Ministerial Statements — COVID-19—Alert Level Changes

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I’d like to speak to the ministerial statement in so much as two matters that came to Te Paati Māori’s attention in the last week, and we’ve been very vocal about them. One was the communication that’s been used. Clearly, the Government has changed strategy, but what we did see is that there hasn’t been a change to the communications. And what we’ve seen is an effort to open schools very early, but it seems to forget that we’re dealing with hundreds of rangatahi—many, we saw in the last week and a bit, whose first language is not English and whose first habit is not to listen to Government messaging.

So what we’ve seen and become, I guess, quickly savvy with is a complex four-category framework that is being used by this Government. But what we didn’t understand, again, is the mix of messaging that has, quite frankly, brought about a mounting mess of, “Are we, aren’t we, should we, shouldn’t we?” It resulted in what we saw in Te Ao Māori as a victim-blaming session in social media—intentionally or not. What we do want to do is ensure that the Minister for COVID-19 Response is aware of this and we stop, together, the backlash that we see that is happening to our communities. While we may be a team of 5 million, I think it’s really important to remember that we have a small team and are relying on 400,000 South Aucklanders to carry the brunt of a lot of the decisions that are coming out of this Whare.

So one of the questions, I guess, that we do want to know from the Minister is: what have we learnt and what is the communication style that we’re going to take going forward? The second thing we would like to put to the Minister is: what are we doing, and what are your approaches, with Māori specifically, as you have addressed the vulnerability? We would hope that there is effort and, certainly, focus on our Māori vulnerabilities in those who choose to have vaccinations, and not, as we heard this afternoon, on a cricket team. I would love to hear, and we would like to hear, your response to some of these questions. And just finally, thank you, is: when will we see a schedule for Māori roll-out from the Minister? Thank you.

One of the things that the debrief that’s happening at the moment—and that’s happening at a number of levels: it will, obviously, happen at the Ministry of Health where they’ll be looking at their own internal processes and what they can learn from that; and then the review panel that I announced today will also have the opportunity to have a good look at this—will look at is: should our systems and processes be different in a school setting? We’ve actually had some feedback from a number of school leaders, not necessarily involved in this outbreak, pointing out that when you’re dealing with teenagers there are some close contacts they have that they don’t wish to disclose to their parents, let alone a contact tracing team, and that that is something that we needed to factor in in thinking about how we deal with a potential outbreak in a school setting. So we’ll certainly have a closer look at that and consider that.

Health engagement with iwi leaders is ongoing around the testing regime, making sure that Māori are tested appropriately and proportionately and are not under-represented in our testing system. So that engagement is ongoing. When it comes to vaccines, the member will see a bit more about this tomorrow when we release the sequencing framework, but we have absolutely been working very carefully through all of those issues, including who our most at-risk populations are. The member will also be aware that some of our Māori-Pacific population is quite strongly represented in the first cohort—the people who are working at the border—as well. So they and their whānau are already off to a reasonably strong start; we need to make sure that we maintain that right the way through the vaccine campaign.