Oral Questions

1. to the Minister of Finance: What Government economic support has been provided to businesses since the Delta outbreak on 17 August?

The Government moved swiftly to provide significant support to businesses and workers in response to the Delta COVID-19 outbreak. The wage subsidy scheme and resurgence support payment were reactivated. Other existing supports such as the leave support scheme, the short-term absence payment, and the small-business cash-flow scheme have also been available, as appropriate. In total, the wage subsidy scheme has now paid out $3.35 billion, and the resurgence support payment, $1.13 billion, totalling close to $4.5 billion. I am very well aware of the strain that the restrictions that are in place are putting on businesses and workers, and we are continuing to talk to businesses and evolve our response. The Government has been working on an enhanced business support package which will have a particular focus on supporting businesses in the Auckland area, and I’ll have more to say about that on Friday.

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: Where has the support been targeted to business?

💬 Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Under the wage subsidy scheme, the data shows that as of 14 October, 1.267 million jobs have been paid at least one payment. Some 39 percent of employees and 46 percent of self-employed have been supported by at least three payments. The analysis also shows that 65 percent of the employees supported by payments three and four are located within Auckland. A growing share of the jobs outside of Auckland that are being supported are in the accommodation and food services sector, as industries such as construction return to normal outside of the Auckland area. Under the resurgence support payment, which helps businesses with their fixed costs, the proportion of payments Auckland businesses have received has increased for each successive round, from 43 percent in the first payment to 64 percent in the second and, currently, 70 percent for the third. By sector, construction has received the largest amount for the first two rounds of payments. For the first week of the third payment, however, that has changed, with the accommodation and food services sector receiving the largest amount.

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: What other support is available to help businesses in response to Delta COVID-19?

💬 Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I said, these are stressful times for businesses and business owners—particularly in Auckland—who are doing it tough. Every week during lockdown, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has put out a specialist business support newsletter to more than 800,000 businesses, with help and advice on issues such as mental wellbeing. There is also a range of other resources available for small and medium sized business owners on the MBIE website, which has a lot of practical resources and advice. On Friday, we will have more to say about the support that we’ll be providing to businesses.

Question No. 2—Prime Minister

2. to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement in relation to COVID-19 restrictions, “We know that in the future we cannot ask people to live week by week, not knowing when things will change”; if so, when will she announce clear milestones for lifting current COVID-related restrictions?

I stand by my full statement: “We know that in the future we cannot ask people to live week by week, not knowing when things will change or how to help things speed up. We know that needs to change and we have a plan on how. While the announcements today will be about the next few weeks, on Friday we’ll provide the detail around the system we’ll use to protect ourselves in a highly vaccinated environment. We’ll give details on how we’ll move into that new system and what will help us to get there.”

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Why did she not announce clear milestones three weeks ago when she released a three-step plan for lifting lockdown in Auckland?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Because as we’ve always said, our outbreak has been and continues to be different than those outbreaks we’ve seen in Australia, where they were using vaccine to exit their outbreak. What we wanted to do was maintain the ability to continue to assess the progress of the outbreak alongside our vaccination, so not necessarily say that everything would be contingent on single vaccination rates but to continue to assess the containment of the outbreak. That is why we made the decision, of course, as you know, in level 3 to have a step 1 change that allows people to gather outdoors.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Can she commit to telling students in Auckland and Waikato this week what the criteria are for when they can return to school, so that they don’t have to live week to week?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’ve already signalled that the Ministry of Education will be making announcements around the near future around education in Auckland on Wednesday, and, obviously, as I’ve already said in my primary answer, we’ll be looking to the framework for a highly vaccinated environment and the details of that being released on Friday.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Can she commit to telling South Islanders this week the conditions for when level 2 restrictions will be lifted so that South Island businesses don’t have to live week to week?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I’ve already said in my primary answer, we’ve set out the time line for when we will be releasing the details of a framework for a highly vaccinated environment. What I will say, in the meantime, for the South Island is that you’ll see that we continue to assess the parameters and restrictions that sat alongside level 2. Of course, we’ve kept a level 2 environment in the rest of the country because we know the mobility of New Zealanders. We know that we’re continuing to have to ship and transport goods out of Auckland into the South Island. But we did assess that we could lift the caps for, for instance, hospitality and those sites that are using the seated and separated rule to try and just ease a bit of pressure there, acknowledging that the restrictions do have an impact.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Does she accept that the Government’s failure to deliver a plan to ease restrictions has seen small businesses living week to week, and many destroyed?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I accept that COVID has destroyed many people’s lives, and affected, in a disastrous way, many people’s businesses. Of course, no country has had zero impact from COVID, but it is fair to say that our country has had far fewer impacts than many when it comes to case numbers, hospitalisations, deaths, and—of course—unemployment and the impacts of restrictions on business. We absolutely acknowledge this has been an incredibly difficult period for many, but when we look at the overall impact of COVID around the world, we have had a very different and far better situation than many, many others.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Can she commit to announcing the conditions this week for lifting the Auckland regional boundaries so split families across New Zealand don’t have to live week to week?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’ve already talked a little bit this morning about some of the thinking that we’re doing around the Auckland boundary, and one of the issues we have is, of course, the desire of the South Island, for instance, to be without any restrictions, but, equally, the member has now raised also the desire of Aucklanders to be able to move around. So we, as Government, have to navigate those two competing interests and keep people safe, but also acknowledge that there are, of course, incredibly important reasons that Aucklanders wish to move again. So we are doing some thinking around how, regardless of the situation of the outbreak in Auckland, we might be better able to enable that safely.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Does she now accept that when she said earlier this year, “I support the fact that we have been later in the pecking order”, her decision not to prioritise vaccinations for New Zealanders resulted in Auckland’s 62-day lockdown?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I utterly reject the premise of that member’s question.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Will she apologise to New Zealanders for failing to get them vaccinated earlier and leaving us as sitting ducks for Delta?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I also completely reject the premise of that question. We entered into talks with pharmaceutical companies before they’d even finished their clinical trials. We were purchasing vaccines across multiple portfolios before it was even clear that they would necessarily be successful. Despite the constant misrepresentation of the Opposition on this issue, we were very early in our purchasing. Whether or not we were amongst the first to be delivered to is a very different question, but I utterly reject any suggestion that we did not do everything that we could to ensure that we had access to vaccines.

💬 David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister accept or not accept that New Zealand has been one of the last countries in the OECD to get its population vaccinated?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We’ve already overtaken many other countries for whom the member would compare us to. Of course, when it comes to first doses, I believe we’ve overtaken Australia now, the UK—a number of other countries that the member continued to compare us to, we have overtaken. The difference is that we’ve always taken our own approach on COVID. We’ve always said that we want a situation where we keep people as safe as possible and, at the moment, that means trying to keep the outbreak as low as possible while we get very high vaccination rates, because that means that when we move, we will be able to continue to try and keep that outbreak and those numbers as low as possible. There’s very few countries that have been in that position and there are few countries that have been in ours. But I don’t, for a moment, trivialise the impacts of lockdown.

Question No. 3—COVID-19 Response

3. to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: What recent progress has been made in the Government’s COVID-19 vaccination roll-out?

Over the weekend, New Zealanders came together across the motu to get behind Super Saturday, and I want to acknowledge the support of Super Saturday from all parties across the House. Nationwide, we had 700 vaccination sites open on Super Saturday—a number of them running into the evening in order to allow people the opportunity to get their vaccinations. A number of people from across the country went out of their way to get vaccinated—130,000 doses administered on a single day, the biggest day that we have had. I do want to thank everybody who played a role in Super Saturday’s event, whether it was leading up to, or on, the day; whether it was involved in organising the vaccination sites, or a barbecue, or driving someone to be vaccinated, and—very importantly—encouraging friends and family to show up and to do their part in keeping New Zealand safe from COVID-19. Everybody had a role to play.

💬 Ibrahim Omer: What areas did particularly well on Super Saturday, and where does this leave our current vaccination levels?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: There are some particular places that deserve specific mention, and I want to mention the Kawerau District which, before Super Saturday, had the lowest first-dose rate of vaccination in the country. The Kawerau community came out with huge support and they ended up with the largest percentage increase in first doses of any district in Aotearoa New Zealand—so a massive effort there. We saw high uptake amongst Māori on Super Saturday: 10,825 first doses and 10,877 second doses. That was particularly pleasing to see, a 5.4 percent jump in the overall vaccination rate for Māori in a single week, and the days leading up to it as well. So a big, big boost there, and the momentum is continuing.

💬 Ibrahim Omer: What support did he see for Super Saturday across the country?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I want to acknowledge the communities and businesses that got behind the Super Saturday events. For example, we saw community groups, businesses, councils, health providers, and a whole lot of individuals doing a fantastic job to encourage people to be vaccinated. There was a lot of fun on the day, including Air New Zealand’s Jabaseat, where they had a 787 Dreamliner parked on the runway where people were able to be vaccinated in business class and wait out their time in economy class. We saw businesses across the country donating significantly to the cause, and I’d like to thank them for that. I’d like to also just extend the message that Super Saturday can’t be the end of this; we need to see that momentum continue. We still have more people who we need to get vaccinated.

💬 Ibrahim Omer: What further works are planned in the vaccination roll-out to build off Super Saturday?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: We now need to redouble our efforts to target those communities where vaccination rates continue to be low. One of the things that we know is that people in those areas are less likely to come forward and seek out vaccination, and so we need to make vaccination as available as close as possible to them. That includes things like the Delta Buster, which we launched in Waiwhetū over the weekend, making sure that we have buses, vans, campervans, mobile vaccination clinics heading out into those communities where we have lower vaccination rates. Every New Zealander can continue to contribute here. Every additional person we encourage to get their first dose, or to get their second dose if they’re reluctant to get their second dose, is a step closer to getting back to the freedoms that we all want to see the country getting back to.

Question No. 4—Finance

4. to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement, “We must not allow inequality to take hold in our recovery. In fact we need to take this opportunity to improve the prospects of all New Zealanders and tackle those long-standing divisions”; if not, why not?

I do stand by the statement, which was made in April 2020, ahead of the 2020 Budget. Since then, the hard work of all New Zealanders and Government policy has driven a strong recovery, which has delivered more people in jobs and tens of thousands fewer people on income support than was forecast; the largest increase to benefit rates in a generation on top of an indexation of main benefits to the average wage; and one of the strongest economic performances during COVID in the OECD, which in turn has seen more jobs and opportunities for all New Zealanders. This is not to deny that there is more to do. There is, and that is why we are continuously updating our response, and we’ll have more to say about that on Friday.

💬 Hon Julie Anne Genter: Will the enhanced business support package for Auckland he is announcing on Friday include direct financial support for Auckland students, renters, beneficiaries, and those in transitional housing; if not, why not?

💬 Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Obviously I’m not going to pre-empt the announcement, but what I would say is that the package of supports that the Government has already put in place has been providing support to those groups, many of whom are part of receipt of the wage subsidy scheme, for example, but I will leave more details until Friday.

💬 Hon Julie Anne Genter: Why has the Government provided less than half the financial support to tertiary students in the 2021 COVID response than they provided in 2020?

💬 Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: There was an initial boost to student allowances and student loan living cost support payments then. Obviously that continues to flow through. We have also, in this particular outbreak, increased funding for the student hardship fund, which enables us to target the support to those students who are the most in need.

💬 Hon Julie Anne Genter: Has he asked for or received any advice about the impact of high inflation and whether increases in living costs and rents will erode the previous increases to benefits and the minimum wage?

💬 Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I haven’t sought specific advice since yesterday with the material that came in then, but the general advice is that, yes, higher inflation does impact more on those with the lowest incomes. Over the course of the last 20 months, we’ve seen not only the things I outlined in my primary answer but also increases to the minimum wage, and we continue to look for ways to support low-income New Zealanders.

💬 Hon Julie Anne Genter: Will the Government freeze rents, as they did during the COVID lockdowns last year, to address the needs of people in Auckland as they face the longest period of level 4 and level 3 restrictions?

💬 Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: That’s not currently on the Government’s agenda, no.

💬 Hon Julie Anne Genter: Will he provide direct financial support to low-income and marginalised communities in Auckland so people can afford to stay home and stop spreading the virus and look after their families during this extended lockdown?

💬 Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: There have been a number of investments made by the Government in supporting those on low incomes and in vulnerable communities in the Auckland area. That is included through additional funding for Pasifika health and community providers for Whānau Ora and other iwi and Māori providers, and we continue to provide support, obviously, through the Ministry of Social Development.

Question No. 5—Finance

5. to the Minister of Finance: What new plans, if any, will he announce to support those businesses that are currently affected by alert levels in New Zealand?

The Government, as I outlined in my answer to question No. 1, has provided significant support to businesses across New Zealand affected by the change in alert levels. We know that the impact on some sectors and regions, such as those in Auckland, has been hard, and we will continue to work with them and provide support. Again, as I said in question No. 1, the Government’s been working on an enhanced business support package with a particular focus on Auckland, and I’ll have more to say about that on Friday.

💬 Andrew Bayly: Has he seen the Auckland Business Chamber survey from October, which shows that two-thirds of Auckland businesses are not confident about the state of the economy over the next six months; and, if so, will he restore confidence by committing to allow the wage subsidy to be accessed at alert level 2?

💬 Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I have been in regular contact with the Auckland business chamber of commerce and, indeed, many of their members over the last couple of months. In terms of what we will be doing, that will happen on Friday.

💬 Andrew Bayly: Has he seen the Retail New Zealand report from 30 September, which shows that a third of all retailers are not confident that their business will survive the next 12 months; and, if so, what plan does he have to ensure that this does not happen?

💬 Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The focus of the Government over the course of the last 20 months has been on cash flow and confidence within the economy. That’s the reason why we have put out such a significant amount of resources—as I mentioned, close to $4.5 billion going to businesses since the August outbreak. I know the member has his own announcements that he plans to make tomorrow; if there’s any new ones in there on top of what’s previously been announced, I look forward to seeing them.

💬 Andrew Bayly: Has he seen, in the same Retail New Zealand report, that 87 percent of retailers want the Government to provide a plan for rental support in the form of a financial payment; and, if so, will he be adopting National’s rental support package?

💬 Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: As I previously said, the resurgence support payment was specifically designed to help businesses meet their fixed costs. We’ve obviously expanded access to that over the course of the last couple of months; the member will have to wait till Friday. But, again, I look forward to any further new announcements he has tomorrow.

💬 Andrew Bayly: Has he seen the report from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, which shows that 43 percent of the building sector expect weaker economic conditions ahead; and, if so, what plan does he have to make it easier to supply and transport building products across the Auckland regional boundary?

💬 Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: It’s very clear that there’ll be no new announcements tomorrow from the National Party, given this particular line of questioning. As the member knows, we have facilitated the movement of building supplies across the boundary over recent times in order to meet some of the needs that exist there. And the construction industry, bear in mind, continues to operate at alert level 3, and, indeed, around the country.

Question No. 6—Building and Construction

6. to the Minister for Building and Construction: What recent reports has she seen regarding building consents?

I’ve seen a report from Statistics New Zealand that shows that for the sixth month in a row, the annual number of residential building consents has reached another all-time high. The number of new homes consented in the year ended June 2021 is at a record high of 46,453. This is an increase of 24 percent from the August 2020 year. These figures show the Government’s commitment to responding to increased housing demand is delivering the warm, dry, safe, and durable houses New Zealanders need.

💬 Terisa Ngobi: What other trends does this report show?

💬 Hon POTO WILLIAMS: The report shows a steady increase in the demand for multi-unit homes, with the total number of multi-unit homes consented in August 2021 at 21,164, an increase of 35 percent from the year prior. There’s no doubt that New Zealanders’ needs are changing and the building landscape is evolving. It’s encouraging to see a shift in the type of homes we’re building, as more apartments and townhouses will help us deliver affordable and healthy and energy-efficient homes.

💬 Terisa Ngobi: How is the Government supporting the building and construction sector to build this growth in consents?

💬 Hon POTO WILLIAMS: This Government’s investment in the construction sector is creating more jobs, helping us to retain and grow construction skills, and building warmer, drier, secure housing at a critical time. More people have moved into construction than any other sector since the start of COVID-19. This is fantastic for our communities, our economy, and our housing delivery programme. A strong sector means we can build back better.

Question No. 7—Prime Minister

7. to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement in relation to vaccine targets, “It is not as simple as that. If only the world were that simple”?

I stand by my full statement: “If we have a proportion of New Zealanders who opt out, we will have outbreaks that will lead to restrictions, and that will impinge on everyone’s lives. So it is not a simple equation of ‘If you’ve just had a chance, then unfortunately game’s up and it’s all over for everyone.’ It is not as simple as that. If only the world were that simple.”

💬 David Seymour: Is the Government’s policy now to have no numerical target, one numerical target, or a series of targets for different groups and locations in terms of vaccination rates?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I’ll refer the member to the comments that I made yesterday—that we are continuing to do work to finalise the detail around the COVID protection framework that we’ll be releasing on Friday. But I have indicated that we will give direction and guidance on the trigger into that framework and what will need to be achieved in order to move into it, and we’ll be providing that detail on Friday.

💬 David Seymour: Can the Prime Minister describe the work that is required to finalise those details between now and Friday?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As the member will have seen from some of the public commentary, we have been engaging with those who’ll be most directly affected by the framework as we finalise the details, keeping in mind that this is the kind of framework that acts in a similar way to what you’ve seen with the alert levels, so it actually does need to have quite a significant amount of work around it.

💬 David Seymour: Has Cabinet already decided at what vaccination rates Auckland and New Zealand will be able to remove current restrictions, and did it make that decision at Cabinet yesterday?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I just said, there are elements of the work programme that we continue to finalise in preparation for release on Friday, and that will be my consistent response to those questions.

💬 David Seymour: Point of order, Mr Speaker. It was a very specific question about a specific aspect of the plan that’s under scrutiny here. The Prime Minister hasn’t addressed that. She’s just said that there’s a generic range of questions that she’s working on. If she won’t answer specific questions, then there’s really no point in having question time and asking her questions.

💬 SPEAKER: Well, whether or not there’s a point of having a question time and whether the member wants to take part in it is something for him. But leaving that to one side, the member does know that, one, if he wants a very specific question, he should ask it, but even then he cannot require a yes/no answer. Speakers have made that clear I think for at least the last 100 years and probably quite a long way before that.

💬 David Seymour: Point of order. With respect, sir—

💬 SPEAKER: Well, the member doesn’t mean “with respect”, but carry on.

💬 David Seymour: Oh, Mr Speaker, I’m hurt by that comment. You should have more respect for yourself. The fact is I didn’t ask for a yes or no answer; I asked a specific question about a specific aspect of a plan to be addressed and, clearly, the Prime Minister hasn’t done that. All she’s done is persisted in saying there are details. The point of a supplementary question is if a member asks what those details are, they’ve at least got to address the question about those details.

💬 SPEAKER: And the Prime Minister very clearly said that those matters would be the subject of comments further or later in week, and while I’m sure the member won’t be satisfied with that answer, the question was addressed.

💬 David Seymour: What new information has the Government received, or is it waiting to receive, about school openings, between yesterday when the announcement was announced and tomorrow when the announcement will be made about school openings?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Every decision that we’ve made is based on the most up-to-date information about the nature of the outbreak that we have. I think it’s particularly interesting, of course, to see, as you would have heard me say today, that under-39s—in fact, if I were to give the member the precise number, 16 percent of our cases today are 10- to 19-year-olds and 12 are zero- to 9-year-olds. So we even factor in that level of detail in the decisions that we make. We also look, overall, at things like vaccination rates amongst those who may be eligible for schools reconvening. All of that is material as we look to the safety of decision making around schools reconvening. As I’ve just said earlier in the House, in House time, Minister Hipkins will be setting out some of those plans tomorrow. But we had in fact already signalled that schools would not be reopening this week, so there was no expectation that they were.

💬 David Seymour: If the plans announced this week can change with information received by the day, how can the public have confidence that those plans will endure for longer than, say, the roadmap released a few weeks ago?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member is conflating two completely different things. We’ve always said that the decisions that we’re making relative to this individual outbreak, whilst we are vaccinating we will continue to look at our ability—even while we do not have high rates of vaccination—to see if we can make alterations to restrictions based on our ability to contain the outbreak. Secondly, we’ve also said that vaccinations do make a difference to what you’re able to do in the future if you have high vaccination rates—that we intend to operate differently when we have high vaccination rates. And so, of course, alongside with dealing with this outbreak, as it stands, we’re also looking to the future and setting out a framework that incorporates vaccination rates at a high level.

💬 David Seymour: Why do double-vaccinated Kiwis with a negative pre-departure test returning to their country still have to go through 14 days of managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ), if they can get it, when people with a positive COVID test are being allowed to home isolate?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course, when we identify a positive COVID case in the community, there’s an assessment undertaken as to whether or not that person would be best placed in managed isolation or continue to be cared for in their home, in the same way that we are also now piloting the idea of having people coming in at the border being able to isolate at home. We do still have cases coming in at the border. Knowing where those cases are and who they are and that they are being properly contained continues to be important to New Zealand, because every modeller demonstrates that even when you’re operating with a slightly high tolerance of COVID in the community, if you’re seeding too many cases, then that does have an exponential effect. But we are looking at our MIQ arrangements in our current environment. We already have the reconnecting New Zealand work. We are expediting some of that work and looking at things like shortened MIQ and home isolation. Some of that work was already well under way.

💬 David Seymour: In what assessment does a person with a negative COVID test have more chance of passing on COVID than someone the Government knows has COVID because they just had a positive test but are still allowed to isolate at home?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: So I don’t think these two scenarios that the member presents—of course, one group you could almost say, coming in at the border, essentially you’re almost treating them as contacts, and so we do have requirements of the way that we treat contacts. Some of them do still go into facilities, even if they’ve been in the community. We have contacts that will go into facilities if they’re unable to isolate safely at home. So it’s just about looking at those two different groups and making sure we’re consistent between the two. We are in a transition period. But we’ve already set out that the bones of that needs to include the ability to isolate at home, which, as I’ve already said, we’re piloting and we’re doing that both for positive community cases where it is appropriate, and we’re looking to do that for travellers where it is appropriate, and we’re also looking at things like shortened MIQ. So I think the things that the member is seeking we do have under way.

Question No. 8—COVID-19 Response

8. to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: Did Cabinet agree yesterday to vaccination rate targets in Auckland and New Zealand to allow COVID-19 restrictions to lift; if so, what are they?

The Government’s overall target for COVID-19 remains to get every New Zealander taking up the opportunity to be vaccinated. Everyone who can be vaccinated should be vaccinated. As the Prime Minister has just indicated in the answer to her question, an announcement on the thresholds for shifting to a new COVID-19 protection framework for a highly vaccinated population will be made on Friday. We are working through the final details of that, including the interrelationship between the rates of vaccination and the potential new requirements in the new framework.

💬 Chris Bishop: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was very specific as to whether or not Cabinet agreed to vaccination rate targets. I think the Minister said words to the effect of they’re working that through. It doesn’t actually answer or address the question.

💬 SPEAKER: Is there any response to that?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I’m happy to elaborate further on the answer if that would be helpful.

💬 SPEAKER: I think it would be. I think at least the first leg should be addressed.

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Cabinet made some in principle decisions. Details are still being finalised.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Still writing the press release.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member can take a call if he wants to.

💬 Chris Bishop: Does the Minister mean, therefore, that Cabinet will finalise the decisions reached in principle yesterday before the announcement on Friday?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: There are specific Ministers working through the details of that, and, of course, the announcement will be finalised before the announcement is made.

💬 Chris Bishop: Why has the Government not published the vaccination rate target agreed at Cabinet yesterday and given some certainty to Aucklanders and New Zealanders desperate for a roadmap out of the situation they find themselves in?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Probably for a similar reason to the fact that the Leader of the Opposition demanded to know what the Government’s targets were and then refused to release her own, despite the fact that they’ve clearly already decided what they are, which is that we’re working through the details. We want to be able to answer all of the detailed questions that will flow from the announcement when we make it, and so, therefore, we will do that on Friday.

💬 Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern: Has the member seen any reports of any other parties in this House and whether they’ve finalised the no less than three different targets that they’ve had around vaccination rates across New Zealand?

💬 SPEAKER: Now, I think the Prime Minister knew that was out of order. Therefore, she will withdraw and apologise.

💬 Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern: I withdraw and apologise.

💬 Chris Bishop: Why didn’t the Government announce yesterday their in principle decisions, to use his words, around what the vaccination targets that Auckland and the country needs to get to to have COVID-19 restrictions loosened?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Cabinet made some in principle decisions. The details of that have been delegated to a group of Ministers to finalise, and that is the process that we’re going through at the moment.

💬 Chris Bishop: Why is the country waiting until 63 days into this Delta outbreak before finding out what vaccination rate New Zealand needs to get to in order for restrictions to loosen?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I note that the member asks that question on the day that we have recorded the highest number of COVID-19 cases that we have had since the pandemic began. There is still a lot of uncertainty around the pandemic, and the Government continues every day to get new information, new modelling, new projections, and we want to make the most informed decisions that we possibly can. We are acutely aware of the fact that when we make these decisions, going backwards isn’t an option. Once COVID-19 cases take off, it’s very difficult to contain them. We want to make sure that the success that New Zealand’s had in containing COVID-19 continues in as much as that is possible in light of the Delta variant that we are dealing with. This isn’t a fast and easy process; there are a lot of different things that needed to be weighed up and traded off. The fact that the Opposition themselves haven’t been able to maintain a consistent position over the last few weeks, despite not being responsible for anything, shows that it is actually a complicated set of issues.

Question No. 9—Conservation

9. to the Minister of Conservation: What recent announcement has she made regarding investment in a project to protect kea?

Last week, I announced Jobs for Nature funding for a two-year project aimed at reducing lead poisoning of the endangered kea, the world’s only alpine parrot. Lead poisoning is a serious threat to this charismatic and cheeky mountain parrot, as it is attracted to the sweet-tasting but toxic metal commonly used in building materials prior to the 1990s, and the effects can be devastating. Kea are a taonga, an icon in the mountains of Te Waipounamu, but they are in trouble and need all the help we can give them to overcome threats like lead and predators.

💬 Rachel Brooking: How will this project be delivered and what will it involve?

💬 Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: This project has been spearheaded by the Kea Conservation Trust. Government funding of $950,000 will allow the trust to take on eight people from areas most affected by the COVID-related downturn in tourism. These people will be trained to work at heights and in roofing maintenance. Work will involve removing lead from private dwellings and replacing it with non-toxic alternatives, working with property owners in areas surrounding the South Island, including in the Tasman District, Abel Tasman, Golden Bay, Arthur’s Pass, Aoraki, Ōkārito, Franz Josef, Fox Glacier, Haast, Mount Aspiring, and Piopiotahi. The trust project complements the Department of Conservation’s own programme to remove lead materials from huts and other buildings on public conservation land.

💬 Rachel Brooking: Can the Minister reveal which bird or bat she is backing for Forest & Bird’s 2021 Bird of the Year Competition?

💬 Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: Well, yes, I can. This year, I am proud to say I am backing the kea—a highly intelligent, resourceful, and a little bit of a rascal. Some characteristics could perhaps describe a few people in here. Some fun facts about the kea: a kea once learnt to turn on the water tap at the Aspiring Hut campground, a kea once locked a mountaineer inside the toilet at the Moa Hut, a kea once learnt to use tools to set off stoat traps to get the eggs. As I said earlier, the kea is a threatened, nationally endangered bird numbering between 3,000 and 7,000 and is under pressure from predators and human impacts. But through sustained action by the Department of Conservation, the Kea Conservation Trust, and countless others, we can protect this taonga species if we put our all into it.

Yes, I’m tempted to ask why the Minister hasn’t re-opened the office at Arthur’s Pass so visitors can see it better, but—Penny Simmonds.

Question No. 10—Education

Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Education. Does he have confidence—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! There are two members who haven’t got their masks on. Please put them on. Thank you.

10. to the Minister of Education: Does he have confidence the Government’s actions and statements have provided schools clarity about how they can operate under COVID-19 alert level restrictions?

Broadly, yes. I’m confident that the Government has appropriately balanced schools’ need for timely and clear information with the need to make considered decisions in the interests of all New Zealanders in an evolving situation.

💬 Penny Simmonds: Why has the Government still not told Auckland schools, with students anxious about exams, the date they can reopen?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I’ve committed to making final decisions around that by tomorrow. No final decisions have been made on that at this point. We’re working through a number of details, including logistical and practical considerations around having students back on school sites, and so I hope to be able to provide as much clarity as possible. We have provided, in recognition of the disruption that those senior secondary school students have faced, some pretty clear guidance around the additional support that will be provided for those aiming to complete their NCEA—that was provided some weeks ago—and we are now working through further guidance on having a larger number of students returning to school sites. I would note that under our current alert levels, there are some provisions for senior secondary school students to be on site where the only place that they can complete assessments and so on is on a school site. There are some limited provisions for that at the moment, and I’ll have more to say on that in the next 24 hours.

💬 Penny Simmonds: How will schools ever get clarity around the impact of lockdown on students’ progress when officials say, “Our curricula don’t yet clearly signal important markers of progress” and current assessment tools are of variable quality?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Oh, that’s always been the case. In fact, there has never been a nationally consistent set of measures of student progress outside of the senior secondary school, and some of the measures that have been put in place have proven to be neither national nor standard. They weren’t particularly consistent. We do have studies available, including the national monitoring project, which gives us pretty good and robust information. There are some other sources of information available as well, including through some of the digital tools that are available that do provide some aggregatable data that can be drawn on for research purposes in measuring students’ progress in some of those earlier year levels.

💬 Penny Simmonds: Does the Minister accept the Government’s lack of clarity about how schools should operate in lockdown means education is a lottery for students, with one Auckland principal calling online learning “just a joke”?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think the Government’s provided a lot of clarity for how schools should operate during alert levels 3 and 4, which is, by and large, to be supporting young people to learn from home. Whether that’s using digital learning platforms or using hard packs of materials, the teaching methods that teachers use when using those tools are ultimately up to the judgments of the individual teachers. We don’t tell teachers specifically how to teach within their classrooms; we leave that to their professional judgments. Similarly, in this environment, teachers will be making judgments. In some cases, it’s better to support students using digital technology; in other cases, it is better to support them using hard packs of materials. Those are ultimately judgments for the teachers and for the schools.

💬 Penny Simmonds: Why didn’t the Government outline schools’ options where teachers refused to be vaccinated when they announced the vaccine mandate and, instead, tell them all to get legal advice?

💬 Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The last part of the question is not correct. The Government is working through further guidance to schools about what they should do at the end of this year in terms of the employment process for teachers who have chosen not to be vaccinated. That does have some significant impact on the teachers’ collective employment agreement. The Ministry of Education are working through that process with the teacher unions at the moment. We needed to announce the requirement to be vaccinated before that process could begin. That process is now being expedited.

Question No. 11—Research, Science and Innovation

11. to the Associate Minister of Research, Science and Innovation: What progress has been made on allowing more widespread use of rapid antigen testing for COVID-19?

As we enter a new phase of our COVID-19 response, with more and more New Zealanders gaining protection through vaccination, we can expand the tools we use to combat the virus. Last week, the Government gave the green light to importation of 300,000 approved rapid antigen tests, that will be used by some of the country’s biggest employers. These tests can provide a result within around 15 minutes and will be used for workforce surveillance testing. However, they do tend to be less sensitive at detecting cases, so PCR tests will remain the mainstay of our COVID-19 testing in most situations.

Tāmati Coffey: Why is the use of these tests being limited to 29 businesses initially?

💬 Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: It’s important that we step through the introduction of new technologies carefully as part of our COVID-19 response. Rapid antigen testing was first introduced at Middlemore Hospital and is being rolled out in other hospitals. It will also be used as a point of arrival test in self-isolation pilots in Auckland and Christchurch, starting later this month. Trialling workplace use of rapid antigen testing gives us the chance to refine, learn, and iron out any other issues before we look at how this testing can be rolled out more widely. It’s important to note that some of New Zealand’s biggest companies are involved in the scheme, including Mainfreight, Foodstuffs, Summerset Group, Vodafone, The Warehouse, and Auckland International Airport. Some of the businesses in this group are already using rapid antigen tests successfully overseas, and their international experience has helped them develop this scheme in New Zealand.

Tāmati Coffey: What reaction has she seen from businesses to the wider use of rapid antigen testing?

💬 Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: Oh, I’ve been pleased with the positive response from those involved. Foodstuffs’ North Island chief executive officer, Chris Quin, said, “At a time where the challenge of Delta in New Zealand is greater than ever, it’s been renewing for everyone to be able to work together across Government and business to enable this additional testing solution. We need to do everything we can and this is a positive step in helping to further look after our teams in stores and the supply chain New Zealanders depend on.” Auckland Airport’s chief executive, Adrian Littlewood, thanked the Government, the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment and the Ministry of Health “for their quick response to our request to import rapid antigen tests”, and said rapid antigen testing “is a vital added layer of protection to help identify chains of transmission and ensure workplace continuity.”

Question No. 12—Prime Minister

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

Yes. I especially stand by the Government’s actions and the actions of all parties in this Parliament, in fact, alongside those incredible providers on the ground that ensured Super Saturday was a success and worked so hard to make it so. Working together, every single person, providers, business, nurses, vaccinators—everyone—we smashed through our target of 100,000 vaccinations by mid-afternoon and went on to see 130,000 doses administered in just one day. Most heartening: 39,000 of those doses were people receiving their very first dose, a quarter of which were amongst Māori. Kawerau led the country in first doses administered per capita, and Ashburton led on second doses, seeing nearly 5 percent of their population become fully vaccinated on Saturday. There are countless other great stories from Super Saturday right across the country, but, in short, to everyone vaccinated on the day, and to all those already vaccinated, I just want to say thank you very much for your vaccination.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Has Cabinet considered any proposals to make the three waters reforms compulsory?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course, Cabinet discussions remain in Cabinet until such a time as those decisions are publicly released. When it comes generally to the three waters proposals, the member will know that we feel very strongly about the fact that the status quo is not an option. Without change, ratepayers will face increasing costs. Their bills will go up. Our infrastructure will continue to deteriorate. Already we have sewage regularly pumped into our oceans and our beaches, and if we’re all being honest, decades of under-investment in our infrastructure is contributing to our housing crisis. The status quo is not an option.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Will she rule out her Government mandating the three waters reforms on all councils, thereby forcibly seizing ratepayer water assets?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I totally reject the premise of that question. The idea of seizing assets, I would completely reject. What we all have a duty to do—and I would’ve thought that the Opposition would be, of course, all too familiar with the reason that this work started: people in Havelock North were made incredibly sick and some died because of issues with water in New Zealand and its provision. Work was started and completed and then, as a result, we’ve undertaken a reform process. Our desire has always been to work alongside local government to try and find the best way to ensure we gain efficiencies and outcomes from our water infrastructure that we can all be proud of: safe drinking water, decent investment in infrastructure that allows the housing growth we need, and for our environment to no longer see sewage pumped into our waterways. That is why we’ve undergone this process. If the member wants to stand still and allow all of that to continue, it’s her prerogative.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Will she continue to take the path of forcibly seizing council water assets with the Opposition confirming today that a future National Government will return all confiscated assets to the local councils from which they have been taken?

💬 Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: All the member has confirmed is that under a potential National Government, ratepayers would experience thousands of dollars in increases in their bills and the continuation of under-investment that means we have an ongoing housing crisis and sewage pumped into our oceans.