Hon STUART NASH (Minister for Economic and Regional Development): The brand new automated system for approving requests for travel exemptions across Auckland was stood up very quickly on Sunday and it functioned well. Following the August 2020 lockdown, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) worked with 16 Government agencies to develop an online system, the Business Travel Register, to enable more speedy processing of requests for travel exemptions across the borders between alert levels. It is automated through an online platform, Business Connect, which was set up with $7 million funding in Budget 2019. The Business Travel Register was stood up at half past midnight on the morning of Monday, 15 February, after MBIE officials worked through the night. During the 72 hours of alert level 3, the register received requests for travel exemptions from 3,284 businesses. The register issued travel documents for 23,290 workers to travel across boundaries for work. The majority of documents were issued in a matter of minutes, including a QR code that could be scanned at checkpoints. 