Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development): We acted early, in March, establishing rapid response teams initially in areas feeling the greatest economic impacts, but subsequently across all Ministry of Social Development (MSD) regions. We temporarily removed stand downs to ensure timely access to income support. The Government announced an increase in main benefits of $25 per week, as well as a doubling of the winter energy payment in 2020, as part of phase one in our recovery package. MSD has also stood up the wage subsidy scheme with the support of IRD and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which has supported over 1.6 million New Zealanders to stay connected with their employers, as well as established the COVID leave support and essential workers leave scheme. MSD has gone to great lengths to also adapt its core services to ensure it continues to be responsive to people across all COVID alert levels. They have streamlined benefit application processes, so people could apply and be approved online or over the phone, and they continue to redeploy people into work where possible. On top of this, we announced the $27 million to support our social services. As a Government, we have acted quickly to get support to New Zealanders who need it, and MSD have been an integral part of that response.