COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill

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

This bill creates a bespoke legal framework to support the Government’s future efforts to limit the spread of COVID-19 in New Zealand. This is designed to last for a maximum of two years although can be brought to an end earlier if the threat passes.

New Zealanders have been on a precarious journey combatting this virus. We’re not at our final destination yet, but together we’ve made extraordinary progress through the largely voluntary efforts of our people, who accepted the need for unprecedented actions to isolate ourselves in bubbles to cut off the chains of infection. We went hard and we went early to fight a virus for which there is currently no vaccine and no cure. We know it can hide and spread through those with no symptoms, and around the world we’ve seen the devastation and loss of life it can cause, especially in aged care and in dementia units. We’ve negotiated difficult terrain and have broken the chain of community transmission. In the meantime, we’ve improved our stocks and supply lines for polymerase chain reaction test kits and reagents as well as personal protective equipment supplies and distribution. We’ve ramped up testing and the quality and capacity of track and tracing. We’ve minimised the damage the virus would have otherwise done to our people and to our economy.

We cannot afford to be complacent but we can take a moment, as a nation, to pat ourselves on the back. New Zealand is now able to restore civil and economic freedoms at a far faster rate, and to a wider extent, than many other countries. The move to level 2 is welcome. We can reconnect with friends and family we haven’t seen for a couple of months, catch up—with appropriate social distancing—for coffee and, dare I say it, get a haircut. But level 2 does not mark the end of our precarious journey. It does not remove the need for vigilance, nor for the measures we need as we do our best to ensure the virus does not get a second chance. Level 2 does allow us to live our lives with greater flexibility, but still with great care and some restrictions, and that is what this bill addresses. Some critics, including this House, have said we went into lockdown too late, then argued we should leave it sooner, and now argue that we should take another week to consider this legislation, which would extend the social and economic impacts.

Managing the epidemic has required the fast escalation of measures to stop the spread of the virus, for primarily health reasons. The step down has to be prompt for different reasons. Each additional day has significant economic costs for New Zealanders. Delays which can be avoided also risk undermining the social consensus we need to maintain. We considered whether to allow this bill a select committee process; this would have either delayed level 2 or risked a level 2 without the more nuanced enforcement powers that we believe are warranted for an interregnum. We concluded that passing it under urgency is necessary for New Zealand to move to alert level 2 at 11.59 p.m. on Wednesday.

We provided an exposure draft to other political parties and to legal academics overnight. We recognise this is a short period—we have received feedback, and we thank you. The bill doesn’t change the alert level framework, or any of the measures or restrictions that have been required at former levels; it does modernise the legal framework that sits behind and supports these measures. As New Zealand moves out of lockdown, and looks ahead to level 2 and beyond, it’s necessary to create a bespoke legal regime. I must emphasise now, as I have before, that there is already a solid legal basis for all the legal restrictions that have been placed on New Zealand’s freedoms and liberties at this extraordinary time. However, the current legal framework is not fit for purpose for enforcing certain measures at level 2, where there is increased freedom of movement and more nuanced restrictions. New legislation is necessary, as we don’t want to rely on a national state of emergency and the Health Act alone to enforce measures at these lower levels.

To date, restrictions at alert levels 3 and 4 were given legal effect by notices under section 70 of the Health Act, in conjunction with the state of emergency under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act and the Epidemic Preparedness Act. To support alert levels 3 and 4, the director-general has issued notices to close premises except those providing essential services, prohibit congregation in outdoor places, and require people to remain at home in their bubble except to access essentials and to exercise. These orders are lawful under the Health Act, and the restrictions proportionate to the scale of the COVID-19 threat.

That said, some aspects of the Health Act do need to be modernised and adapted, and this is particularly true for the detailed level 2 measures, which are not well suited to the existing Health Act and Civil Defence Emergency Management regime. This bill provides new enforceable measures that don’t depend on a state of emergency being in force. The bill allows the Minister of Health to issue orders to give effect to these measures, either for all of New Zealand, at a regional level, or for a particular class of people, businesses, or other activities. For example, it includes powers to require people to maintain social distancing measures, to require people to refrain from travel to or from any area, to require people to be isolated or quarantined, to prohibit gatherings of any specified kind, to report for testing, and requiring premises to be closed or allowed to open only if specific measures are complied with.

The measures in the bill take into account the particular characteristics of COVID-19 and give us the best chance to keep it under control. Due to its asymptomatic and contagious nature, measures may need to be imposed at a nationwide, regional, or group level, where necessary, to reduce the risk of transmission. The Government recognises the restrictions and measures to combat COVID-19 have had an enormous impact on our lives and livelihoods, and so the social and economic impacts will be important factors in decision making under this bill. The bill moves decision making from medical officers of health to the Minister of Health, who needs to be satisfied the measures are appropriate, and they must take into account any decision by the Government on how to respond to those risks and avoid, mitigate, or remedy the effects of COVID-19 which may have taken into account any social, economic, or other factors, and must take into account advice from the director-general about the risks of the outbreak or spread of COVID-19, and the extent and nature of measures appropriate to address those risks. The Minister of Health must consult the Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice, and any other Minister the Minister of Health thinks fit.

The bill will give police and other authorised enforcement officers clearer powers to enforce the orders, consistent with the graduated approach police have taken to enforcement to date. Those powers sit aside along voluntary measures, public health, and other guidance. This bill creates a power to enter premises, a power to direct people, to stop activities that are in breach of the order, a power to close roads and public places, and a power to close businesses operating in breach of the rules for 24 hours. Clause 23 allows a constable to enter a private dwelling house without a warrant only if they have reasonable grounds to believe that people have gathered there in contravention of an order and entry is necessary to give a direction to cease the activity. We acknowledge that it is unusual—though not unprecedented—for a constable to have warrantless power of entry into a private dwelling house. This is due—the fact that it is unusual—to the high expectation of privacy that citizens have in these places.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: What’s the precedent, Minister?

The extraordinary risk posed by COVID-19—I will cover instances in later speeches; I haven’t got time to detail that now—and the fact that it can be spread readily in large social gatherings, whether in public or in private, justifies the power in these circumstances and the limits it places on rights. There are safeguards in the bill so that a constable must report every time a warrantless entry power is exercised, summarising the circumstances and the reason why the power needed to be exercised.

This bill will create a new infringement offence regime. Some breaches will be dealt with as an infringement offence, and an intentional breach will be a criminal offence which may result in a fine or imprisonment on conviction. An infringement offence regime gives police another graduated step in their enforcement options where the breach is not serious enough to warrant criminal prosecution. The bill also amends the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 to ensure a nationally consistent approach to the response and to management of risks arising from COVID-19, and to better deal with concurrent emergencies that are not COVID-19 but which might arise during the period of the COVID-19 response. We believe this legislation is needed to appropriately continue our response to the unique and unprecedented challenges of COVID-19. Madam Speaker, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. National called for level 2 safely and sooner than later. We wanted lockdown, it was justified; the lockdown extension wasn’t. We’ve been pleased to see New Zealand open up more, and I know how pleased New Zealanders are to see that and to see that that is going to happen.

Having seen a low number of COVID-19 cases with a lot of people out of work isn’t success; it’s a thousand people going on the dole each and every day who are suffering in our country. The focus of our country has to be on turning to save jobs and getting people back to work. Having flattened the curve, let’s not flatten our economy; let’s combat the deepest recession in a generation. We need a strong plan to get out of the economic hole that we are in. Indeed, we believe that the Government and its really single-minded focus needs to be on saving those jobs. A big part of that is trusting New Zealanders—as we open up, trusting New Zealanders in their businesses and their workplaces all over New Zealand, but, I would also add, and critically when it comes to this bill before Parliament, trusting New Zealanders in their sports clubs, their shops and cafes, their churches, and their places of worship; open them up.

So for all those reasons—that sense of getting back to work, of creating jobs, of saving jobs, of trusting New Zealanders in their workplaces but, more widely, in our society—we fully support opening up to level 2. Indeed, we believe that every day it is for our Government—the Government of New Zealand—to strongly justify the restrictions that they have in place over New Zealanders and, where there isn’t good rationale, to reduce them. Our Government—this Parliament—should trust New Zealanders, unlock our country, get us going, and get us working again.

That said, it’s with regret that I say we have, on this side of the House, in the National Party, real concerns with this bill. You’ll hear from other members of National about, I am sure, civil liberty concerns—concerns with our freedoms as a people that have been long fought for—in the speeches and contributions. I want to simply place on record my concerns in two areas, really, but four for completeness: funerals, tangi; churches or places of worship; enforcement; and the length of time that this bill—or law, as it will, I think, become—applies for.

Before I get to those, could I just say this: this bill, in coming here, has had very limited scrutiny. There will be, as it becomes law, no select committee. It’s a case of, on this side of the House—I don’t know about the support parties in Government—us having it for less than 24 hours. I think it was Geoffrey Palmer who lamented this Parliament being the fastest lawmaker in the West. Dare I say it, to the members opposite, in recent times we have got it wrong; passing things that we didn’t even know we were passing. So the room for error in this bill, I suggest, is incredibly high, given the legal complexities.

💬 Funerals: I have had many messages—I would say in the dozens—from New Zealanders nationwide on the issue of funerals and tangi; from the Deputy Mayor of Invercargill to a family in the North, and many a funeral director. Simply put: it’s not right that people at level 2 will be able to come together in restaurants, at shows, at movies, on the sports field, watching sports, in malls in more than 10, but they will not be able to do that in a controlled environment of a funeral home or church for a funeral. This outcome is not kind, and, in fact, it’s inhumane. I could read New Zealand some of the emails that I’ve received that I think would take a brave person not to be upset by. But let me personalise it in my situation, where I have an elderly father who is 86, and I know that in our family there are six siblings, there are six partners, there are 20 grandchildren—including three of my own children—who would want to be at the funeral of someone who shaped our lives in such a profound way. Yet, under this law and the powers being given to the Minister of Health—in fact, really, the Prime Minister—that would not be so.

On churches and places of worship, whether it’s pressie, whether it’s New Life, whether it’s a mosque, or whether it’s a Sikh temple, really it’s the same simple point. David Parker has crafted a law and the Cabinet has crafted polices that mean that we allow dozens on a sports field or to watch a movie, and yet we don’t allow them to come together with appropriate rules to worship their god. I say that’s not kind, it lacks humanity, and, even given the gravity of this situation, it’s just not right.

Whether it’s Marie from Whanganui, who said to me, “When rugby has been deemed an acceptable activity—30 people up close and personal—why should I be banned from attending a mass in my church where social distancing and contact tracing would be very simple for about 50 people at a time?”, or Natalie, who said, “For many people, our faith and practise of it is the most important thing in our lives. To brazenly disregard the importance of churches and put their necessity to function beneath the opening of other far less important things is unbelievable. In her comments yesterday the Prime Minister stated that religious institutions are places where people come for fellowship, for community, and to socialise.”—Natalie says—“I never attend my church for fellowship, community, or to socialise; I only go to adorn and offer sacrifice to God, which is not only a fundamental right but an obligation.”—she goes on—“I would still go even if I was the only one left in the pews.”

I acknowledge that, in fact, the words of these things that I talk about are not in the bill, but they are the policies of Cabinet and they’re the polices that, through this bill, the Minister of Health will implement. I say one final time: they are not kind; they are inhumane, and they should not pass this Parliament, even given the seriousness of the situations and the need and the desire to loosen up at level 2.

We’ve seen some changes to this bill coming in Supplementary Order Papers, in amendments that we’ve seen from Mr Parker—and we appreciate that—on the issues of enforcement, although, I dare say, my colleagues will nevertheless raise some of those issues. Length of time—I, again, acknowledge that whilst the bill says two years, the Minister is changing that, and we appreciate that, but, again, I think you’ll hear some views from my colleagues on that and on the wider civil liberties issues. That’s because the powers in this bill given to the Minister and the police are in a way that we’ve never seen in a non-wartime situation, I dare say, in this country, with very few checks and balances, if any.

I’m pleased to see New Zealand open up more. I want to see us save jobs. But I say trust New Zealanders—Prime Minister and David Parker, you’re not doing that with this bill.

I rise to speak to this legislation as the Minister of Health who will have the responsibility and the privilege of eventually acting within it, and—as one who has had many conversations with the Hon David Parker, who has carefully drafted this legislation—to really take into account what we now know about this virus and the situation we find ourselves in as a country, in a situation where we have gone hard and we have gone early, where the risks have been diminished, but the risk has not passed.

The existing legislation that we have acted under as we have combated this disease is based on an emerging situation, on an emergency situation, and on a crisis, and it is fit for purpose in that new and emerging structure. It has put us on a very stable footing for our response. Now, as we have succeeded as a country in really combating this virus through the efforts of all New Zealanders, who have come together to unite to fight COVID-19, we have the benefit of some time to consider how, when we’re operating under a lower-level framework with a diminished but not destroyed risk, we can have bespoke legislation that ensures we have the powers necessary and desirable to ensure the best possible response to this virus for the health and wellbeing of all New Zealanders.

We have taken a very precautionary approach. It has served us well as a country. I want to thank Minister Parker for his leadership in this area, for his taking on the responsibility of making sure that we, as a country, have legislation that is up to the minute and that actually is based upon a good, firm understanding, in so far as the scientific community has it, of the risks that present to us. Let’s not forget that six months ago, we did not know of this virus. Only in late January was human to human transmission confirmed, and since that time, in New Zealand, we have put up a remarkable response. We have set up a contact tracing system that has national direction and that is consistent across the country. It has resources at the centre that simply did not exist before. We’ve put $70 million into public health. We’ve set up a national distribution system for personal protective equipment (PPE), because previously it was the responsibility of NGOs and private providers to source their own PPE in accordance with their own health and safety plans. But we determined that it would be important to have a national distribution centre to keep our essential service workers safe, and we’ve set up a testing regime which compares incredibly well to other testing regimes around the world and sees us with the lowest positivity rate of any using the polymerase chain reaction with reliable data, next only to Taiwan.

Now, as that situation emerged, as the evidence changed, and as we came to better understand the virus, we have had to respond quickly, and under the existing legislation that has been possible. And it’s true that our understanding of the virus continues to emerge. So I would push back on some statements made by the Leader of the Opposition that minimise the risk. We do better understand this disease, but we don’t completely understand this disease, and it is important that we continue to take a risk-based approach, underpinned by the legislation that we have.

He raised the issue of mosques, temples, and churches, and raised a concern that people would not be able to assemble in numbers greater than 10. I have to say that taking the decision to limit those gatherings to 10 people at this stage was one of the most difficult decisions that I have faced as a Minister during this time. I know that the Prime Minister has expressed a similar view, and I have had that feedback from Cabinet colleagues. It was not easy, because we know of the human tragedy that surrounds many of these situations, where families have not been able to grieve in the way that they traditionally would.

It’s difficult at any time to face grief and loss, and as myself, a funeral celebrant, I know that people choose in those situations, and expect, to physically comfort each other. What we have seen overseas, sadly, is that in those situations, people have come together, and transmission of the virus has occurred and there has been further tragedy. In New Zealand, our transmission has, in different public situations, been a challenge through this period. We did not want to see people grieving face the double jeopardy of potential further grief because in these situations, where people physically comfort each other, there was risk of any transmission.

We hope this situation will not continue for too long, because we do seem to see fewer and fewer cases. But as we begin to open up, as we open up our economy again, we want to be sure that we are putting the safety of New Zealanders first in these situations and ensuring that we continue to keep moving forward so that we can continue to open up and have a more normal, safe engagement with one another in a controlled way that respects what we now know about this virus.

In this legislation, as the Minister of Health, I will be required to have regard to the advice of the Director-General of Health about the risks of the outbreak or spread of the virus, of the nature and extent of measures and whether they are voluntary or enforceable, and how we can best address those risks. I will have consulted with the Prime Minister, with the Minister of Justice, and with other Ministers, as appropriate, before making any orders under this legislation.

It is appropriate to the different footing that we find ourselves on in level 2 to have legislation that is looking forward to a situation where it may not be that burning emergency that it was in the first place but where those risks are still present, where we have legislation that is designed and debated in this House, in this Parliament, across the House—the chance for a robust debate about the legislation that will underpin our response as a country. It is appropriate to have the Opposition have their view in this debate about the legislation that will shape our response going forward. [Interruption] The Opposition respond with perhaps sarcastic comments. The alternative is not to have this legislation and not to have this debate, and I don’t think anybody would think that was appropriate when we had the opportunity to have a wider debate, to consult with legal experts, and make sure that we had the best legislation in place going forward.

We are very, very fortunate in New Zealand to be in the position we’re in, and I do want to take this opportunity to thank, on the international day of the nurse, all of our nursing staff, in particular, but also all of our professionals across the health system, who have responded so well. It is a privilege to lead the health sector response and to have had such success. I think the results speak for themselves as to where we find ourselves now, and that is due in no small part to the response of the general public and their willingness to make sacrifices to make sure that we’re in the position we’re in now, and it’s also due to the fine work of our medical professionals.

Now, it is important, though, for all of us that we step forward and not back, and so that is why in these situations we continue to take a cautious approach. We do not want people gathering in numbers of greater than 10, and even when in a premise that may hold up to 100, they will be separated. So, for example, in a restaurant, a booking will not be for more than 10 people. These are to preserve the gains that we’ve made and to lock them in, to make sure that we can keep moving forward and keep opening up our economy.

We only have to look to Europe to see the situation they are in, where they are in lockdown in many countries and continue to be in very restricted environments. That is very damaging to their economy, but not only are they facing economic damage; they are also facing decimation in their populations, where this disease continues to have tragic consequences.

In New Zealand, thanks to the efforts of New Zealanders and thanks to the public health response and quick action—going hard and going early—we are in a privileged position to now consider legislation that will take us forward and underpin our continuing fight against this virus. I commend this legislation to the House.

In my previous intervention in this House, I gave the Government a commendation, and in doing so we were reflecting on a process of a very speedy but thorough select committee process for two important pieces of legislation that are now back before this House just on seven days from its first reading and will be passed into law this week. I talked about the World Bank parliamentary forum that I attended, where there was growing concern around the world about what were described as weak democracies—so-called democracies that pushed through State intervention in people’s lives without the appropriate scrutiny of Parliament. I find myself in the situation of going, within an hour and a half, from commendation to condemnation for this piece of legislation—both in its process and in its executive overreach. I would go so far as to compare the Prime Minister to Rob Muldoon. She is Rob Muldoon with slogans and kindness. I’m old enough to remember carless days, wage and price freezes, reducing the road speed limit from 100 kilometres to 80 kilometres per hour—

💬 Hon Member: Supplementary minimum prices.

—that’s right, SMPs—by an executive that rode roughshod over this parliamentary process. Even they pale into comparison with the influence and executive fiat that is being exerted on this country by this bill. I am, frankly, astounded that a Government that purports to be open and transparent, to be kind, and to give the country, the public, the credit for the amazing work that they have done still increases further and further into their freedoms and their lives.

Let’s be very clear: if there was a question about whether the level 4 and level 3 lockdown was legally allowed under section 70 of the Health Act—and that is a question yet to be answered—then there’s no doubt that the sort of influence that the Government wants to have in level 2 is not. So if the Government wants to act in this way, it does need to pass legislation, but, as I said in my previous intervention, that is the very time when this place matters most, when the rule of law matters most, and where changes to that law need to be carefully thought through, well considered, consulted on, robustly debated, and definitely not rushed through.

Now, the Minister of Health, very clearly, says there is haste—understandable, but this Government has had three months. I think this Government did get legal advice that said that there was a question mark over their ability to act at level 3 and 4, and, clearly, they wanted to continue to impose themselves on New Zealanders’ lives under level 2 in a way that was entirely inconsistent given what we heard about what level 2 would look like, and so they’re going to pass that bill. But not even the Minister of Health knows his own legislation, because he said in his speech that he will have to consult with the Director-General of Health. Actually, the bill doesn’t say that; it says quite the opposite. At subclause (2) of clause 9, on page 5, when making a section 11 order, “Nothing in this section requires the Minister to receive specific advice from the Director-General about the content of a proposed order or proposal to amend, extend, or revoke an order.” So he doesn’t need to consult the director-general, and not even Dr Clark knew that.

💬 Hon Dr David Clark: Have regard to any advice.

So now we have—well, he says he doesn’t have to have regard to it, which means he can ignore advice. Well, that’s actually pretty consistent with the pattern that we’ve seen over the last few weeks.

💬 Hon Dr David Clark: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member is mischaracterising my response, and I’m not sure what remedy I have for that.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Well, that’s a debatable point; so members can debate those points.

So they don’t have to take the advice of the director-general, they don’t have to have an epidemic notice, and they don’t have to have a state of emergency. If Dr Clark and the Prime Minister believe that the freedoms of New Zealanders should be curtailed, they issue a notice. That is the classic case of executive overreach.

The Attorney-General talks about how we are now legislating for social distance. We have got to the point where we are going to make a law about how close I can get to members of this House. Why didn’t they go further? Why didn’t they make a law about sneezing into your sleeve or washing one’s hands for 20 seconds? You think I’m being flippant? That’s where we’ve got to, and what that says to me is the Government doesn’t trust Kiwis.

Kiwis have done this. New Zealanders have done this. We have knocked COVID down—and it’s true it’s not out, but there is an expectation that we get back to something of normal, because the health risk pales now in comparison to the economic asteroid that’s about to hit this planet, and it’s going to land directly on top of New Zealand. It’s going to be ugly, and it’s happening already. The Minister shakes his head. Well, good luck selling that to the country when there are hundreds of thousands of jobs lost.

It wouldn’t be so bad if anybody could understand what their intentions were, as the Leader of the Opposition said. We can have a rugby game—and it won’t be just 30 players; it’ll be 60 to 70 players, coaches, referees, and medics. They can play, they can run around, and they can bang into each other, but they can’t go to the bar and have a beer afterwards, because we couldn’t trust them to do that. My daughter will be mixing next week with her schoolmates at school. She can’t wait. But the 14th birthday party that she was arranging for this weekend is going to be unlawful under this legislation when it’s passed. We can go to the shopping mall—with hundreds of people, potentially, if there’s three malls connected together as it is in George Street in Dunedin—to buy the engagement present or the wedding present for the loved one, but we can’t go to the function wherein we’d be giving them that present. As Simon Bridges said, the ability, the freedom, the fundamental constitutional right of freedom of worship is now less important than the right to go to a cafe or a shopping mall. That is an affront to New Zealanders.

Not only are we considering these aspects of intrusion into our lives; we are not giving the New Zealand public an opportunity to have their say—even in a short period of time. Frankly, that’s an insult to their intelligence, it’s an insult to this House, and it makes New Zealand one of those weak democracies that I heard described at the World Bank parliamentary forum.

None of that—none of that—is intended to dismiss the risk the Minister of Health articulates, but I ask this: when? When does this end? We’re going to be like this until a vaccine is found. The “weeds on the lawn” metaphor that the director-general used is going to be with us probably for another 18 months. Are we really saying that this is going to be New Zealanders’ lives for the next 18 months, and, if so, why not give them a say on that? Why not give them the opportunity to say, “We can be trusted. We know what social distancing is. We know what close contact is. We know what good hygiene measures are, whereas we didn’t pay as much attention as we could’ve before it became apparent that this was a serious virus.”?

I finish with these points about the Attorney-General’s comments about the Opposition’s inconsistency in its positioning. I don’t believe there’s any inconsistency. We were too slow to shut our borders, we were too long before coming out of an extreme lockdown, and we are too distrustful of the public in legislating for level 2. I’m sad about that. I’m sad that at this stage in the process the National Party cannot support this bill, because we want this to be a team of 5 million but it’s the Government that is racing off in a direction that we cannot support, curtailing the freedom of New Zealanders without their right to have their say. Unless there are material changes to it, which will be signalled, it will be difficult to support this subsequently.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, what can I say? I’m quite astonished and gobsmacked. I listened to that member’s earlier speech and it was characterised by reason, gratitude, even lauded and applauded officials and the Government for the act that it had taken in supporting that legislation. Now we have this bill before the House, which is the COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill—a bill which I and my party, New Zealand First, believe is absolutely essential if we’re to get through stage 2 and back to normality as quickly as we possibly can whilst minimising a spike in infections and a re-emergence of COVID-19.

If one is truly as concerned as that member is about the state of the economy, jobs, people who stand to lose their jobs or who already have lost their jobs, businesses—and I noticed a lot of rhetoric of late; people talking up their great concern for small business. I didn’t actually see it in their time in Government. I saw a greater devotion and interest to large corporate businesses like Skycity with all of their pokie machines, like Chinese donors of large amounts of money. I saw a lot of focus on big corporates, but I never once heard the type of rhetoric that I’m now hearing emanating from the Leader of the Opposition about what I would cynically even characterise as belated concern for small business—nine years belated.

I have to say also—and I do need to address these points because they were made in that member’s comments—he’s moved in his own words from commendation to condemnation. I get that; that’s the job of the Opposition to call it as they see it. But then he went on to exemplify his criticism of the Prime Minister and this Government with some rather caustic comments about a former Prime Minister of the National Party. In fact, the Prime Minister who’s most revered as being a patriot, a nationalist, a strong-minded firm leader who knew what he stood for—

💬 Brett Hudson: Here we go. New Zealand First is defending the memory of Rob Muldoon.

—knew what his party stood for, was brave, no wilting flower, no lily. A man—and Brett Hudson, I’m just astonished. I have no doubt that Mr Hudson will later on take Mr Woodhouse aside and give him a bit of country language, actually, about Robbie Muldoon and what a hero he was to many, many National Party people. In fact, I voted for Rob Muldoon. As a soldier, I admired his leadership, I admired his strength and courage, and I admired the fact that he could make hard calls, regardless as to whether or not everybody agreed with them, he made—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Yeah, but he didn’t ride roughshod over the parliamentary process.

He didn’t ride roughshod? Well, Mr Woodhouse, that’s completely contrary to what your Hansard records you as saying. So what we are seeing right now played out in the House is the confusion that the Opposition’s been displaying for the last eight weeks—absolute, total confusion. The question really is where can they make traction in the hearts, in the minds of the public on a 21-26 percent poll? That’s the real challenge that’s facing them. Unfortunately, it’s manifesting itself in this ridiculous debate that we’re all being subjected to right now and are no doubt going to be subjected to for a number of hours until this very worthwhile, very necessary piece of legislation is passed, which I have to remind people has a sunset clause in it.

Now, extraordinary times—I used to say it to young men that I was mentoring, young women, both when I was in the military and when I was operational, when I was running a small business, employing staff. Sometimes life has a habit of smacking you in the face with something totally unexpected that one is not prepared for. One might have—in the late hours of the night when philosophising and debating and discussing—talked about a pandemic and what the effect might be on a country, on a region of the globe, maybe even on the planet itself, but no one takes these conversations seriously at the time, and then it arrives. I can simply say this: extraordinary times require extraordinary measures to counter them. I don’t think there’s any disagreement in the House on that.

The question is how far does one go, and to keep oneself aware and alert to the fact that these measures have a finite period of time, and then we must get back to normality. But if we are to do the things that Mr Woodhouse wants: go to the pub—he wants to go to the pub. He wants to have a bit of a knees-up at home and have his mates around—that came out; it’s in the Hansard. Blame it on the daughter, blame it on the rest of the whānau, but Mr Woodhouse wants to go to the pub—he’s made that very clear. We all probably want to get back to, sort of, normality and socialising with our friends and our mates and our communities. We most definitely want to be back in our rugby clubs, back with the kids at Saturday morning footy and netball—we want to be doing those things—but the surest way of ensuring that we can’t or that we end up going back into lockdown at stage 3 or stage 4 is to be rash and to not factor in those things that we need to do to ensure that the gains we have made this far are cemented down and not lost. And then people can go to the pub until whenever.

I’m one of those people who worries about the next thing to hit us, and, I guess, with a security head on, and I’m pretty sure Gerry Brownlee—given he’s probably the most effective Minister of Defence that that party’s had over its nine years in tender—thinks about these things as well: the “What are you going to do next time?” But right now we’re faced with the situation we face. Police do not have the powers, and we’ve deduced that we need to strengthen those powers—the enforcement powers—so that they can do the sorts of things that they need to do: so that they can enter premises to direct people to stop activities.

I get a little confused when I hear people complaining that the Government’s not done enough to stop an upsurge in parties over the last weekend. Well, this bill, when we get down to level 2, will ensure that the police can do something about that, because no one wants those breaches to go unchallenged, not dealt with—that is very clear. And yes, there are some extraordinary powers in there: that they can enter a private dwelling house without a warrant, but that’s only if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the people have gathered there in contravention of the order and entry is necessary to give a direction to cease that activity. I would like to think that a party that’s setting itself up to run a very strong law and order campaign in September would agree with that; would back the police as they’ve said they would; would agree that the police, in these circumstances, need the power to act and bring to an end illegal gatherings or gatherings that are likely to jeopardise the health, the safety, the wellbeing of their own whānau, of their own community, of their own neighbourhood, and there, from that, the nation’s as a whole.

I think that, addressing the questions from Mr Woodhouse about the Government doesn’t trust the people—holy heck. I have sat in Cabinet, I have spent Sundays reading masses of Cabinet papers where provisions have been put in place to assist small businesses and the commercial sector in a way that is historic—we’ve never seen anything like this. I mean, if I think about Rob Muldoon as being a leader that Mr Woodhouse doesn’t like from the National Party, I do wonder about Ruth Richardson, because Ruth Richardson’s approach to harsh times was completely the opposite: slash and burn and bury the economy.

This Government’s chosen not to follow that pathway, and it’s been a high-trust model that’s been leaned on at every turn, with money being made available for employers that they could draw down on immediately to pay wages of their staff. We actually hear that some of them have simply used that money to pay redundancies. Well, we’ve always known—and I know that our Government and the Cabinet and Prime Minister have always said—this is a high-trust model. We’re facing extraordinary times. We needed to act with speed. We needed to get money into the hands of private business owners, employers, to help address what was coming, and we’re doing that again with even more assistance to small business. We are where we are right now, looking to go to level 2, because the public of New Zealand, in the main—in the overwhelming majority—have responded well.

Of course, like every family, we have our one or two, don’t we, and we’ve got to deal with that. We have to live with it; we’ve got to deal with it. This piece of legislation will help us deal with those miscreants. But, in the main, we are in the position now because we have trusted the people and they have done what we always knew they would do: they’ve responded magnificently. But do we want to burn up the gains? Do we want to find ourselves going back into level 3? Well, that’s an Opposition call. Fortunately, they’re not on the Government benches so they don’t get to make that final decision. Kia ora.

That was an interesting contribution from the Hon Ron Mark—some of it I agreed with, the vast majority I didn’t, because when a Government chooses to put a piece of legislation into place that proposes an exception to civil liberties, then there has to be a clear definition about why that exception is being put in place. This bill doesn’t do it. Everyone knows that we have had a lockdown and that it has prevented some of the extraordinary numbers that were in various models from ever coming anywhere near being correct. That’s because people, by and large, voluntarily complied. It’s because people who own businesses—and let’s be clear, when you talk about businesses, you’re talking about jobs, and people who own those businesses decided that they would comply. Then what we saw, effectively, was a voluntary commitment to try to beat this COVID-19 virus.

There have been questions in recent days about, well, what was the legality of what happened? Was it right for the Government to do this? Did they have a legal right to do that? Well, that’s going to be played out over a little more time to come, but it’s interesting to note that this bill starts on page 1 with “The bill establishes [a] standalone legislation that provides a different legal framework for responding to COVID-19 over the next two years,” and it then goes on to say that it will apply at whatever level we might be at over those two years. That, I think, really answers the question about the legality so far, and that, in turn, highlights the trust that New Zealanders have exhibited, the willingness that New Zealanders have exhibited, to get on top of this thing. So going to level 2, I would have expected that we would see a far more liberal arrangement than we’re seeing here—far more liberal. These people aren’t silly. They know that social distancing is a good idea in the current circumstances. They know that sharing hard surfaces with one another does mean that you’ve got to clean between them at various times. They know all that, they don’t need to be told the housekeeping of how to behave appropriately at a time when these threats exist.

So we have several concerns about this bill. One is the sunset is far too far out. Two years—two years we could be at level 2 all the way through. Now, I don’t think public tolerance would actually take any Government that far. That’s up for the Government to determine. We will be putting forward a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that we hope will make a difference to that that means it can be reviewed at a much more frequent opportunity. We hope the Government is considering what has been discussed in briefings today.

We’re also very concerned about the issuing of section 11 notices. So the bill doesn’t prescribe anything particularly, beyond enforcement, but it does make it possible for the Minister of Health—who has to go through a consultation process that means, in actual fact, the Prime Minister determines what is in a section 11 notice. A section 11 notice will have the prohibitions in it: no more than 10 people at a funeral, no more than 10 people at a wedding, no more than 10 people at any other public gathering, only a few people in cafes unless seated and single-table service, same in restaurants, and, eventually, in bars. Everyone might wonder why, when it’s so easy to determine that actually you are a tavern and therefore you can open this Thursday as opposed to a bar and have to open next Thursday, Thursday week—what’s the reason for that? Well, I think it’s found in the schedules, because they have to take a week to print the enforcement notices that are going to be served on all these places at various times for these minor breaches.

While Mr Mark says, “Well, you know, we have trusted New Zealanders, and we’ve got to back the police, we’ve got to make sure that we support them in their work.”—don’t put them in the invidious position of having to deal with New Zealanders in the sort of petty ways that occasionally we’ve seen over the last four weeks. I think what I saw at Sumner beach in Christchurch two weekends ago was appalling—absolutely appalling—and I think if anyone expects that to be a shining example of how the police are going to deal with these powers when it comes to New Zealanders, then they’re deluded. I worry about that. I feel for the policemen on the beat, feel for the guys in the cars, and all the policewomen as well, who have to do all that difficult work. But they’re being put in an odd position, and I think it’s a bit unreasonable for that to happen. So I don’t like the infringement regime. It’s too tough. It should be that there is some kind of an expectation that there’ll be a lead-up process before the so-called enforcement officer gets out the book and writes the ticket.

So then we come to enforcement and who can enforce it. As the bill is written at the moment, then we should take Police Commissioner Coster at his word and expect that various gangs around the country could be presaged into becoming enforcement officers because apparently it was OK what they were doing: blocking roads, stopping New Zealanders going about their rightful business. So we don’t want to see any of that sort of thing coming into the enforcement regime. We do want to see that the people who have that enforcement responsibility are responsible, that they are in some way linked to the Crown and, therefore, have a chain of responsibility that can be looked at.

I worry, too—particularly when it comes to the hospitality industry—that what we’re seeing here is the construction of an effective local alcohol plan applied to the entire nation. I think that’s quite a potential danger. Let’s be very clear: while the Prime Minister has said that there was a great deal of work done with the Hospitality Association, the reality is that there was one of those consultations where they were told what’s happening and expected to agree. A Minister who I won’t name actually told them, “Don’t worry, so long as there’s a bowl of chips on the table, you’ll be able to open.” That’s totally in contravention of the current alcohol laws. So it just shows the degree of understanding that’s gone into this thing from those who have been party to putting the bill together.

So on those three points, the sunset clause will have an SOP; on the section 11 notices, we’ll have an SOP; and on enforcement, we’ll have an SOP. I only hope that maybe they’re trumped by the Government being smart enough to know that they haven’t got everything right in this particular bill.

Now I want to come to the whole issue of what it’s doing to the psyche of the nation. I do worry about that. I think the symbolism of not being able to attend friends’, relatives’, and very, very close loved ones’ funerals is a big problem. I think it’s heartless, it’s cold, and it is nowhere near kind. I think, similarly, for many people at a time like this, where there is uncertainty—no one knows what the next year or so is going to bring for this country. We’re a trading nation. Mr Mark, let me tell you, sir, when it comes to looking after the big export businesses, the people who hang off those big export businesses are the small businesses that are the majority employers in this country. So don’t kick us for having an interest in our export markets. And by the way, have a talk to your leader, because I don’t think he’s doing us many favours with our biggest export market just at the moment.

Let me just say this: when people start to get so particularly and individually hurt by the circumstances that they see around them, then I think we’ve got a problem. So I would urge the Government to make some kind of a statement beyond just that it may be changed in two weeks’ time, to actually come out and say what the intentions would be. The big thing that’s missing all the way through this is the lack of information for anybody to plan. Now, the Government might say, “Well, because we didn’t really know what’s happening.” Well, the Government has a duty to be at least slightly optimistic about the future and to put out a plan that people might be able to hang off and rely on, and we haven’t seen it. I know that there will be redundancies in the next week because some of the people who are trying to plan the future for their business cannot see that future, have not heard a lay out in front of them that they can rely on. This is not a good bill.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I rise in support of this bill. I want to start just by providing some perspective. I’m sure that many New Zealanders have watched what’s happened around the world. For many of them, they will have friends and whānau who live in other countries. I have a number of friends and family who live in the United States and in other countries, but particularly in the United States, where I have friends who work in hospitals as health professionals. I just have to express my intense gratitude for everything everyone in New Zealand has done to get us to this point, because it seems, frankly, like a miracle to my friends and family in the United States who are looking at thousands of deaths every day, and in some cases now, front-line health workers who are otherwise young and healthy people have contracted COVID-19, been extremely, seriously ill, and even died from it.

The economic impacts of the pandemic in the United States are no doubt going to be far greater because the virus took hold, because they are going to spend months, if not years, in a situation of responding to that. Of course, an intolerable loss of life on top of it, on top of those job losses. So when I look at our situation here in Aotearoa New Zealand, I’m incredibly grateful that our Government acted early, went hard. We no doubt got a little bit lucky that we could see what was happening in other parts of the world before it took hold here. A huge thankyou to the team of 5 million who’ve gotten us to the point that we’re at today.

But of course, this isn’t over, and I would express some caution to everyone who is really looking forward to getting out and about. We don’t want to have to go back to level 4. We don’t want to see an outbreak happen. You know, in other countries like South Korea, in the Victorian state of Australia, and now in Germany, of course, we have seen a slight rebound in cases following a loosening of restrictions. So that’s why it is so very important that the Government follows the very best health advice when determining what the rules for level 2 are and how coming out of level 3 into level 2 has to happen in a different way than the way we went into it.

This bill, I think, is absolutely necessary to ensure that all New Zealanders will benefit from the period of lockdown that we’ve already been in, and will benefit from being assured that the rules will be able to be enforced. Even if the vast majority of New Zealanders embrace these rules and want to stop the spread of COVID-19, it would only take a small number who ignore the rules to cause an outbreak that could quite quickly become very serious and cause us to have to move back to a stricter level. So, of course, the vast majority of New Zealanders support the actions that have been taken thus far. I think they will absolutely respect the rules in level 2, which are not at all arbitrary but absolutely informed by what is going to prevent the spread of the illness.

I have heard some concerns expressed about the limitations on certain types of gatherings like funerals or in bars, but, of course, there are very, very good reasons for why there are the limits on numbers in those types of gatherings as compared to, say, sitting in a cinema. It has to do with the way in which people engage with each other. I heard this from Dr Siouxsie Wiles last night. I was on a panel for the Aotearoa Town Hall online and this very question was raised, and particularly about the importance of tangi—the cultural importance of it—and was that taken into account. I thought the explanation given made a lot of sense, from a scientific perspective, which is that, you know, when you’re sitting quietly in a cinema, people aren’t talking to each other, and that it’s that talking and being in close proximity that allows the droplets to spread the illness. So that’s why certain types of—you know, if you’re gathering at a bar and there’s a lot of noise and you’re trying to speak at a high volume, it’s much more likely you’re going to spread droplets to other people. That’s why so many of our clusters were related to a bar and to weddings. Those types of events have been responsible for the spread of the illness, here in New Zealand as well as overseas. So there is a logic to it.

I’m very confident in our Director-General of Health, and I’m very confident that the Government is listening to the very best advice to ensure that New Zealanders are safe from the spread of COVID-19. Of course, that is the best way to protect jobs and the security of incomes into the future, to limit the spread of the illness, because those countries that have not had strict lockdowns, who have had bigger outbreaks, are feeling the exact same economic impacts that we are feeling here in New Zealand. Over time, it will be worse because they won’t be able to get back to life as normal as soon. So that’s where we have a huge advantage here, on our island nation, of potentially being able to eradicate the illness or significantly prevent the spread to the point where we can return to life as normal sooner. I certainly hope for that.

In order to do that, we need the confidence of all New Zealanders, and New Zealanders need to know that other people in their communities are respecting the rules, and that the Government can take action if need be—without being in a state of national emergency—to ensure that those rules are being enforced. I think there is a real logic to having infringement regimes so that we’re not simply limited to criminal penalties and a criminal prosecution, which would be very much over the top. But we need some way of enforcing and ensuring that small minority of people who might disregard the rules, that we have some way of ensuring that they play by the same rules as everyone else, so that we can have the maximum benefit as a country in terms of limiting the spread of the illness, protecting the health of our loved ones, and, of course, being able to return to work and have some certainty around jobs and incomes as soon as possible.

Of course, the Green Party would always prefer that there would be a select committee, even a very short one, and we would’ve liked to have seen that. But we also understand the need for urgency right now, given the move to level 2 at—was it at midnight on Thursday morning or 11.59 Wednesday? So recognising that this is a very, very short period of time and that there was a desire to move back to level 2 sooner rather than later, then we can understand this. But one thing that gave us a lot of confidence is that the exposure draft was provided to legal academics and actually quite a wide variety of people and perspectives to ensure that that feedback could be incorporated into the bill before it’s passed. We take great assurance from that.

Another issue that was raised by Gerry Brownlee just a moment ago was the two-year sunset clause. Of course, that would’ve been something that would have concerned us greatly as well, but my understanding is at the committee stage we’ll be moving to a reconfirmation every three months, as long as it’s needed. Of course, the specific rules around the level will change based on the very best evidence.

I completely understand that many New Zealanders and, indeed, members of this House have expressed concern that we don’t know what is going to happen and that the Government can’t tell people with perfect certainty what will happen. But I think that most people would agree that the Government has been very, very clear in communications, has given people the confidence to move into level 4 and then into level 3, and that as soon as we have the best information we are communicating that in a way. Of course, in a pandemic situation with a previously unknown disease, it would be impossible for us to provide absolute certainty to everyone about how it’s going to play out. We have to make decisions based on the very best evidence of how many cases there are, our ability to contact trace, our ability to contain things.

I have to say that speaking to my friends and family around the world, everybody has been incredibly impressed and envious of the situation we have here in New Zealand, because, certainly, we are in a much better position than the vast majority of people in the developed world. I just feel incredibly grateful that we had the time and the ability. It’s really a bit of a shame to hear the attitude from members on the other side of the House who now seem very intent on picking a fight and demonstrating their strength. But I think that, ultimately, New Zealanders can see that compared to pretty much anywhere else in the world, New Zealand is in a really good position. If we continue to work together—if we continue to work together—we will have the very best outcome for our country. Tēnā koutou katoa.

Thank you, sir. I thought the Hon Julie Anne Genter was about to enjoy 12 of her allocated 10 minutes. Let me pick up on the comment that she’s just made, suggesting that the Opposition is spoiling for a fight—or words to that effect. We are fighting for trustworthy, law-abiding, hard-working New Zealanders who need to get back to work. That isn’t putting up petty opposition; that is making a statement on behalf of New Zealanders who are suffering in a whole range of different ways. When he spoke at the start of this debate, the Attorney-General, the Hon David Parker, was quite right to highlight the economic cost of delaying a move from level 3 to level 2. I don’t think anybody wants to do that. Businesses and employers throughout New Zealand have been telling us that for weeks. We have all heard stories of how much hardship many are suffering. You only need to talk to our neighbours as they go past us in the parks, or on walks down the street, or as we contact businesses in our own electorates to know how difficult it has been for them. Livelihoods are at risk—we need to get back to work.

But the crucial point is that a move to level 2 is not dependent on the passage of this bill. The Minister of Finance has spoken before of New Zealand’s high-trust model, and I heard the Hon Ron Mark, when he spoke a moment ago, also use that term. Well, this bill undermines that approach and sends a message to church worshippers—and when I say that, I’m talking not just about those in Christian churches but those who worship in synagogues, in mosques, in Sikh temples, Buddhist temples, Hindu temples, all sorts of places of worship in our multicultural country—that they can’t be trusted. That’s the message that’s being sent to them. In particular, that message is being sent to funeral attendees, to families who are eager for long-overdue reunions, particularly with elderly relatives who have been missing their grandchildren, missing their children so desperately, and we all know people like that. I send my love through this message to my own mother, who’s in a retirement village, because, like thousands of New Zealanders, I haven’t been able to see her for a long time either, and I hope she may be watching now.

But it sends a message to all of us that we can’t be trusted, and that, of course, is utter nonsense. It’s not founded in any evidence. It’s insulting, and, in the case of funerals or those who wish to be with the dying within their families and extended whānau, it is utterly heartless and cruel. I’ve been inundated by messages on this particular topic today, and I want to acknowledge to those who may be watching just how many emails, how many phone calls, there have been to my electorate office, messages on social media, and so forth I have received from worshippers who are absolutely distraught at being told that even under level 2, they will not be able to resume worship in their chosen church or place of worship. I have 100 percent sympathy with them. I am utterly supportive of their aspiration to be able to go back to worshipping responsibly, as I know they all would do. So let me put on record this party’s absolute commitment to advocating for them. They should be trusted to do that responsibly. That failing, at least, in this bill must be rectified, and I hope that the Government is listening. I hope that we will see a change to that effect later on this evening.

I was particularly moved by a constituent who rang me last night to tell me about the death of his elderly father and the fact that they had planned on the assumption that when moving to level 2 this Thursday they would be able to have a funeral bordering on normality—obviously, no hugging, still having to observe physical distancing, but at least with members of the family and close friends of the deceased able to gather together, because mourning is such an important part of the grieving process and of the healing process. It was only a fortnight ago that the Prime Minister spoke about what level 2 would look like, and she said at that point—and this is what so many churches and others have been relying upon, including those who have been thinking about funerals in recent days—that level 2 would include gatherings of up to 100 people. So they planned accordingly. Many have made arrangements to travel accordingly, only to be told now that can’t happen. Well, that is heartless, and more, it’s inexplicable. They do not understand what changed over the last fortnight—why, when it was going to be OK a fortnight ago to have a gathering of that nature, did we suddenly find just yesterday that it would be down to gatherings of no more than 10?

Then, when the Leader of the Opposition spoke this afternoon, he put it into sharp perspective, because he pointed out the absurdity of allowing 30 rugby players, plus a referee, to be on the field, in very close physical contact. I defy you to find a way of playing even touch rugby without physical contact, or, say, 50 or 60 cinema patrons, all appropriately spaced in a cinema—that they can do that but 11 people cannot attend a funeral, even spaced out, as the Prime Minister repeated several times in her address yesterday. That’s not just illogical, it’s insulting, and, as I say, it’s utterly heartless.

No one disputes that the risk hasn’t passed. We all know that we must continue to do our bit. But New Zealanders have shown that they have been doing their bit, they can be trusted to do their bit, and as long as the guidelines are fair and well-articulated, they will do their bit, because they’ve shown us that they are doing their bit. That does not justify the passage of a Draconian measure. In fact, what it does is engender disrespect and contempt for the law, which is more likely to lead to problems than it would if they were trusted more. This bill jeopardises that particular public support and understanding, and I think we should all be concerned that that public support is being put at risk by this particular measure. We cannot afford to allow contempt, complacency, arrogance to creep in when we’ve done so much hard work, and now, as we hear in that well-worn cliché, we must lock in the gains. This bill, as it is currently drafted, does not get the balance right, and we need it to be right. As an Opposition, we want it to be right. We would have worked with the Government if only they had reached out to us to get it right.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but it’s come time for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and for the benefit of those who may not have heard the debate before the adjournment, the National Party is unable to support this bill. We do so largely because we are concerned that the Government hasn’t got the balance right on the issue, and they certainly haven’t got the process right.

But I do want to make the point that, sometimes, reaching a position on a bill is very challenging. It’s not as if you just think, “OK, well, the Government is going to put this up, so we’ll say the opposite,” Life is seldom that simple, and it’s particularly challenging sometimes when the options on both sides of the argument contain many unappealing features. I’d like to think that all members of this House would have grave concerns about any measure that, effectively—and very significantly—curtails the civil liberties of New Zealanders, and that, of course, is a key feature of this.

So we in the National Party didn’t reach our position lightly. We gave it as much consideration as we could in the very short time we were given in order to consider the measure. I was making the point just before the adjournment that we would have been willing to work with the Government to get this right, because, as a country, we need to get this right. But, unfortunately, the Government hasn’t reached out to anyone. Not only have they not reached out to us in the Opposition; they have decreed that there will be no select committee process. So, whereas they could have been hearing from legal academics, from those with expertise in these areas of public law, from the police and others, and from all the commentators who usually have much to say on this topic, they have not heard from them, and they have not instigated a select committee process—even if it had only been for half a day. I submit to you that we could have produced a better bill, but instead, unfortunately, we’ve been shut out of the process, ignored by what looks to be an increasingly arrogant Government. Some will have seen the report over the last few days that this is a first-term Government showing arrogant third-term-itis—

The member’s time has expired.

Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to make some brief remarks on this bill this evening. I want to acknowledge some of the remarks that have come through, both from this side of the House and from the Opposition. This bill is being passed under urgency. We are foregoing the typical process by which we all agree good law should be made by, and we are doing so because of the particular circumstances we find ourselves in both nationally and globally.

There are three particular grounds of irony I think I want to speak to briefly, in the contributions that I’ve heard from friends across the House. My good friend the member for Ilam, he addressed this House about the legal grounds for which this bill is (a) being passed now, and he addressed the grounds by which the lockdown has been in place over the last six or seven weeks. He says that we shouldn’t be passing this bill because New Zealanders should be trusted yet at the same time decries this Government’s position because there was absolutely no legal authority on any standing grounds by which we’ve been under the lockdown for the past six weeks. It’s an absolutely ironic position to put to this House.

What the Opposition—and, indeed, what this side of the House—have sought is absolute certainty and clarity at all stages. Now, as we transition from level 4 through to level 3, by which we’ve had very clear grounds—well, we say we’ve had very clear grounds, the Solicitor-General say’s that we’ve had very clear grounds, and, indeed, many academics have said we’ve had very clear grounds by which this lockdown has operated. When we turn to level 2, we accept that there is going to be a much more liberal environment by which we will be operating in. For the certainty of all of us, it is important that we’re all very clear of what those rules will be during this very odd time.

Now we come to the issues around transparency. We hear the Opposition decry time and time and time again throughout this afternoon: there’s been a lack of transparency. Indeed, my good friend Mr Macindoe just said right then in this House, “We have not been reached out too. We have been locked out.” Well, he will know, and we will know, that they indeed were provided in good faith, in order to ensure that this House could hopefully come to a consensus position on this bill—they received a draft. They have been provided the opportunity to feed back that information. That same draft has also been provided to many legal academics, of which we’re very grateful that they have fed back into this piece of legislation. We can expect that there will be Supplementary Order Papers tabled this afternoon to help ensure that this very bespoke, fit for purpose legal framework is right.

I now want to come to the use of urgency, which the Opposition again have decried and decried in this House this afternoon. Isn’t that again an irony? In 2011, it was the Rt Hon David Carter, I think, who made the observation that that Government had spent a quarter of that year sitting under urgency—that side of the House. They passed bills like the national standards—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry, in the minutes left, come to the bill.

It’s very important, Madam Speaker. This sets the context by which the Opposition—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Come to the bill.

—have made significant contributions about our use of urgency.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Come to the bill.

That side of the House used urgency to introduce 90-day trials—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Come to the bill.

—Auckland super-city, increasing tobacco tax, and the “Hobbit” legislation. This side of the House is using urgency for a very significant bill.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’m sorry, but I have said to the member: come to the bill. You don’t ignore the Speaker. You have half a minute left. You come to the bill.

This side of the House is using urgency in this House in an absolutely unprecedented time—in a time when those forebears of the Westminster system envisaged that we would indeed use such a use of power, in a time when urgent legislation is needed to be introduced because we are living through a global pandemic that nobody could have anticipated. So I commend this bill and the Attorney-General for his work and his team’s work on this incredible piece of legislation done in such a short period of time.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. My goodness, that was an eye-opener, wasn’t it? Look, I’m very concerned about this bill—I’m very concerned about it. We’ve had a situation where we have been in this country in a state of lockdown for around four weeks—sorry, two months. Sorry, what am I talking about?—seven to eight weeks is what I should have said, sorry. In that time, we’ve had people die. We’ve had people who have got terrible diagnoses of illness, who have not been able to undertake their treatment. I have, in fact, a brother-in-law who has an awful diagnosis and I have not been able to visit him—he’s been part of my life since I was seven—because he lives in Hamilton and I live in Auckland.

I think it is an awful state where New Zealanders have been asked—not just asked but had demanded of them—that we do all the things that we’re told to do and then we do those things, we do exactly what we’re asked to do, and then it turns out that this level 2 COVID response that we’re now being told we’re moving to suddenly needs legislation when, strangely, levels 3 and 4 seem to not need this sort of legislation.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: There was a state of emergency.

That’s, of course, as Mr Hipkins wants to say—the other levels needed it because there was an emergency. Well, I guess that that is an acknowledgment that we are currently not in a state of emergency. Nobody extra was diagnosed or announced today to have COVID-19.

Last year, I’m assured, around 850 people died of the winter influenza; no doubt there’ll be other people this year with the same. COVID-19 is clearly not winter influenza; it’s obviously a very prolific disease once it takes hold, and we are fortunate to live in a country with borders that happen to be oceans, and that means that people can’t just come into the country with the disease unless the Government or the border control lets that happen, and that’s exactly what has happened. When I heard the Minister of Health—the poor, poor man—David Clark, lowest ranked member of Cabinet and supposedly with the top job, having to tell us today that the Government had gone hard and early in its response, it is simply PR spin spun by a master communicator, who is his boss. This country did not go hard and early. It went actually pretty weak and slowly, and that’s what happened. There was no need whatsoever, no need at all, for this country to allow COVID-19 to come in here.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I would ask the member to come to the bill.

And then we are coming to the point of enforcement. Who is going to enforce these new rules that we’re being asked to rubber-stamp in the dead of night, going rushing through Parliament after—what?—seven weeks or eight weeks of lockdown, and suddenly it has to come through in one day? Well, there are going to be people called enforcement officers. Now, who are these enforcement officers? Who are they?

Well, apparently, according to the bill that I have read and made notes on myself, they are people that the Government’s decided should be enforcement officers. I understand that the Government has a Supplementary Order Paper, which is, in other words, yet another amendment to the bill that’s rushing through now, which will mean that they will generally be people who currently work for Government agencies. They will be able to go into every business, every premises, everywhere except a dwelling house, and they’re not allowed on the marae without warrants. The police, however, will be able to go on to marae and into my dwelling house and your dwelling house and everyone else’s dwelling house, if they suspect you’re having more than 10 people over for tea. Now, this is ridiculous.

We are getting into a situation of a police State, and what is the point of this? This is to stop COVID-19, except actually I think we’ve pretty much worked out that COVID-19 came into the country. Other people are not being allowed into the country with it, without quarantine, as we’re now told is happening. So where is it all coming from? We have a few clusters left and New Zealanders are being told, “You’ve all done very well, you good little boys and girls, you children.” that we’re going to speak to like that, as the Prime Minister is wont to do. “You’ve all been very good, but we don’t trust you.” That’s what this bill is about. The Government is taking the powers of the director-general and giving them to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health. That is a disgrace. They’re politicising COVID-19 and using it to tell everyone what to do.

Is this a split call?

💬 David Seymour: It doesn’t have to be.

Is Labour putting up a speaker?

💬 Hon Members: No.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in support of this bill to its first reading. The reason ACT supports the COVID-19 Response (Further Management Measures) Legislation Bill is very simple. It’s about the rule of law, and the rule of law matters because if it means anything to be a New Zealander, it is to live freely under democracy and the rule of law: to be able to send representatives to this House to make laws that are clear, that we can read for ourselves and understand what the law is. Having the rule of law protects the weakest people in our society because they can see it written down and it applies equally to every person. It’s especially pertinent at the moment because we have had a terrible taste of what it is like to live in New Zealand for those few weeks without it. We descended into the most horrific hysteria where people threw apart and threw away the most basic regard for the rights and dignity of individuals.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Let’s just call them Vivian. They wouldn’t want to be named. They’re an older couple who were walking out in the eastern beaches of Auckland. Why? Because the hills of Remuera are hard on their knees. They were resting on their own chairs that they had taken, and they were not only harassed by members of the public but also by the police, and they were in tears. They got in touch with me to ask, “How is this possible? Have we not any rights?”

Then there’s the story of Jack Lum, the guy who runs the greengrocer that has been in place in Remuera for over 70 years, told by some officials that he could open and then told by a policeman in plain clothes that he must shut down with no notice and he couldn’t even trade out the day. Well, Jack tells me it takes 500 man-hours to get the store going again, and at his age, he’s not sure if he’ll get it going again. The crazy thing is that just across the road, Fruit World Greenlane continued to operate. Jack was told that he couldn’t operate because he’s near a supermarket, Remuera New World. Well, so is Fruit World Greenlane next to the Countdown of the same name.

Then there’s the story of Bjorn and Lucy Reymer, who bravely came and told their story of having a miscarriage: Lucy sobbing alone, left with a box of tissues in an empty room in the hospital; Bjorn left out in the car park with no rights to be supporting his wife at the most tragic of times. I could speak all night about the horrific—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’d like it on the bill.

—events that have occurred in a time when we did not have the rule of law, when people could not go and read on a piece of paper what their rights are. That’s why this bill, debated by this Parliament, no matter how improperly, is a massive improvement on what we have seen in the weeks gone by. We cannot afford to revisit a kind of kind police State where New Zealanders were more eager to dob each other in to the Government than support them in questioning their Government.

But, unfortunately, I can only support this bill to the first reading, through this urgent process, because it has some real problems. I can understand the Government going through urgency. I won’t relitigate the issues that got us here, except to say that it has been four months—actually, nearly four and a half months—since it became clear to countries such as Taiwan that there might be an issue. The idea that this has all suddenly happened and the Government has to rush Parliament through urgency now is a poor reflection on the preparedness of the Government. But, no matter, we’re here, and we have to rush this through urgency so we can get to level 2 lawfully and quickly—understood. But what is an issue is that this bill lasts for two years. The objective, if we want the bill to be done democratically, should be to get it passed now and have Parliament review it as soon as possible. I have an amendment on the Table on Supplementary Order Paper 494 that says it should only last one year. That is enough time for this Parliament to come back and make this law properly.

💬 Brett Hudson: More than enough time.

“More than enough time.”, I hear from Brett Hudson.

The second issue with this bill might be that the powers issued under section 11, I think it is, are so wide ranging, but I think it’s worth pointing out that those powers are clearly judicially reviewable and the Minister has gone to some effort to make that pretty clear in the way the bill is written. So, yes, there is almost no constraint, according to this bill, on what an order could mean. It could mean you’d have to close down, stay home, don’t meet someone, don’t do this, don’t do that, or don’t bring a thing in or out of the country or in and out of an area. All of that is true, but it is very clear that this is judicially reviewable, and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act states that such an order can be made only in a way that is proportional to the objective and does not unduly override the rights of New Zealanders according to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. So we’ll give that part a pass.

But then we come to this issue of the Director-General of Health versus the Minister of Health. Quite rightly, the bill seeks to transfer powers that really have been exercised by the Director-General of Health, an unelected civil servant, to the Minister of Health, somebody that the voters, the people of New Zealand, have the opportunity to vote out. Who knows—in that particular instance, they just might. But the problem is that the bill is not clear on the division of powers between the Director-General of Health and the Minister of Health. It says that if the Minister makes a public health directive, then that Minister has to consult with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice. They’ve got to be sure that they’re doing the right thing. They have to give 48 hours’ notice. That’s all proper.

The director-general can issue one, albeit for a region. They can issue it for a month and they can keep renewing it indefinitely. So there is a way of exercising the same power that completely circumvents the Minister of Health and the Minister’s accountability. I have Supplementary Order Paper 495 that sets out amendments that would change that, and say, “Yes, if something is particularly urgent, the director-general can issue a 48-hour notice.” That is the notice period that the Minister of Health has to give. Within that period, if the Minister agrees, that Minister can go through the proper accountability procedure and issue a more permanent notice. That would be the right way to maintain democratic accountability and nimbleness of response: one job for the director-general, one job for the Minister of Health, and no overlap. I urge members to support my amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 495.

Finally, as the Hon Judith Collins mentioned, we have these enforcement officers, and I’d love to know who the Minister has in mind, because to me it sounds like it could be WorkSafe employees coming into your business, but it could also be that the director-general could decide that one of these community groups running a road block could be enforcement officers with all the powers of the State. That is terrifying. So, I have an amendment—or, ideally, we’d amend it to get rid of that and the police could enforce the law, because that’s their job and they have proper safeguards, such as the Independent Police Complaints Authority—that would say that at the very least, a person acting as an enforcement officer, first of all, has to give the person their rights: “This is how you complain about me, and these are your rights under the law.”, because, remember, this is all about the rule of law. The director-general has to consider those complaints, because otherwise we’ve set up a whole new class of people who can go around, tell you what to do, shut down your business, fine you, and there’s no complaint or accountability mechanism whatsoever. I can’t think of any other agent of the State that doesn’t have an accountability mechanism.

So, it’s critical for the rule of law that this legislation is in place. It should have been introduced to this House weeks ago, if the Government was on the ball, but here we are. Let’s have a debate and let’s make it better so that people can maintain their rights and freedoms under this law. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak on this, the COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill. I just want to set on record, just for background: National called for border controls ahead of action from the Government, it called for quarantining ahead of action from the Government, it called for us to go into lockdown, to flatten the curve, ahead of the Government’s actions. Likewise, it’s also called to exit that harsh lockdown sooner, both because of our understanding of the severe curtailment of civil liberties but also the impact on lives and livelihoods, with thousands of people losing their jobs and businesses going out of business. But we understood the need, and we supported the Government when they came to make that move. Along the way, we have questioned some of the lawfulness of some of the actions under that lockdown. Partly, that is our job, but, more importantly, if a cornerstone of a democracy is the freedom of speech, similarly, an equal cornerstone is the Government not only upholds but follows the laws that every other citizen of the nation is expected to follow. In fact, in situations like this, it is even of more importance that every action of the Government is lawful, as the laws stand.

Quite frankly, not only the provisions in this bill but some comments we’ve heard tonight, including the contribution from Kiritapu Allan, suggest very strongly, just as the public suspect with the withheld Crown Law advice, that actually the Government also believe that there was at very least a grey area, if not, in fact, an absolute unlawfulness. Nowhere is that more evident than in the lockdown threat of compliance prior to 3 April, when a subsequent health notice was issued. This is all relevant because it gets to why are these enforcement powers in this bill required—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Then relate it.

—which I’m going to do right now. What became clear from the Hon Chris Hipkins’ comments—which was there’s no state of emergency, but there is today, but it’s going to run out shortly—is a very clear signal that the risk profile heading into alert level 2 does not support the continuation of a state of emergency or maybe even an epidemic notice. What they’re saying is they’re unable to continue what they’ve claimed is lawful, but that the powers under section 70 of the Health Act, the enforcement powers under section 71, and the powers under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act—they’re saying they’ll no longer be able to rely on those because they can’t claim an ongoing emergency or epidemic.

If that were the case and they had the need to apply constraints to civil liberties across the entire nation, the answer is not to create a completely new framework and set of rules; it’s to address the provisions of the epidemic notice of the Epidemic Preparedness Act and the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act to ensure that the conditions, the risk profile presented under what they have arbitrarily called level 1 and 2, is accommodated for under the existing legislation. It is not an excuse to create a whole new set of powers which enable them to completely ignore the law as it stands and the powers and limits on the powers that are unlocked under an epidemic notice or, indeed, under a state of emergency—because that’s precisely what they’re doing with this bill. The giveaway, too, for the public to get concerned about—and they do have a reason to be very concerned about—is that what they’ve put on the tin is saying this bill is necessary to enforce provisions under level 2, except that the provisions apply under any level.

Now, I’m sure some legal expert will be able to say there are some provisions under section 70 of the Health Act or under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act which aren’t mirrored in this bill. But for New Zealanders who faced lockdown every day for what amounted to six weeks, the rules that required them to principally stay at home, that limited what they could do for exercise and where they could do it; the rules that limited what businesses could open and how they could open, those rules all exist in the new bill and they can all be applied at any alert level that New Zealand happens to be at. This is not about powers for level 1 and 2. This is powers for levels 1, 2, 3, and 4, which do not have any necessary regard to the existing legislative frameworks, principally the Epidemic Preparedness Act, or, indeed, the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act. They’ve created completely new law to give themselves the same sort of powers they wanted, because they don’t believe they had the lawful authority they needed, either prior and certainly now.

They’ve made it worse, because one of the safeguards—because unquestionably, to the extent that the authority was lawful under the epidemic notice in the state of emergency, there were enormous powers to curtail civil liberties, and powers of enforcement. But the balance on those was that they were not directed by politicians, by Government. They were directed by apolitical heads of departments. The Director-General of Health issued health notices; the Director of Civil Defence Emergency Management made directions under that Act—not politicians with political agendas. Well, they’re flipping that completely on its head in this bill. They turn it round. The director-general’s powers are shrunk, but the Minister of Health, who has to consult with the Prime Minister, effectively, has all those enormous powers for all levels of COVID alert level. They have completely turned around and politicised this pandemic. They have made the administration of it and the enforcement of it a political exercise that is wholly wrong.

On the matter of urgency, too, just before I move on to the enforcement officers, I would contend that when a Government is seeking such wide-ranging curtailment of civil liberties, that is exactly the wrong time to push that through: under urgency. It is the wrong time. That is the wrong time to push this through: under urgency. But here we go, steamrolling through, in a few hours.

The third area I’d comment on is this idea of enforcement officers. Now, we saw in the public domain, over the course of the lockdown, a number of community groups around the country stopping citizens in their vehicles and demanding personal information. These public citizens had no warrant. They had no legal authority. We believe that, unquestionably, those checkpoints were unlawful. The Government told us the roads weren’t closed, so the powers of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act weren’t brought to bear, the Health Act wasn’t brought to bear, but the Land Transport Act certainly was, and that requires an enforcement officer with a warrant to legally stop or direct traffic on an open road or, indeed, to demand personal information.

Well, under this bill, the Government—because it is, effectively, the Government running the show under this bill—will be able to authorise anyone they like to undertake those sorts of activities: to walk around, checking up on businesses and closing them, to be demanding private and personal information from people who might have been stopped by a constable but are then handed over to the citizen with a special power to be an enforcement officer, to demand that information, and with the threat of issuing an infringement notice with a penalty of $300 if that person, that otherwise member of the public, decides themselves that that person that they are addressing has contravened a rule in their mind. That is a travesty. The police are the principal enforcement agency of the Government for domestic compliance. It is them and them alone that should be authorised, particularly in situations where civil liberties have been curtailed, where people’s freedoms have been abridged. It is the role of police to undertake the enforcement of those rules.

This bill is a complete separate right of a set of powers which can be exercised at the whim of a Prime Minister, maybe having regard to what they’re told, but not having to follow advice they’re given. The whim of a Prime Minister, the Government through the Minister of Health, can, basically, constrain any and all civil liberties of any class of New Zealanders or, indeed, the entire nation, and they can subcontract the enforcement of those conditions to anyone they like. This is not us.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I won’t take too long to speak in support of this, the COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill. [Interruption] I thank Mr Bridges for heckling at the back—get used to it, mate. Look, the point is that we are here to pass a bill that needs to pass, and I think most people at home will recognise that. They will also recognise that the National Party haven’t had many opportunities to make a point. Those they’ve had they’ve squandered, and yet they’ve taken the wrong tack on this.

This bill will provide the law necessary for alert level 2. Instead of providing constructive ideas on what that could mean, they’ve talked about alert level 3 and alert level 4 with lots of ifs, buts, and maybes. This Government, however, is getting on with it. We’re passing laws that need to be passed so that we can stamp out COVID-19 and we can get our economy back on track. I know what’s going to work: it is a team effort. It’s not whinging, it’s not heckling from the backbenches, it’s not coming up with all sorts of conspiracy theories; it’s cracking on and doing what needs to be done.