COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill

I present a legislative statement on the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill be now read a first time.

New Zealand’s preparing to move to the next phase of our response in the fight against COVID-19, a global pandemic that has confronted the world and presented a series of challenges around the globe that are unprecedented in our lifetimes in terms of the public health response that has been required. The next phase of our response here in New Zealand focuses on the framework that allows for much greater freedom due to the success of our roll-out of the vaccination. The vaccination programme is the greatest public health tool that we have now in our fight against COVID-19, and it is the most effective way for us to open up the country again safely, without the need to resort to the restrictions we’ve had in the past.

It is worth, at this point, very briefly recapping where we found ourselves just under two years ago as we were grappling with the onset of the global pandemic. There was no vaccine. There were very few treatments available that had been proven to be effective, and therefore the best way of keeping New Zealanders safe was to stamp COVID-19 out completely and to keep it out of the country. And that has been our focus for most of the last year and a half since we found ourselves in that first position.

The vaccine roll-out has changed things. The arrival of Delta, the new variant that has proven to be almost impossible to stamp out in every country that has experienced an outbreak of Delta, has also changed things. And so now we enter into the next phase. So this bill clarifies the framework for the management of COVID-19 in our community—and we have to accept the reality that COVID-19 is here in the community to stay.

The bill includes the ability to make orders that differentiate between people who are vaccinated against COVID-19 and people who aren’t, and so to achieve that, the bill amends the order-making provisions in the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act. The orders that will be made will provide for the issue of COVID-19 protection certificates to use within New Zealand, which will be known as My Vaccine Pass. It’ll allow us to specify the information required in the process for people to get a vaccine pass. It will prohibit people from entering certain places if they’re not vaccinated or exempted from vaccination—i.e., if they don’t have a vaccine pass. It will specify that proof of vaccination can’t be required for accessing certain life-preserving services—so the ability to go to the supermarket, to go to the pharmacy, to access core educational services, compulsory education services, to access health and disability services, or Work and Income support. We will be preventing people from requiring vaccination in order to access those critical services, and we will have orders that specify the COVID-19 vaccination exemption criteria that will exist under the framework.

Provisions have been made in the bill for enforcement officers to direct the production of evidence to demonstrate compliance with an order. That’s important. The bill will support our future vaccination mandates where there’s a strong public interest in doing so, rather than solely for public health reasons—and this is something that employers have asked for clarity and greater certainty on for some time now, and we’ve been working very hard to provide them with that greater certainty. So to do this, the bill will allow for the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety to make orders regarding vaccination and testing for specified work where it’s in the public interest to do that.

But vaccination is a really important tool for mitigating the risk in workplaces, and we’re seeing greater demand from employers who want greater clarity about their ability to require vaccination or not, and we’re also seeing a much greater demand from workers who want to see that requirements are put in place so that they know whether or not the people that they are working alongside have been vaccinated. So employers need the ability to manage the risks associated with COVID-19, and this bill goes a great deal of the way to giving them the certainty that they are looking for.

It will assist employers to decide whether they should require vaccination for their workers. The bill provides the framework for an assessment tool that will help them conduct individual assessments for their businesses and their circumstances to determine whether vaccination is warranted for the work that is being done. The tool will be prescribed further in the regulations and we will have those in place as soon as we can.

The bill amends the Employment Relations Act. It provides important certainty for employees in situations where their work could end up terminated because they have not been vaccinated, and they have made the decision that they don’t want to be vaccinated but where a vaccination requirement for their workplace is in place. So the changes to the Employment Relations Act clarify the requirement for a paid four-week notice period in these situations if employees aren’t vaccinated. If they get vaccinated before the end of the notice period, the termination notice is cancelled, unless it would unreasonably disrupt the employer’s business—and we had a conversation about that in question time today.

These amendments also seek to support employees to be vaccinated by providing reasonable paid time off for the purpose of being vaccinated. That will apply to all COVID-19 vaccination rounds, including future booster doses of the vaccine, and that’ll help to increase our vaccination rates amongst people in less flexible working conditions or working in less flexible workplaces so that they can make sure that they can get vaccinated if they can’t get vaccinated outside of the work hours.

Cumulatively, these amendments create the framework that we need to provide better protection for New Zealanders in a variety of different settings as we move to a less restrictive environment in the way that we are managing COVID-19. They’ll bring greater freedoms to us. They will ensure that those who are vaccinated can be recognised for the extra protection that their vaccination is providing to themselves and those around them. These restrictions will help us. They are justified given the situation that the pandemic and the public health response requires. They’ll help us to better manage the public health risks that are caused by those who haven’t been vaccinated, because the reality is, now, the key thing to bringing greater freedoms for us all is to encourage those people to be vaccinated.

My hope is that all eligible New Zealanders will take up the opportunity to be vaccinated, and I hope that while we disagree on many aspects of the COVID-19 response, as we have done over the course of the last year and a half, Parliament will remain unified in its very strong message, that all parties in Parliament have sent so far, that the vaccine is safe, it is effective, and everybody should make the informed choice to be vaccinated.

So I want to acknowledge the effort of all New Zealanders in the fight against COVID19. I want to acknowledge the 91 percent of eligible New Zealanders who have been vaccinated so far with at least one dose of the vaccine, and send an encouragement to that last 9 percent to come forward and to do that. The bill creates the new legal framework that will allow us to transition into a world that is more open, that has fewer restrictions, and that recognises that vaccination is the greatest tool that we have in the toolkit in our fight against COVID-19.

The question is set the motion be agreed to.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I want to start by echoing the comments of the Minister, the Hon Chris Hipkins, in relation to vaccination: COVID is here. It is not going away. This summer, Delta will spread throughout New Zealand, and I encourage everyone listening to go and get vaccinated. This pandemic is a pandemic now of the unvaccinated and Delta will find you if you are unvaccinated. And if you doubt that, just have a look at who is in hospital. Overwhelmingly, they are the unvaccinated. So we support strongly the idea that people should get vaccinated, but we do not support this bill, and I want to explain why that is.

The first thing I want to do is to examine what the Minister made mention of in his speech in relation to the Government’s response in the last six months. Because there has been an assumption, I believe, by the Government that the elimination strategy would continue forever. The evidence for that is littered throughout the Government’s response this year. There was no backup plan, and that is why we now come to the traffic light framework developed on the fly and scrambling. And if you doubt that that is the case, I invite you to read the departmental disclosure statement, which makes it very clear that there has been very little consultation, very little analysis, and very little work done in advance of this. In fact, the drafting instructions for this bill were only issued on 27 October, five days after the actual framework was announced. And now we find it’s not going to a select committee. In fact, it will be law sometime this week.

Again, if you doubt that this has been developed in a rush, I point you to the legal advice given to the Attorney-General for the consistency of the bill under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I quote, “This advice has been prepared in an extremely short time frame due to late receipt of the bill that was not in compliance with Cabinet Office Guidance.” I’ll tell you what that guidance was. The guidance says “All bills or all policy proposals that go to Cabinet have to have a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.” Guess what? The traffic light framework when it went to Cabinet on the Monday preceding the Friday announcement had had no such analysis done on it by the Ministry of Justice officials. How disgraceful. And if you doubt that this bill has New Zealand Bill of Rights Act implications, just read the legal advice, because it impacts at least eight, and you could probably think of more.

So this has been developed in a rush and it reflects a Government that was in denial about the potential failure of elimination. They had no backup plan—they had no backup plan. And I point you to the fact that the official Government documents released to me and to others under the Official Information Act show that the Government only started doing the planning for Delta when Delta arrived—the start of August. They didn’t do the specific managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) upgrades until after Delta had escaped. They only established the COVID-19 Testing Technical Advisory Group in August. That’s the group that said, “We’re too late on saliva testing. We’re too late on rapid testing. We’re behind the eight ball.”; and the vaccine certificates that are the subject of this bill, Cabinet only authorised their development in July, and they only signed the contract with the IT provider a month ago on 13 October. It has been obvious to any reasonable, fair-minded observer for the better part of this year that we would need vaccine proof, we would need a form of vaccine pass. But the Government was on the go slow on it, only approved the work in July, only signed the contract in October.

The Government had to scramble on mandates. I remember sitting here in the Estimates in September saying to Chris Hipkins, I specifically asked him, “Is the Government considering mandates for teachers?” Because every other country, or many other countries, were doing exactly that in response to Delta. And he stood up and said, “We’re not considering that right now.” That was literally just over two months ago, and then a month later, the Government had to quickly scramble on vaccine mandates for teachers—

💬 Barbara Kuriger: Making it up as they go.

Caused enormous unease and anger in the sector. Exactly—and my colleague Barbara Kuriger says they’re making it up as they go, and that is precisely the point. Because there was no back-up plan, we have had to scramble in response to Delta, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Why is it, 18 months into a global pandemic, that there are fewer ICU beds now than there were in April 2020? Why is that the case? When I explain that to people, they literally say, “Well, that can’t be true.” People cannot believe it. They say, “Well, that can’t be correct. The Government’s borrowed all this money, they’ve borrowed $50 billion for the COVID fund.”, and I say, “Yeah, but the official numbers don’t lie. There are fewer resourced ICU beds now in November 2021 than they were in April 2020.” How remarkable is that? Only Labour could borrow $50 billion and end up with fewer ICU beds. Only the Labour Party could do that. It’s just unbelievable.

This bill has some useful elements to it, and my colleague Scott Simpson, our workplace relations spokesperson, will talk about the vaccination assessment tool when it comes to business, because we acknowledge that business wants certainty and clarity when it comes to how to apply vaccine mandates in the private sector. But, generally, this has gone through a repugnant process. You just have to read the departmental disclosure statement. Some of these comments are absolutely laughable: has any further impact analysis become available for any impacts of the policy? No. For the policy to be given effect by this bill, is there any analysis available on the size of the potential costs and benefits? No. The potential for any group of persons to suffer a substantial, unavoidable loss of income? No. For the policy to be given effect, are the potential costs and benefits likely be impacted by the level of effective compliance or non-compliance with obligations or standards? No. All of these things are deeply contestable, and it’s just unbelievable the level of work that has—or actually in relation to this, has not—gone in.

This bill is so shoddily done that the legislative purpose statement says it will require vaccination where the Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries has determined this is necessary. It’s not even in the bill. It’s literally not in the bill. The legislative statement that the Minister has tabled makes reference to the minute the Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries—it’s not in the bill. There is no reference, as far as I can see, unless I’m looking at an old copy of the bill, that that is the case. This has been done as a rush job. It has been done in a very, very poor manner.

In relation to some of the substantive items that we object to—and there will be many opportunities to get into many other substantive aspects during the committee of the whole House stage, a lot of questions that the Government will have to answer. The Opposition does not object to the concept of vaccination certificates. In fact, we’ve been calling for them since February. The question is this: should it be the Government that goes around and says to private businesses in hospitality or hairdressing or retail or whatever that you must do the following things, or should it be individual enterprises and individual businesses and individual people who make up their minds? That should be the starting point for any proper analysis of rights and benefits in a free society.

We say, on this side of the House, that private property and free enterprise should be the guiding principles behind which we examine any legislative proposal. It should be over to individuals to decide for themselves. So it may well be that a bar decides that they only want to allow fully vaccinated individuals into their bar. If I was running a bar, I might well consider that. But that is very different to the Government saying that they have to do that. If I’m an individual and I choose not to be vaccinated—and regrettably, there are some people out there who have made the decision not to be vaccinated. I think they’re wrong, but that’s over to them, and at some level they will bear the consequences of that decision. If I choose not to be vaccinated, then it’s over to me to choose how my interaction exists with the rest of the world. If I find I can’t go to a bar or a restaurant because they only allow vaccinated patrons, then I will bear the consequences of that in the same way I will bear the health costs. That should be the starting point, not this massive legislative overreach which is the Government’s shoddy proposal.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Over the last 18 months, New Zealand’s COVID response has resulted in some of the lowest hospitalisation and mortality rates in the world, but the issue we’ve got now is that our vaccine roll-out has got to a point where we can transition to a framework which allows us to benefit from some of the individual protections that vaccine offers. Just based down in Invercargill, what I’d like to acknowledge is the 93 percent of eligible Southerners who have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and the 85 percent who are now fully vaccinated, because that incredible effort will significantly reduce the risk to our community of COVID-19 and also serve to protect our health service capacity. But, building on the success of that, what this bill does is allow us to introduce a protection framework that will allow us to use the benefits of vaccination.

I’d just like to talk briefly about what the bill allows us to do, and the first thing is create orders that will provide for the issue of COVID-19 vaccination certificates and allow those certificates to be used for entry into businesses and events. Basically, those orders specify how you apply for a vaccine certificate, how they’ll be issued, renewed, and extended. But another thing we need to make sure and point out is that it’s important to note that the orders will also specify that proof of vaccination won’t be required for certain premises, and that’s to make sure that people can still continue, irrespective of their vaccination status, to access essential services like supermarkets, pharmacies, Work and Income services—so, basically, it’s really important to have that in place. Also, the director-general can make notices specifying what the exemption criteria are so people have got clarity around that, and we’re also making sure that there are protections for people’s privacy, and a number of those elements have been built into this bill. So this is a significant bill, and I’m very happy to commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Here we are, just 10 days out from the implementation of the provisions that this bill seeks to create, debating under urgency a bill that was supplied to the Opposition less than 24 hours ago—a bill that will have no scrutiny at a select committee and no input from stakeholders, and there will be no opportunity for members of the public, vaccinated or unvaccinated, to have a say. People are therefore right to ask, “What is this Government doing? What have they been doing for the last 18 months? Where was their planning?”

💬 Barbara Kuriger: Not much.

“Not much” my colleague Barbara Kuriger says, “Not much” she says, and she’s right, because they’ve been asleep at the wheel.

I want to start my contribution on this first reading of this bill under urgency in much the same way that my colleague Chris Bishop did, by reconfirming that, on this side of the House, we support vaccination. We encourage New Zealanders to be vaccinated, to be double vaccinated, and we understand the benefits that come not only to individuals from being vaccinated but also to us as a community and as a society. We understand that often the greater good is achieved by individual actions taken by us as individuals. But this is a bill that provides the Government with an incredibly wide-ranging tool kit of regulatory power over the lives, the workplaces, and the day-to-day activities of New Zealand citizens. And for that reason alone, it needs the scrutiny that goes beyond the short process of a bill presented to this House that is going to be passed and rammed through every single stage by the Government’s use of their absolute majority.

One of the areas that I want to focus on are the impacts in relation to the workplace. Now, we understand—I think most New Zealanders understand—that businesses need certainty about issues relating to vaccinated and unvaccinated staff in their workplace, and also issues relating to what to do if they have customers or suppliers or contractors who are unvaccinated. What are those issues? This is a Government that has had more than enough opportunity over the last nearly nine months—since the vaccination programme in New Zealand commenced, albeit very late—to have got their act together and to have done some serious thinking on this issue. The Government needed only to have a cursory look at international media and debate and commentary about what was happening in other jurisdictions around the world—countries that actually started their vaccination roll-out programme months and months ahead of us—to see that issues relating to the workplace were going to be a crunch point in terms of eventually rolling out a vaccine programme that was focused on managing and living with Delta in our community and in our society, rather than trying to hang on and cling to the elimination strategy that they did for as long as they did.

Now, for all sorts of reasons, Delta is in our communities. It’s coming, sadly, to a home, a neighbourhood, a community, a town near us all soon. And the best option for the health and safety of not only workers but of all citizens is to be vaccinated. So issues relating to who decides and how decisions are made about employers confronting employees who choose, for whatever reason, not to be vaccinated, are primary and fundamental to the legislative and regulatory regime that a Government, a good Government, a careful, prudent, and thoughtful Government, should have put in place a long time ago. But no, we are now in a position where businesses are going to be given 10 days to get their situations sorted.

So it’s been obvious now for quite a long period of time that an employer actually did have a right to exclude from the workplace non-vaccinated employees, as long as they had gone through an appropriate and detailed health and safety risk assessment. WorkSafe provided guidance for that process, and, actually, many businesses have gone down that path. I note, for instance, that The Warehouse, one of the country’s large employers, has actually done that—they have developed a process using that health and safety risk assessment model and that tool. But, for many businesses, that prospect was going to be difficult and challenging in terms of the process, the formula that needed to be applied, and the dotting of i’s and crossing of t’s. So there is one good thing that’s come out of this piece of legislation, and it is the tool that the Government’s established that will give employers another option other than that formal process. Now, it’s not going to be a tool that is going to be a silver bullet panacea for every single situation, but it will be of help. Businesses have been calling out for months now for some certainty, some clarity, from the Government and some clear sense of what the Government’s direction was going to be. Well, finally, this morning, the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, Michael Wood, did provide at least that, but it’s been very slow to come. So for those that choose not to be vaccinated for whatever reason, what this bill does is actually provide an opportunity for regular testing. And I think that’s not a bad idea either, but it’s been a long time coming. And it’s been obvious for a very long period of time that this was needed, but we’ve just had a big, big silence.

Now, one of the aspects that’s not so good of this piece of legislation is a provision that will mean that once an employer has gone through the process—either the health and safety risk assessment process or the tool kit process that is provided for in this legislation—and a decision is made that an employee can’t be redeployed into another role within the business or can’t do a different type of job in maybe a different geography or a different building, or somewhere that is going to separate that person away from vaccinated either customers or other staff members, eventually, that employee can have their employment terminated. But what this bill provides for is a situation where that employee will be given, then, paid four weeks’ notice—effectively gardening leave for four weeks at the expense of the employer. It’s another cost, just another cost. In a year when employers have had so much to bear and such difficult trading circumstances, this Government decides that another four weeks of paid leave for an unvaccinated employee is appropriate and right. Well, I don’t think that is right. I think that’s wrong, and I think that’s unnecessary. But then there are a whole lot of questions about what happens during that period of time.

So the process—and we’ll get into this during the committee of the whole House stage of this bill and we’ll ask a whole lot of questions. But what’s the situation if an employee goes through all that process and then maybe resigns halfway through it? That employee then is still able to bring an action for constructive dismissal, and that will mean a long time in the courts, expense, and uncertainty for the employer. Even if the employee goes through that process and a termination ensues, this piece of legislation still means that a personal grievance claim can be brought by that employee. And that, again, means uncertainty, cost, litigation, lawyers’ fees, all that sort of thing for that business. I think that’s unfair. So, on this side of the House, we have said for a long time that if a business goes through that process of a health and safety risk assessment and comes to a determination that the employee, the unvaccinated employee, needs to be terminated, then that business should be protected from constructive dismissal and personal grievance litigation action. Because we think that’s the fair and right thing to do. But what happens if that employee, halfway through that process—say they’ve had two weeks of the four weeks’ paid leave—then suddenly decides to get vaccinated? Does the employer have to rehire them? Do they have to be reinstated? Will that effectively be a two-week holiday that they have just had? These are questions that the bill doesn’t answer and that aren’t made clear in the regulation.

So, on this side of the House, we think that businesses should be given the choice. They should be given an opportunity to make sensible, prudent business decisions not only for their unvaccinated employees, but for the employees that are vaccinated, for their customers, for their stakeholders, and for their suppliers. We think, on this side of the House, that these are issues that go to the very core and principle of free enterprise, of property rights, and of the rights of businesses to conduct business as they see fit with whom they see fit. And they will make choices about who they wish to trade with and who they don’t.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, these amendments provide the legal framework that essentially enables better protection for New Zealanders as we simply transfer to a less restrictive response to COVID-19 and as we move towards what is a careful reopening and one that we’ve all worked so hard for.

We’ve seen, as has been mentioned previously, the incredible efforts from all New Zealanders in the fight against COVID-19 and, in particular, the strong uptake of vaccinations across the country. And it’s because of that strong uptake and the sheer number, the vast majority, of people who have chosen to protect themselves and their communities that we can progressively reopen in this safe way. So this bill assists with the implementation of the COVID-19 Protection Framework, the traffic light system. It provides for orders to be made that will, as the Minister has expressed earlier, differentiate between vaccinated and unvaccinated people, and it provides for the use of the vaccination certificate process in terms of affording proof of vaccination for entry into those certain places and premises.

Vaccination, as we’ve said, is an increasingly important tool to mitigate risk, and it’s particularly important in the workplace. Employers need the ability to manage their risk, as the previous contributor has already said, and decide for themselves whether they should require vaccination or not. So we’ve developed tools, risk assessment tools, which are unique to each of the types of work that are being undertaken.

I would note, however, that the previous contributor talked about paid leave instead of notice periods and managed to mangle several basic industrial relations sort of tenets and parts of that legislation. So I would encourage people and employers to have a closer look at what’s just been previously described.

This is an important bill. I don’t need to hold it up any further other than to say that I again encourage people to take up the opportunity to be vaccinated, and I commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora. I rise in support of the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill, because the Greens have stood by a strong health response, which vaccinations, of course, are a major part of. We have historically been very cautious about the use of urgency, and while we consider that this matter is urgent, a more open and transparent process would have been more effective, we think, for upholding public trust in the Government’s COVID-19 response. The businesses and people responsible for rolling out much of this bill could have been available as advisers beforehand, instead of potential protesters and complainants later. In the future, we hope any future amendments and COVID bills will at least be referred to the Health Committee.

We note this bill more explicitly sets out vaccination requirements. Part of it clarifies where people can and cannot go, depending on their vaccination status. Clarity is really, really important, because this is currently in a constant state of flux, and many people are confused about what they can do. Can they hug their family? Can they go into a particular place? What happens when they can’t breathe properly under a mask? It also stops people going to specific areas, places, or premises unless they comply with specific measures—that might be wearing masks, socially distancing, or using a vaccine pass to prove they have been vaccinated. Another part requires services to permit individuals to enter a place regardless of vaccination status—so that means that unvaccinated people can still access essential services, such as supermarkets and pharmacies.

So while the Greens support this vaccination effort, we’re concerned that people who are not vaccinated are becoming more and more stigmatised and that they’re being shut out of many other services because no alternatives have been provided so that the average person can prove they do not have the virus when they need to go shopping for their whānau. We’re setting up a place where our unvaccinated are, essentially, going back into level 3 and level 4, along with many immunocompromised people.

I think there’s still been insufficient time to educate people about the vaccine. Many have fallen prey to misinformation, and many are genuinely scared. We need to keep that space open for people to get that good information to make those good decisions.

So, in terms of workplace requirements, the Greens think it’s really important to have good-faith processes for introducing new workplace requirements. Unfortunately, this has not been able to happen in some places in relation to mandated vaccinations in some workplaces. It’s going to take some time, I think, for our workforce to recover from what is happening right now. The Greens are very clear that these requirements should not breach any other law, especially our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. We note that the Minister will determine whether mandated vaccinations in a workplace is a justified limit on the freedoms guaranteed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act..

After we received a copy of this bill yesterday, we raised a concern about whether workplaces will be able to require testing as an alternative or addition to vaccination. It was confirmed that the workplace assessment tool will help workplaces decide whether vaccine or testing requirements would be reasonable in the context of that work. We hope that that workplace assessment tool is easy to use and that people have somewhere that they can ask questions about it and clarify what is the point and how it’s actually going to work. We note that the person in control of a business or undertaking—a PCBU—would retain discretion on whether to use vaccine testing or vaccine exemption requirements and any other control measures along with that. This bill also covers keeping track of all that personal employee information that’s wrapped up with this, and all these processes have now been added to the administrative workload of businesses and workplaces.

So our second major concern was about how that privacy will be protected when collecting the records from employees. We received confirmation that the privacy requirements in the relevant clause are stronger than the Privacy Act and that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner had been heavily involved in the form of those requirements.

So with those key concerns addressed, for now we commend the bill to the House. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in support of the first reading of the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill. As a lot of people here will know, there’s three votes on a piece of legislation and the hope is that if you support it at the first, it will be improved and maybe as a party you can carry on supporting it further through the second and third votes. On this piece of legislation, we don’t have a great deal of hope for a number of reasons that I will cover in this speech. We believe it’s important that we at least give some hope and take some sort of constructive approach to a Government that most certainly needs help.

This legislation addresses some very serious needs and we have said throughout this pandemic as a party that ACT would be there to make constructive suggestions when possible, constructive criticisms where necessary, and ask the questions on behalf of New Zealanders that should be asked of this Government and its COVID response. I think that we’ve played an honourable role in doing that so far, and we certainly will continue to do so. When it comes to this piece of legislation, it is designed to solve a series of problems that people do actually need solved. The most obvious one is what business and employers up and down this country are facing when it comes to vaccine mandates.

I was talking to a hairdresser just yesterday who is looking forward to reopening in Auckland because there’s a lot of mops to chop up in that city. I can tell you, Madam Speaker, they’re very excited. But one of the additional challenges that they face as a business is that they have some employees who are unwilling to be vaccinated and others who are unwilling to work in a place where there are unvaccinated. Most of their customers want to be assured that the staff are vaccinated and the legal framework for achieving that is very challenging, because under health and safety law they have an obligation almost to ensure vaccination is in place. The Health and Safety at Work Act requires a business or a person conducting a business undertaking—a PCBU, to use the jargon—to identify what risks there are, identify what mitigations there are to reduce the risk, and if there’s something they could do to reduce the risk, then they have to do it. So they sit there and say, “Well, COVID-19 is a pretty obvious risk around the world right now. Vaccinations have been shown to dramatically reduce the risk.” There’s a 96 percent reduction in the chance of serious illness by taking the Pfizer vaccine, according to recent research in The New England Journal of Medicine. The world’s greatest medical journal says that. So you see a strong case that as a PCBU, perhaps as a hairdresser, you’d really want to make sure that you were introducing a requirement to be vaccinated in that workplace.

But, of course, businesses face other legal hurdles. They also have privacy law. It’s not clear if they are able to address the issues with privacy. So that’s a real problem. This legislation, in fairness, does set out the use of vaccination data and any information about vaccination that an employer might have and how they can and can’t use it. So that’s a big tick. It also offers to have a framework or a tool that businesses can use to work out what their real risk to each employee is of COVID so they can work out if a requirement for that person to be vaccinated is necessary to fulfil their health and safety rules. There’s also a conflict between the health and safety rules and employment law, because it’s possible to say that a new employee must be vaccinated—if that’s your business and that’s your rules, you can do that. It’s a very conflicted situation for a business that wants an existing employee to be vaccinated. It’s not in their employment contract, they don’t necessarily have to be vaccinated to continue working. So that puts employers in a very difficult space.

This conflict between health and safety law, on the one hand, and privacy and non-discrimination in employment law, on the other, is something that ACT has been raising for a long time. On 8 October, almost two months ago, we stood up and presented our white paper on this. It actually suggested most of the things that are in this bill to resolve those problems. So we’ve tried to play a constructive role, and we think that it’s necessary that there’s legislation that allows business to solve those kinds of problems. So you might be thinking, “Well, this bill does a lot of stuff that ACT has been saying is a problem that needs to be done. Why not support it?” Well, indeed.

There’s more. ACT has been saying for the last couple of weeks that vaccination mandates should be vax or test, and people thought this was some crazy thing to say that testing should be a substitute for vaccination. Well, actually, it’s Air New Zealand’s policy, it’s Denmark’s policy, and it’s now the policy for the Auckland border of the New Zealand Government. Now, in this legislation they’re saying that there should be a requirement to be vaccinated or tested. So if you can get a negative test and you show that you’re not a threat to people around you, then that can be, in some circumstances, as good as vaccination. So that’s another idea that we’ve put forward that is now here.

So why not support it? Well, there’s a few problems with this legislation. The most obvious problem is the one with what happens with employment. You see, if you go to the back of this, on the final page, it says that if somebody is working for you or if you’re working for someone and you decide you don’t want to be vaccinated for whatever reason—like perhaps you think you might like four weeks off in December—you get four weeks to think about it, and, of course, that’s paid. Paid by the employer. So the employer has to foot the bill of having someone that wants to have that time off.

Then there’s the question—Tracey McLellan over there, she said, “Oh, the Opposition doesn’t understand this, they’ve missed some very fine legal concepts.”, and then she sat down before she explained what they were. I think that’s the life of a Labour backbencher. You’re so clever, but you’re not allowed to tell anyone. That’s just the way it goes for them. Now she’s impotently heckling over there. She’s got nothing else to say. So much for her.

You see, the thing is that you get four weeks paid by your employer. Well, there you go. Then at the end of it, you think, “Oh, well, you know what? I think I might get vaccinated anyway.” Well, then you’re allowed to take your job back. Except here’s the thing: if the employer says “No. That would be an unreasonable disruption.”, then actually you’re not allowed to come back. So can anyone on the other side—and the Prime Minister couldn’t answer the question. Does the person get their job back or not if they decide to take the four weeks and then decide maybe they will get vaccinated having had four weeks paid, and then the employer says, “No. For you to come back would be an unreasonable disruption.”? What does this law actually mean? Who pays? How much time? Do they get their job back or not? We asked the Prime Minister in question time—she can’t say. But I’ll tell you who will be prepared to say for a tidy fee: it will be the employment lawyers of New Zealand. They will be salivating at this, not the business people who have been paying and paying through these lockdowns and restrictions and now get this other law dumped on them.

But there’s one more reason why we’re very hesitant to support this legislation beyond one vote. The reason is this: it is just abominable that a Government which started vaccinating people in this country on 19 February, 277 days ago, has only today decided to put legislation up to be debated in the House, only last night was able to publish it and show the world before we had to vote on it, and now is giving 10 days before the traffic light system comes in for employers and businesses to be able to digest what it means, start fulfilling all the obligations to keep records, for example, of who’s vaccinated in their organisation, to put in place their assessments, assuming the regulations are published—all of the things. They get 10 days. This Government had 277. They didn’t even get it checked against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

The problem was this Government spent so long doing victory laps that they forgot to ask simple questions like: “What if Delta gets through managed isolation and quarantine and there’s an outbreak in New Zealand? What on earth would we do then? Maybe we’ll have a world where we need people to be vaccinated and interact and people will have a conflict of rights.” They weren’t doing the basic work and that leads to so much uncertainty that it’s very unlikely we can keep supporting this legislation, but if they clear a few of these issues up, who knows? We might change our mind. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members, the time has come for me to leave the chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7 o’clock this evening.

Sitting suspended from 5.58 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Kāti rā, tēnā rā tātou katoa. The House is resumed. Members, before the dinner break we were debating the first reading of the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill. We’d just completed call number seven and I believe it’s call number eight.

Fa‘afetai lava, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this particular bill, the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill, first reading.

Many of my colleagues have mentioned that this provides a framework in managing the ongoing risk of COVID-19, but I want to speak specifically to why we are in this position, and that’s because of the successful vaccination campaign that we’ve had. It’s always a good opportunity to acknowledge the many health providers that have done so well in getting our vaccination rates up, specifically down in South Auckland, Takanini Vaccination Centre, with Whānau Ora Community Clinic, as well as our many Pacific and ethnic providers who are doing the mahi to increase that. I also want to acknowledge the churches, the temples, as well as the sports organisations who have rallied together to increase the vaccination rates for their organisations as well.

This bill sets out the different orders that will provide direction and also clarification, and it is all about the safety of our whānau and ainga and fanau. It goes on to talk about the vaccination certificates, also the process of applications for it, and also prohibiting people from going to certain places if they’re not vaccinated and don’t hold a certificate themselves. I know it is hard. I’ve received many emails from both sides of the fence as well, but, again, it is all down to the foundation that keeping our community safe is the number one priority.

I know we’ve spoken about the Employment Relations Act and how this amends that Act. I want to acknowledge the part where it allows employers to have their employees have time off to go get their vaccinations. And I want to again acknowledge those people and also health providers who have done so to provide and cater for them. So that’s why I support this bill to the House.

This is a split call. I call Penny Simmonds—five minutes.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise to take this split call to speak in opposition to the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill. After spending much of last week amending the legislation when it was already out of date, we have another bill to amend it, and this bill and the processes to pass it are absolutely indicative of the Government’s whole approach to COVID: confusing, lacking in planning, haphazard, slow, self-congratulatory, arrogant, and an affront to democracy in New Zealand.

Let’s have a look at each of them. Confusing—well, we’re moving from alert levels to traffic lights, which the Government’s own research has says people don’t understand.

💬 Planning: this Government did not plan for Delta. Every advantage that we’ve had, it’s squandered by not planning when we had the opportunity to do so. They spent last year basking in the glory of their success over COVID, which turned out to be not so successful after all, and they should have been spending time getting our population vaccinated so that when Delta hit, we were not sitting at 20 percent of our population vaccinated.

💬 Arrogant: because they see no need for people to have a say in this. For something that is potentially life-changing for many people, they don’t feel that they need to have any say in it. It is something so fundamental to the rights of New Zealanders, but they don’t need to have a say in the select committee process.

So this bill impacts on both vaccinated and unvaccinated, and my colleague Chris Bishop was at pains to say that National is fully supportive of getting as many people vaccinated as possible, but it’s really important for this Government to understand how life-changing this is for some people. I spoke to a young man living with a very serious physical disability, in Dunedin last week. He needs to have 24-hours-a-day care to stay alive. Three of his five caregivers are unvaccinated. He has spent two months advertising to get caregivers and hasn’t been able to. For another young adult with Down syndrome, his parents are his paid carers. They are not vaccinated, and so he faces the prospect of being taken from his family. This Government needed to hear from these people to understand the impact and think about how their bill needs to be implemented so that it does not put these people at risk in the way it is going to.

The traffic light system is confusing. Green is meant to be fairly well “Go ahead” if there is no COVID in the community and it’s not going to threaten to overrun our health system, yet the South Island—and, particularly, the lower South Island, which doesn’t have any COVID in the community or in the health system—won’t be at green. The Prime Minister has said that no region will be at green, so what does a region have to do to get to green if not having COVID doesn’t let them be at green?

So all the people impacted by this: the people with disabilities, the people running businesses who will have to implement the vaccine pass verification, and who knows whether they have to just visually see that or use the app, because the Prime Minister tells them one thing and the Ministry of Health tells them another thing—all these people deserve to be able to have a say. They deserve to be able to scrutinise the legislation, to submit on it, and to have their say. But this Government has said, “No, we know best. We know all, and you people out there, you don’t need to be heard on these matters that are going to impact on you. You will just do as we tell you. You will remain controlled by us, without any input.”

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka, tēnā tātou e te Whare. I rise to speak to the first reading of the COVID 19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill. Te Paati Māori will not be supporting this bill. Experts and tangata whenua leaders have warned the Government about imposing one-size-fits-all vaccine mandates; they risk dividing Aotearoa and undermining the public health response. Mandates are an important tool that whānau, hapū, iwi, businesses, and communities should be empowered to use where and when they determine a need. We support them setting their own tikanga; rāhui are widely used in our communities. Informed consent must be a guiding principle, so that people can make the best possible decisions to protect their whānau from the virus and fully participate in society. Te Paati Māori are opposed to this Government’s vaccine mandate system. The Crown does not have the constitutional right to impose mandates on tangata whenua, as our tino rangatiratanga to make these decisions for ourselves is enshrined in Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

This bill is not compliant with Te Tiriti. The process for developing the traffic light system, which received the explicit opposition of many Māori leaders, is a breach of Te Tiriti, as it does not have the active consent of tangata whenua. Upholding Te Tiriti rights and ensuring we can live together collectively is a fundamental part of who we are and how we live. It is the difference between individualised Westernisation and indigenous peoples. This Government has forgotten tangata whenua are the most protocolled people in this country and we always have been. We understand the need to adapt and evolve tikanga to deal with pandemics.

This Government’s consistent failings in rolling out an equitable vaccination programme, which didn’t acknowledge 70 percent of its tangata whenua were under 40 years, has us now 20 percent behind the general population. This Government’s failure to provide data that it gives to Pākehā organisations is another reason why we had to go to court, to get it seen and to get it out. This Government’s failings to protect its most vulnerable community in tangata whenua, as warned by health experts, now has us making up nearly 50 percent of those infected with the Delta variant, despite only making 18 percent of the population. We make up the highest numbers of cases, 50 consecutive days. We are now past the 3,000 mark. Six Māori deaths, three Māori men between 40 and 50. All this was unnecessary, and now, due to your failings, we have mandates. And then, we add, we are forced into this urgency while you continue to scapegoat Māori; to divide, marginalise, and, indeed, demonise our communities and whānau.

A much fairer, durable vaccine system that fully acknowledges Māori public health models would have included: requiring hospitals and medical clinic workers to be vaccinated; requiring all front-line health workers not in hospitals and medical clinics to declare their vaccination status to patients and provide a negative test to patients upon request; requiring all unvaccinated front-line Government workers to do the same; supporting mandates put in place by tangata whenua organisations and businesses; strongly opposing any moves to impose sanctions or penalties on workers or beneficiaries who are unvaccinated; requiring all businesses, organisations, and schools to publicise their vaccine rules on the vaccine passport application and across a range of other platforms.

There will be other opportunities to delve further into the detail of this bill, but I want to close my call today by saying how completely unacceptable it is that the Government introduced this bill today, barely hours before it had its first reading. I understand they intend to pass this bill into law this week under urgency, without even a shortened select committee process. The Government has been talking about mandates and the traffic light system for a long time, and yet here we have this shocking process. We will continue to hold you to account and remind our whānau that this Government ended elimination knowing Māori were 26 percent behind the general population, just as they opened up traffic light system knowing Māori are still stuck at the roadworks they set up. Shame on you, Labour, for undermining the democratic and tino rangatiratanga process of tangata whenua in this way. Nō reira, nō reira, tēnā tātou katoa.

Thank you so much, Mr Speaker. Forgive me; I’ve got my mask stuck on my earring. Just give me a sec. I’m standing here this evening and I find it barely believable to hear from the member opposite in the National Party—barely believable to hear—an argument against mandating vaccination for caregivers for people with severe disabilities, people that go from house to house to house like Typhoid Mary potentially infecting those who are most vulnerable. The reason why I find this barely believable is because, if you are unvaccinated, you are far more likely to become infected or to infect others, and if you do become sick when you’re unvaccinated, you are far more likely to become extremely unwell, because vaccination gives you 97 percent protection from ICU admission—97 percent. You are 32 times more likely to die if you are unvaccinated when you get COVID-19 than when you are vaccinated, because we do know, unfortunately, as with all vaccinations, you are going to get breakthrough infections, and that’s why I am not going to stand here and apologise for a vaccine mandate or for passing legislation that enables us to protect the most vulnerable.

On that note, if you do want to get a vaccination on 27th in Bryndwr, please do. We’ve tried to find a space that’s accessible in the village church on 27th for our lower socio-economic area in Ilam. So vaccination is an increasingly important tool to mitigate risk in workplaces.

💬 Matt Doocey: It’s going well in Ilam, we hear.

Mr Doocey, Ilam is doing well overall, but we have the second-largest social housing area in Christchurch. I know that the National Party is unaware of those who live in poverty in my electorate, but let me tell you, Mr Doocey, I am not unaware of those living in poverty in Ilam, and I would like to commend this bill, which gives a framework, an assessment tool, to employers to enable them to move forward to keep people safe. And that includes, Mr Doocey, those living in poverty. I commend this bill to the House.

Well, listen to that across the road. You can tell that already they’re starting to freckle and panic on this bill. I’m here to talk about the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill at its first reading, obviously as the member of Parliament for North Shore.

Well, I want to cover three key elements this evening, and I think we’ve heard from a number of speakers already from the National side and also from the Māori Party in terms of some of the challenges and issues that we have with this legislation. But I think the first aspect that we really cannot ignore is the process by which this legislation has come to this House. What an absolute shambles this legislation represents, a process in which this was only brought to our attention or given to us yesterday—after how long has this country been facing such a significant issue in terms of the management of COVID-19? This Government continues to be asleep at the wheel.

This bill is a process which is showing that they do not have a plan. Back in September, National released our plan. Here it is right here. If only that side of the House had started to adopt some of this and some of our recommendations, we wouldn’t be in the position we are in. What we’ve heard from the other side is a whole lot of graphs and a whole lot of flip-flopping around, but we haven’t seen a plan and, as a result, Kiwis are confused.

I was having a chat to my local hairdresser this afternoon—actually, just during the dinner break as I came in—and she was confused in terms of what they need to do in order to reopen on Friday. I went on to the website and I tried to see if there is any clear guidance in terms of what are their requirements. But no, there’s nothing simplistic around this process. This is legislation made up on the hoof and this personifies what we’re seeing across the other side in all regards.

On Sunday, there was a poll undertaken of Kiwis about whether they understand or not the traffic light system.

💬 Hon Member: And what did it say about the leader?

And I can hear the other side—the Ministers are all grappling there. Well, they can’t even take their full calls, with respect.

💬 Hon Kelvin Davis: The Newshub poll?

If they’ve got some comment, stand up, Mr Davis, and have a chat, because I’d love to hear your comments.

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: What did that poll say about your boss?

But the polling that came out during the weekend—they’re still gravelling on. The polling that came out in the weekend was very clear, but they don’t want to hear the facts. The problem is they don’t want to hear the facts. They can’t handle the numbers, but when asked, “Do you understand the traffic light system?”, 31 percent of Kiwis said yes, that they understood it—31 percent. Well, two-thirds of Kiwis said they do not understand it and they’re confused about it. And so what that shows is the voices of Kiwis out there in our community saying “We are not sure what’s happening here. We’re not sure where this plan is going. We’re not sure in terms of how this is going to work in practice.” That is a real disappointment.

We’ve also had a number of comments, just looking at some of the media that’s come out about this bill today. Dr Dean Knight from Victoria University has used the quote “constitutional disgrace”—that’s what they referred to this legislation as. This legislation is being passed urgently without adequate consultation and that is unacceptable.

This is legislation that impacts all of our communities. It impacts Kiwis across this country. It impacts businesses across all of our electorates where we are. My home electorate of the North Shore is not protected from that. They are also confused. This process should have gone through a select committee process, a process in which we could have got experts to come in to provide feedback, to provide comment, to get stakeholders to articulate how this legislation could impact it, and work with officials to iron out the mistakes. Because I can pretty much—and I’m not a betting man, but, if I was, I could pretty much guarantee that we will be back here in the early part of the new year fixing the mistakes within this legislation.

I’ve nearly lost count of how many times that I have been in this House—and I haven’t been in the House very long in comparison to some members in this House here—in terms of how many times we’ve come back into this House in order to fix mistakes on legislation because it was passed under urgency, it was passed without due consideration, it was passed without getting the stakeholder input and the feedback from our communities and stakeholders in terms of that legislation, and, as a result, it’s got errors and we have to subsequently fix it. What a waste of opportunity on something of such importance in terms of a topic.

The other aspect that I want to get into is absolutely around the fact that this legislation is completely unnecessary. It provides a burden on Kiwis that is not necessary. National articulated in our plan, back in September, quite clear guidance in terms of when this country should begin to reopen. We talked about the quote “around 85 percent vaccination on the 1st of December.” Well, I’m sorry, we don’t need a traffic light system if we reach the levels of vaccination which we have articulated. It is completely unnecessary. Why is it that when I was fortunate to have a haircut down here in Wellington a couple of weeks ago, I could walk in—

💬 Hon Member: Just checking it out.

Just checking it out—not bad, obviously. I didn’t have to show a vaccination passport when I went into that barbers down here in Wellington. But when I go back in two weeks’ time in Auckland, I’m going to have to show a vaccination certificate—more procedure, more bureaucracy required, yet our vaccination levels across this country will be significantly higher than where they were in the past. When I go to a cafe and get a coffee in the morning, I’m going to spend half my time scanning in with my COVID Tracer app, and then I’m going to have to scan in with my vaccination app, and then I’m going to want to order my long black and go through a whole lot of process and bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, the business is actually just trying to do what they’re meant to do. And again, it is unnecessary. It is not based on a clinical requirement in terms of risk mitigation, in terms of vaccination. It is a completely unnecessary piece of legislation. And again, if that side of the House had actually read some of the recommendations that we made in late September in terms of introduction of rapid antigen testing—how’s that going, Mr Bishop? How’s this Government’s rapid antigen testing policy going, eh? Have we seen any progress on that, eh? Even though it’s available in pretty much every other country in this world, but not here. No, it’s still illegal. It’s still banned unless you’re one of those big corporates that has been able to get a special exemption.

Again, that side of the House do not trust Kiwis. They don’t allow Kiwis to take personal responsibility for managing their own healthcare, for getting on and doing what they know is right, for taking some responsibility, and to allow our businesses to get back on their feet and to trade is the only sustainable way that we should be able to help our businesses to get back on a front foot.

I also want to go into some of the aspects around the confusion around this vaccination passport—and we all saw the issues pretty much when that came out. The system pretty much crashed immediately and continues to have a number of system issues around that. We have had a significant amount of time in order to prepare for where we are today. There are no excuses for why we have not done the adequate planning required to put in place these processes and procedures and framework. The other side all say, “Well, old Delta came along. It sort of, you know, was all very different.” Well, I’m sorry, that is absolutely rubbish. They have simply failed to plan, and they have failed to get ready for what we are faced with at the moment, and they lack that sense of urgency that is absolutely fundamental in the survival of our businesses. And they just simply do not understand some of the implications that this legislation will impact.

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: I preferred Maggie.

Lastly, Mr Speaker—I’m looking forward to that call!

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: Bring back Maggie!

You can hear the Minister. He’s yapping and he’s loving it—I’m hopeful he’ll take a call later on. But the other aspect is around the length of this legislation. There is no end date in terms of when this will finish up. When will these restrictions end? I’ve articulated already that there’s no basis in terms of these undue regulations in terms of when they come in. But again, this bill fails to have any clear articulation in terms of when this will actually end up finishing and when Kiwis can get back to real life.

So, as I’ve said, this legislation is being passed through urgency without adequate consultation. It is a constitutional disgrace, and National oppose this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, what a pathetic form of hyperbole that we’ve just heard from the member who’s just resumed his seat, Simon Watts. He started off talking about a shambles. I’ll tell you and the member what is a shambles. The shambles is the position of the Opposition on what is a significant and important piece of legislation. They lecture us on the importance of vaccination, yet they’re not prepared to actually do anything about it.

Now, I also know that while Mr Watts and I are both new members of this House, I will give the member a little bit of free advice, and that’s this: it is not a good move to start quoting recent polls when actually the trend doesn’t look as rosy as it should be. The member should look closer to his left as members on his left continue to get closer and closer, day by day.

I am proud to be a member of a Government that is looking to continue to protect and provide a level of safety for all members in our community. You know, I really want to acknowledge, actually, my colleague Dr Leavasa. He has acknowledged that he has returned to the House, and I want to welcome him. I know that he has been working hard on the front line alongside other members who are out in our community. I want to take a moment to acknowledge the good, strong work that people like Dr Leavasa and others are doing.

💬 Hon Member: Dr Sharma.

And Dr Sharma. Thank you, Miss Pallett. Because they are making a difference. This particular bill that the House is spending its time on at the moment will make a difference as we transition to a new protection framework that will be vital, that will be so important. Members opposite have queried, have asked, “What has the Government been doing over the last 18 months?” Well, perhaps they’ve been asleep—perhaps they’ve been asleep. Because this Government has been working hard to protect our communities, the communities that I love, the communities that my whānau love and that will make an absolute difference.

So it is absolutely shameful that at first reading members opposite are not prepared to support this bill. I am, and on that basis I commend it to the House.