COVID-19-infected Jacinda Ardern has Zoomed into Parliament to answer questions from Christopher Luxon and David Seymour ahead of Thursday's Budget.
The Prime Minister tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday and is isolating for seven days, missing the release of both the Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) and the upcoming Budget. Her highly-anticipated trip to the United States this weekend is still on at this stage.
While she's been suffering from moderate COVID-19 symptoms for the few days, Ardern did appear virtually at Wednesday's Question Time in Parliament where she was grilled by National's Luxon and ACT's Seymour.
Luxon began his questioning by asking Ardern if she stood by the Government's statements and policies.
Starting with such a broad primary question is a favourite of Opposition leaders as it allows them to follow-up by asking about many different policy areas, rather than zeroing in on one topic. But such a tactic also gives the Prime Minister room to respond by highlighting any of the Government's recent announcements.
Ardern chose to respond by pointing out "this Government's decision to partner with businesses to get ahead, transition to low-emission alternatives, reduce their reliance on volatile global energy markets, improve productivity, and future-proof our energy system".
National opposes the "corporate welfare" it says ERP provides by investing more than $650 million into helping businesses decarbonise. Luxon believes corporations should "get on" with cutting their emissions themselves and not wait for government subsidies.
But Ardern said $69 million in previous funding to decarbonise business has been a "huge success" by assisting 53 major industrial decarbonisation projects expected to be completed by April 2024. They're expected to save 7.46 Mt of carbon dioxide, the same as taking 134,000 cars off the road, over their lifetime.
Luxon went on to ask Ardern how Kiwis can be confident in the spending announcements made in Thursday's Budget given the Government's record on delivering on its policies. Over a number of questions, Luxon mentioned the likes of KiwiBuild, housing affordability, and light rail.
"If you look over the lifetime of this Government and the investing that we have made consecutively through each of our Budgets, they have been unapologetically focused on New Zealanders and reducing the impacts of cost of living, right from back in 2017," Ardern replied to one question, while also mentioning specific investments made in previous Budgets.
National has hammered the Government over cost of living in recent weeks as inflation hits a 30-year high, but ministers have blamed that on global factors like COVID-19 supply chain issues and the war in Ukraine.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson has said the Budget will focus on health and climate, but hasn't ruled out any measures to address cost of living rises.
Ardern also faced questions from Seymour, including on comments from COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins. The minister on Wednesday morning said pre-departure test's days are numbered as they don't have the value they once did.
The Prime Minister supported Hipkins' statement and reiterated a previous announcement that pre-departure testing would be removed by the end of July, when the border fully reopens.
"New Zealand is not alone in the fact that there are still entry requirements from around the world. The world has not gone back to normal," Ardern said, name-checking the policies of the United States and Japan.
"What the minister would have been referring to is probably the more effective and important ongoing policy we have is the screening regime when people arrive, but at the same time, we do need to make sure we have in place the infrastructure should we, at any time in the future, need to return to a period of using pre-departure testing."
Seymour also asked Ardern about how the Budget will address the income gap between New Zealand and Australia, or if it will become known as the "Brain-drain Budget". Ardern said over the course of her Government, wage growth has outstripped inflation increases, other than during the current inflation spike.
