COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill

I move, That the COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill be now read a second time.

Given that we’ve just had a discussion at first reading, I thought my contribution this time would be best to respond to some of the issues that are raised. I’ve noted that there have been two alternative propositions put by the Opposition: one is that it’s inappropriate for the powers to be used by the Minister of Health rather than the Director-General of Health, which is the proposition that has been put by some members of the National Party. And the proposition put by David Seymour from the ACT Party has said that it’s appropriate that it move from the Director-General of Health to the Minister of Health, because that’s more aligned with democratic accountabilities and also, as David Seymour says, triggers some other judicial review rights that might not otherwise be as easy for litigants to pursue. I’m not so sure of that second point. But in respect of the first point, I actually agree with David Seymour. It’s also a point that has been made by legal academics that this framework that was put in the Health Act many, many decades ago is actually now old-fashioned, and that the better view—

Hon Andrew Little: It comes from the time of Sid Holland!

Hon DAVID PARKER: I didn’t know that, but before I was born. But in any event, I agree with David Seymour and with the legal academics that this actually is an improvement to accountabilities. The Hon Michael Woodhouse said that this meant that the Minister of Health didn’t have to have regard to what the director-general does and could just make his own mind up. That’s actually not correct. The bill requires the Minister of Health to pay particular regard to what the Director-General of Health says.

In respect of some of the issues that have been raised by both the National Party and the ACT Party as to the term of this legislation, which, in the version that has been introduced into the House, has expiry two years, hence—if not repealed earlier as a consequence of COVID-19 no longer being a problem—the Opposition says that that’s too long a period. The National Party proposed a remedy for that whereby every 90 days Parliament has to pass a motion to extend it. They can extend it for 90 days, or they could actually extend it—unusually—for longer than 90 days, which might be necessary if we were coming up to an interregnum over the elections. David Seymour suggested another remedy, which was to make it a one-year sunset clause for the bill.

On reflection, we’ve chosen the National Party remedy for those. We actually agree with both points, but only one remedy can be chosen. And so we’ve chosen to adopt the proposed National Party remedy and that will be coming forward in a Supplementary Order Paper.

A point that was made by both the National Party and the ACT Party was that the ability of powers to be delegated beyond the police to other agencies was too broadly cast. That was a fair point also, and it wasn’t the intention that this be widely cast. So the Supplementary Order Paper that we have laid on the Table adopts those recommendations as well. Again, we’ve actually chosen the National Party formulation of that, which was that we limit it to, effectively, Crown employees or people that are contractors to the Crown, rather than this idea that we were going to be delegating it more broadly. That’s clear in the Supplementary Order Paper. I also want to reflect on one of the—what I think, with respect, somewhat misses the interconnectedness of enforcement powers with the ability to get to level 2.

We’re taking our advice as to what we need in level 2 from the Director-General of Health. The Director-General of Health’s comfort with going to level 2 depends on the enforceability of measures that we have in this bill. If we didn’t have the enforceability of gathering sizes down to small sizes of 10 at the start—and we hope that that will increase over time—it may well be that the director-general would not have recommended that we move to level 2 at this stage. So the idea that these things can be completely separated is wrong. To a certain extent, if you’re going to go to level 2 as early as we’re trying to get there, the Director-General of Health requires more comfort as to our ability to limit the risk; if things do go as we hope they won’t and there are some outbreaks, we want to minimise the spread of those. That’s why he favours smaller gatherings over large for reasons that the Minister of Health described in more detail during his contribution.

In terms of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issues and the power of entry, I do have a list of other warrantless powers of entry if I could just lay my hand on it in front of the papers that are in front of me, and if I don’t get to it within my allotted time here, I’ll come back to it in the committee stage. But warrantless powers are not unknown in New Zealand, but I’m obviously going to have to come back to that because I’ve put the page in the wrong place—

Hon Member: Search for them.

Hon DAVID PARKER: What’s that? I need a search and surveillance warrant to find them. Yeah, I’m going to have to come back to that in the next part of the debate unless I turn them up as I speak.

It is an important point so I just thought I would try and find those. The warrantless powers include pursuant to the Arms Act, the Misuse of Drugs Act from memory, people who are being—where there is an offender at large. One of my colleagues was saying that, in respect of—

Hon Tim Macindoe: They’re all offenders at large.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I beg your pardon.

Hon Tim Macindoe: They’re all offenders at large.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Ha, ha! Thank you, I’ll put that on the record. But it is true that it’s not normal to allow a constable a right of entry on to private premises and that’s why we are requiring it to be reported up the hierarchy so that there is a trail both for the police hierarchy but also for the public to see when this is occurring.

The Opposition say that this is a matter of trust. Actually, it’s also a matter of maintaining public trust in enforcement and we have a concern that the social consensus around these measures that we still need because of the risks that there will still be under level 2 will degrade if people see others flouting these rules in a private situation with impunity. And in order to maintain that voluntary compliance, both privately and in public, and the social consensus that we need to continue taking care under level 2, we believe—we accept the advice that we’ve been given, that it’s appropriate, that where a constable has reason to believe that there is a large gathering, that he can go into the house for that express purpose of seeing whether there is and if there is one asking it to disband. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d just like to start by saying that I was honoured to have been voted in as the chairman of a COVID-19 task force that was sponsored and put together by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed. It involves 70 countries and it has 12 representatives on the committee that I’m chairing. What’s been very good is it’s been a way of exchanging information, seeing what has worked and what hasn’t in different countries around the world.

The big advantage that we had as a nation is our geographic location, we’re isolated, we have a relatively small population that is spread out, we have a healthy population, and we have a very good health system. So we had lots of things going in our favour.

The problem that we had—and although the Government continually gets up and tells us that they went hard and fast—is that we were too slow at the border; we didn’t close our border quickly enough and we allowed the virus to continue to walk into the country. We were too slow to go to lockdown. Again, I go back to my colleague Brett Hudson that highlighted these things. These are on the record. We went into lockdown too slowly. Unfortunately, because we did delay on the border—

Hon Chris Hipkins: We were one of the fastest in the world.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: —because you did delay on the border, it put us in a position where, actually, the Government—we supported you going into lockdown, but you were put in a position that, really, your options were narrowed because we were too late at the border.

So you really had no choice but to go into level 4, and we were very clear that we would support you in that. We suspended the Parliament and we’ve got behind you and we supported you as much as we can—including, by the way, offering to come back into the House to pass legislation to make sure that our enforcement agencies were actually acting legally. Right now in this Parliament, no one can get up and actually say clearly whether or not they were acting legally under level 4 and level 3.

The third thing that happened way too slowly was quarantine. We wouldn’t quarantine at the border. We heard stories from all over the country, and finally the Police Commissioner himself in front of the COVID-19 committee, chaired by the Hon Simon Bridges—

SPEAKER: Order! I apologise for interrupting the member. The member’s been running for over two minutes now; he’s going to now start talking about the bill before the House, not the history of the pandemic.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. This does relate to the bill, because it relates to the powers contained—

SPEAKER: Well, you better get there quick.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: —within the bill. One of the powers contained within the bill, which is a severe overreach by the State, is the fact that police officers are going to have a power to enter a private dwelling without warrant. I can tell you now: I’m proud to have served for 14 years in our New Zealand Police service, one of the finest police services in the world that enjoys enormous public confidence. What this Government has done is introduced a bill to the House—and, unfortunately, most of New Zealand won’t find out about this until probably weeks later—whereby they’re going to give police officers—the State—the ability to walk into your home without a warrant if some information comes to them or if there are too many cars parked out on the street. If it meets the threshold of reasonable doubt, it gives them the ability to walk into your home.

I can tell you now from my experience as a police officer that sometimes just a house burglary can be the worst type of offending against someone, do you know why? It’s because they feel like it’s a gross violation of the one place that they should feel safe—the one place that they have the right to be able to say who or who doesn’t come into their home. This is what the Minister has done: he’s put law-abiding Kiwis that are going about their everyday business in a situation now where they could have the State walk in their front door, into their house, to check on information that really can’t be measured, to see whether or not they’re being compliant.

I can tell you now, the other thing that’s been driven out of this committee is very clear: Government, if you do not retain the confidence and the trust of the people of New Zealand, it doesn’t matter how many laws you bring to this House, they will choose not to be compliant. I can tell you one thing: we’ve moved into level 2; back home in my own electorate—in fact, I did a social media post on this—on the Saturday it was very clear that most Kiwis who had been compliant, had done what they had been asked to do, had moved themselves into level 2. There were more people out on the streets. There were more people out in recreation areas. They had moved themselves into level 2. The Government, in my view, had seen that and understood that, realised that they’d waited too long, realised that they’d pushed it too far, realised that they were starting to use up that goodwill that’s been given to them throughout this lockdown.

By the way, we do have a job on this side of the House; it’s to hold the Government to account, and we do that for the rest of the country. It’s not always an easy job; it can be pretty thankless. But we’ve found ourselves in a situation right now where even our own journalists, our own press gallery, if they decide to stand up, if they want to hold this Government to account, all of a sudden there’s a massive backlash against them. Well, you know what? It’s actually time that we started to hold this Government to account a bit on these decisions and not just be told everything and taking it. Like they said, “We’ve got enormous goodwill, just ignore them, we don’t have to respond, we don’t have to put Ministers up.” It’s an arrogance that’s dripping from this Government.

Hon Member: Just dismiss.

Hon MARK MITCHELL: I’d be very—yeah, what was it? “Just dismiss”—just dismiss them. By the way, you’re eating into goodwill from this side of the House, because, me personally, I wanted to support the Government and I did support the Government. We wanted to do that in a good way to make sure that us as a nation emerged in the strongest possible position with the least harm done; we have not done that. The harm is coming—in fact, the harm is here right now.

So we can’t support this bill. I want to acknowledge the Attorney-General, and I want to acknowledge the fact that he has taken a call and he has addressed some of the issues that we’ve put up. I want to acknowledge and thank him for that because they’re important ones. Things like getting the rules right, because I can tell you another thing that went wrong in the first two weeks: we had four pieces of official information that were being put out to the public, and all they wanted to do was comply—they wanted to make sure that they were sticking to the rules—but there was deep confusion created because they were getting three or four different messages coming from different parts of the Government. We want to have clarity around what the rules are. We don’t think that it is humane. We think that people are suffering enough. We think that if someone’s lost a loved one, that grieving is important for everyone, regardless of what culture you come from—that grieving is important for everyone; people coming together.

Trust the public. The good thing about level 4 and level 3, I think, is that it’s at least allowed us to learn those basic concepts around hygiene and social distancing and being more aware as a nation. That’s a very good thing. I acknowledge the Government. We’ve flattened the curve—that is a great result. Moving forward, to bring legislation into the House like this that basically tramples over the rights of law-abiding Kiwis in terms of that they will now have the State walking straight in through their front door—and the irony of this situation is quite simply this: when we were in level 3 and level 4, although we questioned the powers because we felt that was important, and it is important in a First World country and democracy where civil liberties are held and protected. It’s important that the Government is always acting within the law, it’s important the agencies are.

I had many serving police officers come to me, saying that they were very concerned and very uncomfortable with what they’re doing because they didn’t join the police to not have the powers to actually know what they were doing. They felt deep discomfort with it. Then we had the Police Commissioner come in front of the committee, and he said, “Oh, well, we’ll let those checkpoints run because we want to avoid a protest.” Every rule in the book was being broken. If you want to undermine public confidence in a world-class police service, that’s the quickest way to do it. Now you’re going to tell them to go out there and start policing the community that you’re relying on for their goodwill. If New Zealanders decide that they’re not going to maintain level 2 restrictions because you’ve run out of goodwill, it doesn’t matter how much legislation you pass, it doesn’t matter how many police you recruit, it doesn’t matter if you put the defence forces out on the street—it is not going to make one iota of difference. You have to maintain public confidence.

Anyway, thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for your forbearance and for allowing me to take the call. Thank you.

Mr Speaker, the fundamental question, listening to the debate across the House, that is before us now is whether we need a COVID-19 alert level 2. Because, listening to the members opposite, we should simply declare victory now and say that it’s all over and that everything should go back to the way that it was before. I remind members opposite that we had fewer cases than we do now when they started to call for New Zealand to go into lockdown. And, at the time, Simon Bridges stood in this House and said better to be cautious; better to be criticised afterwards for being too cautious and moving too quickly than have a massive outbreak in New Zealand and then regret not having taken further action. And yet, that is where we’re at now. So we’ve got more cases now than we did when they were calling for us to go into lockdown.

And so, if we don’t have a COVID alert level 2, which is what this bill enables, then, effectively, what we will be doing is we will be saying that we’re willing to tolerate the risk of another big spike in cases and then all of the sacrifice that New Zealanders have made—

SPEAKER: Order! I regret having to interrupt the member, but I just want to remind Messrs Penk and Mitchell that people are not meant to be sitting in adjoining seats at the moment. I know that someone’s moved some of the name tags around. Thank you.

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: —and all of the sacrifices, socially, personally, and economically that New Zealanders have made would have been in vain, because we would find ourselves back in the position that we would have been in if we hadn’t gone into lockdown in the first place. We need only look around the rest of the world to see what the consequences of that are: thousands of people dying, lockdowns where there is seemingly no end in sight, which is what other countries around the world are facing. New Zealanders can all be incredibly proud of what we have achieved as a country over the last seven weeks. Dare I say it, seven weeks ago, when we stood in this House and we debated whether or not to have the lockdown, Simon Bridges was right. He was right when he said better to be cautious than have regrets later on if we don’t go hard enough early on. We are in the same position now. Level 2 is about making sure that all of the gains that we have made don’t disappear with a spike in cases.

If you listen to what the members opposite are arguing, they are saying that there should be no further curtailing of liberties—that people should be able to do whatever they want to, that life should get back to normal. Well, actually, that puts the country right back at square one again. COVID-19 is still with us. We are still having positive cases coming through the testing. So we still need to have very good public health measures in place if we are going to avoid going the way of those other countries.

We reset the clock with our lockdown, but COVID-19 has not gone away; it is still there. Therefore, the level 2 measures that this bill enables will help us to lock in the gains. It will help us to make sure that we don’t go backwards. It will help us to give New Zealanders confidence that they can re-engage in their lives, consistent with good public health provisions, and that our country—ahead of the Australians, ahead of so many other countries that are looking at lockdowns that will last much, much longer and be much, much harsher than ours—New Zealand is in a very good position. We shouldn’t squander it; therefore, we should pass this bill, we should move to level 2, and we should lock in the gains that we’ve made.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Leader of the House has just fundamentally misrepresented the National Party’s position on this bill.

SPEAKER: Oh, careful.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: The National Party has not suggested for a moment that all of the risks have gone, that there is no need whatsoever to have any restraints. And then the Leader of the House went on to suggest that this bill is necessary to enable New Zealand to move into level 2. Well, that is absolute nonsense. This is not the first time that we will have been in level 2, for a start. And the most important thing to note is the fact that despite what he was trying to suggest then, we are now on a sharply downwards trajectory, having made significant changes, to our considerable cost as a nation, but for the gains that we are now so proud of. So this is about ensuring that we move into a level 2 where the nation can get back to work, resurrect as many livelihoods as possible in a safe and appropriate way, and that’s what we are supporting. We’re not suggesting for a moment to forget about the last few weeks and just go back to life as normal. We can’t do that. No one has been arguing that; certainly not on this side.

Now, ordinarily, as those who are watching or listening at the moment will know—and there are a number of people who do follow Parliament regularly—we would, in a second reading debate, be focusing on the work of the select committee. We would, as members of the select committee, be traversing the opinions that we heard both in written and oral submissions from those who chose to have their voices heard on this particular bill, and we’d talk about the questions that we ask. We’d talk about the advice that we received from officials. And we’re very well served in our select committees by our officials.

We have a very fine Public Service, and I wonder if I could just take this opportunity very quickly to thank the public servants throughout the country who have served us so well during the lockdown. I think in particular of Sam and Alma, the electorate officials who have been wonderful in the way they’ve responded to the many emails and calls that they’ve received from electorate MPs and other MPs and our office staff, and I want to thank them; those who have worked in the different Government departments who have responded to the many concerns—in many cases, very distressing concerns—we have brought to their attention. I think of Michael Appleton in the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and what a fine public servant he is. I shouldn’t probably name them—there are too many to name—but I want to say thank you to all those public servants. I know they’ve worked so hard. We heard the huge pressure that the Ministry of Social Development was under as they were working on the wage subsidy applications and all sorts of other things. So I did want to make that point.

As I say, in a second reading we would normally have had the opportunity to reflect on what happened in the select committee and how that process would enable us to improve the bill. Well, here we’re having a second reading where there hasn’t been any select committee process. Apparently, the Attorney-General did advocate for one, so I hope that we’re going to hear why it didn’t happen. Was he overruled? Did he change his mind? But whatever the reason was, we haven’t had the opportunity.

Now, we recognise the fact that when you’re dealing with a bill under urgency, you don’t have a lot of time. But even if half a day had been set aside for that purpose, we would then have had the opportunity to hear not just from submitters but also from legal academics, from people with expertise in public law, from commentators in the media and elsewhere—all of whom, along with the officials, would have increased our understanding of the issues, sharpened our ability to hone in on what needed to be done to recommend to the House and to the Government how this bill could be changed. But, of course, we have been denied all of that opportunity. So in the absence of a select committee process to report and consider, the second reading debate, I assume, will have to just try to ascertain what the Government’s thinking was, what processes they’ve been through. And it is fair, I think, therefore, to look back on their management of the issue to date in order to ascertain what it is that they think they now need to do.

Well, the Hon Michael Woodhouse said earlier, and he was quite right, that the National Party had called on the Government to take all sorts of action well before they did. And the Leader of the House was talking a moment ago about the things that the National Party had urged seven weeks ago, and we don’t resile from any of that. I’m proud of the fact that we called on the Government to shut down our borders well before the Government did, that we called on them to effect appropriate checks of those who were coming across the border. We called on them to instigate an appropriate testing regime, to provide more personal protective equipment across the country wherever it was needed. So those are the sorts of issues that a level 2 period still needs to be aware of. We don’t want to throw any of that away. All responsible New Zealanders wish to continue to lock in the gains. It’s a phrase we’ve heard a lot recently, and I don’t know of a single New Zealander who doesn’t want us to build on where we’ve got to, where we’re at, to continue to ensure that New Zealand has a proud record in dealing with COVID.

We know that the threat will be there for some time to come. So this bill is the Government’s attempt to suggest, presumably, the only way that the issue can be dealt with, but it leads to dreadful anomalies. It leads to some appalling constraints on civil liberties which cannot be justified. And others have mentioned, including myself in particular, our deep distress at the impact on tangihanga, on funerals, on worship in all religious traditions, not just Christianity, but Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism, you name it. We’re a very multi-cultural country and all those places of worship are now being told that only 10 people will be able to gather for worship under this particular bill, despite the ridiculous anomaly that contact sports with much greater numbers of people will be possible, that much larger numbers of people will be able to go to the cinema, that they will be able to gather in restaurants, and if they are large restaurants—which will have much larger numbers of people. So if nothing else changes in the remaining stages of this particular bill’s passage through the House, could I urge the Government to think very carefully about that unfair constraint that is being put on our places of worship and, in particular, the devastating, cruel impact it’s having on those who are preparing for the funerals of those whom they love.

I mentioned a constituent earlier who’s in this position. He had expected that with his father’s funeral on Thursday, many members of the extended family and friends would be able to gather together—obviously observing safe physical distancing, which they would have done, but in a way that would have helped with the healing process that comes through mourning together. And now they’re in this awful position, as are so many other New Zealand families, of being told they’re not going to be able to do that under level 2.

There is no good reason for that. I’m going to continue to hammer it because nobody has yet justified why that should be so. Of course it’s natural to want to hug somebody at a time of distress, but people should be trusted to understand that that wouldn’t be possible at a funeral under level 2. But to suggest that they can’t be trusted and therefore they can’t even get together is outrageous, and we continue to object to that very, very strongly.

I may have been distracted earlier when the Attorney-General was speaking in his second reading speech. I hope that he will make clear whether—and it’s ironic because he is the Attorney-General—there will be a section 7 vetting of this particular bill under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

Hon David Parker: There has been.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: There has been?

Hon David Parker: Yep.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: And has the Minister been the judge and jury in his own particular issue?

Hon David Parker: No, no.

Hon TIM MACINDOE: Right. OK. Well, I’m pleased to hear that assurance, because New Zealanders do respect the rule of law, as David Seymour was suggesting earlier, and they are concerned when some people take the law into their own hands. And one of the things that is a concern arising under this bill is the possibility that vigilantism and undesirable intimidatory tactics by, say, gangs, as we have seen in some pockets of New Zealand in recent weeks, will effectively be condoned because of the wording of this legislation. Now, for an elderly couple who are legitimately going about their business—say, going to the shops or off for a short trip to the beach or whatever—to be stopped by pretty intimidating young, strong people who are, effectively, telling them to go back is a very frightening experience, and that must not be allowed to happen.

We are therefore seeking a very clear assurance from the Government in the remaining stages of this particular bill that only Crown agencies such as the Police and Customs will be permitted to carry out—

Order! Order! The member will resume his seat. I am now going to issue a general warning to the House that the bill being debated is the COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill. It is a bill I have read, and members have to attach their comments to what is in the bill, or matters very closely related to it. I want to say that I’ve shown more tolerance than I felt like, but won’t from now on.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to address the COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill. There are certain powers inside this piece of legislation that are required for the country to keep moving forward down the alert levels. The majority of New Zealanders understand the need for those powers. The majority of New Zealanders over alert level 4 and alert level 3 have followed the instructions for the betterment of the nation, and—as the Minister for Seniors—they’ve done so to protect those who they love who are over the age of 70. They have seen some New Zealanders flout those requirements and put the “law abiding”—was the phrase that was used by Mr Mitchell—at risk.

There will always be among us some of those who wish to push the boundaries. These boundaries and the powers that have been placed inside of this bill were placed there under the direction and advice of the medical profession, of the Director-General of Health. They are to keep us moving back to what is a post-COVID environment where we look out for each other. But I don’t know a single member in this House that would stand and say that there has ever been a time where every single citizen has obeyed the law. Therefore, the very reason why we have police or people who enforce the law is because we know that that will be so.

The Government is shifting this legislation now, and they’re doing it under urgency—and the Opposition knows this. The Opposition has placed many pieces of legislation, when they were in Government, under urgency—one, for example, to actually sell off trees that had fallen in a storm, I remember very clearly, to foreigners at the time. But the purpose of this legislation is that we are going to alert level 2 on Thursday. We don’t want to go back up to alert level 3. For the majority of New Zealanders, they must have the confidence that this House has provided the appropriate legislation and powers to ensure that those who will put their communities at risk by not following the simple requirements that are outlined in the legislation can and will be dealt with.

So there’s no point to going on much more. New Zealand First will support the bill because it’s a practical, reasonable, and responsible outcome to the circumstances we are in, and the time frame is the time frame created by COVID, and the advice around health, and the calls from businesses in New Zealand, calls from the Opposition to get us to alert level 2 as quickly as possible, and the calls—

Chris Penk: You don’t need this bill at level 2.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: No, Mr Penk, but we need the legislation to ensure that all of us are protected under an alert level 2 situation. That is the purpose of the legislation. We could move to alert level 2 on Thursday and then we could have parties, as we had seen under alert level 3, that put people at risk. I cannot believe that that is what Mr Penk and the Opposition are asking us to do. I cannot believe that the Opposition is advocating for a free-for-all at alert level 2. I cannot—I cannot believe that that is what Mr Penk is advocating for.

Chris Penk: Don’t be ridiculous.

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: But Mr Penk apparently is shouting out across the House to say that we do not need this legislation, so I’m not quite sure how he juxtaposes those two statements. New Zealand First will support the legislation.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand and rise to speak on this COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill. There’s no argument from this side about the “what”—the what we need to do to get the country back into a place of normality, where people have normal lives, kids go to school, people go to work, but what we are arguing on this side in regards to this bill before the House, as you so rightly said we should focus on, is the “how”. It’s how we do that. And that’s the reason why we’re having a debate. That’s the reason why we are called Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition: it’s because we speak on behalf of a nation to question and query—there’s no question about our role and responsibility.

So for the other side to turn around and say they should have a free pass, we know that that’s not the case. We just heard from the Hon Tracey Martin where she said, “This bill is fair, it’s reasonable, it’s considerate, it’s responsible.” I would say it is all of the opposite. In my speech I want to outline, in particular, the reasons why it’s not the “what” that this bill should do, which is that we should go into level 2; it’s the “how” that this Government intends to take us which I believe will be a real concern to the people of this nation, to the citizens.

When we are voted into Parliament, it is because of two simple words: trust and confidence. The people of New Zealand will give the governing body of the day their trust and their confidence. We’ve seen trust and confidence, and this bill addresses the issue of us moving to level 2—they have trust and confidence and we’ve seen that. Yes, the nation has rallied behind to get us out of a pandemic situation of great concern. But the concern that we are in now is that when we head into level 2 that trust and confidence, I believe, is now getting to the point where it’s now starting to wear thin. When New Zealanders begin to hear and see the “how” that this Government is declaring how they will do that, there are some real concerns for us.

Inside this bill, one of the areas in the explanatory note talks about “The measures in the bill take account of the particular characteristics of COVID-19”, but the concern that we have here is that it says: “such as its contagious nature and potential for asymptomatic transmission,”. In other words, it’s the possibility of, not the evidence of, that I believe is what this is saying in this bill. I know, you may be a little bit surprised about that, Mr Speaker—

SPEAKER: I certainly am.

Hon ALFRED NGARO: —but that’s how I interpret that part of it. So to me there is some ambiguity here already factored in this bill that I believe needs clarity. But when we talk about this ambiguity, I want to go over to page 2 of the bill in the explanatory note. There’s been a lot of conversation about the aspects of the imposition that this places. I know in the House many people have talked about probably some of the most critical times in people’s lives, and, in particular, around tangihanga, around death, and around funerals. My point in this conversation, this debate, is that I want to talk about trust and confidence.

Now, I have before me a document in which there was an engagement into the community—a document that was engaging with the funeral directors, that was engaging with different iwi, different groups that were there, those of the clergy, those who partake as those in taking these funerals and so forth. There’s plenty of documentation, there’s plenty of evidence to show that there has been a working out. It clearly states here in this document—at level 2, for instance, it talked about the issues around marae, it talked about tangihanga, and inside of that there was an indication that there would be no more than 100 people present. In particular here, I want to read from this, “already iwi and hapū have been adapting tikanga and kawa to keep our people safe. This has also extended to tangihanga.” So I want to say this: why is it that when it came to the trust and confidence of the people of our communities in Aotearoa New Zealand, and, in particular in this case, to our Māori community, who were saying that they been consulted, they have contributed, they have put plans in place; they could not be trusted—they could not be trusted. We’ve got teachers that, come next week on Monday, there will be 30 children in a class. They have been trusted to handle their affairs and to accommodate for the changes of safety inside that classroom. Schools will have from 350 to up to 1,700 children. Principals and management staff have been trusted that they will ensure the safety and the health and the wellbeing of those children. We’ve got supermarkets that now have aisle etiquette, waiting lines of 2-metre distances. We’ve got sanitisers. We’ve got restaurants that will go back eventually next week, with waiters and waitresses, with 100 people that could gather in a facility. We have trusted them to have a plan to ensure the health and safety of all those that enter, yet we cannot trust those who have been consulted, those at the heartbeat of the situation in the most difficult time of mourning and grieving, where people have lost a loved one; we cannot trust them. We cannot trust those to be able to accommodate for that.

That is one of the issues that we take offence to which is in the bill. It talks about that on page 2, it talks about that at the bottom of the explanatory notes where it clearly states this: these powers “can be expressly exercised in respect of classes of people, businesses … other activities … weddings [and] funerals”, and that’s what I’m speaking to in this regard.

I want to appeal to the Māori caucus of Labour and those that are across there. This has come not just from those who are consultants and academics; this has come from iwi leaders. This has come from other people who’ve clearly stated: “Trust us. Trust us.” They’ve accommodated. They’ve changed in tikanga and kawa. Why is it they have not been trusted to accommodate for one of the most difficult times in their situation and their lives of their community? I think that’s a grievous issue too.

I want to go to, again in the bill, and I want to point to and highlight this issue here on page 3 under “Enforcement”, and, in particular, what it highlights in the second paragraph: “To enable enforcement of the measures in orders, the Police are given a power to enter premises, including private dwelling[s] and marae, without a warrant”—without a warrant. I want to ask the question to the Attorney-General: why were marae highlighted here? And if it was highlighted, then what evidence did he use? What basis did he do? I know, because I’ve spoken to some of those Māori leaders—by the way they were consulted—and here’s what they did say but was not listened to by this Government: “There is neither a general Treaty clause nor any obligation to have regard to the Treaty or its principles at any point of decision making or performance of functions under this Act.”

So I say to the Māori caucus that are over there, are you rolling over on your bellies to get tickled and say this should just go ahead? This is not correct. This is not right. They’ve been consulted, they gave their views, and, you know what, they haven’t been listened to. They haven’t been trusted. Nowhere here in this bill—and I look forward to the Attorney-General answering this, but in the first reading, why was it not included? This advice was given prior to this bill being presented. Yep, that’s right; it’s come as a Supplementary Order Paper. In other words, it was an afterthought. You had to correct it because if you’d done it at the start, when the information and consultation was given to you right at the beginning, then you would have put it straight in. I would say this—

Hon David Parker: The member misunderstood; that’s what’s happening.

Hon ALFRED NGARO: Well, the Minister may be saying there’s misunderstanding, but I’m reading right from the people who were consulted, the iwi leaders that were consulted. It clearly states here in clause 4 that “the purpose of the Bill is to support a public health response”. That’s in the bill where it’s recording that. However, again, it clearly states here that Māori are affected by this because they haven’t been consulted directly with this bill. So to the Māori caucus on the other side: where are you? Where is your voice? Why are you not listening to your community? And again, the word marae was put in there. Here’s what the Māori leaders are saying: “It’s like a stigma that has been created, and a level of untrust to the Māori community.”, because, if it was—again, here’s the evidence. Here’s the information that was supported prior to an SOP—prior to a Supplementary Order Paper. What’s the SOP for? To correct what hadn’t been put there in the first place. That’s what an SOP is there for.

There is a real concern. To the members of the public that are listening here, it’s not the “what” that we should do, which is to have a piece of legislation taking us into level 2, but it’s the “how” this Government is going about it. There is no trust and confidence. When they’ve gone out to engage and to consult, the community have given them advice. Funeral directors have talked about this. Those that are part of the clergy have talked about this. They’ve shared their advice, their thoughts with them, and, again, they have not been trusted. You can trust the teachers, you can trust the supermarkets, you can even trust the restaurateurs, the cafes, and the pubs, but you can’t trust a funeral director whose role of responsibility is to be there at the grieving and the most difficult time in people’s lives.

I’ve heard it said by an epidemiologist: “Fear is a very powerful stimulant. In the right way it will guard and protect, but with the wrong means it is all about power and control.” This bill here is simply about one thing: using the stimulant of fear for power and control of this nation and of its people.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to support the COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill. I just want to take it up a level and acknowledge the really huge sacrifice that the country has been through over the last few weeks and the profound impact that is going to have on us as a country for a very long time to come. I want to reflect back that a sense of anxiety has lessened on the whole, and we’re seeing this in terms of some of the feedback from surveys. People were really, really anxious as we were going into level 4 and deeply worried about their own safety. We were hearing that on a regular basis, and how that has reduced over time as we’ve seen the numbers shift from going up so dramatically to coming down to the point where we are now. That’s been because we’ve all worked together to be able to achieve this, and it is a significant achievement for us as a country, and I really want to acknowledge everyone’s efforts to get to this point.

Over this period of time, we’ve been supported by the Health Act and the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act to enable our police system as well as our ministries to be able to act to ensure that the guidelines were kept to, to be able to keep all of us safe. But the advice that we’ve had is that, actually, that is less certain going into level 2—that the legal framework does not support the enforcement that we may need. Let’s hope we don’t need it, but, actually, I’ve seen parties happening not that far from me, and the need for intervention from the police, and that’s been in a situation where there are really high levels of anxiety. As we hope that that anxiety continues to decline, there is an increased chance that people will relax to a point that they act inconsistently with our collective interests. We need to have the tools to be able to intervene to ensure that our sacrifice wasn’t for nothing and to ensure our safety into the future, and that is what this piece of legislation is about.

Of course it’s not ideal that this is not going to a select committee. Of course all of us would want that to happen, in the ideal circumstances. I suspect there is still an understanding that this has been a rapidly evolving situation and that we are moving into level 2 on Thursday and we need to get that legal certainty before we do. That’s why the Green Party accepted the proposal of having an exposure draft go to the Opposition and to key experts: to be able to get that feedback to ensure that we were having those broader sets of eyes and perspectives to make amendments which will be debated in the committee stage. We’ve seen some really good feedback come through that process, and changes, I understand, will be happening, and that gives us a level of confidence with this.

I also do want to recognise, on a principle level, those concerns about the powers that are in this legislation. People are right to be very conscious of that. This is not something any Government or Parliament should consider lightly. Warrantless entry into dwellings is a significant power, and it needs proper scrutiny. This is the reason it’s in here: because we are in exceptional circumstances, and this is what we’ve been told in terms of—

Nicola Willis: What’s wrong with a warrant?

JAN LOGIE: Because the warrant may just take too long to be able to ensure.

I will just say that what’s happened with this is that they’ve been confined to situations where police have reasonable grounds that a gathering is occurring that breaches the rules—so it’s not limitless—that has been brought in, and that they may only enter the premises if it is necessary to direct people to disperse. It is not a broad power for warrantless entry.

I think that’s really important to note, because, if you think about that—they’ve got reasonable grounds in terms of people not abiding by the conditions of level 4 and they believe they need to disperse people—that’s a safety issue. In the context we’re in at the moment and what we’ve been through and what we’re heading into, we need to be putting safety first. It’s a simple principle.

I’d also point that the bill is structured to support a graduated approach to different breaches of rules that we are supportive of, and that the purpose includes a subsection that states that the enforceable measures in the bill are there to support voluntary measures. It includes an infringement regime which allows a non-criminal pathway for offending. We hope that that will be supported by warnings, which is what we’ve been seeing in the practice up to this point, but it gives the police and enforcement agencies further options in terms of intervening so that things don’t escalate unnecessarily.

There are significant democratic checks on the orders made, including being referred to the Regulations Review Committee and a necessary confirmation vote by Parliament if they are to last more than a month or two, and the bill also has a sunset clause of two years. This is not a piece of legislation that has been drafted lightly without consideration of the seriousness of this issue. If we are considering the safety of our country, though, what we’ve been told is that we need those powers to be able to intervene and to have this legal certainty to be able to support that action.

I just can’t understand—with some of the Opposition views coming through that I’ve heard, saying that this just isn’t necessary to move to level 2 and we don’t need this legislation—how anybody could consider that that is responsible or reflective of the huge sacrifice that’s been made and the efforts that are going to be required to protect the gains from that sacrifice. The Greens are supporting this legislation.

This is a COVID cluster in the other meaning of that phrase. Not many of us are very familiar with emergency powers legislation. By its very nature it’s not something with which we are usually familiar—that’s the whole point.

The basis, uncertain as it is, of what we have had so far is challenged by the very notion—as we keep hearing from the Government benches—that we need this to go into level 2. As Mr Macindoe has already said, we have already been in level 2 before. If this is a tacit admission from the Government that there was no legal basis from that then I’d rather that we had that conversation openly and honestly, and on a basis on which we can understand whether, in fact, such a piece of legislation as this is indeed required. And I note that legal academics have raised the question—I don’t want to mischaracterise their position by stating it as anything other than a question—about the legal basis for what we have endured so far, but it’s a fair question.

It’s a question too that, implicitly, the Epidemic Response Committee has asked. The request for the advice that had been provided—I think I’m safe to say that I don’t anticipate that that is going to be forthcoming; and, of course, we could spend a lot of time talking about the spurious use of legal privilege, but I won’t do so, I’ve got to maintain tightly on the bill. But it’s really important to understand, by way of context, for all those who are following this debate at home—perhaps struggling to understand why a piece of legislation should be needed to authorise level 2 that was not needed for level 4 or level 3, or, before that, level 2—and I can only say that I share their bemusement, because the Government’s position on this is entirely illogical.

If the Government believes that the current arrangements are not legitimate then it should say so and we can get on with making a set of arrangements in this bill. But if it is already legitimate for level 4, before that level 3, level 2, then, of course, this is not needed at all.

So why the rush? Well, I think the explanation is surely that the Government genuinely believes that if it doesn’t pass this piece of legislation in the next 48 hours, we won’t be able to go to level 2 at one minute to midnight this Thursday, which as I say is an extraordinary notion and I cannot believe—I genuinely can’t believe—that they would stand up in this House and maintain that. And to mischaracterise the National Party in Opposition as saying that we are somehow arguing for the need for level 2 to be implemented as a matter of reality on the ground is fatuous in the extreme.

A New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vetting of this bill is sorely needed. I think I understand from an exchange that took place earlier that has been produced. I haven’t seen that. It may or may not be available, I don’t know. The bill I’ve seen now for less than 24 hours, so I’m trying to get my head round it as best I can in this, the second reading speech. Ordinarily, of course, a second reading speech focuses on what happened at select committee. Well, we all know there’s not going to be that opportunity, because the Government knows better than to bother to listen to those except the select few to whom it has already released the exposure draft.

Well, I don’t think we should have much confidence that the rules that are going to be proclaimed by fiat are going to be particularly easy to understand or follow. We’ve got such absurdities as funerals and weddings having a more restrictive basis, not less. Just to clarify if you’re listening at home and you’re tuning in trying to make head and tail of this, it will be more restrictive to be at a funeral or a tangi or a wedding than it is to go to the restaurant on a Saturday night with your friends—provided that your friends are suitably grouped into 10 people or more—because, of course, a virus knows the difference between a group booking of 10 and a group booking of 11 within a mass of 100 warm bodies.

The rights and freedoms touched upon by this bill are absolutely considerable. And this is the point, of course, about the need for a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act discussion even; if not a formal document showing that the Attorney-General and others have turned their mind to whether the rights and freedoms are constrained in a manner that is justified in a free and democratic society, then at least for some justifications more meaningful than those we’ve heard tonight would be really, really helpful indeed.

So just to be clear, then, two wrongs don’t make a right. If the current regime does not have a sound legal basis—and I leave that question open, genuinely, I would like to know the answer—then surely it doesn’t make sense or remedy the situation to have a different regime that’s also lacking in its lawfulness or democratic basis. And so on that note I want to touch on a few of the specifics within the bill to the extent that I think New Zealanders are being sold very badly short in terms of what the Government is proposing for itself.

First, in the general policy statement of the bill itself it states that restrictions will be able to be applied that and I quote, “do not rely on powers provided by a state of national emergency”. Well, it’s one or the other, surely. If the Government wants emergency powers, then there should be a state of national emergency. And if there isn’t a state of national emergency declared by the Government, then it shouldn’t be seeking and applying emergency powers. This is an extraordinary disconnect, and, as I say, I genuinely can’t understand how they can be so brazen as to set out in the explanatory note to such a reach for power as that.

Again, you know, we read about a modern and consistent set of rules being the recommended practice by legal academics and others. Well, if we could see the legal advice on which they’re relying, that would be a really good start to understanding whether that statement is to be relied upon.

The bill, again by its own account, gives power to set enforceable measures. Authorisations by the Prime Minister or the Minister of Health are two ways by which that can happen. I don’t want to unduly personalise the matter, but the Minister of Health himself has had—let’s just say—“confusion” in relation to rules that have been set at the previous alert levels. And the point is not whether the rules were or were not followed by a particular person; the point is that there was considerable debate for at least two or three days about whether the rules had been followed or not. And this is the person—and again, I don’t mean this in a way to target Dr Clark, but any person whose judgment is to be relied upon to this fundamental extent is being given more power than he or she should be given in any democracy worth the name.

In my remaining time, I want to talk about, again, the sophistry associated with statements such as the bill, again, by its own account, being consistent with existing legislative conventions. Well, what’s consistent with existing legislative conventions is legislation. And if this Government were to come to this House more frequently than it’s currently proposing at two-year intervals or perhaps as little as three months, which, of course, is an improvement, then that would be helpful, indeed. But legislative conventions also include such safeguards as a select committee process, not passing everything in urgency within 24 hours or so, being subject to a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet, and so on. And of course, the fundamental nature of this bill, it’s not legislation that we are agreeing on as a House of Parliament about what the rules should be; we’re agreeing a set of rules that say that the Government can agree the rules—or actually not even the Government; specific Ministers within the Government. So even Cabinet, for all its imperfections, isn’t all going to get to have a say, and I wonder if New Zealand First have worked that out yet.

The power to make orders under the bill—again, I think we should all be worried that they’re talking about exercising expressly certain orders in respect of classes of people; certain businesses; other activities such as sporting events, weddings, funerals, etc. And of course, it’s this kind of anomaly that we’re having to deal with at the moment. A word of advice to any temples, churches, synagogues, mosques, and so on: I recommend that you serve some food at your gathering—perhaps, you know, bread and wafer as communion. Call yourselves a restaurant and you can have 100 people.

Finally, on the subject of enforcement, others have touched on the power to enter premises being afforded to police without a warrant. This is a very dangerous situation, and I say that not with any disrespect to our police force, but rather precisely because I have huge respect for our boys and girls in blue. I don’t think they should be put in the invidious position that this legislation is, effectively, asking them to be placed in by the Minister of Health or the Prime Minister, and so on.

And my final question—and I very much look forward to having a conversation with the Minister in the chair at the committee stage of the House—is whether this legislation that’s before us now is intended to displace the equivalent existing powers that have been exercised, for example, under level 3 and level 4 under the Health Act and the civil defence legislation. So many questions and we’ve got very little opportunity even to ask them, let alone have them answered. It’s deeply disappointing and, as I say, a COVID cluster in at least one sense of that phrase.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and speak in the second reading of this bill. I will address some of the questions raised by the previous member, Chris Penk. He raised at one point the question about whether there had been a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet. I can let him know that there has, so that piece of process has been done. It is accessible, so I encourage the member to look at that. He also questions whether the existing legal framework was adequate or whether, in fact, the current regime has a sound legal basis. It does. And he questions whether the purpose of this bill is to design one. Because it doesn’t. It explicitly says—and I do encourage him to read the bill—in the explanatory note, paragraph 1, “That single broad policy is to establish a fit-for-purpose legal framework for managing the unprecedented circumstances of the COVID-19 epidemic in a co-ordinated and orderly way, even if there is no longer a national state of emergency. To this end, this Bill establishes standalone legislation that provides a different legal framework for corresponding to COVID-19 over the next 2 years or until COVID-19 is sooner brought under control.”

To put that another way: essentially, it’s saying that we have the powers we need for responding to an emergency in the area of health, to respond in a situation where a crisis emerges. Those powers exist—an undescribed crisis—and so those responses have happened. Now that we have the opportunity, over time, to have a more specific piece of legislation for this particular disease and for our response to it, it seems fitting and appropriate, firstly, that the whole Parliament can debate it, so that we can have the Parliament’s agreement to the framework that underpins the decision making around our country’s response to this virus. And it also makes sense to have legislation that was not designed for the immediate crisis but that is designed for an ongoing management situation, and therefore can be more fit-for-purpose. That, indeed, is explained in the explanatory note, in paragraph 1, of the bill.

But for those who have just tuned in to the debate, as well, it’s also true that there has been much said about funerals that I have heard in the context of this debate. And I have to say, as a Cabinet, certainly, my experience—and I’ve heard the Prime Minister also talk about this, and other Cabinet Ministers—limiting the number of people attending a tangi or a funeral is one of the most difficult decisions we’ve had to make in the context of COVID-19. Grieving for the loss of a loved one is an incredibly intense and difficult human experience, and people in those situations do tend to want to physically comfort one another. That is the reality of the grieving process. As a funeral celebrant myself, I’ve been involved in many funerals and, of course, have observed the way in which we do comfort each other in these situations. Overseas, sadly, we have seen situations where people who’ve come together for the purpose of grieving—in funerals where they have gathered there has been spread of COVID-19 and then there has been further, subsequent, tragic loss. And so that is not something we ever want to see in this country.

We have made an in-principle decision that we should not have gatherings of more than 10 people unless, of course, there is more than 10 people in an existing bubble—but that restaurants won’t take bookings of more than 10 people, for example; that funerals and tangihanga will be restricted in physical presence to 10 people. Of course, there are other practices in place which are more common these days, where also these services can be broadcast via social media and other means, video-recorded and watched as well. That will be some comfort to people, though, it has to be said, it will still be incredibly difficult for those people in that situation. That is why we do want to examine that and lift those restrictions as soon as we have confidence. In another cycle of the virus we will re-examine it. We do want to loosen those restrictions as soon as we safely can.

I think the important thing here is that as a country, many people have made sacrifices through the existing time of level 4, and we want to lock those gains in. We do not want to see people go through unnecessary suffering. We want to lock in the gains and move forward together.

Mr Speaker? Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER: Oh, sorry. No, it is a National call, so I call Nicola Willis. Thank you. I’d be a bit impolite, really.

NICOLA WILLIS: National welcomes alert level 2. We accept the need for a legal framework for enforcement of the requirements under level 2, and we share New Zealanders’ sense of the collective achievement that together, our compliance with restrictions under level 4 and level 3 has allowed to occur: our low transmission rate. And we share the relief that we have been spared some of the worst that we have seen occur overseas.

But we in National are also very alive to the growing sense of concern and, frankly, despair, by too many who have been unevenly impacted by these restrictions and who fear they will go on for some time to come: businesses, but not just businesses, families with relatives who may die soon, families unable to visit their loved ones to spend time with each other at times of grief. And we on this side of the House feel a sincere and solemn duty to scrutinise the bill before us today with that in mind, but also in mind of the social contract that New Zealand has had over these past seven weeks that we will accept restrictions on our freedom where they are proportionate to the risk that we face.

With this bill, there are questions that we have of principle, of process, and of how it will be applied in practice. We do not think that the broad-ranging powers granted to the Government in this bill are proportionate or justified under level 2. I accept that New Zealanders may listen to me tonight and say, “Well, that’s what you say about the bill, but I think I’ll just believe the people on the other side.” So I want to quote for you what the Ministry of Justice said in their report, which they provided to Andrew Little, assessing the consistency of this bill with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act: “The Ministry of Justice acknowledged that this bill places unprecedented limits on rights and freedoms of association and movement.” The ministry went further; at paragraph 38, they say, “Together, the potential requirements that can be imposed by orders under clause 10 of the bill could, if applied to their fullest extent, impose arguably the most extreme and significant limitation on New Zealanders’ ability to go freely about our daily lives as has occurred in modern New Zealand history.” So we must not underestimate the significance of this bill and its reach, and, therefore, the role we as an Opposition must play in our parliamentary duty in scrutinising it.

So what are the issues of principle at stake? Well, first of all, this is a stand-alone legal framework that grants extensive powers to the Government to issue orders broadly as it sees fit. There has been argument on the other side that there are sufficient safeguards here. Well, the safeguards imposed simply require that the Minister think there is something to prevent and that the Minister of Health agrees that that is the case.

The powers have been created in a process of extraordinary haste. We saw this bill at 5 p.m. last night—all three readings today; no select committee process, despite a recommendation that there should be one; no prior engagement, despite National’s gesture of goodwill that we agree that a legally enforceable framework is needed and are prepared to work with the Government on it. The signs of haste are all there. Today, the Minister introduces a 23-page Supplementary Order Paper amending problems in this bill, and the Minister argues, “Oh, we didn’t have time for a select committee process.” Minister Parker, we have been in lockdown for seven weeks, and you should have envisaged that level 2 would come one day and be prepared with the legislation needed to enforce it. I do not accept that a select committee process is not needed.

The context here is that we did know that level 2 would come one day, and the Government did not prepare. In practice, we already have reason to be concerned about the arbitrary and contradictory way that orders may be imposed under this bill. We have spoken in this House of funerals and the grief that can’t be shared by friends and family. The report by the Ministry of Justice doesn’t even acknowledge the freedom to worship as a potential issue of right. The issues of enforcement of warrantless entry—

SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT to continue supporting this bill through the second reading in the hope that we’ll see some useful amendments at the committee stage to come.

I couldn’t help but notice, as I was waiting to speak, the Minister of Health moving about the Chamber and speaking to the Minister of Internal Affairs and the Attorney-General, coming within half a metre of their faces as he spoke. The most interesting thing was I watched you watch them, and I thought I must say to the Speaker that I hope he’ll reflect on that experience when deciding whether every member can sit in the House and be here for the Budget on Thursday, because there would appear to be an inconsistency. But I’m sure you will think about it carefully.

When it comes to this bill, there are a couple of issues that need to be considered and further examined. Normally, of course—and other members have said this—we would have had the first reading six months ago and a select committee would have consulted the public and issued a report, and we would have got all sorts of feedback. In this truncated, urgent reading we’ve gone straight from the first reading to the second. I have had some feedback from a former member, Marama Fox, who just texted me, “Bro, this is outrageous.” I certainly think that there would be people within Māoridom, as she has said, who would have wanted to have that kind of feedback.

One area where I think it would be important to examine the bill is where it says that there are classes of people. I read clause 12. It says that these measures can be put in place in relation to generally all people in New Zealand or to any specified class of people. That’s incredibly unusual because we’re so wedded to this idea that the law applies to people equally in New Zealand. So the idea that the Government can single out classes of people—and I can only imagine in the context of COVID-19, they had in mind, perhaps, older New Zealanders. I don’t know what the Minister for Seniors thinks—

Hon Tracey Martin: It’s in reference to enforcement officers.

DAVID SEYMOUR: —but I have to say that the idea that a class of people can be singled out to have measures imposed on them is something that’s quite worrying. I think we need more explanation from the Attorney-General, from the Government side, why it’s possible to single out, you know, a class of person to have a restriction put on them, because that I find quite worrying. Tracey Martin has been heckling throughout, for people who can’t hear, saying that that’s about the enforcement officers. Well, that’s certainly not my reading. It says that they can impose measures and they apply in relation to people, generally to all people or any specified class of people. So Tracey Martin is heckling away, and I think she’s read it wrong in her claim that I have.

Hon David Parker: Which clause?

DAVID SEYMOUR: The other area—clause 12(1)(b)(i) is the one I’m referring to for the benefit of the Attorney-General who’s now joined in the conversation here.

I also say that the issues raised by Mark Mitchell around the ability of constables to enter a house because people might be having a party—well, you know, warrantless searches have been very tightly circumscribed. When we redid the laws for the SIS and GCSB a few years ago—and that was a time when there was a lot of cross-party cooperation, and Chris Finlayson led that very well—what we said was that we would have a very finely graduated escalation where the judge would have to be involved, and if there was to be some sort of urgent action, it was retrospectively validated. I do wonder if this ability of the police to enter a private house to break up a party because they think there might be too many people there is really a properly proportional response to a COVID-19 party. It seems that that’s excessive.

So I leave those two thoughts as we progress through this urgent legislative process. It’s critical, if we’re going to do this fast, that we get it as right as we can. I see the Attorney-General getting some advice now, so hopefully we’ll hear a bit more about that in later stages. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, thank you very much. There will be fewer restrictions under level 2, and we are well aware of this, but those remaining still need to be enforceable, and that is the purpose of this piece of legislation we are now debating. We don’t want these narrower controls to be relying upon a national state of emergency. So this new law will recognise the central role of health factors and the measures that we need to take to acknowledge the fact that we have saved lives in New Zealand by taking the measures we have taken to date, and we must continue to do so in order to make sure we do not yo-yo back and forth to higher levels of warning as we have seen in other countries who have not followed through with the downgraded levels.

This new law will also provide that the Minister of Health become a decision maker in the advice taken on board by the Director-General of Health. It will also provide for economic and social factors to be taken into account in determining appropriate measures. The vast majority of New Zealanders do want to do the right thing, and they do comply because they know that it is within their best interests to do so.

During my time in lockdown, one of the things that I undertook to do was make a number of phone calls to those in the community within the Hutt Valley who may have needed extra support, particularly those in the over-65 group. And in that group—

SPEAKER: I want to thank the member—

GINNY ANDERSEN: I did call him. I did call you, Trevor.

SPEAKER: —for having concern for her local constituents.

GINNY ANDERSEN: And in that group, there were a number of concerns raised. But the point I would like to make here is the main concern was those New Zealanders that were making sacrifices, that were staying inside, that were changing their lives—the thing that worried them the most was others who were not. They felt that it was unfair that there could be a group—

SPEAKER: I’m now going to ask the member, despite her generosity, to start speaking to the bill.

GINNY ANDERSEN: Sure. So the point of this bill is—I was making my way to the point, Mr Speaker—that the regulatory backup provided by this new law allows us to address the behaviour at alert level 2 that is particularly harmful to that public health objective that we have laid out right from the start and to demonstrate to those who are complying voluntarily that non-compliance will not be tolerated. Non-compliance is a real risk to the wellbeing and the safety of New Zealanders. So it is important that this bill provides for the enforcement to enable a quick response if there are situations—whether that be a business that’s not abiding by the social distancing requirements or whether that be a congregation of people in a party setting. There are a number of different responses that police have been required to attend, and it’s important that those abilities to enforce a strong public health response are enabled by the law, and that is exactly what this bill does.

New Zealanders need to be commended, and we have been commended internationally for our amazing ability to band together and to fight back against COVID-19. And we have largely done that. But the time has now come for some of those temporary measures to be made permanent as we move through the final stages and make sure that we are safe in an ongoing way. It does concern me that members of the Opposition do not see the merit and the benefit and the public good in ensuring that we are safe and that we do not put ourselves in positions of spreading COVID-19 unnecessarily. While the vast majority of New Zealanders abide by this, we know that some are not, and we want to make sure that those instances are minimised as much as possible.

I would like to conclude by acknowledging that this legislation is designed for the ongoing management of a situation that has been unprecedented within New Zealand’s history, and that at this time we need to acknowledge that a new framework is needed that is not relying upon a national state of emergency. It provides a good framework that is able to operate to ensure New Zealanders are safe and that we can continue to live our lives at a new level of freedom without putting at risk those around us. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. No one in New Zealand wanted COVID-19, no one in New Zealand asked for it, no one in New Zealand could have predicted it, and no one in New Zealand wants to see it flare up and spread through our communities again.

Over the last eight weeks, we’ve seen New Zealanders at their best. They’ve stayed home, saved lives. New Zealanders have done the right thing fighting COVID-19. People in my electorate have done the right thing: staying home, saving lives. We’re proud of how we’ve done as a country. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved. I feel a sense of national pride, which I know is felt deeply across our country. We’re proud of what we’ve achieved. We’re proud of our front-line health workers. We’re proud of the fact that we have not seen significant numbers of fatalities from COVID-19.

However, New Zealanders are also proud of our values, we’re proud of our democracy, and we’re proud of our freedoms. We don’t give up our freedoms lightly: our freedom of movement, our freedom of association, our freedoms to gather and meet with like-minded people, our freedom to start a business and to work hard to make a living, our freedom of religion and to worship or not to worship, our freedom to mourn the loss of a loved one. This bill cuts to the heart of those freedoms. Yes, we know that we must give up our freedoms in times of a national emergency to unite to achieve a common goal against a common enemy: COVID-19. We know that this may need to be done for a temporary period of time, but we don’t give up those freedoms lightly and we don’t give up those freedoms permanently. When we do give them up, we don’t give them up without some level of proportionality. This bill, the COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill, is not a proportionate response to COVID-19 and the threat that it provides.

I’d like to focus on a number of areas. Firstly, in highlighting how this bill is disproportionate to New Zealanders. This bill is one of the most extreme pieces of legislation to ever come to this Parliament. Under clause 11 of this bill, the Minister of Health and the Prime Minister will have the ability to substantially affect every area of New Zealanders’ lives: the ability to refrain people from associating with specific people, to enforce physical distancing rules, to prohibit gatherings of specific kinds in specific places in specific circumstances, require isolation, prohibit things from entering or permit the entry of things into any port or place. The impact that this bill has on our society is extreme. I go back to the point I made at the start: we understand that we give up our freedoms temporarily, but we don’t give them up permanently and we don’t give them up without there being some form of proportionately.

When you have such extreme legislation in place which gives such extreme powers to the Government, there is always a risk of those powers being misused. We only need to look at what has already been announced by the Government over the last week in regards to what level 2 will mean to see that these will be misused. You can look at the examples of weddings, of funerals, of tangi, of church and religious services which last week were told could have a maximum number of a hundred and now are being told that they can only have a maximum number of 10.

I’d like to read a letter that I received today from a funeral director in my electorate who said, “We currently have in our care a well-known local gentleman whose family visit most days to sit with him. They were hoping level 2 would allow them to hold a farewell at the club in honour of him; now they’re having to rethink this due to the level 2 announcement. This is one of many families from varying cultures in our care that have been waiting for level 2 to hold a service. They feel let down and confused as to how to move forward.”

This is not only an unfair change to the rules, it’s not only a misuse of the rules; it’s an inhumane use of the rules and it is an untrusting use of the rules. New Zealanders have been told to be kind; New Zealanders have been told that the Government trusts them to make the right decisions; but now, when it comes to level 2, we’re being told: “No, we don’t trust you to hold a funeral and to physically and socially distance at that period.” We’ve heard speakers argue and say, “Well, you can go to a cafe, a restaurant, a cinema, a school, and we trust you there, but we don’t trust you at one of the most important moments in life, which is actually death, a moment of grief, a moment where people come together to remember their loved ones.”

I come also to the area of church and religious services, and these have also been limited to 10. My colleague Nicola Willis mentioned the consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the Ministry of Justice advice and how this advice didn’t even touch on the freedom of worship under section 15 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I quote section 15: “Every person has the right to manifest that person’s religion or belief in worship, observance, practice, or teaching, either individually or in community with others, and either [publicly] or in private.” The advice didn’t even cover that fundamental right, and I find that abhorrent.

I’m not ashamed of the fact that I’m someone who goes to church every Sunday. We’ve done the right thing: we’ve held our church services on Zoom, as have many other churches up and down the country. They’ve had live streams on YouTube, they’ve played their part. Most churches aren’t big churches in New Zealand. Our church only has 50 people. We won’t be able to meet this Sunday under these new rules, as will many other churches across New Zealand. These rules go to the heart of what it means to be a Kiwi, and I find it abhorrent.

It comes down to, then, the enforcement of these rules—and I find these provisions extreme. The powers in this bill, under clause 20, give enforcement officers the ability to enter any premise and close it at any time. It gives powers to the police to enter any premise, anywhere, at any time, to ensure that people are following the rules. They could enter your home. They could enter your business. They could enter your most sacred place. Your home, being your castle, at any time is no longer sacred under this legislation. And then the ability to fine you and potentially imprison you. Those are all powers which this bill has.

Lastly, I come to the area of safeguards, because when Parliament puts in place legislation with such extreme provisions, the question has to be: where are the safeguards? Where are the safeguards in this piece of legislation? Well, it has a two-year time limit. Two years. This piece of legislation will be in place for two years. I understand the Government is looking at making that three months at a time; however that is still an extremely long period of time. This Parliament will have the numbers, without the Opposition having to be part of that, to extend that three-month period every single time.

This bill has a number of occasions where it says the Minister must have regard to any Government decision on the risk and consult the Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice, and any other Minister that the Minister of Health thinks fit. “Have regard to”, “consult”—those are words which are so weak that you could drive a bus through them. The Leader of the Opposition is not required to be consulted. When we go through a time of national crisis, we should do that together and we should have both the Government and the Opposition playing an important role in that. This legislation does not provide the Opposition any single area where it can have influence over the decisions which are made by the Government, or the powers.

I heard David Seymour speak about the ability of the judicial review. Judicial review is available, but how much does it cost to take a case to court? You hear people on the Government benches constantly talking about the cost of justice in our country, and now they’re saying that if you want to stand for your freedoms, you’ve got to take a case to court under judicial review. Where are the freedoms, where are the checks, where are the balances in this piece of legislation?

So this is not a proportionate piece of legislation. I oppose it alongside my National Party colleagues. Thank you.

This is the final speech of the second reading, and it’s incumbent, I think, to provide a couple of brief observations in respect of the debate that’s been had in this reading. We’ve just heard from our colleague from Papakura—

Simeon Brown: Pakuranga.

KIRITAPU ALLAN: —Pakuranga, my apologies—who gave an impassioned speech about the limitations on rights. I think, therefore, it is very useful to refer to the section 7 report that has been prepared by the office of legal counsel and referred to by my friend Nicola Willis across the aisle. Just prior, she made a brief reference to paragraph 38 in the section 7 report, and to that extent she talked about how the summary was that this particular bill may impose arguably the most extreme and significant limitations on New Zealanders’ ability to freely go about our daily lives as has occurred in modern New Zealand history. She concluded her remarks at that point.

Now, we know that in a debate as significant as this one, it is very important that New Zealanders who are tuning in to understand what is being debated in this House and what legislation is being introduced understand the full advice that has been provided to this House. So I will, therefore, read the next part: “Nevertheless and despite the potential degree of these restrictions, the bill may be consistent with the Bill of Rights if the limitations are necessary and can be justified in a free and democratic society.”

The office of legal counsel did an analysis on an array of the freedoms and the rights that are bestowed upon us within the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. They assessed peaceful assembly, freedom of association, freedom of movement, freedom from discrimination, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, the liberty of the person, and the right to justice in civil proceedings. The key consideration that he had to turn his mind to was whether or not the limitation can be justified, and in making those very clear observations about the extent to which this bill does impose—as has been stated in this House—some of the most extreme and significant limitations, the finding was that these limitations can indeed be justified on the basis of what it is that this bill is going to address, which is the rapid spread of COVID-19.

That is the rapid spread of COVID-19, and now, in this House this afternoon, we are debating whether or not we introduce a public health response and whether we can provide the full, bespoke legal framework that is required for our country to adequately respond to a once-in-a-lifetime public pandemic, and this legislation enables us to transition to alert level 2 with that framework being in place. Whilst there have been some impassioned speeches given in this House this afternoon, I do note that it is interesting that our friend Mr Penk, who revels in his legal abilities—it was an interesting remark that he made after an impassioned speech on the rights and limits that would be placed on freedoms, which was that he hadn’t actually turned his mind to this particular piece of advice that is sitting on a website for all of us to find.

So look, from this side of the House, we understand the gravity of what is being asked of New Zealanders, and we have at every stage been aware of what is being asked of New Zealanders. But, sir, at this late stage in the night, and with that look upon your face, I can only say we commend the bill to the House.