat test these may just be coughs and colds but let’s enrich the data we have in the same way that we do with Sentinel testing in normal circumstances but on a much larger scale I’m still waiting and of course as you would imagine formulating legal advice that may lead to a wider investigation would take a bit of time and so that we’ll need to of course granel we’ll need to engage with customs in particular so that’s not something I’ve got a final response on you know I haven’t ruled that out and it’s the reason I asked for legal advice in the first place well the first thing I’d say is if we have examples of the landlord’s commercial annuals who are doing there then we need to call them out and at the epidemic response committee this morning and the cheer of that committee gave us the name of a company I don’t know if it’s the same one that you’re talking about Gina and I regard that behavior is not in the spirit of what we’re doing we will have more to say about the question of commercial leases but overall we are seeing good cooperation in collaboration between landlords and tenants these are all things of course it is you can imagine we are thinking about and working up as part of the advice that will go out on Thursday but keeping in mind as I’ve already signaled a level-3 still does have considered restrictions it is still a level where we are trying to reduce down the amount of contact social context with people to a significant degree in a per large part that’s of course because if we do have outbreaks it’s about making sure with a net alert level they are as contained as possible because a looot level 3 is still at a place with these risks of community transmission so if you think about that principle as you can imagine we will still have guidance it really does restrict wider social engagement but we do want to think about people’s mental health and well-being so that’s part of our thinking when it comes to the public sector of course we need to keep in mind that many of them are currently our frontline workers they make up a huge part of our essential workforce and a significant number of them also offering up and redeploying themselves within different parts of the sector where these demand and so they are a very important workforce to us I know that they’ll be looking out though at what’s happening around them we are not proposing here that anything happens to their wages and but I know that they will be feeling acutely that if they are in the public sector that there puts them in a position that many other people are not are you willing to previously raising the super given that a lot of those clusters originated from as you say this normal yes and you know one of the of course ongoing things that we’ll all experience our restrictions at our border and very managed gatherings at every aleut levels so I think the thing to think about in the longer term and for those who do work in theirs in the space of events and so on is heaven think about how you can structure your business in such a way that we can always find people if we need to because there is going to be a critical part of our ongoing response contact tracing if you put on an event can we find one person in that event and their contact with say 20 people around them if you can’t that probably says you need to reshape the way you’re doing things physically distant in social distancing will be with us for a long time now of course we we keep those big distances when they’re complete strangers when we have more controlled environments then that become slightly more manageable and think think about that in terms of the way we look at schools for instance we know who’s there so we can manage if we have problems with social distancing but at the same time it needs to be part of our everyday yes at the moment what we’ve said to that companies not necessarily those are completely fold but those whose circumstances change that money is the to pay the wages of their staff and it should get to their staff in the first instance we’re not in the business of chasing down companies to try and get money back it should be paid on to their employees central businesses for today and we have widely released stood by saying that Golf Course greens keepers other Minister for Sports would probably like tourists oh I don’t think that’s been quietly done it was telegraphed well and truly last week clearly this is an issue we are we’ve we’ve had a particular call from the community around the the assets that are available in terms of Bowling Green’s golf courses other turf non plantation nurseries where there is a huge risk of an enormous loss of those facilities to the communities and also in terms of the economic impact of there so we work that through and we’ve come up with a method by which that can be done safely following all of the public health guidelines just keep one thing in mind councils for instance are doing this kind of maintenance as well and the fact that you can have a singular person has been of course part of that public health messaging and also one of the reasons was even from the beginning for councils and things the ministry has acknowledged right from the outset that you didn’t want scenarios where you had rats or other pests congregating because you weren’t doing basic routine maintenance and so that was the basis on which councils have always been able to do undertake that kind of maintenance work as well one other point I would make has said of course even if they are casualized staff they are eligible for the wage subsidy as well it also accounts for part-time staff so I would again really just employ employee employers where they have had staff particularly who may be students who’ve been reliant on they didn’t come remember the wage subsidy is there for them and it should be passed on to that group to take outlines when other interest groups get straight up what example would that be so I guess that the point I’m making is that if they’re referring to employee employers as an interest group those are employers who employ students they should be getting that wage subsidy so that they can pass on to those students who may be in that situation and the same way they do with any other employee so this is not the only form of support that students who may have lost work should be able to access the other point is that they’re also able to access support through MSD hardship and my understanding is that they have been doing that so that’s equally available for them as well this is an addition to that too too many voices at once you know as we’ve said from the beginning that was our first step we continue to work on what is possible to support small businesses in particular to get through this and there’s ongoing work there’ll be further announcements some of those women head this week ultimately people of course should continue to access their banks as well only speaking I’m told that within the next two days elements of that package will begin to be paid out to those relevant providers important to make the point though that it is not just a simply a blanket payment for all we provide us but rather those that are providing for instance clinics outreach and are part of the covered 19 response okay last two I don’t know why you’re asking just as a Minister of Finance I have a pretty strong please pronounce Iran we both have again we have a go and then I let you know I think that at this time it’s about leadership and if ever we’ve got a time to peps close some of the inequalities that exist now would be that time and so let’s show leadership at the top and not ask those on some of the lowest incomes to carry that burden Minister I don’t have anything I’m not making any announcements today but as you know we this is an issue we have been considering I think it’s a pretty tough call on Treasury to say that the analysis should be more robust as I said before we don’t actually have the kind of data points we would normally have when we’re doing forecasting so they’ve taken on both you know different alert levels also with the state of the global economy and as you say two examples with extra government spending in them I can just reiterate my point we understand we need to support New Zealanders businesses in households through this we’ve already done that significantly and we have committed to doing more okay