Due to the hard work of our team of five million, New Zealand remains on-track to eliminate the deadly Covid-19 virus. By going hard and early, we have prevented the devastation and large-scale death that swept many other places in the world.
Our priority now is to keep on top of the virus as we start rebooting economic and social activity. The government’s strong economic position going into the virus means that we have the ability to invest to support the recovery.
Our plan for recovery is, respond, recover, rebuild.
While we were doing the very best to eliminate the virus, we took immediate action to cushion the economic blow by protecting jobs, incomes and businesses.
The Wage Subsidy scheme has helped more than 1.65 million people. The new tax and rent measures we have introduced to support small and medium sized businesses have given cash flow support to many. We also worked with banks to help guarantee finance to those businesses who needed it.
Our plan for the economy during Alert Levels 4 and 3 saw us acting quickly and decisively to protect jobs and keep businesses afloat. Our prompt response, be it the introduction of the wage subsidy scheme or the interest-free loans for small businesses has helped to cushion the blow for many New Zealanders.
Budget 2020 will continue on the next stages of this work and chart the course to the next stages. The focus of this budget will be on strengthening of public services, investing in infrastructure and creating jobs to support our economic recovery.
We are very much aware from other countries that the impact of COVID-19 will be significant and our response needs to be ongoing, and not just limited to one Budget. So while the government will see a range of important initiatives, more will follow.
As we commence the rebuild process we don’t just want to go back to where we were before, we want to rebuild better and address some of New Zealand’s long term issues.
This global health crisis has left many countries facing a devastating death toll, health systems bursting under the strain and economies that have all but grounded to a halt with millions losing their livelihoods. Today’s pre-Budget announcement that we are investing another $160 million into Pharmac to provide New Zealanders with better access to medicines and health treatments is a good example of the support we are providing to health in the wake of Covid-19.
As our Finance Minister Grant Robertson said the Budget he will deliver this Thursday will be a very different one to what he would have delivered without being in the shadow of 1 in a 100 year shock to our society. It is not going to be a business as usual Budget. The clear difference this year will be that it will be just one staging post in our fight against and recovery from, COVID-19. This Budget will set our direction for the next stages of responding and rebuilding.
We must not forget that we are dealing with a tricky virus, it keeps moving and flaring up and its impact is only just visible in our economy. Our economic response needs to happen every day, just as workers and businesses have to fight every day to secure their futures, lives and livelihoods.
Our Government will keep on fighting too, every day, to support all New Zealanders to get through these hard times and rebuild our economy to be stronger, more sustainable, and inclusive of all New Zealanders.
-Michael Wood MP for Mount Roskill, Auckland. Parliamentary Under Secretary to the Minister for Ethnic Communities.