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 (Maritime Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order (No 2) 2021

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order (No 5) 2021

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Isolation and Quarantine) Amendment Order 2021

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Alert Level Requirements) Order (No 8) 2021

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order (No 6) 2021.

Under section 16 of the aforementioned Act, any orders that I make under that Act have to be approved by the House or they are revoked. The orders first go to the Regulations Review Committee, who do a very thorough job of examining them to make sure they are consistent with the law, and consistent with good regulatory practice. They’ve provided feedback to me on various occasions, including some suggestions for improvement that we’ve taken on board as we have continued to refine those orders. I think it’s worth recalling that these orders are being regularly amended. They’re being regularly amended for two reasons: one was that they’re often put in place quite quickly, and so when you do put orders in place quite quickly, there will be a need to refine them as potential errors or flaws or inconsistencies are identified. The second, though, which is also incredibly important is that the situation around COVID-19 continues to evolve, and, actually, a couple of the orders that we’re going to be confirming today really highlight just how much things can evolve and how quickly they can evolve.

So to talk through the five orders that this motion confirms, the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Maritime Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order (No 2) 2021 makes changes that clarify the isolation requirements for ships coming into the country—a relatively topical thing at the moment, but it makes it very clear what physical distancing means and so on. So when people are coming in on a ship—many of them don’t even get off the ship—it makes it very clear how we keep New Zealanders safe in that environment.

The COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order (No 5) 2021—this was an order that stopped quarantine-free flights from Australia due to a recent community outbreak. Members will note that there is a further order, the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order (No 6) 2021 which restarted quarantine-free flights with Australia. I can confirm that that has subsequently been superseded by another order that we’re not confirming yet, because that’s currently before the Regulations Review Committee, and that stopped the flights again, which just shows that this is an evolving situation, and these orders, sometimes, by the time we get to confirm them, quite a lot has happened in the intervening period. So we’re confirming a stop of the quarantine-free travel, a start of the quarantine-free travel again, and there’s another one in the process that will have stopped it.

Then we have the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Isolation and Quarantine) Amendment Order 2021. This makes some rules around airline staff, in particular, and clarifies that they don’t necessarily have to do the full 14 days of isolation. This is important because we do have different arrangements in place for our aircrew, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to operate our airline and other airlines internationally. So this does allow for changes to be made to the requirements around them.

COVID-19 Public Health Response (Alert Level Requirements) Order (No 8) 2021—this was the order that moved the Wellington region down from alert level 2 back to alert level 1, where the rest of the country was at that time, and Wellington has subsequently remained. So this was the change made after the most recent potential concern that we had here in Wellington.

The House is also considering the two reports of the Regulations Review Committee on these and other orders. I want to, again, thank the Regulations Review Committee for the way they have approached dealing with these orders. They have been very diligent and thorough, and, I think, quite pragmatic in the suggestions that they have made. I have, on occasion, consulted the committee, including about some forthcoming legislative changes that we’re making, or I’ve sent them to the committee to have a good look at them before we even bring them to the House, because I think whilst there’ll be a lot of politics in COVID-19, I think when it comes to getting the technicalities of the orders and the legislation right, I think there has been a good degree of cooperation across the House on that. I want to thank all of the members who were involved in doing that.

So the committee had no concerns around the isolation and quarantine order that I’ve described, and it had no concerns around the other orders that I’ve also described. So I thank the committee for their very diligent work.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, and I want to thank the Minister for COVID-19 Response for his illumination of these quite technical but very important orders. Can I just start where he finished, by congratulating and saying thank you to the Regulations Review Committee. Perhaps when the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act was passed, it was not envisaged that the Regulations Review Committee would be quite so busy, but they have been very diligent and very busy over the last few months now, actually, in considering the various orders.

I actually think, genuinely, that we have got to a very good situation where the Act gives the Minister quite deep powers—quite broad powers, you would say—to take action around mandatory vaccination, for example, around mandatory testing, and all of the things that I think everyone in the House agrees is necessary. But it’s really important that those powers are exercised responsibly and pursuant to the Act. We’ve got the Regulations Review Committee, which National has members on, led by our shadow Attorney-General, Mr Penk, who’s doing a really good job, and I actually think we’ve got to a situation where things are referred to the committee and the committee does a really good job considering it, and it’s really good to hear the Minister indicate that he’s actually consulting proactively, in advance, with the committee. So we will support the motion to approve these orders.

I do note that, as the Minister indicated, the succession of quarantine-free travel orders and amendment orders is regrettable but necessary. As the Minister was outlining, you know, we had the order that started the travel and then we had the one that stopped it. It’s restarted again, and now we’ve got one before the committee which will, in due course, make its way back to the House around stopping it again. I was pondering whether or not there was a simpler way of doing that, and it doesn’t, off the top of my head, occur to me that there is—and the Minister’s shaking his head, saying no. I suspect he is right, because I suspect he has also asked his officials whether or not there is a simpler way of doing it.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: A button. I want a button!

Ha, ha! Right, you want a button? Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s almost like a metaphorical button, I suppose. You know, you sign the ministerial order and off it goes. It’s sort of like a button. It’s like the parliamentary equivalent of a button, I suppose. Anyway, I suppose there isn’t a simpler way of doing it, and so we are where we are. But having said that, it is really important that we consider these things properly. So we will be supporting the orders.

I do have one point to make around the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Isolation and Quarantine) Amendment Order 2021, which is in relation to aircrew, and that is the one order that the Regulations Review Committee did have some concerns with, to quote them. In particular, it was not clear, according to the committee, that that order was made in accordance with the objects and intentions of the enactment under which it’s made. It’s not clear to us how this power to shorten the period of isolation and quarantine is justified for New Zealand - based aircrew, given the public health objectives to prevent or limit the outbreak of COVID-19. So this is the order that allows the chief executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to bring to an end the normal 14-day period for aircrew. I accept that there are some practical complications around aircrew, but it’s not totally clear to me, in the response from the Minister that is recorded in the report to the House, that that is a justified one.

I’ve actually had quite a few members of the public write to me saying, “Well, hang on a minute. If it’s good enough for aircrew from Air New Zealand to have their time in isolation and quarantine shortened—I’ve been doubly vaccinated. I’ve had a pre-departure test. I’m happy to have a day-zero test when I arrive. If it’s good enough for aircrew to have their time shortened by fiat of the chief executive of MBIE, why isn’t it good enough for me?” I’m confused by the response from the Minister that’s recorded where it says, “Requiring the full 14 days of managed isolation when that is not necessary for these aircrew would raise issues under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.” Well, if requiring 14 days of isolation when it’s not necessary for aircrew raises issues under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, surely it therefore raises issues for everybody who is subject to a mandatory 14 days of isolation under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act when it is not necessary. So I don’t really understand that point. Perhaps that’s something we can get into later on.

If I could close my contribution by just throwing forward a little bit to what we’re going to hear on—well, I think that there’s some indication that the information will be provided tomorrow, but Thursday is the public forum with the Prime Minister and Professor Sir David Skegg in relation to the future. I suspect coming down the line, hopefully sooner rather than later, we are going to get to a point where the House is going to be asked to consider quite a few of these orders. Hopefully we can get into a situation where there is at least an indication on the horizon or a prospect on the horizon of at least a gradual loosening at the border to allow more New Zealanders to come home, and also people who need to come to New Zealand to fill skill shortages, for example, to come to New Zealand.

We will take a very careful and judicious approach to that from the Opposition, but I think there is a momentum building in the public, and certainly from New Zealanders overseas, to see at least what the landscape will look like at some point into the future around our border, particularly when it comes to vaccinations overseas. There’s a large number of New Zealanders living overseas now who’ve had the double dose of AstraZeneca or the double dose of Pfizer, who do want to come home to New Zealand at some point in 2022 and beyond, once we have a very good level of vaccination coverage in New Zealand. So, hopefully on Thursday, the Minister said last week, we’re going to get the direction of travel, and hopefully on Thursday we do get a reasonably—well, things are never certain with COVID-19, and I wouldn’t want to say that the Minister should outline a path that he should never deviate from. I think COVID has taught us over the last year or so that, actually, deviation from the path is sometimes really necessary. You have to be guided by the science and guided by the public health, but a direction of travel that at least New Zealanders can see and get behind a little bit.

One of the things that I’ve been saying over the last couple of weeks or so is that I think it would be really good to see a target. I don’t just mean a numerical one-off target; I mean a range of targets, and it could even be a range of ranges. What I mean by that is it could be 80 to 85 percent or 85 to 90 percent. Then of course you’ve got the geographic targets as well, because the Minister has previously talked about how it may not be enough for New Zealand to open the border at, say, 85 percent vaccination coverage if there’s one part of the country—say, South Auckland—which is only at 50 to 60 percent, and I do really take that point. I am really worried about vaccination coverage in our Māori and Pasifika communities, for example. I am really worried about it, and I think the Minister should be as well, because I see vaccine hesitancy out there all the time, particularly amongst our Māori and Pasifika communities, and they are, of course, more vulnerable, and we do need to increase that uptake.

So what I would like to see from the Government as we head into Thursday is an indication of what sort of number we need in the community of vaccination coverage before we can start to loosen our restrictions at the border. The reason I say that is twofold. The first is that I think New Zealanders don’t just need the negative message around COVID vaccines protecting you. That is really important, obviously, and it’s true, but, actually, there’s a group of people out there who need the positive message as well. They need to know what vaccine coverage will give them in terms of freedoms into the future. So it’s really important, I think, that we don’t just send a negative message but we also send a positive message.

The other thing that I think is worth mentioning is, actually, we’re pretty good when we get behind a national goal and a national target. I know it’s an imperfect analogy, but you think about the red socks campaign in the America’s Cup in the past, even telethons, and, frankly, last year with the team of 5 million—that moniker and that effort. When we all pull together as a community and as a collective, we can actually achieve really good things. I think it would be worth the Government outlining a number, or at least a range of numbers, and then the Prime Minister using her mana and leadership and saying, “You know what, New Zealand? Let’s go for it.” Let’s get to whatever the number is. Say it’s 80 or 85. Let’s get there. And when we get to 85 percent coverage around the country, that will mean that, in time, New Zealanders with a double dose of Pfizer or double dose of AstraZeneca can come home and maybe spend less time in managed isolation.

But that’s what the future holds for us, and I actually think that would encourage a lot more people to go down and get vaccinated. I actually think it would highlight the benefits of the vaccination programme and send a positive message, rather than just the negative one which is necessary but is just a very one-note message at the moment. So I think that is what we would like to see from the opposition as we head into Thursday and the outline of the science. We always have to be guided by the science and guided by the evidence. That’s something that’s served us well on the COVID-19 response so far, and it will continue to serve us well into the future, but I think there’s a bit of a gathering momentum. We want a number. We want some targets. We want to know what the future holds. We’ve been told we’ll get a direction of travel, and I think everyone in the House is looking forward to hearing exactly what that is on Thursday. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. The Green Party is rising in support of the confirmation of these orders, and I thank the Minister for his contribution. We’re particularly supportive of the one that was suspending the quarantine-free flights from Australia. I think that was a really wise decision given what has been happening in Australia with the community outbreaks.

I did have a few questions for the Minister and concerns to bring from the point of view of the Green Party. While we absolutely acknowledge that this is a trying time for those who have friends and family overseas or who would like to return to New Zealand and are facing really difficult circumstances to get into managed isolation—very aware of those problems—we maintain that it’s absolutely the highest priority to maintain the security of our border, to not have a community outbreak coming from the border. Given the Delta variant and its higher transmissibility, I think this is really a moment of critical risk for New Zealand. We now have spent well over a year living life almost as normal, with a few exceptions, and that’s something quite unique in the world. Now that we’ve made it this far, we’ve got the roll-out of the vaccinations happening, we did have some concerns that, at this late stage, we might have a slip-up, COVID might get in, particularly one of these more virulent variants. And so we did have some questions to put forward to the Minister.

Particularly, I guess, the points of weakness, to us, are around those places where there are exemptions. We do understand there have to be exemptions, such as for diplomatic and Defence personnel, and the specific one here in the isolation and quarantine amendment order around aircrew. I completely understand that, in order for international flights to operate, there needs to be a different process or requirement for aircrew, but it would be good if the Government was able to lay out what the specific requirements are and help give confidence in that system, because it was, I believe, aircrew travelling with a shuttle driver—just that one exposure—in New South Wales that has led to this pretty substantial community outbreak that’s been very, very difficult to manage. So it does just highlight that aircrew, and any sort of exemption, is a point of weakness. Whether or not people have been vaccinated, we know that they can carry the virus and transmit the virus even if they have been fully vaccinated. So it’s vitally important that we ensure that we are not leaving anything open to risk.

I want to acknowledge the Government has done a very good job so far, and we also have had our share of luck, as with the case of the Sydney man who was sick with the Delta variant and travelled around Wellington for several days. We were so lucky that there were no cases in the community that came from that. But I just wanted to raise that issue, from the point of the Green Party, that we are particularly nervous around exemptions and around aircrew, and even diplomatic and Defence personnel, that there are sufficient other requirements in place that can give the community confidence that we are not going to have a case of COVID sneak in through the border in that particular manner—but, otherwise, very happy to support.

I stand on behalf of the ACT Party in support of the Government’s motions on the COVID-19 response, but I do have a couple of points that ACT would like to make. We think that it’s really quite important, because we keep, monthly, having these COVID-19 motions that are being sought for approval—and we do approve of course—but we’re also seeing the ability for the Government to be able to implement some powers that are not being used.

Where we have confirmed support in other COVID-19 responses such as, for example, getting our port workers vaccinated, we’re not actually seeing that occur. So what we would like is for the Government, when placing these orders in front of us for approval, to actually start using them and using them appropriately to make sure that New Zealand is and New Zealanders are kept safe. When we are looking at these things such as the vaccination of port workers, it’s crucial at times such as this where we have Taranaki, Tauranga, and possibly Napier all on the verge of experiencing what could possibly be quite a big COVID outbreak, and, of course, we don’t want to get into that position at all. So in order to facilitate supporting the Government on the COVID response orders, we also need to make sure that what we do support goes through and is actually being actioned.

That also aligns with testing, and we’d like to ensure that the Government is thoughtful for the COVID-19 orders and motions that they put forward and that they look to implement ways that they could make testing easier and rapid for those that are at the ports and for our front-line workers. I mean, after all, they were meant to be vaccinated back in April, and it’s now September. One of the points about supporting the COVID orders is to be able to assist the Government to function in a way that keeps our communities safe, so it becomes, not meaningless, but almost pointless at times when we do support some of the COVID motions and find that they’re not actually being actioned.

I think it’s actually important that we see some of these COVID orders coming through in a way that would help New Zealanders respond quicker and better to the Delta variant, and, of course, we’ve got another variant out there as well—the Lambda variant—that may also need some work. So in order for us to keep on supporting COVID-19 orders, we need a Government that’s actually going to action them. In saying that, we hope that on Thursday, when there is an announcement, that it’s not an announcement about further announcements, but, rather, an announcement on what’s going to happen in the COVID space that’s going to allow that fast tracking of testing and make sure that all of our border workers are, in fact, vaccinated in order to relieve some of the anxiety that New Zealanders are facing both at our ports, at our borders, and at homes in our communities.

So, in that respect, the ACT Party do support the Government’s motions, and we hope that it also opens doorways for the Government to exercise the ability to be able to make some further orders that will benefit our communities. Thank you.

I rise on behalf of Te Paati Māori to speak to this motion, approval of orders made under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020. Aotearoa has had one of the best national responses to the COVID pandemic of any country in the world. Te Paati Māori has acknowledged, and continues to acknowledge, the Government alongside our people for collectively achieving that. However, the Crown have let complacency set in. We’ve been lucky in recent months. Systems failings have opened us up to the risk of further outbreaks and new and stronger variants. And on at least a few occasions, it appears that we’ve been saved thanks to luck and good fortune. That is not good enough.

Last year, whānau, hapū, iwi, and our urban Māori and Whānau Ora organisations demonstrated exemplary leadership and stepped up to provide the Māori response as the Crown had nothing in place and simply could not reach the places we could. It becomes clearer every day, especially given there is still no public body response plan from the Crown, that this will remain the case. We, sadly, cannot rely on the system in place at a national level. The Government continues to systemically exclude Māori from the pandemic decision-making and coordination. We are being treated like mushrooms and kept in the dark and fed bull tiko. We do not accept that there is one source of truth. That type of kōrero is dangerous. It is an approach that is having the opposite effect of what’s intended. It is eroding public trust, especially in Māori communities, in the Government’s response. This is evident in the low vaccination uptake among Māori under the age of 65. Our people need to be at the table. We need access to real-time information, we need constant communication, and we need to be trusted as the community leaders that we are.

This House has also been prevented from doing its job of holding the Government to account and ensuring there is robust and constant scrutiny of all the real-time decisions that need to be made as part of responding to a global pandemic. Today, I call again on the Government to do what is right and agree to the re-establishment of the Epidemic Response Committee. This is not about opposition for opposition’s sake or even necessarily opposing at all. We are dealing with a once-in-a-generation crisis and we need to use all the tools at our disposal to keep each other accountable to the people we are here to represent.

Let’s take the politics out of this and do what’s best for Aotearoa. Tangata whenua know what happens when pandemics are not managed properly. It is our people who bear the brunt of the virus. Throughout this pandemic, our people have been leading their own responses. We exercised our mana motuhake to lead our own solutions, to protect our whakapapa for generations to come.

Mā te iwi Māori anō hoki te iwi Māori e kōrero. Mā te iwi Māori anō hoki te Iwi Māori e rangatira. Kia ora tātou.

[Māori themselves will speak for Māori. Māori themselves will ennoble Māori. Thank you.]

Motion agreed to.

Orders approved.