Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Last week, the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) released its latest quarterly predictions for the June quarter. While the NZIER acknowledged the difficulty in forecasting under the current uncertain circumstances, its forecasts do see a decline in activity concentrated in the June 2020 quarter, largely reflecting the conditions of alert level 4 that occurred during that quarter. However, NZIER did forecast unemployment to peak at 8.1 percent—below Treasury forecasts and far better than a number of other countries. It also said, "Given the relatively short amount of time spent in lockdown reflecting our success in eliminating COVID-19, the New Zealand economy looks increasingly likely to be at the optimistic end of the scenarios that had initially been considered … With New Zealand moving down the alert levels, more businesses are reopening and offering a [wide] range of goods and services." As we move through level 2, we can expect to see further gains from our early success in getting COVID-19 under control.