COVID-19 Orders — Approval

I move, That this House approve the following orders made under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020:

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Required Testing) Order 2020

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Alert Level Requirements) Order 2020

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Isolation and Quarantine) Order 2020

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order (No 2) 2020

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Maritime Border) Order (No 2) 2020

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Required Testing) Amendment Order 2020

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Required Testing) Amendment Order (No 2) 2020

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Alert Level Requirements) Amendment Order 2020

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border and Isolation and Quarantine) Amendment Order 2020

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Alert Level Requirements) Amendment Order (No 2) 2020

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border, Isolation and Quarantine, and Required Testing) Amendment Order 2020

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Alert Level Requirements) Amendment Order (No 3) 2020

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order 2020

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Alert Level Requirements) Amendment Order (No 4) 2020

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Required Testing) Amendment Order (No 3) 2020.

This actually gets to the meat of the debate. This is actually where the rules that applied have been made. We’ve gone through several motions that I would describe as more procedural, and whilst this is a procedural motion, it actually deals with the substance of the restrictions that have been put in place. So to run briefly through the orders that are being confirmed here—I’m not going to go through all of the detail of each of the orders, but I will speak broadly about what they do. They deal with the controls that are in place at our air and our maritime borders to manage people arriving into New Zealand. They deal with the legal requirements around managed isolation and quarantine that are in place and set out how they can be enforced. They deal with testing of border and other at-risk workers, setting out how regularly they need to be tested and other steps that might need to be taken to protect their safety and wellbeing. And they deal with the rules that apply under lower levels—alert levels 1 and 2—particularly when it comes to things like face masks and QR codes.

There are some orders that have been made that no longer apply, and therefore are not being confirmed by this motion, including the alert level 3 order that was issued when we moved Auckland to alert level 3 for that period of time we were dealing with the August outbreak. Of course, we’re no longer at alert level 3, we don’t need to confirm those rules, so that is not included in this. I do also want to say to all members that I don’t exercise the powers under this lightly. This is a job that I take incredibly seriously. I do think that we need to continue to learn and evolve in our COVID-19 response. Members will note that, in addition to confirming the substantive orders, we are confirming a lot of amendments, and I think the reason that we have so many amendments is a reflection of the fact that things move quickly when it comes to COVID-19. We are always looking for where there are weaknesses and gaps in our system and we are always seeking to plug those very quickly. The orders are one of the ways that we do that.

Now, in a normal legislative or regulatory process, these processes would take weeks and months. Actually, the reality is sometimes if we identify something needs to happen, I’ll be asked to sign off an order on it within 24 hours to make that thing happen very, very quickly. That’s actually the great flexibility that the Act provides. But it also does impose an enormous responsibility on Government to exercise those powers very seriously, because the regular degree of scrutiny and process that would apply when we are putting in place the sorts of regulations and the sorts of rules that this Act allows for don’t apply in these circumstances because there’s a need to move with urgency, and there’s a need to continue to grow, and adapt, and evolve our response as we learn more about COVID-19, and as we continue to identify any residual weakness that exists in our COVID-19 defences.

So I want to thank members of the House for their support for the previous motion. I also want to, I hope, thank them for what I think will be their support for this. These orders are very sensible orders. There will always be a degree of debate about whether we should go further in some of those areas. But I certainly urge the House to confirm these orders, because without confirming the orders, then all of those restrictions that apply around controlling entry into the country, managed isolation, when people are in the country, the testing regime that we’ve now got operating very effectively at the border—those things wouldn’t be possible without them.

Well, thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT to confirm these orders—with the rider that we would urge the Government to think hard about, again, risk and proportionality when it uses them. It wasn’t so long ago that we heard the Leader of the House, I think at that time in his capacity as the healthcare Minister, when asked why he hadn’t used one of these, why he hadn’t used it to make sure that people who were working at the border were tested—you know, there’s no community transmission, there’s no COVID in the community, the only people in New Zealand that had COVID were people who had arrived from countries where it is. Surely, if there was going to be a priority for testing New Zealanders, it would be the ones who were in contact with the only people in New Zealand that we knew had it. They would be the people to test. And the Minister was heard to say, “Well, you know, making people get tested is a big lever to pull.” But of course, under alert level requirements, the order which is also being confirmed—he had decided to impose restrictions on the largest city in the country at a wholesale level. That was somehow not a big lever to pull.

I think that there needs to be some proportionality in the response where the Government uses these orders in a way that maximises people’s freedom and utility rather than being sensitive, for instance, to testing and then being prepared to use a sledgehammer on a whole city. So with that small rider, I support these orders being in place. The Government does need these to manage a public health crisis, but it also needs to start using them in a way that is proportional to the risk and minimises the costs to New Zealanders. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I just want to take a very brief call to say that we will support the order, and I do agree with some of what Mr Seymour has said. Generally, I think it would be fair to say that the Government’s promulgation of the orders has been late and haphazard and largely as a response and a result of Opposition pressure in some cases, pressure from the media in some cases, and from public health experts.

That’s as it should be in a democracy, and I, for one, don’t accept the view that has been put about by some that at a time of national crisis we should all sit around and sing “Kumbaya” and support the Government—that’s the constitutional duty of the Opposition. Frankly, that is a retrograde view. The job of the Opposition at a time of crisis is to support where necessary but to constructively critique where necessary, and I am utterly convinced that the spirited opposition from National in the last year has made the Government’s response better. I’m utterly convinced of that, and there’s any number of examples that you could point to, to prove that, and that is important. So we will continue to scrutinise these orders. We will continue to push for greater testing and push for policies that we outlined on the election campaign that are a good border policy designed by Dr Shane Reti.

We support these orders and with those caveats I’ll take a seat, thanks.

Motion agreed to.

Orders approved.