COVID-19 Public Health Response (Validation of Managed Isolation and Quarantine Charges) Amendment Bill

I move—you’ve got to get the wording right, Madam Speaker. I move, That the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Validation of Managed Isolation and Quarantine Charges) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

As I’ve indicated, this bill resolves a technical issue in the inconsistency between the way our immigration law has applied and the way managed isolation and quarantine charges have been applied. All those who have paid fees under this anomaly were expected to pay fees. There was a technical issue around whether or not they should have had to pay fees, although the intent always was that they should. They’ve paid them. This bill validates those fee charges.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The National Party has expressed their concerns around this bill, concerns around process, and concerns around why we’re covering this under urgency. The legislation was first created in 2020, and we have some further understanding that it was three weeks ago that it was first noted. It would be useful to know—there wasn’t a lot of clarity—about how it was exactly picked up. Was it by a working group that’s routinely looking at this? I think that would be useful so that we can also apply maybe those same tools to other parts of the response in August 2020, so that we’re not back in the House doing similar things.

We’ve expressed concerns around the numbers. We now understand, as the Minister has put on the Table, it is 600 to 650 people—maybe $1 million to $3 million. It raises the question, as we have pointed out in the disclosure statement, where it asked: has there been further impact analysis? That seems to be being done today, rather than being available to us through the disclosure statement.

We’ve commented on the other pieces of information that are lacking behind this and why that is the case and why we’re coming today without parts of the regulatory impact analysis, and, really, we have concern around the process, the information that brings us here. Let’s figure out what the learnings are that we can take from this—learning as to how it was picked up in the first place. How can we and might we apply it to other parts of the legislation that came through in August 2020? The learning as to why, so late in the piece, we’re finding out the data elements, and why that’s not as clear and as crisp as we need to have at the border. How can we extract that learning from the three hours we’ve been here this morning and apply it to other parts of our coronavirus response?

So, as my colleagues have described it, it is a relatively shoddy, loose sort of piece of legislation. We understand why it’s being done; we’re just not completely happy with the process. I think the best we could make of the morning is what learnings can we take from it and what can we apply to the rest of the coronavirus response—hopefully, with no further surprises on the pathway when we do that. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Obviously, managing the COVID response has been a complex task, and when rules are made, sometimes with some urgency, there’s always going to be some tidying up to be done. This is simply that—to make sure the intent of the executive is properly implemented through law. It’s a perfectly sensible piece of legislation and it’s great to see that we’re making real progress with it here today. I commend it to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. This is an unedifying little time in the Parliament and, I have to say, it is disrespectful to the Parliament, what the Government has done here. I acknowledge the Government has the numbers, obviously, but it is disrespectful to Parliament, the way this has happened, on a couple of grounds.

The first is that to use Budget urgency for this is inappropriate. Normally, urgency following a Budget relates to the Budget. Now, that was OK yesterday. We had the taxation bill that adjusts the minimum family tax credit because of the changes to benefit levels in the Budget. That’s a consequential amendment in relation to it—fair enough. The House has gone into urgency for that. But, instead, what we’re doing here as a Parliament is considering something wholly unrelated to the Budget, or only, it would be fair to say, tangentially related to the Budget. It’s basically fixing a stuff-up by the officials from August last year—so that’s the first thing—and using the cloak of Budget urgency, I think, is inappropriate.

The second point in relation to the process and why it’s inappropriate is that this is something that I think should have been the subject of at least some cross-party consultation. Now, Michael Woodhouse, in his committee stage contribution, made reference to the fact that there’s actually been pretty good dialogue between the two major parties in relation to COVID. That’s something that I’ve tried to keep up as the COVID spokesperson now, and, to be fair to the Minister, he’s been pretty good at that as well. So for those that are listening out there in the public domain, there’s a lot of heat and a lot of back and forth in the public domain, but, actually, sort of behind the bike sheds, in the grindstone, there’s quite a bit of work that goes on in this place.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: What are you accusing me of?

Yeah, maybe that wasn’t the right language. I need one of Anna Lorck’s Beroccas to perk me up a bit.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: It’d need more than a Berocca.

More than a Berocca—I certainly only had one coffee this morning. But there’s actually quite a bit of work that goes on behind the scenes, and I think it would have been good for the Government to reach out to us and other parties as well in relation to this, and we could have facilitated a reasonably easy passage. I mean, it’s not like we were going to stop it, obviously. We weren’t going to vote against it.

The third point is this really should have gone to a select committee. The exigency of the situation doesn’t mean that we have to ram it through all stages immediately. It could have easily gone to a committee for a week or maybe two, or maybe even a month, because, actually, it is a tricky technical issue, and, as we’ve discovered through various stages of the debate, the Government is not really sure what they’re doing. They’re not actually really sure what they’re fixing. It took the Minister to explain in his first reading speech actually what the Parliament’s being asked to consider, because, as we’ve made reference to a number of times, the legislative statement is inadequate. There’s just no other way to describe it—it is inadequate. The departmental disclosure statement is inadequate and the explanatory note to the bill actually raises more questions than answers.

So I do want to make a point to the officials and to the Government that Parliament is entitled to expect better than what we have been dished up in terms of explanation, particularly when it comes to complicated issues to do with immigration law. No one is denying it’s a complicated area. It’s technical, it’s finicky, and of course the relationship between managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) and the immigration regulations is a complicated one. But that needs to be explained to the Parliament so that Parliament can actually understand what we’re fixing, or at least looking to fix. So I think the process here has been very shoddy.

We learnt during the committee stage that no one has actually challenged this. The Minister admitted that he found out about it through the MIQ fees framework review, which seems to be taking for ever, because we’ve got 7 million bucks of overdue MIQ fees—if you define overdue as post - 90 days payment—$4 million of which, by the way, is from last year. So there’s quite a bit of money outstanding that the Government’s not going after. The Government’s been doing this review about how they’re going to do that, and in the process of doing that, which seems to be taking for ever, we learnt from the Minister that the Government discovered that people may have been charged things illegally.

As I said during I think it was my second reading speech, that presents a number of options for the Government. The most obvious option is to go back and find those people and refund them. We learnt from the Minister during the committee stage debate, which I was listening to outside the House, that, basically, the Government thinks that’s just too difficult, and then we further learnt that it’s too difficult because we don’t actually know who those people are. Simon Watts, my colleague from the North Shore—

💬 Nicola Grigg: The honourable Simon Watts.

—is doing a very good job. Well he’s not “the Hon” yet, Nicola Grigg, but he will be in time, we hope. But we learnt during the committee stage that the Government doesn’t actually know how many people are affected by it. I’ve got to say, I find that staggering. The Government’s turned up here on the Friday after the Budget and they’re asking us to retrospectively validate illegal activity, and they don’t know how many people it affects. It could be 600, it could be 650—we don’t actually know. We don’t know what the quantum is. It could be $1.5 million, it could be $3.5 million. We don’t actually know. I mean, that is an extraordinary thing for the—

💬 Nicola Grigg: Embarrassing.

—Government to do. It is embarrassing, as Nicola Grigg rightly notes. It’s deeply embarrassing.

I made some ill-judged remarks around the ability of the press gallery—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: That’ll be the headline tomorrow.

—to notice. Well, I hope that’s not the headline tomorrow. I made some ill-judged remarks about that, but the reality is the Government will get away with it. We know that. They’ve got the numbers and, frankly, it’s all a bit technical and it’s pretty tricky, but it is wrong. Governments should not turn up to Parliament after Budget urgency and say, “Hey, by the way, it turns out our officials broke the law on a number of occasions. We can’t tell you how many people it affects. We don’t know how much money it involves. We don’t actually know how we made the mistake. But, hey, Parliament, would you mind fixing the law for us retrospectively?” I mean, that is just inappropriate, and that’s what the Government is asking the Parliament to do. I think it’s shameful, frankly, and we’re not going to vote for it.

The Act Party is on the side of principle and I congratulate them for that. [Interruption] Oh, there’s much gnashing of teeth, but they’re on the side of principle. But it’s very disappointing to see the Green Party, which likes to turn around all the time and—

💬 Simon Court: You could just abstain.

—rage on about principle. Well, at least they’re not abstaining—that’s a good point. That’s a good point that at least they’re not abstaining. In the first bill we did under urgency—the tax bill—the Greens said they were going to abstain, which was pretty amazing. They made this big song and dance during that debate around how the coalition agreement with the Labour Party says that they can either vote for or against or they can abstain in relation to their agreement with the Labour Party, and that was this great big victory, and rather than just make a decision and make a call for or against the Budget, they abstained, which I think, frankly, is a bit of a dereliction of duty. It’s a bit of a dereliction of duty. I mean, you’re sent to this place not to, basically, wave things through and just say, “Oh well, we actually can’t make up our minds.”; you’re actually sent to this place to make a positive or negative decision. So I think that’s a bit sad, and the Greens are voting for this as well.

Some of the arguments mustered by the Government during this debate have been woeful. They’ve been woeful. I mean, at one point we had Ingrid Leary saying, basically, “We’d rather just go on and do something else on our Friday.” Well, that is a pathetic argument. Administrative convenience for the Government is not a justification for retrospective validation of legislation.

So what it all boils down to is this: no one challenged this law. It may actually not be illegal, because if you read the explanatory note, it’s equivocal on the point. So, assuming it is illegal, no one challenged it. The Government doesn’t know how many people it affects, they don’t know how much money it’s potentially cost the taxpayer and they don’t know exactly what went wrong and when it went wrong. All we know is that three weeks ago, the Minister discovered a potential anomaly in the MIQ regulations, and so here we are, on a Friday, going through all stages with no select committee, amending through primary legislation the regulations to fix something that may or may not actually be an issue. It’s bizarre, it’s unedifying, and we’re not going to stand for it.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Well, that was an entertaining diatribe. I’m surprised Chris Bishop stretched that out for 10 minutes, to be frank, and the most entertaining thing I learnt was that the member likes to hang out behind the parliamentary bike sheds. I can only assume he’s having a cigarette behind the bike sheds.

So what we do in terms of doing this bill has happened quite a lot in the past, and I’d have to draw upon my experience as a public servant under both Labour and National Governments. The technical amendment that is being made right now has happened very many times, and it’s tidying up legislation so that it works properly—those members opposite know damn right that it happens frequently—to make sure that the legislation that’s been introduced to keep New Zealand safe, to keep our borders safe, is working appropriately.

So the managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) fees regime that came into effect set up who’s liable, and there has to be a technical amendment to ensure that we are fair to our Australian brothers and sisters, and all other Australians. There is an agreement in place, and we are making sure that that is in place. The bill will resolve the technical issue by retrospectively validating the collection of MIQ charges from Australians in the temporary entry visa-holders class. It’s an appropriate thing to do to make sure the good laws that have been introduced under urgency are operating effectively, and I see it as a good and appropriate use of this House’s time. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

I’ll just take a brief call but I’ll begin by responding to Mr Bishop’s confusion about whether or not we’ve voted on the Budget. We haven’t actually voted on the Budget; we voted on a piece of legislation which may be related to the Budget but actually is not the Budget, and we don’t have to agree with every piece of legislation.

I think that my colleagues would have given a very good explanation of why we weren’t voting for the previous piece of legislation. But what is confusing is why National’s making such a song and dance and big deal out of this, which makes perfect sense to me. You look at it and you’re like, “Well, OK, we had to suddenly close the border and set up a whole MIQ system while trying to deal with a pandemic here at home.” You know, we had the shutdown, the economic shock, and the Government’s dealing with things right across the board, trying to make sure we could still get supplies into and out of New Zealand when passengers are no longer really travelling between countries. The breadth and depth of work that had to be done to respond effectively to COVID-19 is almost impossible to describe and it’s generally gone very, very smoothly.

I thought everybody agreed with the process around the managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) system fees. I mean, the Greens had some concerns about it, but, ultimately, I think we made changes so that it was only people who left after the law was passed who would be liable for MIQ fees when they came back. But I don’t think there’s any drama or debate or expectation on the part of Australians who are not resident in New Zealand that they would pay their share of MIQ fees.

It’s also perfectly understandable that there might need to be a technical change to make sure that’s the case, and that’s what everybody expected. That was the policy and that was very clear. But, as it is sometimes in legislation, because of the nature of our relationship with Australia in that they have a very unique classification of their visa, once they come into New Zealand, they are classified as residents. That then has to be rectified, because it was not intended that non-resident Australians would be treated as residents coming to New Zealand in that they wouldn’t be liable for the fees. I don’t think there’s any surprise about that. It’s not complicated, it’s not difficult, and we commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to reflect more on the humanity, or the lack of it, that the Government has shown. Australians are people, too.

I want to take you back to a time when I was a primary school student. At my primary school, we had cultural day, and before cultural day our teacher asked, “Put up your hand if you were born in another country, not in New Zealand.” I put up my hand because I was born in Australia, and I’m proud of it—I’m proud of it. It turned out that that made me one of the others, and that was a great shock to me, in fact, because I’d always considered myself to be a New Zealander born in Australia but having a foot in both camps, and that’s pretty much how many New Zealanders and Australians with family on both sides of the Tasman feel. That is why this this amendment bill reeks of bad faith.

It demonstrates, again, that the Government, in pursuit of the crumbs that have fallen down the back of the couch in their clutching, desperate need to grab that little skerrick of revenue that’s going to prop up their wasteful spending, their “debt for ever Budget” that we heard about yesterday is now going after a few Australian cousins, fathers, mothers, brothers who no doubt were coming here to be with New Zealand family or to fulfil critical roles in New Zealand businesses. Yet, now, they’re the target of a clutching, desperate Government hungry for revenue, looking at decades of debt and an absolute rundown of all of the systems that they purport to care about.

Now, this bill is a classic example of bad faith. Australians assume, as we do, a right to live and work in New Zealand, as we do in Australia, assuming we pass a good-character test, which of course is a fundamental. The trans-Tasman travel arrangement sets out very clearly that Australians are not temporary migrants; they are special. They are equals, even though they are citizens of Australia. That is why this bill is not just unnecessary; it is unfair. This Government lacks humanity.

ACT do not support this bill. We believe in giving Australians a fair go. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

That was an interesting contribution. Look, it’s quite funny, because the previous member Simon Court has been talking about Australians, but actually I think we just need to remind everyone that New Zealanders returning to New Zealand from around the globe have to pay as part of managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ). So this is not some kind of discriminatory measure against Australians.

I was delighted to have dinner with two of my Australian friends—actually, one of them is a Kiwi living in Australia, but his wonderful wife is an Aussie—who returned the other day. They were able to come back through the trans-Tasman bubble and surprised their parents, Jim and Raewyn Wiseman, and some tears were shed at Nahm restaurant, having some Australians return to Nelson. So I’ll just get Bruce Wiseman’s and Jo Wiseman’s names on the Hansard today—let’s do that. It was wonderful to have them return to my electorate of Nelson.

I’ll just put a message to Dad over the airwaves today in the UK. My dad lives in the UK, and after he had his vaccination, he wrote to me to say can he skip MIQ and skip having to pay for it. Of course I said, “No, Dad, just because your daughter’s an MP, you don’t get to skip the rules. You still have to come through.”

So this is tidying up a piece of the rules that we need to tidy up, and what I will just remind the members is that we’ve been building the plane a bit as we fly it. Most New Zealanders are reasonable about that and they understand that, actually, there have been times when we do need to tidy up some legislation. We’ve been operating in a global pandemic. Most New Zealanders say to me that they are really happy with the rules that the Government have brought in, but they do understand that from time to time we will spot things and say, “Actually, here’s something we haven’t seen. There’s been multiple pieces of legislation being passed, and that we just need to do a quick tidy-up.”

So, on that note, this is a tidy-up. This is just to ensure that Cabinet’s intent is followed, and, on that note, I’m delighted to commend this bill to the House.

I must say, it was good to hear the good member Simon Court from Te Atatū, West Auckland, just giving us a little bit of an overview and a confession of being an Australian. I feel, for him, this legislation is really not doing anything.

Look, I’m here to speak in the third reading of the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Validation of Managed Isolation and Quarantine Charges) Amendment Bill. I must say, as we’ve heard, National oppose this bill. Why do we oppose this bill? Because this bill is shoddy—it is shoddy. It is shoddy legislation. It has got a shoddy process, and it is basically just a disgrace. What I am even more concerned about is that the Minister only today is still trying to estimate to try and work out how many people are impacted by this change, how many dollars are involved. He’s quoted in the—I mean, I added it up on the back of a piece of paper and I got to $3 million. He had to get officials to add it up. He gave me a range of between $1.5 million and $3.5 million. You know, these guys have not got a clue. They have had 21 days, at least, to undertake a whole lot of due diligence, a whole lot of background information, and a whole lot of assessment around the impact of that, but they have not used that opportunity to do that. I think that is disgraceful.

Managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) in this country and the charging process around MIQ, which this bill relates to, has been an absolute travesty. It has been an honesty box process. How many people go into a hotel, stay a couple of weeks, and then go, “Actually, oh, can you just send me the invoice?” I mean, if you did that in real life, would you be surprised that a lot of people wouldn’t pay? Well, we’re under no illusion why we’ve got $7 million outstanding of overdue fees for MIQ that now we’re having to call in the debt collectors to follow up, with $4 million of that relating to last year. That is an absolute travesty.

The other aspect around this shoddy piece of legislation that I want to refer to is the fact around it being retrospective legislation. One of the key aspects within this country of the social contract is that people within this country are able to work and understand that the laws that they’re operating within—that’s what binds them—and the aspect here around retrospective legislation means that breaches of the law are either validated or the legal actions are done. In effect, what we’re making here is we’re saying that, basically, an illegal action is now legal, right? And that is just—I think the honourable Chris Bishop mentioned it before, in terms of the fact—

💬 Chris Bishop: It’s not “Hon”—it’s not time.

Not quite, but, you know, it seems to be a bit of a theme today, Chris Bishop—a little bit of a theme today. So we’ll keep on that, if I may.

Retrospective legislation should only be used in the most rarest of circumstances—OK? I think what we’re seeing here today in this House is another example of a Government that is not over the detail. They’re not over the process. They are absolutely back-pedalling here and there, trying to push through legislation under urgency—under Budget urgency. This is no more Budget urgency than flying to the moon. This is basically just using the opportunity on a Friday morning to try and push through a piece of legislation that has, once again, got errors in it. It’s not the first time this morning I’ve spoken on legislation to try and fix errors, but that seems to be what we’re doing instead of focusing on the key issues and the key aspects that this country needs focus on. Growing jobs, supporting business, maybe—that might be a nice thing. Helping our farmers up in Northland—that would be a good thing to do. But no—no, we’re not. We’re basically just trying to pass through retrospective legislation, and that is absolutely not what this House should be used to do.

Look, I want to finish off in only the short amount of time I’ve got just to basically say, I guess, what can we learn from this process? As a new MP within this House, I’ve only been here seven, eight months now, but I don’t know how many times—and I’m looking at my new colleagues all around me, and we’re going, “How many times have we been in this House to fix mistakes and not to do the thing that we’re actually here for?”, which is to actually put in place legislation that’s going to make this country better. But, no, let’s spend all our time, hours after hours, fixing mistakes, because we’re running too fast and haven’t got any idea of the detail and what we’re trying to do. I think that is a learning that that side of the House needs to take on board this morning and make a change.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to be able to rise and take a brief call this morning. It is the first call I’ve taken since the Budget was introduced yesterday, so I just want to take this opportunity to particularly acknowledge the work of our Prime Minister, our Minister of Finance, and Minister Carmel Sepuloni as well for their contributions to supporting our most vulnerable members of the community.

Look, it is widely acknowledged that there is no playbook to COVID-19. There is no rule book on how to set up managed isolation and quarantine, so occasionally, from time to time, small mistakes will be made. This bill is a sensible amendment to fix one of those little mistakes. So for that reason, this morning, I commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Some interesting language used in the House this morning: “clutching, desperate Government”, “bad faith”, “shoddy”, “disgraceful”. All this is about is clarifying some managed isolation and quarantine charges for a small number of Australians, and that’s also critical health workers. So, in that case, I commend this bill to the House.

I don’t know where to begin. Let’s start with Rachel Boyack. This was a contribution that basically said, “Oh, you know, nothing’s perfect. Sometimes we make mistakes. We’ve got to go back and tidy things up.” You know what this Government’s done? It’s normalised mediocrity. There is an absolute pattern emerging here of very, very poor legislation being introduced and passed and coming back. These poor luvvies on the other side don’t want to be here and they’re blaming us. Well, I’ve got a message for Labour backbenchers: if they want to blame anybody for being here on a Friday morning in Budget urgency, blame their own Government—they moved the urgency motion. We’re doing our job. The fact that they don’t want to be here is not our problem. We’ve got an opportunity, and it’s for the very reason Ms Boyack actually stated that we should: because there are too many mistakes.

One of the members who’s just returned to her seat, I think she said there’s no playbook to COVID-19, but there’s actually a playbook for writing good legislation and there’s actually pretty good precedent for doing so. It’s a pity they don’t follow it, because what we are considering is a piece of legislation that the Government is not sure if it’s unlawful, no one complained, and even if it was unlawful, the amendment shouldn’t be by primary legislation. By the Minister for COVID-19 Response’s admission, it should be an amendment to the regulation, only, he wants to be open and transparent. He doesn’t think the $2 million that the Government may have unlawfully levied should be fixed by a—

💬 Simon Watts: $3.5 million.

$2.5 million, is it?

💬 Simon Watts: $3.5 million.

$3.5 million—goodness me! It’s a bit more. Thank you to the accountant from North Shore. There’s some kind of virtue in actually doing this amendment under primary legislation, only what’s the point? Nobody got consulted on it; certainly not the Opposition, and I think it would be a sign of respect for the shadow Leader of the House and our COVID-19 recovery spokesperson to have at least been given a bit of an insight. There was no contribution by officials, by the look. This is a totally, totally inadequate disclosure statement. No regulatory impact statement. We know for the first time—I’m sure the $3.5 million figure isn’t written down anywhere. It’ll be in Hansard now. The figure of 600 to 650 affected Australians wasn’t written down anywhere. The reason we’re even here and the answers to the questions that I still have over the difference between a resident and “normally resident”, which the Minister attempted to explain, but he was unconvincing in my mind—and I won’t be surprised if we actually get back here to fix it up again, because we’ve inadvertently cast the net too wide so that Australian citizens who aren’t New Zealand citizens who could be resident but who lose that status on their departure from New Zealand are caught in the legislative net that we’ve just cast by this legislation. We’ll be back here again, tidying up, normalising mediocrity, and probably doing it in a really shabby fashion.

I agree with Mr Watts that, actually, we should be debating more aspirational post-Budget legislation that gave a break to small business, that supported middle New Zealand, and that had some kind of ambition for this country. Instead, we’re fixing muck-ups—that’s with an “m”, for the Hansard staff. We are fixing mistakes once again. I’m getting tired of it.

It’s my pleasure today to take a call on the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Validation of Managed Isolation and Quarantine Charges) Amendment Bill, not only as a member of Parliament and a member of the Health Committee but also as a front-line healthcare worker last year.

You know what’s interesting as well? While I was working there, swabbing people, and this Government here was helping us set up a managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facility in the middle of a global pandemic, the other side of the House couldn’t figure out whether it should keep the borders open or not. We are lucky that there is an MIQ facility in place, because if it were for the other side, there would be COVID everywhere in this country. Parliament at the moment would probably be on Zoom and lots of New Zealanders would have died because the other side couldn’t figure out who the leader of the party would be and whether the border should be open or not. So what we are trying to do is own up to our technical issues here and the things that might not have gone the right way. We are owning up to it and fixing it, whereas the other side can’t figure out whether the border should have been open.

As somebody who was a front-line healthcare worker, I want to thank the Government for doing what they have done for the MIQ system, and I want to thank them for recognising that there is an issue here and fixing this loophole, compared to the other side. I think you should probably look at your own ideology before you comment on the Green Party’s ideology, because I’m not sure where you stand on this bill. I’m not sure where you stand on MIQ. With this, I would like to commend this bill to the next stage.