COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill

I don’t wish to labour a contribution on the title and commencement, but I think there is a problem with the title. The title that the Government has chosen, like much of the drafting of this bill as it was introduced, reveals something about how the Government is approaching this issue, and it’s approaching it in a way that is unbalanced. The Government has called this bill the COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill. OK, we understand that’s part of the problem that this country faces, but there’s actually a much wider crisis out there now. Yes, COVID-19 is a problem, for now apparently beaten, but it may come back in mutated strains or in a winter outbreak—who knows? It’s certainly a problem we face, but it’s not the only problem that we face.

One of the other problems we face is a global recession, if not depression. We also face significant problems caused by the Government’s response to COVID-19 and some of its excesses, arbitrariness, and inflexibility. Those problems are the loss of livelihoods, the businesses that haven’t been able to operate, the people who have not been able to grieve their loved ones, and, the most tragic of all, those stories which are starting to emerge of people who have taken their own life in despair at losing their business and losing their livelihood as a result of the Government’s COVID-19 policies.

The proper way to approach this crisis is to see it as a range of economic, social, and health challenges facing New Zealand over the coming few months and, potentially, years. If the Government started from the very simple position that we are going to have to balance quite a range of challenges as we face COVID-19, then it would be in better standing to maximise New Zealanders’ rights and freedoms and welfare. We saw it in earlier parts of debate on this bill. We saw it in the Part 1 debate, specifically clause 4, where the purpose of this bill is to fight COVID-19. Aside from saying that that fight should use measures proportionate—to what, it didn’t say—there was no concession to the other objectives the Government should have for New Zealanders: preserving their rights and freedoms and the ability to protect their livelihoods in the context of a COVID-19 crisis.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: It’s in there—it’s in there.

The interesting thing was the Minister, the Attorney-General—I’ll come to that, Mr Little, who says it’s in there. Andrew Little’s right: in clause 9, there’s one sentence—which, actually, I don’t think is a complete sentence, if you want to be an English language pedant—and it’s in brackets. So the only referral to New Zealanders’ other needs in this bill is in brackets. It’s all about COVID-19, and the title of this bill, the COVID-19 Public Health Response Bill, tells us something about the psychology of the Government in drafting this bill and, indeed, in approaching this entire crisis. There has simply been a lack of balance.

So what would ACT have called this bill? Well, we might’ve started by saying it would be the “COVID-19 (Balancing Economic Health and Welfare) Bill”. It might’ve been, to use the Government’s language, the “COVID-19 (Overall Wellbeing) Bill”. We could come up with names all day, but anything that sent a message that this Government wants to strike a balance between New Zealand’s other objectives and its COVID-19 objectives would’ve been welcome.

Then we come to the commencement, and this commencement is something that is worth noting because it’s quite different from the commencement clauses in just about any other bill that I have debated. The commencement clause, for people that don’t often read legislation, is a clause that says when the bill comes into effect, and it varies. Often, it’s a year; sometimes, it’s six months. It gives respect and notice to the fact that people need time to plan for new laws. This is this fundamental principle that people should be able to plan their activities, as Hayek said, without concern for arbitrary coercion by another or others. People should be able to plan their future without someone else coming along and saying, “The rules have all changed, and your plans are no longer going to work out.”

That’s why, normally, a commencement clause comes with some time between when the law is passed in this Parliament and when it comes into effect and people are required to follow it. I won’t labour the End of Life Choice Act, which has to have a referendum passed and then another 12 months before it comes into effect. This bill comes into effect almost immediately. As soon as the bill is taken over on its fine parchment paper from this House to the Governor-General, who signs it, it’s a law. The reason that’s being done is because the Government wants it to be in place by 11.59 tonight so that this country can move to level 2. Well, that’s an understandable desire, and, under the circumstances, it’s the right thing to do, but that’s the critical point: under the circumstances. And what are those circumstances that led us to have a bill that’s rushed through Parliament and must have the Royal assent immediately so we can move to level 2? Well, basically, the Government started late. We’ve been told ad nauseum that this country decided to go hard and go early. Well, actually, on any reasonable time frame, we are here with a bill that commences immediately because the Government started legislating so late.

Let’s go through these time frames. There’s the time frame of New Zealand’s response. Back in February, when I was saying, “The Prime Minister shouldn’t be in Fiji for three days; this thing is getting serious—the share market’s tanking; 37 countries have it.”, well, the Prime Minister stayed in Fiji and was planning to have a huge commemoration with thousands of people for the 15 March tragedy. This Government only put in place serious public health measures in mid-March. They’ve had two months since then to get serious about legislation—more than enough time, had they anticipated that maybe they would need legislation, to start drafting it, to circulate it, to have a more lengthy parliamentary process so that it could be debated and maybe actually be ready ahead of time so that the commencement wouldn’t say it comes into force immediately but actually says it comes into force at least a couple of weeks after, so people would have time to plan. But, sadly, the reason that we have a commencement that is immediate is purely because this Government has been behind the eight ball and behind the preparations of New Zealanders every step of the way.

You just ask the Retirement Villages Association. They started taking public health measures two weeks before the Government announced any, because they could see it coming. You ask the pharmaceutical guild. They were working with their counterparts around the world weeks before this Government. You ask the people of Taiwan. They told the World Health Organization about human transmission on 31 December last year, and then they issued all of their public health response by 20 January. That’s the real time line, and then the Government will try and say, “Oh, this Government went early compared with when the virus arrived in New Zealand.” This Government was lucky it arrived so late. It was almost waiting for the virus to get here before it did anything. If we had truly gone smart and gone early like other countries, this legislative drafting process would’ve started at least two months ago. We would’ve had eight weeks for it to be consulted on with the public, we would’ve got much better laws, and we would’ve had laws that we could live with and support, but, unfortunately, even the title and commencement are extremely difficult to agree with in this bill. Thank you, Mr Chair.