The Tourism Minister is defending his tourism support package.
A $400 million support package was announced in the budget last week, to help the industry transition to domestic tourism.
Some businesses say it's not enough, with Hobbiton Chief Executive Russell Alexander calling the package a joke.
Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis told The Weekend Collective they're criticizing it before engaging with it.
"To suggest that we should be funding some businesses until international tourism starts again, I think that is unsustainable."

The Tourism Minister is defending his tourism support package.
A $400 million support package was announced in the budget last week, to help the industry transition to domestic tourism.
Some businesses say it's not enough, with Hobbiton Chief Executive Russell Alexander calling the package a joke.
Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis told The Weekend Collective they're criticizing it before engaging with it.
"To suggest that we should be funding some businesses until international tourism starts again, I think that is unsustainable."

The National Party is pushing for religious gatherings to get the green light at alert level two.
At level two, religious gatherings are limited to 10 people.
National MP and pastor Alfred Ngaro told The Weekend Collective there was no rational explanation from the Government to why churches couldn't have more than 10 people.
"If there was one flat rule for all, then no one would be arguing."
He says the country obeyed the level four and level three rules for seven weeks, and people shouldn't be told they can't go back to Church, when restaurants, gyms and retail can operate.
"We don't live in a dictatorship, we live in a democracy, and the very thing that democracy is based on is the freedom of choice."
Earlier this week, the limit for attendees at funerals were increased from 10 to 50. 
Last year, Ngaro decided against launching a new political party with a religious focus, that was seen as an attempt to give National a potential coalition partner for this year's election.

With much of the American economy in self-imposed shutdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus, April's colossal surge in unemployment delivered a historic blow to workers.
The US economy lost 20.5 million jobs in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday — by far the most sudden and largest decline since the government began tracking the data in 1939.
Those losses follow steep cutbacks in March as well, when employers slashed 870,000 jobs. Those two months amount to layoffs so severe, they more than double the 8.7 million jobs lost during the financial crisis.
For many Americans who lost their jobs and their homes in the 2008 financial crisis, this moment reopens old wounds. It took years to rebound from those setbacks. When the economy eventually did crawl back, US employers added 22.8 million jobs over 10 years — a victory for all those who had weathered the Great Recession.
Now, the coronavirus pandemic stings not only because of the public health crisis it has inflicted — but also because it wiped out nearly that whole decade of job gains in just two months.
The unemployment rate soared to 14.7% in April, its highest level since the BLS started recording the monthly rate in 1948. The last time American joblessness was that severe was the Great Depression: The unemployment rate peaked at 24.9% in 1933, according to historical annual estimates from the BLS.
By all accounts, it's been a devastating two months for American workers.
"Each unemployed person is a person whose life is now in turmoil," White House Economic Advisor Kevin Hassett told CNN's Poppy Harlow, describing the report as "heartbreaking."
How we got here
In late March, state and local governments enacted stay-at-home orders to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Businesses suddenly closed en masse, laying off or furloughing millions of workers.
The government's jobs report shows some of the steepest job losses in leisure and hospitality, which lost 7.7 million jobs, and retail, which lost 2.1 million jobs.
Even as hospitals struggled to serve an influx in patients, health care workers suffered layoffs, too, with outpatient services like physicians and dentists' offices cutting 1.2 million jobs in April.
Food and beverage stores, which have also been essential during the crisis, lost 42,000 jobs.
And as terrible as those numbers are, they don't tell the full story.
The jobs numbers come from a survey of employers, and do not include independent contractors like Uber and Lyft drivers in the gig economy.
Likewise, the unemployment rate, which comes from a survey of households, probably undercounts the number of jobless Americans, too.
People are only counted as "unemployed" by the BLS when they have been out of work but actively searched for a new job in the prior four weeks. Or, if they were a "temporary layoff" with the expectation of being rehired within six months.
Among the 23 million people who were counted as unemployed in April, about 18 million were "on temporary layoff." While that's a stark number, it could be an encouraging sign that for many people, job losses could be short lived — and they'll be able to return to work when businesses re-open.
That said, millions of other laid-off workers were not even included in the unemployment rate. With much of the country still under stay-at-home orders, many jobless workers weren't looking for new jobs in April. Instead of being counted as "unemployed," those people were categorized as having dropped out of the labor force. The employment-population ratio, which measures the share of the US population over age 16 with a job, shrank to 51.3% in April, down from 60% in March and its lowest level on record since the BLS started tracking that number in 1948.
Economists expect many people will be able to find work again as businesses gradually reopen, but it could take months or even years for the job...

The Government is under fire, for its handling of the release of hundreds of official Covid 19 documents.
The documents were proactively released late on Friday afternoon.
A leaked email, obtained by Newstalk ZB, shows ministers were told not to do media interviews on the contents of the documents.
Political reporter Jason Walls told The Weekend Collective the approach doesn't fit the Government's kind and transparent brand.
"For there to be a memo saying basically, 'New Zealanders think we're doing great, we don't have to be as transparent and front up with ministers on this', a lot of people would have the right to be completely disappointed in that."

National says the economy has to be a factor, in any decision on when to move New Zealand out of Alert Level Two.
Cabinet will decide tomorrow whether New Zealand will transition to Alert Level Two later in the week.
New Zealand has recorded another two more cases of Covid 19 since yesterday, and two more people remain in hospital.
National finance spokesman Paul Goldsmith told The Weekend Collective cabinet needs to be cautious - but it can't be too conservative.
"You've got to focus on making sure that we've got contact tracing, so if there is a bounce back, we can move fast.
"But if you're ultra-conservative about it and go very slowly, then every passing week has a real impact on livelihoods and jobs and wellbeing."

Popular tourism towns are disappointed in the potential rules for Alert Level 2.
The Government announced last week that safely reconnecting families and communities was a "social and economic necessity" but re-iterated people should still avoid non-essential travel during level 2.
Queenstown Lakes Mayor Jim Boult told The Weekend Collective getting domestic travel back up and running is a priority for many towns who rely on tourism.
"We're making submissions to Government to have social distancing laws in relation to travel restricted so we can get a decent level of domestic business back into the town."

Six months from Election Day, President Donald Trump's prospects for winning a second term have been jolted by a historic pandemic and a cratering economy, rattling some of his Republican allies and upending the playbook his campaign had hoped to be using by now against Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump's standing has slumped as the nation's focus on him has intensified during the coronavirus outbreak, revealing an erratic and often self-absorbed approach to the crisis. The result: He's losing ground in some battleground states with key constituencies, including senior citizens and college-educated men — all without his Democratic challenger having devoted much energy or money to denting the president.
"It's Donald J. Trump versus the coronavirus and the recovery," said Scott Reed, the senior political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Biden is a sideshow."
For some Republicans, the prospect of an election that is almost wholly a referendum on Trump is unnerving. Though the president's base remains loyal, a significant portion of GOP voters view him skeptically on a range of personal qualities. He pulled many of those voters to his side in the 2016 election by drawing an aggressive contrast with Democrat Hillary Clinton. He planned to do the same in 2020 with Biden, with the added tailwind of a surging American economy.
Now, that economy is crumbling around Trump. A staggering 30 million Americans have lost their jobs in the past six weeks as businesses have shuttered due to stay-at-home restrictions aimed at containing the pandemic. One of the president's own economic advisers predicted nationwide unemployment could reach 20% by June.
When his back is against the wall, Trump often responds by lashing out at a political opponent, hoping to expose flaws that detract from his own. But with Americans consumed by the pandemic and economic uncertainty, Republicans close to the president and his campaign say Trump's team will struggle to break through with any attacks on Biden for some time. Instead, the public's focus remains squarely on Trump and his handling of the health and economic crises.
"Trump is completely dominating the public's attention, and it's not helping him," said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who advised Sen. Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential campaign.
In public polling, the president's approval rating hasn't dropped significantly since the fast-moving virus swept through parts of the U.S. According to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted in late April, 42% of Americans approved of Trump's job performance. That's about where it's been for the past few months.
But both Democratic and Republican pollsters and strategists say they are seeing signs of weakness in critical states and demographic groups. Those findings are confirmed by some of the Trump campaign's own data. When briefed on campaign polling in recent days, Trump erupted in anger, according to several people with knowledge of the conversation.
Private polling shows Trump in a weaker position in several pivotal states, including Michigan, Florida and Wisconsin. He's also sagging with senior citizens and college-educated men, according to GOP operatives who have viewed recent polling. Some pollsters said they've seen signs that lower-educated women are also drifting away from the president.
Independents are largely irrelevant, the operatives said, but only because they had already abandoned the president before the pandemic. A half-dozen operatives and pollsters spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss private data.
Trump's campaign argues the dynamic will reset after the president and his team can unleash a full array of attacks on Biden, who became the presumptive Democratic nominee just as the pandemic began bearing down on the United States. Trump campaign aides say they see vulnerabilities in Biden's previous dealings with China...

People will still be able to appeal against infrastructure projects but they'll have less time to do so.
The Government's making changes to the Resource Management Act to speed up the consent process.
The changes, which are likely to be passed in June, means roading, walking, cycling, rail, and housing projects can be approved faster.
A panel - headed by an Environment Court judge - will approve consents for housing, transport and environmental projects, instead of councils.
Environment Minister David Parker says it will hear submissions from business, infrastructure and environmental groups.
"The processes that include public participation and appeal rights to the Environment Court are being truncated."
Parker says getting people back to work is the main reason resource consents are being sped up.
"The environmental protections and obligations to comply with regional plans will still apply. It is just that the consent process where people need a consent will run faster."

National Party leader Simon Bridges is still defending his controversial Facebook post.
Bridges was forced to defend himself after facing a flurry of online fury over the post about the Government's decision to extend the level 4 lockdown.
The Facebook post has attracted more than 16,000 reactions – many of them negative - and the Opposition leader has been facing speculation from some in the media that his job might be on the line.
Other members of his party defended his leadership, but many commentators have since doubled down on their criticism of his leadership.
Talking to The Weekend Collective, Bridges repeated his mantra that he makes no excuses and would repeat his comments.
He says that the anger from people could be due to some people being hit harder by the pandemic than others.
"There's a couple kinds of people in New Zealand at the moment. There are those us with a job and are getting paid and at home," Bridges said, quoting Mike Hosking in saying that these people are "baking banana bread". 
"There's another group where people are suffering. It could be because their business is going under or they know that their job is gone or in jeopardy." 
Asked if he thinks his comments seem that he is not rowing in the same direction as New Zealanders, Bridges says he congratulates the Government and New Zealanders on the job done so far.
“We’ve flattened the curve, but I’m focused on what’s coming.”
He confirmed that there were two statements prepared; one about the extension, which was what was published, and a second if we had moved straight to level three.
Bridges says that the second one would have been “less strong”.