COVid-19 orders — Approval

I move, That this House approve the following orders made under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020: COVID-19 Public Health Response (Revocations) Order 2022 (SL 2022/254), COVID-19 Public Health Response (Masks) Order 2022 (SL 2022/255), and COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements) Amendment Order 2022 (SL (SL 2022/257).

I’m asking the House to approve COVID-19 orders to ensure that they are not revoked within a certain time frame. Today’s motion approves four orders. I’d like to again reiterate that I am grateful to the members of the Regulations Review Committee for their comments and observations, which continue to influence and improve how orders are drafted. I want to thank them for their continued work examining these orders. I’ll now outline what those orders contain.

One of the orders today makes amendments to the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Masks) Order 2022. It revokes the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Protection Framework) Order 2021 and removes all requirements in the order except the requirement for certain people to wear a mask in healthcare settings.

The COVID-19 Public Health Response (Revocations) Order 2022 revokes various orders, removing certain restrictions, including isolation and quarantine restrictions for people in managed isolation and quarantine facilities; requirements for people arriving in New Zealand by sea; specific testing requirements for arrivals at the border; and requirements that certain types of work be carried out only by workers who are vaccinated.

We have also amended the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order 2021 and removed most of the restrictions that applied to people arriving in New Zealand by air. Incoming travellers are no longer required to wear a face mask while on board their flight or be vaccinated before arriving in New Zealand.

Lastly, the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements) Amendment Order removes the requirement for household contacts of COVID-19 cases to self-isolate.

We have been clear that the measures used to contain the spread of COVID-19 need to be proportionate to the risk of the virus. Some of the tools that were justified now need to be removed. Our response continues to evolve, and we will be significantly narrowing the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020, removing the most restrictive powers from the Act that are no longer required for the response while ensuring we can practically manage the ongoing impact of COVID- 19.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak to these orders, and I thank the Minister, the Hon Ayesha Verrall, for bringing them to the House. National will be substantively supporting these orders. If we look at some of the key ones, the self-isolation requirement—that talks about removing the requirement for household contacts to self-isolate. We agree with that. And the power of the director-general to require close contacts to self-isolate—we agree with that as well. The public health order around masks, removing it from the protection framework order—we substantively agree with this as well.

I would raise the question of an issue raised by pharmacists: they appear to be the only retail agency substantively still, potentially, requiring clients or customers to wear masks. They say this is really cumbersome because people go into shops and they’re not expecting to wear a mask anymore. They move into a pharmacy and suddenly they are. Consequently, they’re not. And so I wonder if, for consistency, you could consider whether that’s practical or not—take some advice from the guild, whomever. But certainly the feedback I’m getting is that people just aren’t—they’re just used to retail having no masks, and I don’t know if the utility is there in trying to maintain that anymore. So if you could have a look at that, it would be useful.

The third order, which we’ll substantially support—the revocations order—removes the quarantine restrictions for people in managed isolation, people arriving in New Zealand by sea, testing requirements for arrivals at the border, and requirements that certain types of work be carried out only by workers who are vaccinated. Now, we understand that this is the policy position from central government, but, of course, the challenge has been that people out in the hospitals have presumed “Oh, it’s been removed.”, but, in fact, Health New Zealand are making their own decisions. So it would be useful to know if that’s with advice, guidance, and recommendation from the Minister and her analysts and her team—that the advice to Health New Zealand is that unvaccinated workers should continue to have restrictions; and, again, whether that utility is there.

We voted against the COVID public health order in my own hands about two months ago—maybe three, I would guess—and before that my colleague Chris Bishop did, and we would make the case that, for unvaccinated workers in a health setting, if they were to come to each shift and rapid antigen test negative and were asymptomatic, then certainly, while we’re amongst a crisis, there may well be a place to review the current mandate restriction that they have. So I wonder if that could be taken into account as well. That won’t prohibit us from substantively supporting these orders here tonight, but just a few points.

If we could consider pharmacy—it’s turning out to be logistically just not practical; people just aren’t doing it—and, secondly, whether the Health New Zealand - styled choice to restrict unvaccinated workers is still manageable and wise in the context of the health workforce crisis that we have. But National will be supporting this motion further. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Kia ora, tēnā koe e te Mangai o te Whare, tāloha ni. I rise on behalf of my colleague Teanau Tuiono for the Green Party to oppose these COVID-19 public health response orders. They’re about winding back most of the protection framework, including mask use, household isolation requirements, and restrictions for air travel across the border. We note that these orders were presented to the House in September and are, of course, in effect.

Our concerns are about how winding down the protections is not being done alongside stronger public health measures that are needed to protect our immunocompromised and disabled whānau—measures that put the needs of Māori, Pasifika, and disabled communities at the heart of the ongoing pandemic response. COVID cases are on the rise again, proving that this virus is here to stay and that we’ll be living with new waves of infection for a long time to come.

So we just want the focus to return to slowing the spread through long-term protective measures, such as sensible masking—not masking all the time, I’m really glad we’re over that—and, for example, we’ve long advocated for measures around ventilation, air filtration, and mask use in schools to help decrease in the incidence of COVID and other contagious illnesses for tamariki and taiohi.

It’s a matter I raised, actually, with the former Minister for COVID-19 Response Hon Chris Hipkins to the Health Committee at one point. At the time, he responded that opening a window or a door was actually better than having an air filter. As someone who grew up with windows open and doors unlocked, I fully support the “fresh air is best” approach, however that is not always possible; that is not always practical. Where immunocompromised people often have limited options of how they can keep themselves safe, such as on a plane, these measures mean that when you’re on a plane, you don’t have to use any masks. The scientific advice that we have received is that once you’re on the plane, they actually have really good ventilation, they have great air filtration, but it’s the getting to and from the airport and sitting on the tarmac that is the problem.

In terms of the air border, to justify opening up more, I recall when the Minister provided us with statistics that showed how low the incidence of transmission was that was coming through the border—as opposed to the community transmission, which was rife at the time—so we totally agreed that we should open our borders. We wanted our people to be able to come without the cost that was so prohibitive to so many people. I will always be thankful that I wasn’t one of those whānau that had to suffer through a funeral online. So many people that couldn’t be together—families split up for years because of that.

We just want to have something that’s a little bit sensible so that—because at the moment, with these measures being changed, when you come in, not only do you not need to be vaccinated but you don’t even need to be asymptomatic. So you can come in coughing and spluttering with whatever, and that’s not a worry—but for some of us it’s a little bit of a worry.

Those travelling by air—it affects their whole country whenever they come in here. They go out to wherever. But when people are coming in by sea, it affects particular communities. I live in, I come from, a seaside town, and so people have come to me and said, “What about cruise ships? They’re coming in and then a whole pile of people are coming off the ship and then they’re going right through town and then they leave again.” They’re just worried that there’s nothing they can do to keep themselves safe, so it just becomes them individually. They’ve just got to look after themselves and all those beautiful things—the team of 5 million, our communities working together—just starts to really break down.

We know that opening our borders would bring illness through. That’s fine, we accepted that; that was the risk for all the good things that came from opening our country back up to the world. That was always going to be fine so long as our health system was managing. What we know, of course, and some of my other colleagues have identified, is that our health system is not managing. It’s not managing well at all, with massive queues at emergency departments, increased waiting lists, and chronic understaffing. We’re concerned that variant-specific boosters are not available yet in this country—we hope the Government will soon indicate when those can be rolled out.

We do note that one of the orders removes the traffic light protection framework, and we’re really happy about that. We were not fans. We’re pleased it’s gone. But that is the same order that removed all of the mask requirements except for certain people who work in certain health environments.

So public health measures work best when they become part of our everyday lives, when it’s not a burden, when it doesn’t restrict us from the things we need to do in our life. As a minimum, we think the Government should be able to guarantee clean air inside buildings, through air quality monitoring, strong ventilation standards, and air purification.

There’s no doubt that COVID hit some communities far worse than others. We just want those communities to be a part of the decisions that are made around that response. For immunocompromised people in many parts of our community, we just know that this has not happened, so we do not support this bill. Kia ora.

Oh, thank you so much. Look, it is time for New Zealand to stop being afraid. We have to unmask and not be afraid. And I take account of the comments from Dr Kerekere, because if someone is immunocompromised, there is nothing to stop them, or anyone else, from wearing a mask.

But I didn’t realise until I was in Europe, in late May, just how far behind and out of kilter New Zealand was, compared to other developed countries—when we went into Europe and people were not masked. And why were they not masked? Because they said only people who are sick or concerned about their immune system were masked. In fact, in Poland they said that they cancelled COVID on February 24. And when I asked, “What do you mean, you cancelled COVID?”, they said that was the date that Putin invaded Ukraine. So they felt they had a greater threat and they were going to get on with their lives. And, actually, it’s time for us, having all made enormous sacrifices—and some a lot more sacrifice than others—to be able to celebrate that it’s time for these orders to be able to be revoked. And the National Party stands in support of removing these. The time has well and truly come, if not late.

I take up the point that Dr Shane Reti so eloquently made around the situation with the workforce in the health sector. We know that there are nurses and doctors and other health staff who have not been allowed to return to work because Health New Zealand—this great Government agency that was going to get rid of postcode lottery, which it doesn’t seem to have done—has decided they are going to prevent unvaccinated staff coming into work. This has to stop. We have staff who want to work, people whose lives have been destroyed by their concern about the vaccination—even though I didn’t share that concern, and I think most of this Parliament did not, but we are concerned for them that they have been left out on a limb. There are rapid antigen tests (RATs) available, these RATs that we use now; there are now anti-viral medicines available to people, should they get COVID. We know that COVID itself, like other viruses, has mutated many times and will continue to do so, just like the Spanish flu and other diseases like that which then mutate and become far more easily transmittable and less harmful.

The fact is, people need to be able to live, and we need to be able to allow people to live their lives. We in the National Party understand why health professionals were mandated around vaccination. We understand that—at the time. But it’s time for that to stop. We understand that the Government has said that that mandate has been removed. But when the Government’s big, super health board, Health New Zealand, decides that it’s going to stop staff coming in to work at a time when we are losing nurses and doctors and other health professionals to Australia and other countries, it is madness. It is absolute madness. And they need to stop being so pathetic about this and let these people back. I don’t see anybody requiring staff to be vaccinated for the winter flu, which, as we know, was a particularly nasty flu this year. We don’t see that happening. We don’t see all sorts of other restrictions. And yet this particular one has continued under Health New Zealand and we need to have that corrected.

I also take up the call from Dr Shane Reti that our pharmacists should not have to go through this whole masking nonsense. I popped in to the pharmacy the other day to get something and realised I wasn’t masked. I had to race and get one. You know, this is nuts, people. It’s nuts. Let’s just stop this. Let people come back.

I was on one of the first flights, I think, from Wellington to Auckland, just after the masks mandate on public transport and airlines was lifted. It could have been a party flight. People were so happy. The staff on Air New Zealand were so happy. I went on board—and I am something of a frequent flyer, I have to tell you, over the years—and they said, “Oh, hi, Judith, it’s going to be a great night tonight.” I thought I must have walked into the wrong plane—apparently not. They were just happy to be able to see people’s faces. People were happy to be able to see other people’s smiles.

It’s time we moved on and it’s time we gave people back the right to make their own decisions. And if people want to put a mask on, if people have something that they are concerned about, fine. Let’s celebrate them having that right. Let’s stop doing this to other people and making them feel bad because they might have forgotten their mask or something else. I think it’s time we brought the country together, and this would be one of the smartest things that Health New Zealand could do right now, because they are so woefully behind in all of their elective surgeries, they are so woefully behind in the public confidence that they can actually deliver anything that they’ve been set up for. And it’s time we gave New Zealanders back their freedom and their self-respect and let them get on with it and make adult decisions.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, we’ve been saying since November that we should’ve got rid of all these rules, and we are still going to oppose these motions even though we’re happy to see them here. Freedom day should’ve been on 1 December in 2001. The rest of the world—[Interruption] 2001, yes—have moved on; we are still haunted by the spectre of Michael Baker.

Now, I sit on the Regulations Review Committee, and I can tell you that having only four COVID orders to go through is a lot better than what it was when I was first on there. And we are happy to finally see that we can see everybody’s smiles. It is fantastic to be able to walk around and see strangers smiling and having a good time. But it’s just been so long in the coming. The rest of the world realised that it was here to stay; we had COVID. Yes, it’s a new virus, yes we’re still learning about it, but we’ve had to learn about other viruses all the way through. We’ve had so many viruses. Even when I worked as a laboratory assistant back in the late 1990s, we had viruses that we had to overprotect because they were new—

Hon Member: You were creating them, in the lab!

TONI SEVERIN: —and we weren’t sure if they were going to be as infectious as this.

Simon Court: Christchurch, not Wuhan.

TONI SEVERIN: Ha, ha! But the thing is that we have been saying right from November that we need to get rid of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act and move on. It’s been a long time coming, and now just these four lovely little orders that came through on 12 September for us—no more mask wearing unless you’re in the medical profession, which is also quite sad because most of them are very, very cautious of handling patients and things. Also, to see our health professionals actually smiling at patients can help them a lot as well. And, also, most of us, when we worked in the health profession, if we felt ill we wouldn’t go to work; we would ring up and not go there. So having no masks, it just makes a world of difference to all of us.

Then, also, the other one of the orders is the health response on the air border, allowing people to come back into the country. It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from, doesn’t matter about your vaccination status, it doesn’t matter about isolation. However, in the Regulations Review Committee, we did have a couple of concerns that we did write to the Minister for COVID-19 Response, and, as we know, this report here is still an interim report because we’re still waiting for that response from the Minister on a few questions that needed to be asked.

But, I mean, overall, yes, we are happy about most of this, but these should’ve been gone long ago. I mean, we still say freedom of choice. If you need to wear a mask, please do so, because most of us have someone that we know and we care about that may be immunocompromised or have other issues, and they need to wear their mask if they have to. But, also, over the years, with immunocompromised people, you know, they’ve had to survive through other winter flus and other things that are floating round. We’ve had measles outbreaks. We’ve had quite a few things. So by now we hope that they have themselves places organised to be able to handle any of these restrictions that are taken off. I’m pretty certain most of them would be very concerned, and I’m concerned for them too, because I have loved ones that are in that state, but they also want to move on with their lives and not live in fear, and that’s the good thing: most of them have actually said, “I’m not wearing my mask anymore, but I am still cautious.”

So, overall, we’re happy they’re here, but we say they should’ve been out the door months ago. So ACT is still going to oppose this motion until all of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act is totally removed from New Zealand. Thank you, Madam Speaker.