Oral Questions

1. to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: What recent announcements has the Government made on commencing quarantine-free travel to and from New Zealand?

More good news. Yesterday, the Prime Minister and I announced that quarantine-free travel between New Zealand and Australia will commence at 11.59 p.m. on Sunday, 18 April. The opening of a trans-Tasman bubble is an important step forward in our COVID-19 response and represents a world-leading arrangement: safely opening up international travel while continuing to pursue a strategy of elimination and keeping the virus out. It also represents the start of a new chapter in New Zealand’s COVID-19 response and recovery, one that all New Zealanders have worked so hard for.

💬 Dr Tracey McLellan: How will New Zealanders benefit from the opening of a trans-Tasman bubble?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: There is no doubt that the commencement of quarantine-free travel with Australia will give our economic recovery a welcome boost, particularly for airlines and for businesses affected by border closures. I will defer to the Minister of Tourism to elaborate more on that in due course, but one sacrifice that’s been particularly hard for many to bear over the past year has been the separation from friends and family in Australia. Our team’s success in managing COVID-19 and keeping it out over the past 12 months now opens up the opportunity for families and friends to reconnect with loved ones more easily.

💬 Dr Tracey McLellan: What will the difference between quarantine-free travel and travel pre - COVID-19 be?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It is important to remember that life will not go back to exactly the way it was before COVID-19. Those undertaking travel across the Tasman will need to do so on the basis of flyer beware. People need to plan for the possibility of having travel disrupted if there’s an outbreak on either side of the Tasman. Just as we have our alert level system for managing cases in New Zealand, we also now have a framework for managing New Zealanders in the event of an outbreak in Australia, which involves three possible scenarios: continue, pause, and suspend. While we do want to encourage people to travel both ways across the Tasman—we want visitors to come to New Zealand—it is critical that those undertaking travel understand the risks involved.

💬 Dr Tracey McLellan: So what precautions have been taken to manage the risk at the border in light of the opening of that trans-Tasman bubble?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: We have been working very hard to ensure that good, strong, robust public health measures are in place. To be eligible to travel to or from New Zealand on quarantine flights, people must not have had a positive COVID-19 test result in the previous 14-day period. They must not be awaiting results from a COVID-19 test taken during that period. Passengers need to provide comprehensive information on how they can be contacted while they are in New Zealand. They need to complete pre-departure health declarations, and they won’t be able to travel if they have cold or flu symptoms. When they fly, they’ll be required to wear a mask on their flight. They’ll also be asked to download and use New Zealand’s COVID Tracer app whilst they’re in New Zealand. On arrival, they’ll be taken through a green zone at the airport, meaning they won’t have any contact with those who are arriving from other parts of the world and going into managed isolation or quarantine. We’ll also be undertaking random temperature checks of those arriving, as an added precaution.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

2. to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all of her Government’s statements and actions?

Yes—in particular, our announcement yesterday that a trans-Tasman bubble will commence on 19 April. The bubble will give our economic recovery a boost, and represents a unique arrangement of safely opening up international travel while continuing to pursue a strategy of elimination and keeping the virus out of New Zealand. We’ve all worked hard to ensure travel is safe and that the necessary public health measures are in place, and this opening represents a new chapter in our response and recovery to COVID-19.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Does the latest report from the Office of the Director of Mental Health and Addiction Services include data on the age-standardised rate of suicide in New Zealand, as it did in previous versions?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: My understanding from the Ministry of Health—and keeping in mind that the decisions around this report sat entirely with them—is that they have looked at the original intent of the report, which was to report against three pieces of legislation. They also looked at whether or not information that had subsequently been added over successive years to the report was being reported on elsewhere. Suicide data is an example where they made a decision that because that information was reported elsewhere, it was removed from the report, which was originally intended to capture data that they are required to report on under three different pieces of legislation.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Does the report include data on the percentage of people seen by mental health services within three weeks, as it did in previous versions?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That again is another example of where they had data that was already being reported through their Nationwide Service Framework. So the view was, because that data was already reported elsewhere, it wasn’t included on the report, which originally always had just included reporting, as I understand, against three pieces of legislation. That’s a report that I think’s been produced going back to about 2005. Over successive years, additional things have been added. The Ministry of Health made a decision to go back to the core purpose of the report. If I may, there are a couple of other areas, though, that I’ve been advised were also included in the report that it is not 100 percent clear to me are available elsewhere. I’ll note that the reporting on deaths reported under section 132 of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act—that is not an area I’ve yet been able to determine whether or not that is information publicly available. I have spoken to the Minister of Health about whether or not we can ask the ministry to confirm—[Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! Can I ask the Prime Minister to sit down. This is a matter which is a very serious matter for lots of families in New Zealand. It will be heard in silence.

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Just to complete the question, that is an area where I’m not clear that that information is available elsewhere, so I’ve asked the Minister of Health to work with the ministry around resolving that issue.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Does the report include data on the proportion of New Zealanders accessing specialised mental health services, as it did in previous versions?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, that’s information that for the past 20 years has been provided through the Nationwide Service Framework. It’s available online, so that information continues to be publicly available. Again, the Ministry of Health has gone back to reporting against those three pieces of legislation—the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act, the Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act, and the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act—and they have removed areas that are available in other public domains and that didn’t necessarily relate to those pieces of legislation.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: When she said yesterday that there had been “a change in how information is reported”, was she referring to the removal of these key indicators from this report, and does she really think that that’s acceptable?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I’ve explained, it was a decision that the ministry made, to go back to the original intent of the reporting and identify information that was otherwise available in other places. Again, as I’ve said to the member, there are a couple of areas where it is not clear to me that the information necessarily is. That’s an issue that the Minister and I have spoken about and, I understand, he’ll be working with the ministry on.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: What targets, if any, has her Government set itself for reducing the number of times mental health patients are locked in rooms on their own, and where can the public review progress towards those targets?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The ministry began seclusion reduction policy, actually, in 2009. So that’s been something that the ministry—and I think all politicians would agree that having an aspiration to reduce down those numbers is absolutely right. So we’ve seen that over the course of the last decade, overall we’ve seen the total number of hours of seclusion for adult inpatients decrease by 47 percent, but in this latest year we have seen an increase in the use of seclusion. Again, this is data that is reported on, so, obviously, it is open for the public to see some of those changes in trends.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Why was the mental health and addiction report not released until six months after it had been approved by the Director-General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The explanation I have been given from officials—and I don’t think anyone would necessarily agree that this is a good outcome. But the explanation that we’ve been given is that the reporting that was meant to occur on 2018 data—the decision was made, because of delays that occurred with that reporting, to combine the 2018-19 year. The reporting on that was also delayed during COVID-19. Again, I think everyone agrees timely access to information is important. I don’t think the Ministry of Health would be particularly happy with the time line in which that data was reported, but that’s the explanation we’ve been given.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Does she agree with the journalist Jessica McAllen, who said that if the Government wanted accurate reporting on mental health, then they shouldn’t hide information that has been published every year for the past decade in the same report?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again, this is where we ourselves are looking at: can we assure ourselves that the information that otherwise has always been in the public domain continues to be? Whether or not it’s found during the coroner’s reporting on suicide statistics or whether or not it’s via this report or whether or not it’s via the national service framework, we do need to have information available to the public around how we are performing on mental health issues—so, no disagreement there—and that’s why we are undertaking a little bit of work to see the changes that the ministry made don’t detrimentally affect access to that information.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Does the Prime Minister agree that there should be a legal requirement to report clear and transparent mental health data, like there is for child poverty data?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Well, my understanding, of course, is that that’s one of the reasons that this particular report exists, because it is reporting on three different pieces of legislation and those regulated activities. I think one of the things that we would also agree with is, in those really important areas, particularly around things that may contribute to poor mental health outcomes and particularly for our young people—self-harm, whether or not they can access help if they need it. Those are things that we’re actually trying to pick up through our youth wellbeing surveys and strategies. So I think we shouldn’t just look at the tertiary use of care; we should look at the precursors that may lend itself to children either having a positive or negative experience when it comes to mental health services.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Does the Prime Minister agree that it makes it a lot easier for the public to be able to access information on mental health where key indicators are actually recorded and available in one report, since they’re on websites, rather than to have information spread out over a numerous number of reports?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Just speaking to that, I think part—obviously, when it comes to suicide statistics, I don’t think naturally people would go to this report when there has been the practice of going to the annual report—

💬 Nicola Willis: Excuses!

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’m simply responding to the question put by your leader around where people seek information. So the Chief Coroner, of course, has tended to be that primary source for that information, and that continues to be the case. Equally, the national service framework is another place where for 20 years, that’s where that information has been available, and it’s only been in recent times, as I understand, that that’s been added to another report. So I think the intent was to try and consolidate the purpose of this report down. I can see why the ministry has done it, but I can equally understand why it’s caused concern.

Question No. 3—Health

3. to the Minister of Health: What recent announcements has he made on new crisis mental health and addiction services in Hawke’s Bay?

Last week, I announced a new support service for people in Hawke’s Bay who are experiencing, or at risk of, mental health and addiction crisis. The mahi that will be delivered through this service will be life changing and represents an important shift in the way we deliver mental health crisis services. The pilot programme, named Te Tāwharau, will be a hub of community-based services delivered as a collaboration between health, social services, and police, and will include a dedicated peer support team. That is to say, those providing the support will include those people with lived experience.

💬 Anna Lorck: Why is this programme different from the current services?

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Te Tāwharau is the first programme of its kind where services will be based at one site in the community 24/7. This makes it easier for whānau to know where to get help, as services are coordinated to support people in the best way possible. Te Tāwharau will include adult respite residential beds, provided by a kaupapa Māori iwi provider, an emergency mental health and home-based treatment team, peer support workers, Ministry of Social Development support, and a police liaison.

💬 Anna Lorck: What role will peer support play in the new service?

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Every lived experience of mental health is unique, and the values and depth of understanding that peers—and that includes family members supporting those, with lived experience; every understanding that they bring is important. The intention will be that peer support workers act as a first step in preventing a crisis to ensure those in need can get help early. The peer support workers will be people with their own lived experience or who’ve supported friends or whānau through mental health or addiction issues.

Question No. 4—Housing (Māori Housing)

I’m not sure who this Minister is, sorry.

It’s the Associate Minister of Housing (Māori Housing).

4. to the Associate Minister of Housing (Māori Housing): Does he, or she, have concerns that homeownership is becoming unattainable for Māori, given that Māori individual homeownership has fallen to 26 percent in the latest census and that European New Zealanders have net worth almost five times higher than Māori?

💬 SPEAKER: Just before the Minister answers, if the member just reads a question as it is, because we would have checked that it was going to the right Minister. Clearly, another Minister is going to answer it.

on behalf of the Associate Minister of Housing (Māori Housing): Yes, we do have concerns, and that’s why our Government is actively responding to falling Māori homeownership. We’ve made a start but there is much more work to do. In November 2018, Prime Minister Ardern established a targeted Māori housing ministerial portfolio. In July 2019, we established a Māori housing unit specifically to attend to Māori housing issues. In September 2019, we expanded eligibility for first-home products to include multigenerational families, to ensure the scheme reflected Māori aspirations. In August 2020, we launched the Māori and Iwi Housing Innovation (MAIHI) - Framework for Action. Between the MAIHI Partnerships Programme and Te Puni Kōkiri, we’ve enabled 269 houses in Māori-led developments across the country, and infrastructure on 206 sites. Many of these are affordable houses targeted at homeownership for Māori. In July 2020, we launched the Progressive Home Ownership Fund, which supports a dedicated iwi and Māori pathway to support homeownership through iwi and Māori organisations. And last month, we launched the $3.8 billion Housing Acceleration Fund, which will make funding available for critical infrastructure on iwi and whenua Māori land to enable housing for homeownership.

💬 Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Will the Government recognise the severe disadvantage that Māori face in the housing market, and immediately introduce a Māori housing package that includes specific financial support schemes, such as the old Māori Affairs loan in the past; if not, why?

I think I went through, in my primary, a number of initiatives. But over a number of Budgets since we have been in Government, we can point to initiatives that have been targeted and specific to assisting Māori in housing and Māori into homeownership. So in Budget 2020, we had the $40 million for the MAIHI framework. In Budget 2019, we had a $40 million package for Māori housing. In Budget 2019, we also had $56 million specifically for the Whenua Māori Programme. And then, of course, we’ve had other schemes. I do look to previous schemes that we looked at when we came into Government, such as the Kāinga Whenua Loan Scheme that was run and, I think, probably was replaced when the Māori Party were part of the Government, and they’d only achieved 57 loans across 10 years—and we know we need to do better than that.

💬 Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does the Minister have confidence in the Government’s recently announced housing package, when it doesn’t include any specific policies targeted at increasing Māori homeownership?

Yes, I do have confidence. What we have outlined in this House on a number of occasions, now that we have secured the funding and made the arrangement, is that we are now working with partners—and some of those partners are iwi and Māori organisations—to ensure that we can have an infrastructure package that unlocks the potential not only of Māori-owned land but whenua Māori land for housing options as well.

💬 Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does the Minister think it’s acceptable that more than 11,000 Māori are currently on the social housing register waiting list—49.6 percent of the entire waiting list—and that for many of our w’ānau, housing affordability, let alone homeownership, is currently completely unattainable?

No.

Question No. 5—Health

5. to the Minister of Health: What is the current average waiting time in emergency departments, and what proportion of patients are currently seen within six hours?

In response to the first part of the member’s question, DHBs report on the proportion of patients who are seen in and depart emergency departments within six hours and the proportion of those who are there for more than six hours. DHBs have never reported on the average waiting times of patients presenting in emergency departments. In response to the second part of the member’s question, for the month of February 2021, 83 percent of patients were seen in and departed emergency departments within six hours.

💬 Dr Shane Reti: Have emergency department waiting times deteriorated since 2017 when this Government came to power?

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: It’s not possible to say. Some of the problems with emergency departments are not indicative of problems with the emergency departments themselves but the rest of the hospital and the way they manage patient flow, and the challenge for the system as a whole when they perceive there is a bottleneck in the emergency department is to make sure that the decisions about discharge of other patients throughout the rest of the hospital are being made and that space is being freed up for people to move from the emergency department to the rest of the hospital.

💬 Dr Shane Reti: Since he has been Minister, which emergency departments has he visited to observe waiting times?

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I’ve visited a number of hospitals, including their emergency departments.

💬 Dr Shane Reti: Can he name one hospital, and since his visit have waiting times improved?

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Well, I visited the Hawke’s Bay DHB emergency department last week, and I haven’t been in touch to see how their waiting times have changed in that time, except to say that it was a well worthwhile visit and a good discussion with the very hard-working, professional personnel who operate it.

💬 Dr Shane Reti: What is the waiting time at Hawke’s Bay emergency department for patients waiting longer than six hours?

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I don’t have that data available, and if the member wants that level of precision of information, he can put that in writing or ask another question.

💬 Dr Shane Reti: Can he confirm that last weekend ambulance officers in Christchurch delivered patients to after-hours clinics instead of the emergency department because the wait time of people who could walk was a full day?

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: No, I can’t confirm that.

💬 Dr Shane Reti: Which DHBs, if any, have had to treat emergency department patients on beds in hospital corridors this year?

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I can’t answer that question, but what I can say is that the health system that this Government inherited was in an absolutely appalling state, which explains why this Government has put literally billions of dollars more into the health system, last year alone increasing DHB funding by $980 million, adding 3,000 fulltime-equivalent positions throughout the hospital network: because the previous Government underfunded the health system so badly we are still trying to catch up.

Question No. 6—Tourism

6. to the Minister of Tourism: Will quarantine-free travel with Australia provide an economic boost to the New Zealand tourism industry; if so, how?

Yesterday’s announcement by our Prime Minister is excellent news for the tourism industry. Tourism New Zealand’s insights suggest that opening to Australia could deliver a billion dollars to the economy by the end of the year. Their research shows that over half of Australians surveyed are motivated to have a holiday that includes fun and enjoyment—56 percent—and to relax and refresh—53 percent. This presents a great opportunity for tourism operators and other small businesses to offer an experience that will appeal to Australian visitors. Despite solid domestic tourism over the summer, with many Kiwis trying something new, there is still a significant gap from the loss of international—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! That answer is too long.

Tāmati Coffey: What feedback has the Minister received from the tourism industry on quarantine-free travel with Australia?

💬 Hon STUART NASH: A lot of positive feedback. I’ve seen messages and reports from the Mayor of Queenstown, from the Christchurch Chamber of Commerce, airports, Ngāi Tahu, the tourism industry, and from small businesses, especially in the South Island, who say they are “over the moon”. Mayor Jim Boult said, “I … cannot express … how happy I am at today’s announcement. This is a thing that will make a really big difference for th[e] people who have been struggling.” Tourism Industry Aotearoa said, “[Travel] operators from around the country are breathing a sigh of relief”. They can now take bookings with confidence and scale up their staffing. The timing means that the ski regions, in particular, will receive a boost in the coming months as, in normal times, more than 70 percent of overseas visitors who ski in New Zealand are from Australia. Business—

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

Tāmati Coffey: Final supplementary: what advice has Tourism New Zealand given on the benefits of quarantine-free travel with Australia?

💬 Hon STUART NASH: Tourism New Zealand has previously stated that, combined with New Zealand’s domestic tourism market, the return of the Australian market provides the opportunity to bring the tourism industry back to 70 percent of pre-COVID tourism value at a national level. Australians previously made up around 40 percent of international arrivals in 2019, and contributed $2.6 billion to the New Zealand economy. Tourism New Zealand’s recent activity in Australia has been designed—

💬 SPEAKER: OK. That is enough. These answers are—[Interruption] The member will resume his seat when I stand up. I am accepting the word of Mr Coffey that that was the last supplementary, but the member needs to get his answers down to a reasonable size. I will say to Mr Bennett that, once again today, I am getting sick of his inane interjections. There are members of the House who are trying to convince me at the moment that this is a serious issue. He is not helping.

Question No. 7—Health

7. to the Minister of Health: Does he agree with the Mental Health Foundation CEO, who said in response to the Director of Mental Health and Addiction Services’ annual report, “They are not reporting on the very thing they are trying to improve as a top priority. If the data is there why not continue to publish it in the report where people are used to seeing it? … you are making the whole situation less transparent”; if not, why not?

No, because it is not correct to say that information previously reported on is not being reported.

💬 Matt Doocey: How is his Government living up to its goal of being open and transparent when mental health service data that is being reported in the same format for over a decade is no longer published in the annual report?

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The member is incorrect on two counts. First of all, all the information that has previously been reported, and has been for 20 years, continues to be publicly available in the Nationwide Service Framework. The second point is that because this Government takes seriously the crisis in our mental health system, largely as a consequence of the neglect of the previous Government, we have invested very heavily in upgrading its services—$1.9 billion alone in 2019. That has led to the establishment of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission as well as the Suicide Prevention Office, both of which will have reporting responsibilities openly, transparently, and accountably.

💬 Matt Doocey: When the Minister just said the information was found elsewhere, how does the Minister’s answers align with one ministry official who said, “Some data omitted would not be produced elsewhere”, and who doubts it would be available publicly if not retained in this annual report?

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I’m not responsible for what another official has said. I’m responsible for the facts of the matter, which is—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! Dr Nick Smith will stand, withdraw, and apologise. His late correction didn’t help him.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I stand, withdraw, and apologise. Point of order, Mr Speaker. The longstanding convention is that a Minister is responsible for his officials. For the Minister to stand up in the House and say it’s not his—

💬 SPEAKER: Right, the member will resume his seat. The member is absolutely right and he gets to it by asking a question, not making an out of order interjection.

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Mr Speaker, I hadn’t concluded that answer. The point I was going to make is that the advice I’ve received is very clear: that the information that appeared in previous reports by the Office of the Director of Mental Health and Addiction Services is available in other places, but most importantly is available in the Nationwide Service Framework that has been publicly available for 20 years.

💬 Matt Doocey: Is it open and transparent when revealed in ministry official emails that a risk lens was run over the data and removed because it was negative statistics?

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The advice I’ve received is that to the extent there were changes in this year’s report by the Office of the Director of Mental Health and Addiction Services for the 2018 and 2019 years, it was because since that data was collected other decisions have been made by this Government, including the establishment of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission and the establishment of the Suicide Prevention Office, both of which have reporting responsibilities and will report. But nevertheless, as the bottom line, the place where this data is always reported continues and that is the Nationwide Service Framework.

💬 Matt Doocey: Is the Minister confident that no one in the office of the Minister of Health had any communication with the Ministry of Health officials regarding the decision to remove data in the annual report and/or delay the release of the report?

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: Yes, absolutely.

💬 Matt Doocey: We’ll see.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Who said that? Who made that last interjection? Someone on my left. Was it you, Mr Doocey?

💬 Matt Doocey: Mr Speaker, I said, “We’ll see.”

💬 SPEAKER: Yeah, and the member will now stand, withdraw, and apologise. [Interruption]

💬 Matt Doocey: I withdraw and apologise.

💬 SPEAKER: And—I’m just trying to work out what to do with Nicola Willis at the moment. She will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

💬 Hon Member: She didn’t say anything.

💬 SPEAKER: Which member was it? If it wasn’t Nicola Willis, which female member on my left was it? [Interruption] One female member on my left injected then, which was it? [Interruption] No, it was someone in this group here. It was a three-letter interjection when I instructed Mr Doocey to withdraw. Who said, “Why?”

💬 Hon Todd McClay: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

💬 SPEAKER: No, it’s not a point of order.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Mr Speaker, I said the word “Why”.

💬 SPEAKER: Sorry, I apologise for being—Dr Smith will leave the Chamber.

Hon Dr Nick Smith withdrew from the Chamber.

💬 SPEAKER: I do apologise for getting the gender mixed up. I apologise in particular to Nicola Willis, who I named. Right, we’ll get on to the next question, I think.

Question No. 8—Transport

8. to the Minister of Transport: What recent improvements have been made to connect Hamilton and Auckland?

Yesterday, the Te Huia commuter rail service officially began, with regular commuter services between Hamilton and Auckland. Te Huia has the potential to replace up to 73,000 return car trips annually, helping to ease congestion and supporting our goal of reducing climate emissions from transport.

💬 Dr Gaurav Sharma: What has the uptake of Te Huia’s service been so far?

💬 Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Uptake of the service is going well. Excluding VIPs and reporters, of whom there were many, there are about 120 commuters on the first two morning services and 130 on the return journey on its first day. KiwiRail’s other inter-regional train, the Capital Connection, started with only a handful of commuters when it began about two decades ago, and it now carries between 250 and 300 people every day from Palmerston North to Wellington. We always expect that it will take time to build passenger numbers from a zero base, but this is a very solid start.

💬 Dr Gaurav Sharma: What support has there been for the Te Huia service?

💬 Hon MICHAEL WOOD: Well, there has been a lot. I’ve seen reporting that most passengers on the first service said it was an enjoyable and comfortable trip, and I understand that a number of commuters have signalled that this will now be their preferred way of getting from their home in the Waikato to their work in Auckland. The Waikato Regional Council chair, Russ Rimmington, said, “It will help to make roads safer, give people the stress-free travel and reliability they need between Waikato and Auckland”, and Hamilton mayor, Paula Southgate, said, “The new rail service will be great for commuters and day-trippers and is a true partnership between local, regional and central government as well as Crown agencies,”.

Question No. 9—Prime Minister

9. to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement relating to the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out, “Our focus in those early days has been just getting people vaccinated rather than focusing heavily on reporting systems and dashboards”?

Yes. I stand by my full statement, which began by noting that “We have to move to more frequent reporting as we scale up the roll-out.” As the member is aware, we’ve announced our sequencing framework and have a plan in place that will ensure all New Zealanders are offered a vaccine by the end of the year. Our initial focus—and rightfully so—has been on protecting those most at risk of being infected with COVID-19 in their workplace, which is why we’ve focused on vaccinating border and managed isolation and quarantine workers and high-risk front-line workers. We’ve also begun the next phase and are vaccinating people most at risk. As I said this morning, to give even more certainty, we will shift towards more frequent reporting that provides additional information and builds on the weekly updates provided by Ministers. This is why the Ministry of Health has started producing a weekly dashboard, the first of which has been published today.

💬 David Seymour: If the focus has been primarily on “getting people vaccinated”, why is the most people vaccinated in a day still only 6,000 when this Ministry of Health chart dated 17 March says there should be around 40,000 people vaccinated per day now in order to finish vaccination by December?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: So with the roll-out that we’re working to, you can see the blue line indicates where our projected plan has us and our vaccination rates; the red demonstrating where we actually are. We’re sitting at about 95 percent against our plan. At the moment, it is fair to say our vaccination rates over Easter were low, obviously the public holiday impacting that. We’re hoping to see that catch-up occur in the coming weeks. The whole plan, though, has been designed to see an ongoing uptick in daily vaccination rates until you see at its peak, when we get into the wider population, significant numbers on a daily basis.

💬 David Seymour: If we can’t rely on this chart published by the Ministry of Health last month, when can we expect every New Zealander who wishes to be vaccinated to be able to be vaccinated by?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Our projections—and, again, this is going to still be contingent on the arrival of Pfizer vaccine against what they’ve given us a general indication around. But the indications we have at the moment are that we should be moving into the general population from about the middle of the year—so from about July. What we’ve been careful to do in sequencing our roll-out—that doesn’t mean that we will have enough vaccination for the whole population from July but that we have enough stored and available that we feel confident that anyone who shows up will be able to be vaccinated, and we’ve taken that approach for the whole roll-out. We don’t want a situation where we scale up, and then we have a halt on supply and we have to scale down. We want it to be a continual ramp up in the availability and vaccination of our people.

💬 David Seymour: Is the Government waiting on a supply of vaccine because it signed its first agreement with a pharmaceutical company in October, compared with the US and UK in May, Japan in July, or Kazakhstan, for example, in August?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The first thing I’d say is that countries of course are working incredibly hard to vaccinate their populations so that they can get normality back in their lives. They are working very hard to get what New Zealanders for the most part already have, so that means that of course when it comes to, not our advanced purchase arrangements, but delivery against them, Australia and New Zealand have very openly acknowledged that the pressures in New Zealand are very different to other countries. People are literally not dying while they wait, so that means delivery has been different. The second point I’d make is our programme is different. We’re using a primary vaccination in Pfizer. We will have others available, but that is our primary dose that we’re using. The third point I’ll make is that we have been making sure, as I said, that we are sequencing our roll-out so that it has a continual upward tick—that we don’t open, close, open, close—and so that has been about managing our inventory and the doses we have available on supply.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: Can the Prime Minister confirm that the New Zealand Government’s decision to switch to a predominantly Pfizer-based vaccination campaign—relying on one of the safest and most effective vaccines on the market—is one of the reasons why we’re having to wait until the second half of the year to make the vaccine available to the bulk of the New Zealand population?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes, that has been part of it—our delivery schedule through that primary vaccine. One thing I would say is other countries have made other choices, and they are perfectly legitimate choices and reasonable choices—you know, all of those vaccines have gone through regulator-approval processes. So whilst New Zealand has made this choice, it doesn’t diminish the legitimacy of other countries’ vaccination choices, but for us it has a simplicity to it that we’re operating in this way.

💬 David Seymour: Is the Prime Minister telling New Zealanders that we are second to last in the OECD for vaccination rates because that’s what this Government actively chose—to be late?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No.

💬 David Seymour: When will the national immunisation solution be ready and fully operational?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We already have our COVID immunisation register. The member might be talking about the national booking system, which is separate. We’re expecting that to be nationally available and utilised from about May.

💬 David Seymour: Is it that late because it was commissioned only in October?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I think, just to be fair to our health service, of course it is fair to say that the immunised—we have not had a national well-functioning immunisation register for years. We have that now, and that is an absolutely fantastic legacy project that we now have to make sure we improve all our vaccinations. On the booking system, of course DHBs and our health sector have their own booking systems. We’ve seen the need for something nationally. We’ve put in place that solution. But keep in mind we have run immunisation programmes nationally before quite successfully without that in place, but this is a sensible option to enable a smoother roll-out later on down the track.

💬 David Seymour: By when will vaccine passports recognised by other countries such as Singapore be available to New Zealanders to aid them in international travel?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Just to be clear—because I notice that there’s sometimes different characterisations of this—in some countries they’re using what they’re calling vaccination passports to gain entry to things like large-scale events, like sports games and music events. Obviously, that’s not something that we require here. People are able to move around freely. If you’re asking about when New Zealanders will be able to carry immunisation information when they travel, of course that’s something that the international travel association—the agency IATA—that deals with those globally recognised pieces of data is working on, so it’s not a matter that New Zealand somehow owns sole responsibility for this. If it’s going to have international recognition, it would need to be designed in that way, and we of course would look to make sure that our population is able to demonstrate internationally when they’ve been vaccinated. If, however, your question is “When will people be able to come in if they can demonstrate they’ve been vaccinated?”, the issue will be—

💬 David Seymour: Point of order.

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’m happy to hear the clarification of your question.

💬 David Seymour: The question was very clearly “When will New Zealanders have passports recognised by other countries that allow them to travel internationally?” The Prime Minister has attempted to answer two questions that clearly weren’t asked, and it seems to me it’s a superfluous diversion to addressing the question.

💬 SPEAKER: Well, I think the member knows that judgments as to the quality of the answer are not mine, but I did happen to be listening to the answer and I would have thought that having New Zealanders offshore with vaccine passports coming into New Zealand, as the Prime Minister was describing, might be something that would be of interest to at least some members in the House and very much related to the question that the member asked. He asked about New Zealanders having vaccine passports.

💬 David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker. With the greatest of respect, it was “recognised by other countries” for New Zealand to travel. Most of what the Prime Minister has said is completely and clearly unrelated, and I just put it to you that it’s a diversion from answering and addressing the question.

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Point of order.

💬 SPEAKER: Speaking to the point of order, the right honourable Prime Minister.

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’m happy to continue to answer the question. I appreciate the clarification from the member, but, as I said, if the member is looking for something internationally recognised carried by New Zealanders, then that would be under IATA. That is being worked on. Our Ministry of Transport is closely following that work because of course we want New Zealanders who have been vaccinated to be able to demonstrate that for the purposes of travel.

Question No. 10—Youth

10. to the Minister for Youth: What recent announcements has she made about supporting young people impacted by COVID-19?

Last week I announced that an additional 4,000 young New Zealanders who have been negatively impacted by COVID-19 will get support to stay engaged, or to re-engage, in their education journey through the Ākonga Youth Development Community Fund, that was set up in November last year as part of the Government’s response to COVID-19. This is in addition to the 1,500 rangatahi who are already being supported by this fund.

💬 Naisi Chen: What types of services will this funding deliver?

💬 Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Through this funding, 28 iwi- and community-based organisations across Aotearoa will deliver wraparound services for young people most at risk of disengaging with their education journey. They will be able to access programmes that offer a range of support, from comprehensive mentoring to mental health and wellbeing services, and career navigation.

💬 Naisi Chen: Why is this funding important?

💬 Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: We know that rangatahi are facing specific challenges as a result of the pandemic. This fund presents a great opportunity for local organisations to support our youth to stay connected and committed to their education, while also being active members of their whānau and community. These programmes will also equip them with the skills they need to succeed later in life, as we continue to recover from COVID-19.

Question No. 11—COVID-19 Response

11. to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: How many COVID-19 vaccinations have been administered in New Zealand as at 6 April 2021, and is he satisfied with the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out to date?

As at midnight last night, 90,286 doses of the vaccine had been administered to date: 71,013 first doses and 19,273 second doses. That’s about 95 percent of the allocation plan, so it is slightly behind schedule. I’m broadly satisfied with the roll-out to date, but I do expect the number of daily doses administered to increase significantly over the next week or so. DHBs forecast delivering around 55,000 doses in the next seven days—around 7,500 a day, on average—and we’re pushing to see that getting up more towards 10,000 a day, on average, over the next few weeks.

💬 Chris Bishop: Why has New Zealand administered only 90,286 of the 390,413 of the COVID-19 vaccination doses, which is what the ministry said should have been administered by now in this leaked Ministry of Health report from January this year?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Of course, the Ministry of Health put forward in the early part of the year—or late last year and early into this year—a variety of different models for the potential vaccine roll-out. At that point, they didn’t have information on when vaccines were going to be arriving throughout the year and, particularly, any indication of when the vaccine arrivals were likely to be in the second part of the year.

One of the challenges around the inventory management is ensuring that we have enough to give people their second dose after they’ve received their first dose, within the three-week window that we’re aiming for to do that—or just past the three-week window—so that they can get those second doses on time.

We are also aiming, as the Prime Minister has just mentioned, to ensure that we don’t end up with a peak and trough period, where we scale the vaccine campaign up and then run out of doses and have to scale down again before we start to see the bigger numbers arrive. We have been focused on scaling up sustainably, making sure that the vaccines are delivered to our border workforce and their close contacts—their household contacts—first of all, and then expanding out to our front-line health workers and then beyond that. We have used this early opportunity to test our systems, to make sure that we are doing this in a way that, as we get larger quantities of vaccines arriving, we’re able to scale up in order to make sure that we’re getting them out the door.

💬 Chris Bishop: In relation to his comment that the information I just disclosed was provided before the Government had confidence around the Pfizer delivery vaccine schedule, is he aware that the report I just mentioned has preceding pages in which it makes mention of the precise Pfizer delivery vaccine as of 15 February 2021, and why is he using that as an excuse as to why the Government has delivered just 23 percent of the 390,000 that were meant to have been delivered this week?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Well, one of those two questions is clearly incorrect. He can’t claim that he has a document from January that has information from February in it.

💬 Hon David Parker: Genius!

💬 Chris Bishop: Can he give—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! That’s—well, no, we’ll have a withdraw and apologise for whoever made that comment.

💬 Hon David Parker: I withdraw and apologise.

💬 Chris Bishop: Is he aware that the document I have just cited to him is dated 26 January 2021 but outlines the Pfizer delivery schedule from 15 February 2021, and outlines for the Government what that will mean in terms of the delivery schedule for the vaccine programme, and why is the Government so behind on its administration of the vaccine?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: We are not. We are tracking at about 95 percent of the allocation schedule that we have been working to. I don’t know the document the member is referring to, but I do struggle to see how it could contain information from February if it’s dated in January.

💬 Chris Bishop: Can he give a categorical assurance that New Zealand will have a nationwide booking system for COVID-19 vaccinations?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Ministry of Health team are working to have a nationwide booking system up and running by May—or during May.

💬 Chris Bishop: One or two?

💬 SPEAKER: It’s up to the whips. You’ve got two extras.

💬 Chris Bishop: Why has New Zealand only administered 1.9 COVID-19 vaccine doses per 100 people in our population, the second-lowest in the OECD, and how does he square this number with his comment earlier in the year that we would be at the front of the queue?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: There are a couple of reasons for that. One, of course, is that we made the decision not to rush the vaccine approval process, as many other OECD countries, who have been dealing with widespread outbreaks, chose to do, and New Zealanders ultimately can have good confidence in our vaccine programme because of that. It’s been through a very thorough approvals process. And, yes, we have had the opportunity to draw on the clinical and field trials from other countries as a result of our decision to do that. The second is that we did make a decision to switch the way we were viewing our vaccine portfolio, to rely primarily on a Pfizer-based vaccine campaign. We had a variety of reasons for doing that. It did mean that some of the vaccine doses that we expected to arrive in the second quarter we have not taken delivery of, because we are increasing the deliveries of our Pfizer vaccine in the second half of the year.

Question No. 12—Social Development and Employment

12. to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What actions, if any, will she take to help the extra 20,000 people under 30 who are not in paid work compared to a year ago?

The Government has implemented a number of initiatives to support younger people into employment, including our Apprenticeship Boost programme, which currently has 21,000 people across New Zealand gaining trade qualifications; Mana in Mahi, which has seen 2,546 young people placed into work; He Poutama Rangatahi, which now has 2,275 young people in education, employment, or training; and Flexi-wage, which will be rolled out over the course of the next two years for 40,000 places. These initiatives—like many, if not all, of our opportunities to upskill, train, and take up employment—are targeted towards people who might be disadvantaged in the labour market; that, of course, includes young people.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Do Government employment schemes such as Mana in Mahi guarantee at least a living wage; if not, why not?

💬 Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: No, not necessarily a living wage: some will get paid the living wage; some are on the training wage; some are on the minimum wage.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Will she further increase core benefit levels to provide livable incomes to young people under 30, who are often disadvantaged in a tight labour market?

💬 Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: We committed in our manifesto coming into the election to ensure that we continued to address income adequacy in the welfare system—and we are committed to doing that. I will say that the vast majority of people who are on benefit do want to work; do want to take up the upskilling and training opportunities to be able to get into the employment that is available. So on top of improving income adequacy in the welfare system, we are committed to ensuring that young people have access to upskilling and training opportunities so that they can get into work.

💬 Hon Louise Upston: Is it still correct that of the four people supported into employment by the $50 million Māori Trades and Training Fund, only two were under 25, and, if not, how many under-25s have now been supported into employment by the $50 million fund?

💬 Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: I just need to point out that the member does not accurately depict the Māori trades training programme. In order to be able to complete qualifications—and trades training does take time—then they need time to be able to complete them. So, also, this has been a programme that we have rolled out that has not been fully rolled out; however, it is not the only programme in place to support Māori young people who may not be in employment at the moment. I need to point out the Apprenticeship Boost—not just Mana in Mahi, as well, He Poutama Rangatahi, and Māori trades training. This Government is taking a very fulsome approach to addressing the needs of Māori young people during a time where there is a bit of a tight labour market.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Does the Minister think it is fair that young people on jobseeker who are under 25 get less income support than people over 25?

💬 Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: This was highlighted in the Welfare Expert Advisory Group, and it’s certainly something that I think we need to look at. It was a decision made by the previous Government prior to Labour. I am interested in receiving advice from the Ministry for Social Development on the differential rates. It is in our medium to long term plan to look at that; it is not something that I am addressing right now.

Ricardo Menéndez March: Is addressing those changes in the medium and long term urgent enough for people like Randeep in Manurewa, who is currently forced to decide between lunch and electricity?

💬 Hon CARMEL SEPULONI: As I said earlier, we have committed to, this term, addressing income adequacy within the welfare system, as well as continuing to expand opportunities for people to take up upskilling and training and to get into employment. With regards to young people, as I said earlier, that is in the medium to long term plan, and I look forward to getting the advice. But I will also say that we have lifted benefits, we have indexed them to wages. There is more to do, and we look forward to doing that.