General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

I want to begin today with an acknowledgment of everybody in Auckland. It is tough going in Auckland at the moment. Aucklanders continue to do the hard yards on behalf of the whole country in fighting COVID-19. They are making a significant contribution to the overall public health and wellbeing of all New Zealanders. I acknowledge it’s not easygoing. I acknowledge that the period of restrictions that they have experienced has been difficult. That has manifested itself in a wide number of ways, and I think I want to, on behalf of the whole country, express our gratitude for what they have been doing in order to keep COVID-19 contained within Auckland at the moment, and I do want to thank them for that.

I’d also like to acknowledge that it’s World Cleaners Day, and I want to say a very warm thankyou to cleaners up and down the country for the work that they’re doing. In fact, cleaners have been at the forefront of our COVID-19 response and we should acknowledge that. We should acknowledge that they often work while we sleep, making sure that they are keeping us all safe, and they do that day in, day out, right the way through the year, even when we’re not dealing with COVID-19. So a big thankyou to our cleaners.

A big thankyou to everybody who’s working in the health system at the moment. I particularly want to pick out one group, the group that we saw a lot of on Saturday, and that is our vaccinating workforce, up and down the country, who have been doing everything they can to ensure that New Zealanders are provided with good, robust information so that they can make an informed decision to be vaccinated. There is absolutely no question that the pathway forward from here for New Zealand relies on a good, high rate of vaccination.

For those who currently sit on the fence or who are wavering, my message to them is this: stop delaying. Go and talk to someone who knows what they’re talking about. Don’t listen to what your friends might be saying or what someone that you’ve read on Facebook might be saying. Go and talk to your doctor. Talk to a nurse. Ring Healthline. Get some trusted advice and make an informed decision about being vaccinated, because we are all in this together, and the higher the rate of vaccination that we get, the greater the possibilities for all of us. Vaccination is incredibly important now.

We are already seeing the benefits of vaccination in Auckland. Some of the modelling is already showing the impact of a high rate of vaccination in Auckland and the effect that that’s having on the potential number of cases that we could be seeing on a daily basis if we did not have that. That is because Aucklanders have come forward. They currently sit first-equal with the Wellington region for the highest rates of vaccination in the country, and it’s having an effect. It is helping to suppress the number of cases that we are seeing in Auckland. [Interruption] I have to tell the member that the southern region’s got a bit of catching up to do, and I think Canterbury might have even overtaken them. So they’ve got a little bit of work to do down there in the deep South. But it is good to see vaccination rates across the country coming up, because, ultimately, that is a big part of our future—making sure that we have a highly vaccinated population throughout the country. And vaccination rates in every part of the country matter.

I want to again extend a message to the rest of New Zealand that at the moment, COVID-19 cases are contained within Auckland but it will not stay that way for ever. There will come a time when there won’t be a ring around Auckland any more, and I think those in Auckland want that to be sooner rather than later. That does mean that the rest of the country need to be prepared, and the best thing that they can do to be prepared is to get vaccinated. COVID-19 will find unvaccinated people. That has been the international experience of COVID-19, and it has been particularly so with Delta, which spreads faster and infects people much, much more quickly than previous variants of the virus. So there is an absolute degree of urgency here around vaccination. We need people to embrace the spirit of Super Saturday to keep that momentum going.

So my message to those who have either had one dose or have been fully vaccinated is you’ve still got a role to play here in convincing those who haven’t been vaccinated to come forward and be vaccinated. So when you’re coming forward for your second dose, or when people are coming forward for their second dose, if they could bring one unvaccinated person with them, then we will be one of the most vaccinated countries in the world very quickly. So that could happen, and we need New Zealanders to do that. We need to get those vaccination rates as high as we possibly can.

We have this opportunity. We’re seeing New Zealand’s vaccination rates continuing to grow day by day. I acknowledge the hard work of those on the front lines who are making that happen. I acknowledge the work of the people who are getting out there and making sure that people have got good information to make informed decisions. Vaccination is so huge for New Zealand’s future.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to join with the Minister, actually, in acknowledging the people of Auckland and in supporting the vaccine message. I’m not sure that the people of Auckland would so fondly acknowledge the Government and their ham-fisted response to the COVID outbreak.

I’ve been reflecting. In my 25 years as a rugby referee, I often refereed games where teams were ahead and then fell behind in the last 10 or 12 minutes of the game, to run around in a frantic frenzy to try and play catch-up. I would reflect that if they had that level of intensity through the 80 minutes of the game, maybe they wouldn’t have found themselves in that situation. I think that’s analogous to this Government, because they were cruising early in the second half of the COVID game. They thought they were best in class. They thought they didn’t need to worry about getting vaccine rates up sooner. In fact, they went from front of the queue to “Oh, other countries need it more.”, and then they found themselves behind on the scoreboard and they were scrambling.

Well, they were scrambling without a plan: no plan to open up, no plan to get our primary and intermediate kids back to school, no plan to ramp up our health system, no plan to roll out rapid antigen testing, no plan to use technology to track and trace, no plan to use electronic vaccine monitoring, and certainly no plan to recover this economy. Well, National has a plan, and I was proud to be part of the team that launched Back in Business this morning, National’s plan to save lives and livelihoods and unleash our economy. That plan increases support for workers and businesses, and it reduces spending by Government.

The Minister of Finance, in question time today, just couldn’t believe that was possible. Well, those rumours about how bad he was at maths at King’s High School in Dunedin are clearly true, because one of the things you do firstly in order to reduce spending is to reduce the impact of a lockdown. Get business back to work sooner so they can rely on their own merits, not on Government support. The second thing is to stop spending money on dumb stuff and on things that are completely unrelated to COVID. This Government has used COVID as the cloak for profligate spending on things that have tenuous or no links to the outbreak. We’ve gone through them before in this House: three waters, cameras on fishing boats, wallaby control, money for RNZ to compensate for lost revenue that they hadn’t actually lost.

Yesterday, thanks to Newsroom, we had this classic revelation that funding for the arts out of COVID is even disliked by the arts sector, shocked by half a million dollars to fund a match-making book site that’s “headed by an American wedding celebrant with close to zero knowledge of New Zealand literature [who] has been given a massive $500,000 grant from the Ministry for Culture and Heritage to ‘help Aotearoa audiences access books’.” I’d like to quote some of the people in that article, but I’m afraid that they use language that I can’t use in this House.

So the simple arithmetic is this: stop spending other people’s money on dumb stuff, because this Government thinks it knows how to spend Kiwis’ money better than Kiwis do. Let’s give them the chance to get back into business, to open up properly, to get dining out in the open, to use the vouchers that we would give them, to spend the tax-break money that we would give them, and to get back to normal. Yes, vaccine rates are important. Vaccine rates are our ticket out of here, and if the Government hadn’t mucked around all winter, we would be in a much better place. But I’m still confident and National is still confident that we can do that in order that we can open up before Christmas.

I should say that Mr Robertson, in criticising our opening up plan that was launched three weeks ago, said “Oh, well, there’s National. They’re going to give people COVID for Christmas.” Well, under this Government, they didn’t need to wait for Christmas to get COVID; the Government gave it to them during the October school holidays. There is a better way, and it involves much more energy. We’re now in the last 10 minutes of the game, and, thanks to the Government’s complacency, we are behind on the scoreboard. I’m confident we can get back to business. We can open business up. We can get them to stand on their own feet. We can save jobs. We can save livelihoods. We can improve their mental health. They just need a Government that cares, and that isn’t this one.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. And first can I just support the condolences to Sean Wainui and his family at this point in time—a truly tragic event and our thoughts and prayers are with them.

Back to the world of the living, and I want to support my colleague the Hon Chris Hipkins in thanking Tāmaki-makau-rau for doing the heavy lifting. They have been in lockdown for a very long time. I meet with them daily to make sure that we can continue to support their efforts, not just to care for them but also to support their efforts to drive up vaccination rates amongst Māori, Pacific communities, and right across Tāmaki-makau-rau. The numbers there are strong, but we need them to continue to rise, which is why I used the term very carefully yesterday in the press conference: whānau ma, COVID-19 is on your doorstep, and we need you to wake up, we need you to seek the right information, the correct information from proper sources to make sure that you can make an informed decision to take the vaccine.

On the vaccine: Super Saturday, well, what an awesome day. I went out to Takapūwāhia and saw vaccines and rongoā Māori, hangi, rēwena bread, and the community all in the same place. What was just as important as the vaccine was the community spirit is alive and well, despite the pandemic trying to break it, despite some of the Opposition humbug trying to break it, the community spirit is super-strong. I just want to give a couple of numbers. Of course, just over 21,000 Māori received the vaccine on Super Saturday. Just about half of those are first dose, which is super-exciting. I want to congratulate my colleague the Hon Meka Whaitiri. Waipukurau: 17 percent of the Māori population there vaccinated on Super Saturday. Great work as a collective of the DHB, Māori health providers, local GPs, and local pharmacies, as well as the council—that’s how we do it. That’s how we roll and that’s how we’ll continue to get our numbers up.

I also want to acknowledge Te Tai Tokerau, where I come from. I miss that place, and I know they’ve been doing it a bit tough. They’ve been in lockdown too with Tāmaki-makau-rau over the past few weeks, but despite that, on Super Saturday, their people came out. In fact, of the top 10 vaccination sites in this country, Tai Tokerau takes four of them, and that’s absolutely awesome. I’d like to say it was after my visit there, but, none the less, I know that they all worked together to make sure that they can reach our Māori communities. I’m really, really thankful for the work that they do, from vaccinators to kaiāwhina, to those giving out the hangi, to those aunties and uncles and Māori wardens who are ushering our whānau into vaccination centres and into health clinics around this country.

I also want to thank our kuia and kaumātua. Their vaccination rates amongst our people are the highest, and that’s really important. Why? Because all of us look up to our elders like that. I am asking our kaumātua and kuia now to have those conversations with their whānau, to make sure that they can continue to protect their whānau, their hapū, and their iwi as we move forward into this pandemic. And I’m really excited that as we continue to grow our Māori vaccination rates, we can start engaging again as a community, like we saw on Saturday. The team of 5 million—well, guess what, baby! It was back, and it was back in fine form, and in particular for our Māori communities and our Pacific communities, and I’m super-excited about that.

Today, we heard from the National Party about Māori vaccination rates. When asked for a plan, they couldn’t come up with one. And given their deputy leader is a doctor, I suspect he’s now dressing in personal protective equipment to go around the country to try and vaccinate every Māori in this country. The National Party has not had a plan for Māori vaccination rates. In fact, I recall when we announced the Māori vaccination plan in March, they made it clear that it was separatist, that we couldn’t have that, that it was one country, that we were a team of 5 million, and now all of a sudden they want to jump on the old Māori hōiho. Well, I can tell you, if they’re looking for a target, the target that they’ve been trying to find for so long now—and they’ve flip-flopped between different members—is probably on their leader’s back. And I say that because despite the rantings and ravings from a number of their colleagues, from a number of their caucus, it was quite clear that they lack leadership. They’ve lacked leadership from the start of the pandemic, and they continue to lack leadership today. What we heard from Mr Woodhouse was nothing but business, business, business. What we’re saying on this side of the House is it is about whānau, it is about hauora, and it is about our communities growing back stronger and resilient into the future.

Finally, in the last eight seconds, in a moment of harikoa, I want to say happy birthday to my tuākana Whatitiri Te Wake in the press gallery—happy birthday, cuz.

Mr Speaker, thank you very much. Today, National released the document Back in Business – National’s plan to save livelihoods and unleash our economy. To the last speaker, Peeni Henare, who was in the newspaper yesterday and today blaming Māori for not being vaccinated, actually our economy has people of every walk of life in New Zealand, who have done everything that his Government has asked, who have huge amounts of debt, who are losing their homes and their businesses—and he wants to be a bit political. I’ll let you what, you should have vaccinated more people, Mr Peeni Henare, rather than eating all of those hāngī yourself, because they were there to get others vaccinated.

On 21 March last year, we went into our first level 2 initially. Since then, New Zealand has been under level 2, 3, or 4 restrictions and lockdowns for 226 days—for 226 days, Kiwis have been locked away, have not been able to come out of their homes, have not been able to go to work, have not been able to run their businesses. Auckland has been in level 3 and 4 for 64 days, and when the Prime Minister finally gets around to it this Friday—if it is even her that will do it—to come out and talk about what the future holds for Auckland, it will be 66 days and counting.

Auckland, our largest city, the largest part of the economy: 220 days in restrictions since last year. It is no wonder that last week, when the Government announced further restrictions for the Waikato, because there were more cases, the Prime Minister didn’t bother to turn up and talk to Kiwis from the 1 o’clock platform; she went to Murupara to tell people to get vaccinated and to cook sausages. Well, I’ll tell you, to the people in Auckland, who are struggling because of being locked away, to every small business in the country that’s done what they’ve asked, who have got debt, who have had to sell their homes and borrow more just to survive, to the thousands of people in the South Island, who haven’t had a case of COVID for more than a year and they’re still under lockdown, that’s what they want from their Government: someone who can cook a good sausage sizzle in Murupara!

You see, today’s plan from National is a plan. The Government said it was the year of vaccination. We didn’t hear them at the beginning of the year telling Māori to get vaccinated; we heard them saying that we don’t have enough vaccines because others around the world are more important and they’re dying. Well, here we are today, businesses failing, New Zealanders struggling, and the Government still makes excuses. Today, National announced a plan that will support businesses, small businesses, tourists, and Kiwis who own and run those businesses and who have done what the Government asks. The first is a reduction for two years in the tax rate for small businesses to 17.5 percent—the same as the Māori incorporated tax rates—when businesses get back to being able to trade properly because the vaccination rate is up, because the Government has finally got around to doing that, and when the restrictions aren’t there, when the visitors from Auckland can travel again, and when people from overseas can safely come back. Kiwis will work hard. We think they deserve to keep more of their cash to pay off those debts that are vested in their businesses. What the finance Minister said was, oh no, he wants that, because he knows how to spend it better. We’re backing businesses here.

We’ve said we would extend the cashback system. A tourist business three years ago was making more money than most other businesses. Tourism was worth $41 billion to the economy, 400,000 people employed, many of them locked away in their homes right now because of the Government’s inaction. If a business today has a loss, a small business, they can carry that loss back and get cash from profits over the last four years, if they desperately need, in their business. We have announced the wage subsidy should continue to be available everywhere in New Zealand under level 2. In Auckland, the Government has said that won’t be the case, just when they need it the most. We’ve said that we would increase the tax bracket for our lowest earners so that they have a choice to go and decide what to spend their money on, and I would recommend to them to spend it on whatever they like, particularly local businesses, because every time they spend at a local business, they save a local job. The Government is not spending in that local business; they are taking your money, they are keeping it, they are borrowing from the future and spending it on things like—still—a cycle bridge over the Waitematā Harbour that they’ve ruled out but are still paying for, to plan for.

We’ve announced a “dine and discover” package: $100 per person in New Zealand over the age of 18 who has been vaccinated to spend in restaurants and in pubs and accommodation and tourism to pump money into those businesses, give them a shot in the arm, so that they are still there after we get back to normal. There is an insurance scheme for the events industry. The Government was asked to do one of these. They said no. The events industry is $20 million out of pocket. We have their back, as we have the back of every single small business in New Zealand. Small businesses are mum and dad Kiwis—

The member’s time has expired.

Through vaccinations we will secure New Zealand greater freedoms. We have rolled out the most effective vaccine to New Zealand, a vaccine that will prevent hospitalisations and deaths, a vaccine that has an exceptional safety profile, and due to the efforts of this Government and the team of 5 million, we are on track for very high rates of vaccination across the country. Announced yesterday was the plan that we will be able to vaccinate people with immune compromise with a third dose to make sure that those most vulnerable members of our community remain protected by vaccination because we have found in studies that sometimes they do not seroconvert in their first one or two doses. In addition, Minister Hipkins mentioned today that we anticipate the application from Pfizer for booster doses to go through our regulatory process next week so that we can ensure that this protection is sustained. Momentum is up in our vaccination campaign due to the efforts of this Government and the team of 5 million. On Super Saturday, we vaccinated over 2 percent of our population—a world-topping statistic.

But what I want to mention was the absolute stars of Super Saturday—our community providers. They go to parts of our community where no one else can. They reach the people the health system has for too long struggled to reach. I spent Super Saturday with my colleague Barbara Edmonds in Mana. We went to Maraeroa Marae. It was not like your standard vaccination clinic. In the wharenui they were practising rongoā, there was a hāngī outside. In the whare kai, the Māori Women’s Welfare League dished out advice and good cheer. In Cannons Creek, there was the atmosphere of the Creekfest down in “The Cage”, which is what they call the basketball court. Pacific health providers enjoyed music and dance and vaccinated the community. We had fun. We got to see the director-general’s dance moves. And while it was couched in the shtick of telethon, what the vaxathon achieved was it mobilised the community.

In particular, up and down the country, it mobilised the power of the aunties, and the aunties were out in force, waving flags in Auckland, waving people into the vaccination centre, making sure everyone felt that they fitted in and felt comfortable. In my own family, my mother, a retired teacher, got on the phone and called 60 former students to get vaccinated. Once again, we have reignited the power of the team of 5 million to look out for one another. Our hauora providers, our Pacific providers, community organisations—they were the stars of Super Saturday. Their success is an inspiration. It is them that we should look to for the solutions to the problems our health system faces in the future.

We have a way to go to make sure that everyone in New Zealand is protected, and it is so important to remember that in this pandemic, our success will be determined by reaching everyone. There will be no room in the hospital if there are pockets of people who are inadequately vaccinated. So by reaching everyone, that is how we secure access to health resources that will make sure that we continue to have a functioning health system that we value whether we ourselves are vaccinated or not. So I want to thank all the members of this House from both sides who participated in the Super Saturday event and all the community providers who brought their magic to making it a remarkable event and one that protected so many members of our community.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Well, clean water is also vital to human health, and I’d like to talk about the Government’s three waters proposals. So the Green Party strongly supports the Government’s commitment to improving the delivery of three waters services across the country. We recognise that good services for drinking water, for waste water, and for stormwater are provided in some areas, but not consistently around Aotearoa. We recognise that there are issues around affordability and there are infrastructure gaps which require significant investment.

We strongly supported improving the standards of drinking-water supply and waste-water treatment. We know that we need to prevent leakage from the drinking-water supply network, but also note that the volume that agriculture consumes for irrigation, our dairy farms use the equivalent of what 60 million consumers would use.

The Greens supported the new Water Services Act, which establishes the new regulatory regime overseen by Taumata Arowai to ensure that all New Zealanders have access to clean, healthy drinking water and the commitments in that legislation to supplying safe, healthy drinking water. We recognise that that legislation would see more investment in three waters services, particularly drinking water, and a much stronger regulatory and enforcement regime.

But we do have some concerns over the proposals to transfer service delivery infrastructure and all those functions and responsibilities to these super-regional entities by July 2024. One of the key risks is around stormwater in urban areas, and if that becomes disconnected from land-use planning, subdivision, and land-use development in new housing, because it is that development that strongly influences stormwater, the pattern of use, and the areas of hard surfaces—whether they be roofs or roads—and councils are increasingly recognising that how they deal with stormwater has potentially significant co-benefits for the community in providing areas for recreation and habitat.

In South-West Christchurch in Halswell, the Christchurch City Council has put a number of stormwater retention basins, which before they were even functioning properly people were walking around. They’ve really helped to smooth flood flows and prevent flooding in areas of Christchurch, like Heathcote, where that was traditionally a problem.

Another concern is the whole scale, pace, and timing of the change in three waters, which is occurring before we have seen major progress with the review of local government. Because three waters functions are a major part of councils’ functions, and the transfer of those to these four entities will have a major impact on the functioning of councils. But one of the key issues is the whole concern around ownership, accountability, and governance mechanisms. So we’ve got a very complicated, multi-layered approach to governance that is proposed, with quite a limited ability for local communities and their councils to influence or direct the new super-regional entities. There’s no direct link to them.

We certainly support stronger mana whenua involvement, but the notion of having a regional representative group which appoints a selection panel which then appoints a competency-based board is too disconnected from councils and communities.

So we’ve also got a major concern around the Government proposing that it be mandatory. It’s been proposed as a voluntary initiative, but Cabinet has provided the mandatory option as a fall-back position, and despite repeated questions to the Minister in the House, there has been a failure to rule out that this could be mandatory.

The Government really needs to engage with councils and the concerns and alternative governance and accountability proposals that they have put forward in the eight weeks to 1 October. It’s not just about refining what Government has proposed, but taking on board those concerns so that we get a real partnership between central and local government. That requires properly assessing those alternative service delivery and governance options.

We suggest that there could be a much stronger and closer look at the council-controlled organisation model, as has been used in Watercare, which is delivering services efficiently with a competency-based board, and has a much more direct council stake in ownership.

The assumption is that the changes will deliver 45 percent or more efficiencies compared to the status quo. We acknowledge that that argument was used with the move to Auckland as a unitary authority, but we’ve yet to see robust data showing that those efficiencies were achieved, and we think they can often be overstated, so we encourage the Government to engage.

E te Māngai o te whare, tēnā koe. Otirā, ngā mema katoa o te whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Mr Speaker, greetings, and to all members in the House, greetings to you all.]

I too want to add my sincere condolences as expressed by my whanaunga Dr Elizabeth Kerekere to the Sean Wainui whānau of Whatatūtū, Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki. A very sad passing and I too want to add my acknowledgment to him and his whānau.

Super Saturday—130,000 vaccinations across the country; 21,700 Māori of which half and half were 50:50. This was a huge achievement and I too want to add my appreciation to all our health professionals, our Māori providers, our Hauora providers, our DHB staff for a mammoth effort. But we know this is only the beginning; we have much more work to do. And I thought it is important that we celebrate everyone’s effort across the country. I myself was on the ground in Te Tai Rāwhiti. I want to acknowledge Turanga Health. I want to acknowledge Ngāti Porou Hauora and, of course, Hauora Tairāwhiti, and the DHB, who ran clinics in and through the rohe of Te Tai Rāwhiti.

But what I wanted to touch on is acknowledging Super Saturday but also acknowledging the work prior to Super Saturday, and obviously the work that we need post - Super Saturday if we’re going to keep our Māori vaccination rates growing. Prior to lockdown, prior to the August lockdown, I visited all my clinics throughout Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, and I’ve got a big electorate from Wainuiōmata right up into the East Coast. I visited those clinics to ensure that I understood how our clinics were set up, how the vaccinators were resourced, how the people were coming in, and how they were awhi-ed and what experience they were having in those clinics, and to speak to the clinicians themselves around some of the challenges.

Every day since lockdown, I zoomed with my four electoral offices, where we examined the daily rates of vaccination across my four DHBs: Tairāwhiti, Hawke’s Bay, Wairarapa, and of course the Hutt Valley DHB, which is part of Capital and Coast. Every day, and to this day, we continue to do that, because it is so critical as the member for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, with the high number of Māori that we’ve got across my electorate, that I’m informed as a local MP as to the challenges facing them.

I also met with every four of my DHBs before Super Saturday to ensure that they were really clear that I was there to lend a hand, not to take over but to ensure that a health response on the ground across my electorate was so critically important to lifting Māori vaccination rates. And every DHB chair and every chief executive engaged openly and were open to suggestions. My point to all of them was they needed to work with their Māori community. It needed to be a Māori-led response across my electorate, and I want to say they did take that on board and they continue to do that.

But not only that, we had the Prime Minister come into my electorate. Just when you’re trying to focus on getting rates, in comes the Prime Minister. There’s nothing like drawing the attention to the fact that we needed to lift Māori vaccination rates than having the PM in your electorate. So we had her at Wainuiōmata Marae where she engaged with Kōkiri Marae Services and Teresea and the team who are doing a stellar job out there. She then came to Flaxmere at Tōtara Health. She met with our Māori Hauoras at te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga. She went up to Wairoa and saw firsthand and engaged with the rangatahi about some of their concerns that they had around vaccination, and she openly answered the questions that they posed to her. It was then on to Gisborne to meet with the Hauoras in Gisborne, and then, of course, up the East Coast where she engaged with people on the ground.

For a Prime Minister who is running this country and leading us through this pandemic, I saw a side of the Prime Minister that was on the ground, talking with people, but also engaging people with vaccination hesitation. I saw that where she not only heard the concerns but also addressed in a very subtle way, with those people who may have turned up that weren’t contemplating being vaccinated—and the Prime Minister took them aside and had a word and that led to their vaccination. Who else in this House can say that they have done that? Have they found people who are hesitant? Have they walked into the clinics? Have they stood by them while they were phobic of needles and then just held their hands? That’s what we’ve got in this Prime Minister: not only leading the country but getting down amongst all our clinics and our patients, particularly our Māori vulnerable and convincing them to get vaccinated. I’m proud to be part of this Government, committed to raising Māori vaccination rates. We have more work to do.

Fakaalofa lahi atu, Mr Speaker. Thank you very much for the call. Three hundred and sixty-seven days ago, a number of us in this House were elected as new MPs, some on the list and some as electorate MPs. I’d like to acknowledge right across the House those who are new MPs. There are many things you learn in your first year as an MP. You learn what’s a good speech and what’s not a good speech. You learn what are good questions to ask and what are not good questions to ask. But one of the very key lessons that I learnt very quickly, and it is something that I know a lot of us in this House hold true to our heart, is that question: He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people. On Super Saturday we saw our people come together for one cause: to raise vaccination rates. And we saw it right across the motu with 130,000 people who were vaccinated on that day.

The Capital and Coast District Health Board, which covers my electorate of Mana, they worked together with the Hutt Valley District Health Board. They had quite a unique perspective when it has come to vaccinations, right from the very start. They went straight from the community. They went to the Pacific Island churches and said, “Can you host a vaccination event in your church?” In July, we held EFKS church in Waihemo Street, Porirua East, in Waitangirua. This Super Saturday we saw events at Maraeroa Marae, Takapūwāhia Marae. We saw them in Cannons Creek. We saw the Pasifika youth event in Cannons Creek. We had over 13,500 doses in our DHB alone. So I’d like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the Capital and Coast District Health Board team who have been leading this response: that’s Rachael Haggerty, Tagaloa Junior Ulu, and Chris Mitchell. For the way that they have reached out to our communities, the Capital and Coast District Health Board and Hutt Valley District Health Board have some of the highest Pacific and Māori vaccination rates in this country.

I’d like to also acknowledge our health providers on that particular day, and I’m going to list them, because it’s not very often you get to give that credibility to these health providers on the ground in Parliament: that’s Tū Ora and Ora Toa, our main primary health organisations; Maraeroa Marae, Porirua Union & Community Health Service, Pacific Health Plus, Mana Pharmacy, Mana Medical, Plimmerton Medical, Linden Surgery, Life Pharmacy in North City, and Coastlands in Kāpiti Coast, Team Medical, the Kāpiti community vaccination centre, Whakarongotai Marae. We also had the Institute of Environmental Science and Research in Kenepuru Drive in Porirua East who was doing a lot of the waste-water testing across the motu.

But the great thing about this was that Super Saturday saw the best in business as well. We had a number of businesses support our efforts in Mana, because, unfortunately, in the Wellington region, Mana has some of the lowest rates in some pockets in our electorate. So we saw the likes of Vodafone New Zealand, Uber Eats, Google, Capital GR, Pak ’N Save Porirua, New World, Cus Uniforms & Sportswear, and the New Zealand Māori Tourism Board. We even had the Pacific Island diplomatic corps come out, and what was interesting about them is I put the challenge to them at the opening ceremony of the Pasifika youth event, which was by youth and for youth. I put the challenge out to the corps saying, “I see you’ve got flat shoes on. Come door knock with me and my team.” So I acknowledge Papali’i Tommy Scanlan, who is the high commissioner from Samoa. He and his wife beat the streets with myself, with Minister Verrall, with Minister Faafoi, with our mayor, with a number of our councillors, and with a number of volunteers to knock on doors through Cannons Creek and Waitangirua to ask people the key question: what support do you need to be vaccinated? A number of them even needed transport or they needed in-home vaccinations, which we are organising with our health providers. So we thank you all for that work.

We also thank the 6,039 Pasifika people throughout the country who were vaccinated on that day. It’s not a competition but I must say the Samoans, there were about 3,642 of you that came out, so mālo fa‘afetai lava for that.

I just want to finish with a small contribution from a family who met the Prime Minister on Saturday. The father of the Risati family from Porirua East said, “On Saturday we’re part of a vast group of first vaccinators back home in Porirua, Cannons Creek. Obviously people have their reasons on why or why not to get vaccinated against COVID19 but as a family we had to do it, not for the incentives or what people call bribes but for the sheer fact that we have an immune-compromised child in Lachy, whose immune system isn’t strong enough to fight off anything that is out there in our community. The basic cold or flu-like symptoms that we take for granted can be fatal for Lachs. This was mainly for him to help him be protected because we cannot afford for him to get sick again.” COVID is here on our doorsteps. Let’s respond.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s great to be able to talk about our super Super Saturday. I live in the beautiful Ōtepoti and spend a lot of time around the south of Te Waipounamu. But, like many members before me, including the member across the floor who is also a list MP based in Dunedin, the Hon Michael Woodhouse, I want to acknowledge the effort that Auckland is going to and how they are doing that for the entire country. I want to acknowledge how hard it is, particularly if you’ve got small children, to be in lockdown. So thank you to Auckland for doing that for the rest of us.

In terms of Super Saturday down south, I thought I’d start with talking about Queenstown and Wānaka, part of the Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) rohe. Now Queenstown, they’re all about the vaccine in Queenstown, it turns out—they’re aiming for a 95 percent double vaccination ASAP. So they are already at, in the latest summary I saw, 94.6 percent with a single vaccination. Super Saturday also had a great—well, that’s for the whole of the QLDC, so Wānaka is part of that as well. They had a wonderful drive-through event that had lots of people there, and in Queenstown you were able to get your vaccine on a historic steamboat in the harbour there, and even get a coffee, which is great to see the community coming together to provide those sorts of opportunities.

So why is Queenstown so focused on getting such a high vaccine rate? Well, one of the reasons is that people like to visit Queenstown. It’s very beautiful, and the population there wants to be protected from those future visitors. On the other side of the coin, it’s a destination that wants people to come and visit. It’s very good to demonstrate that they have a very high vaccine uptake. So I’ve spoken to Mayor Jim Boult about this, and he’s very keen to get those 94.6 percent up to 95 percent and over, and then for them to get their second shot as soon as they can—after three weeks, of course. So we really want to let the visitors in and keep the COVID out.

There’s other parts of beautiful Otago as well, and I can’t touch on all of them because there’s so many, but in Central Otago there’s 87 percent have had their first vaccination and 72 percent are fully vaccinated. Waitaki at 81 percent single and 69 percent double. The media there noted that Timaru and Canterbury were beating them, so hopefully that’ll be changed around very quickly. In Waitaki on Super Saturday the Department of Conservation was offering rides to clinics, which I thought was quite innovative. Where I live, in Ōtepoti, there’s been 90 percent first vaccinations and 76 percent second. On Super Saturday, there were 75 sites around the southern region, which includes both Southland and Otago. The DHB tells me that at one of the places you could get your eyebrows waxed while you waited. There was 9,706 doses given, and 811 of those were given to Māori.

In Dunedin, where I live, I’d like to touch on the role that Te Kaika has played. This means “the village”, and it is a provider that opened in 2018; it’s a partnership between Ngāi Tahu and the University of Otago, and I was lucky to visit it with Minister Henare back in April to talk about the vaccine roll-out, particularly to our Māori and Pasifika communities. Now, Te Kaika is super-responsive, so from very early on in this current outbreak they were doing pop-ups in stadiums, they were doing pop-ups by the university, and now there’s a bus as well. All of this has been done in conjunction with the DHB; the university has been involved, and so has the council. So it’s been great to see, and that all cumulated on Saturday in The Octagon with, again, members from across the House turning up, the university being there, the museum offering scientific advice to people who were wanting it, and a whole lot of arts and community groups being involved, as well as businesses.

So I really want to finish by saying to those people who are not yet vaccinated or who have not yet had their second dose, to please do. The vaccination has amazing benefits for those who are vulnerable, and to enable letting those visitors back in and keeping COVID out. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to talk about my home city of Auckland, because it seems that nobody in the Government is. Every Labour Party speaker has got up and told us how fantastic Super Saturday was. The fact is it really tells us that this Government is run like a PR agency. The optics matter more than the substance in their mind, and the cute thing is about these new backbench Labour MPs: I think they really believe it.

Well, let me just give you a few facts about Super Saturday: 39,000 first doses—that’s the number that that is; it’s the first doses that matter, because people eventually get their second dose. So the fact they got their second dose with a saussie is not actually an achievement; they were always going to get it. It’s the first doses that matter, and 39,000 first doses was the 21st best day in this vaccine “stroll-out”. And they call that a triumph. There were 20 days where more people got their first dose than the so-called Super Saturday with the saussies.

And then you might say: “Well, at least things are getting better because they’ve got some enthusiasm, and didn’t everyone come together well?” Well, here’s some more hard facts. If you take the first doses for the day since Super Saturday—and, remember, 39,000 on Saturday—how many on Sunday? Six thousand. How many on Monday? Ten thousand. How many on Tuesday? Ten thousand. Well, the facts are that that compares with the previous Sunday—6,000 plays 9,000. The previous Monday: 10,000 plays 15,000. The previous Tuesday: 10,000 plays 17,000. Every day since Super Saturday has been dramatically worse than the previous week for first vaccinations. And even when you count Super Saturday, the average of the last four days has been 15,000; the previous week, the average was 16,000. So we actually had better results in the last week than we have had this week of Super Saturday. That’s the hard reality.

Now, people listening at home, did they hear how that Labour backbench got a bit quiet? There it is: that’s the sound of the Labour backbench confronted with the facts, because they’ve drunk the kool aid, they believe in the marketing, they believe in the hype. Well, let me tell you: the people in Auckland going into their 65th day of lockdown under this Government, they don’t believe the hype any more. There are so many paradoxes and contradictions in this Government’s response to COVID. We had the Prime Minister stand up yesterday and say the vaccine “stroll-out” was going so well—was going so well. Well, riddle me this: how is it possible the Government’s doing such a great job on the vaccine “stroll-out” and we still have the highest restrictions in Auckland of any city in the world.

And then they say it’s too dangerous for Kiwis to come home—tens of thousands of people stuck offshore, separated from their families. As Brooke van Velden, our deputy leader, pointed out at question time, partners of pregnant women stuck overseas, they can’t get an exemption even to go through the 14 days of managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ). But do you know who does get to skip the 14 days? Gang members. We’re supposed to be bringing back health professionals. The Government said today there’d be 300 spots for them in December. What that tells me is they’re still going to be running MIQ in December, with the borders locked down. I’ve got a tip for those pharmacists that are health professionals. If they put down on the form that they’re drug dealers, they’ll get to skip MIQ, because that’s the fact; that’s the contradiction. And how is it possible that someone who’s double-vaxxed, a Kiwi trying to return home, has to go through 14 days of MIQ after a negative test, and that’s if they’re lucky to get a spot, but someone who has tested positive for COVID is allowed to isolate at home—and Chris Hipkins told us in question time there’s 86 people like that. What an insult to those Kiwis stuck offshore.

There’s so many paradoxes. The Government is so confident, so well ahead of the game, they’re planning everything so perfectly, but they can’t even tell us what they’re going to announce on Friday. They can’t tell us what happens next week, let alone next month. This is the most incompetent, hopeless Government in the history of New Zealand, and Auckland is paying the price.

Fakaalofa lahi atu, Mr Speaker. I just want to bring it back to a positive note, because, hopefully, we are all in the same boat of trying to make sure we get people vaccinated, rather than trying to tear each other down.

In the Ōtaki electorate, we had a great Super Saturday. But actually, I just want to mimic some of what the others have said. It was the lead-up to it, as well as on the day. But on the day, the Ōtaki electorate managed 2,151 vaccinations. So we are small but mighty, and although that’s small, it starts to make a gain into where we need to get to.

In the Kāpiti area—so that is my southern area—we gave 351 first doses and 816 second doses. The Horowhenua area, which is in my northern area—we were able to give 417 first doses and 567 second doses. Overall, 70 percent of our Kāpiti Coast is fully vaccinated, and 62 percent of our Horowhenua people are vaccinated. We still have a way to go, but it was a community effort leading up to and as well as on Saturday, and even past that.

I want to be able to thank all the volunteers and the health providers that worked really tirelessly, but to just name a few, if I may, we had volunteers—about 10 of them—calling into the Ōtaki electorate. We were able to base at my office in Paraparaumu, and we went out and sign-waved with Tū Ora, the crew at Te Roto Drive in Paraparaumu. When we got there, it was just before 9 o’clock, and already there was a line out the door. That was amazing. The only incentive was a sausage sizzle if you wanted it. Other than that, people just wanted to get vaccinated to protect their community.

In Kāpiti youth service, with Rachel and the team there, they’ve been working really hard with our rangatahi in Paraparaumu. We had Hora Te Pai at Whakarongotai Marae in Waikanae, led by Di Tatana and her team. They’ve been working right through, only having Sundays off. Saturdays have been a bit quiet for them. I got there just before they opened and, again, they also had a line out the door. The only incentive was a kia ora for the aunties down there and being able to protect their whakapapa and get back to being able to do tikanga the way they know it for Māori.

We had the Waikanae Rugby Club doing their bit, standing up a COVID vaccination site. We had the Ōtaki Medical Centre, led by Kiwa, Adrian, and John and the team, and also joined by Bonnie Matehaere, who was doing some great work for the DHB and has been working nearly every day leading up to Super Saturday at Ngā Purapura, as well as being able to take a bus out to Ōtaki Beach and also being able to do Māori lands as well, which was fantastic.

We had the Horowhenua Community Practice team at Horowhenua Events Centre, and they’ve been continuously vaccinating and serving our community there with Sally Hall, via Averill and Sheree. We have the Pasifika team, led by Angelina Toeleiu, who’s doing an amazing job in Levin as well. We have our iwi’s Muaūpoko, led Tracey White. Ricky Fonoti is in there as well, and Kelly Tahiwi and the others. As well as Raukawa Whānau Ora, we had Dean and Dave at Horowhenua Donnelly Park flipping sausages, and they got a bit of a hand from Waimarama Taumaunu and her daughter Tiana, who turned up as well, which was great.

We had the Rapid Relief. We had Berrys pharmacy, Hamish pharmacy, Deseray, Paul, Deb Winiata at Te Awahou in Foxton, who have been going every day and did this Sunday as well. We had the Māori wardens up and down our coast. We had the Māori Women’s Welfare League going out there and nannies telling us about what’s happened before and to protect their whakapapa. We had businesses that had the mobile bus at their sites: Alliance Meats in Levin, Mainfreight, Woodhaven, Freshpork.

We still need to increase our vaccination levels, but we do that together, and Saturday in the Ōtaki electorate showed what community spirit meant and that we all need to do our bit. I understand the hesitancy. I understand people are a bit worried. Go and talk to somebody. Have a kōrero. Have a talanoa with someone you trust. But what I would say as a mum is my kids are too young to be vaccinated. They are 11, nine, and six. I want to do everything I can as a mum to protect my babies. I always will. But I am asking everybody to go out there and help me protect my babies too. Help us protect all those people who can’t be vaccinated.

This is a community effort. This isn’t about political gain. This isn’t about parties. This is about protecting Aotearoa. This is about the business communities who want to open coming together with our Māori communities, coming together with our Pasifika communities, coming together with our health providers. This is everybody doing their bit, and that’s what we’ve seen in the Ōtaki electorate on Super Saturday. That’s what we see in the Ōtaki electorate leading up to Super Saturday and beyond. Please help us protect all of Aotearoa. Please have a chat to who you need to. Help me protect my babies as a mamma. Kia ora.

This week, an unusual thing happened in this Parliament. I, together with National Party leader, Judith Collins, stood on a stage with the Minister of Housing, Megan Woods, and the Minister for the Environment, David Parker, zooming in. The question has to be asked: why did that unusual thing happen? It happened because Judith Collins and our caucus are motivated by strong values, and we exist in the National Party to defend those values. We believe in a property-owning democracy; in ambition, success, individual freedom and choice; personal responsibility; competitive enterprise; rewards for achievement; strong families; caring communities; and limited Government.

It is those values that led us this week to support bold action on housing, because we cannot stand by while a generation gives up on the aspiration of home ownership. We cannot stand by while Government red tape and regulation constrains much-needed development. We cannot stand by while New Zealand families are robbed of the freedom and personal security that only affordable homes can provide.

We have watched in despair while Labour has attempted all sorts of things to address the housing emergency—banning foreign buyers, promising KiwiBuild homes, imposing new taxes. None of it has worked. The problems have only got worse, and through all of this, National has consistently argued that to address our housing problems, we must reform the Resource Management Act, we must get the red tape out of the way, we must allow land to be used for housing. That is why Judith Collins wrote to the Government in January and said, “We are here to help.” I believe that it was the desire to receive that help that motivated Ministers Woods and Parker to write back in June and say, “Please help us with these proposals.”

And that is what we did. I want to thank the Government for the work we did together to come up with a set of proposals that create a genuine right to build, that strengthen the property rights of existing property owners, that both enable large development on the edge of growing cities and enable, but not require, denser development in our major cities. The proposals we announced this week take power away from town planners and give it back to the people they serve. Yes, it is not a silver bullet—it will not wipe every tear from every eye—but it is a step forward.

And to those who say, “I just want a home and garden. I don’t want a townhouse.”, I say to you: no one will take your home and garden away; we’re going to keep building those. And to those who say, “But there is special heritage that must be protected.”, I say there are still provisions to allow that heritage to be protected. And to those who say, “Development needs to be sensible.”, I say there are still going to be limits for how much of the site can be covered and how high the buildings can be and how far they must be set back.

But, finally, to those thousands of New Zealanders who say to the members of this Parliament every week, “I need the choice to be able to buy an affordable home.”, I say to them: the proposals we have put forward this week will give you far more choices in the future.

I started this speech quoting Keith Holyoake, who spoke of our party’s aspiration for a property-owning democracy. Let me finish with the words of our party’s first leader, Adam Hamilton, who said, “Every encouragement should be given to those who give their best to provide for the needs of their own household. And it is by the development of the private citizen exercising his or her fullest freedom and responsibility that any State becomes great.” The policies put forward this week encourage those who work hard, save hard, and who want to have a stake in our economy through homeownership, and that is why we stood on stage with the Government this week.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.