COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2)

Members, we now come to our final debate, which is on clauses 1 and 2. The question is that clauses 1 and 2 stand part.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I’m just trying to find—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: It’s the title and commencement.

Yes, I realise that. I’m just trying to—

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

I realise clause 1 is the title; I was just making sure I got the wording right, which is the No 2—COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2).

This bill, and the title of the bill, is an unfortunate day for the Parliament, because what this House is doing is passing into law—soon going to pass into law, because we’re under extended hours; we’re into the third reading this afternoon—a bill that does two obnoxious things. Firstly, it continues the obnoxious, abhorrent system of managed isolation and quarantine for much longer than is necessary; and, secondly, it puts into law obnoxious provisions that allow the Government to steal private property under very dubious circumstances.

So the bill is misnamed. It’s very anodyne, in its current form; it’s banally worded—the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2). It should really be better named the “COVID-19 Public Health Response (Theft of Private Property) Amendment Bill.”

💬 Hon Member: Abrogation of rights.

My colleague says abrogation of rights. Thank you very much; that was going to be my next point. I wasn’t going to put it quite—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Point of order. Madam Chair, the member knows full well, as does, I’m sure, the committee, the Standing Orders are very clear, as are Speakers’ rulings, that debates on title and commencement must be specifically on that matter and cannot be used as a way to criticise or critique the content of the bill.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Relevance is something that the Chair rules on. Thank you for your assistance, Kieran McAnulty.

Thank you for adroitly pointing out that I was speaking specifically about the appropriateness of the title. I accept it’s a narrow debate, but I’m talking specifically about what the bill should or should not be called. Clause 1 is the title, clause 2 is the commencement, and the title of the bill is misnamed. It’s inappropriately named, because it’s a very banal title for a very serious bill. That’s my critical point, and the first of my, no doubt, many contributions on this particular clause.

It is an inappropriately titled bill. For a bill of such significance that does so many serious things, there should be the proper title and proper words in the title that make it—

💬 Hon Louise Upston: Which we will be tabling amendments for shortly.

Yeah, well, my colleague Louise Upston is in a fiery mood this morning, and she points out that the Opposition will be tabling amendments in relation to this.

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: Are you going for the deputy leadership, Chris?

What’s that?

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: Are you going for the deputy leadership?

Ha, ha! I tell you, the member who’s just making that rude interjection certainly will never be the deputy leader of the Labour Party, not after the—although, having said that, Kelvin Davis is doing such a shoddy job at the moment. “Where’s Kelvin?”, they call him up north; he’s disappeared off the face of the earth.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Point of order, Chris Bishop—come back to the bill, please.

Was that a ruling? Was there a point of order? [Interruption] Oh, OK. Well, anyway. Sorry, Madam Chair, I was provoked by the Government frontbencher.

Anyway, the point is—

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: If you’re going to filibuster, you have to up your game, so take calls.

Well, again, I certainly won’t be taking advice on filibustering from that member, who is not renowned for the filibuster; I’ll take advice on filibustering from the Minister in charge of the bill, the Hon Chris Hipkins, who’s at least a parliamentarian performer, but I won’t take it from Megan Woods—Dr Megan Woods.

Anyway, the point I was making was that for a bill that is actually of significant importance in relation to rights and freedoms, it should be better named. And so there should be a recognition in the bill title that this has a big impact on a lot of New Zealanders. It’s not every day that Parliament passes laws that arguably are in contravention of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. We don’t do that very often; we do that on a very rare basis. I acknowledge that there’s no section 7 report from the Attorney-General—that he’s concluded that the bill is in accordance with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, but I disagree, and I think a lot of legal academics would say otherwise, and a lot of legal experts would say otherwise, and that’s the whole point of a parliamentary bill of rights.

My simple point is that the bill should be better titled to reflect the significance of the rights that we are imposing upon. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to take a call on the title and commencement clauses of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2). This bill, I think, would be better named as the “COVID-19 Public Health (Extension of Powers by Another 12 Months) Response Amendment Bill” because that is one of the significant things that this piece of legislation does. The COVID-19 Public Health Response Act was brought into place in May of 2020, following our first lockdown, with a time constraint of two years, and now we are saying, under this piece of legislation, that it will be extending those emergency powers—significant emergency powers that we’ve seen under the COVID-19 orders—for another 12 months.

This comes as we’ve had the year of the vaccine—or the vaccine “stroll-out” as some people call it. It’s now November and the Government still hasn’t completed its vaccine stroll-out.

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: Have you had yours?

I’ve had two. I’ve hope you’ve had your two as well there, Mr Faafoi?

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: Waiting for the third.

You’re waiting for your third—good man. We’re all waiting for our boosters.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! In the meantime, I’d appreciate the member keeping the Chairperson out of the debate.

Sorry, Madam Chair. Yes, we’re all waiting for our boosters now and that’s another story of slowness and stroll-outs—

💬 Hon Member: Which one?

—if that’s the Minister comments that he wants to be talking about. But the issue here is an extension of these powers by another 12 months, at a point in time when, actually, the Government should be putting in place much tighter powers with far fewer limitations rather than, effectively, keeping in place significant powers. And, of course, we’re going to be back here next week talking about another set of regulations, and that’s not going to be about tightening up what’s in the law but about including a whole other set of regulation-making powers and a whole other set of rule-making powers for the Government.

If the Government was saying, “Well, we’re going to remove these ones and replace them with a tighter, more targeted set of powers”, I think most New Zealanders would be OK with that. But what we’re saying is that for another 12 months the Government will be able to put in place level 3 and level 4 restrictions nationwide until May of 2023, under this piece of legislation, despite the fact that next week they’re promising a new protection framework and a traffic light system and all of these other wonderful things that they’ve promised but that we still have not seen the actual hard letter of the law written down on paper for New Zealanders to be able to look at and scrutinise. So this legislation gives another 12 months of significant powers.

The other possible name for this piece of legislation would be the “Public Health Response (We Need to Widen the Mandate of Enforcement Officers) Amendment Bill”, because this bill significantly widens who is able to enforce the powers under this piece of legislation. I think most New Zealanders would agree with me when I say that, actually, if you’re going down the road and there’s a boundary restriction around alert levels, and that if the police are checking to make sure you’ve got a legitimate reason for travel, they’d be quite OK with the police enforcing those powers. But this piece of legislation now widens that and says, no, no, no, not just the police will have those powers to enforce the boundary restrictions but also a Māori warden, or a Pasifika warden, maybe a community patroller or a representative of an iwi—all good, well-intentioned people, no doubt, but now it’s no longer just about being stopped on the road by a police checkpoint with people that New Zealanders would respect and understand the role, the powers, and the authority that they have, but widening this to a whole bunch of other people who this legislation doesn’t require appropriate training for. It doesn’t describe in what detail they need to be under police supervision. Will a police officer actually have to be physically with them as they’re undertaking their powers and duties? It doesn’t describe whether that person will be able to also issue infringement notices and under what conditions or supervision. This piece of legislation extends powers significantly and that’s why those suggested names for this legislation are far more appropriate than the very bland name it currently has, which is, simply, the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2).

I’ll be encouraging the Minister to put a much more accurate description in the name of this legislation in place, because that is exactly what this legislation does—it extends the powers, extends the enforcement powers, in a way that I think most New Zealanders would be significantly concerned about as we come out of this pandemic over the next 18 months. This bill is about extending powers, not making them more limited.

The question is that clause 1 stand part. All those in favour say Aye, to the contrary No. The Ayes have it.

💬 Hon Member: Noes have it. Party vote.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Party vote has been called for. Apologies for the delay. There’s been a late entry, so I will pick up—I’ll just confirm where I pick because we’ve just got something added in. Oh, we’re having a morning, aren’t we! The question is that Chris Bishop’s tabled amendment to clause 1, to change the title to “COVID-19 Public Health Response (Infringement on Property Rights and Other Matters) Amendment Bill”, be agreed to.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: Point of order, Madam Chair. I think the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings—Speakers’ rulings in particular—have made it very clear that a proposed alternative title has to be a serious and credible attempt to name the legislation; it’s not an opportunity to make political points, as the member’s amendment suggests.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): OK. Thank you. Thank you for that. The reason I paused in the deliberations was to consider that very issue. My ruling is that I am going to proceed by putting the question.