COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill

The House is in committee on the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I welcome this opportunity to get into the detail during the committee stage. We haven’t had the opportunity at select committee, but it is very important we do what we can in the limited time we have to get to grips with some of the detail here. I’ve a number of very genuine questions that I want the Minister to just spell out for the committee.

The first is—it’s kind of a minor one, but I think it is of note—the legislative statement that’s been presented to the House under Standing Order 272 says that the bill amends the original Act to require vaccination where the Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries has determined that’s necessary to facilitate access for specified products. I can’t find that in the bill. Maybe it’s an old copy of the legislative statement that may have been deleted from the bill, but can we just have a bit of clarity around exactly how that works, and maybe we can tidy that up for the third reading.

The second question is in relation to how the vaccination passport system will work with the mandate system for businesses that are affected by the traffic light framework. So what I mean by that is: the Government has said that businesses that have limits placed on them unless they use vaccine certificates as part of the traffic light framework, at orange and green—that use vaccine certificates, people who work in those businesses will be required to be vaccinated, and that makes some sort of sense. You’ve got the corollary of: if you can only enter if you’re vaccinated, you can only work in the business if you’re vaccinated. That makes sense. I can’t find in the bill the empowering provision that allows the Government to do that. I thought it was new section 11AB, which allows the Government to make orders for specified work, but if you look at “specified work”, it’s around the public interest in terms of continuity of services essential for public safety, national defence, or crisis response. So I don’t think that is the provision that the Government is relying on when it comes to authorising orders for, basically, levelling up vaccination mandate requirements alongside vaccination passport requirements. In fact, I’m generally interested in what the purpose of new section 11AA and new section 11AB is generally.

How exactly—I suppose this is the third question—are those sections different from the existing empowering provisions in the current Act that allow the Government to impose vaccine mandates for specified industries? So, just to give a bit of context, the Government has already promulgated, pursuant to the existing Act, vaccine mandates across the health workforce, teaching, and border workforce. That was the first one, they’ve been well in place, they enjoy, generally, widespread consensus. What I don’t understand is, given that those mandates have already been put in place pursuant to the existing Act, what is the purpose of new section 11AB in clause 7 of the new bill? What is the purpose of it? Why does the Government need to give itself those powers—genuinely interested in exactly what the purpose of that is?

A couple of other questions before I hand over, because I know my colleagues will have things to say as well. Is it envisaged that the—and I’m referring now to clause 4 and subsection (3)(a) in relation to the vaccination exemption criteria. So the bill proposes the director-general may make a notice, for the purposes of any legislation under the Act, what the vaccination exemption criteria will be. Now, my understanding is that the Government has essentially shifted the criteria to the director-general, and he is exercising those exemption criteria already. Is it the Government’s intention that that just carries over once the new bill becomes an Act, that the director-general will just continue to do that pursuant to the criteria that he has published already? Or is it envisaged that there will be some further clarification on that?

There’s quite a lot to cover in that contribution, for the Minister to respond to, so perhaps I’ll just leave it there. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It may assist members to know that I’ll answer as best I can any questions on this bill, but I also have my colleague the Hon Michael Wood, who is also one of the Ministers named in this legislation, and he is also available in the Chamber to answer questions on those provisions in the bill that relate to his portfolio as well.

With regard to the last question that Mr Bishop raised—which is irrelevant, I think—to the top of page 5, which is the COVID-19 vaccination exemption criteria, this formalises something that the director-general has already been doing. Perhaps if I could deal with—actually, maybe I should deal with an earlier question that he raised first, which is why we have, on pages 6 and 7, those provisions set out in new sections 11AA and 11AB, and it does relate to some signalling by the courts, I think it would be fair to say, where, in recent court cases, they found that vaccination requirements were justified, and the case of some challenges to those vaccination requirements, but sent a reasonably strong hint, I think, to the Government that they would prefer to see those vaccination requirements mandated in primary legislation rather than under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act, as it existed.

So it was the courts’ view—and I can’t remember which of the judgments it was in, off the top of my head, but I can certainly recall reading it. There was a signal there from the courts that they thought it would be better if there was a specific provision in the Act that related to vaccination mandates, rather than using the more general provisions of the Act, which is what the orders have previously been made under. And, therefore, these amendments, and the one that I mentioned about the vaccination exemption criteria, formalise arrangements that have already been put in place using the more general provisions in the Act, but make those more specific and make the legal footing for those more specific.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair. I hope we get, through the committee of the whole House, the opportunity that we haven’t had through the regulatory impact statement or the select committee process, to tease out what it is the Government is actually doing with, effectively, a piece of legislation that gives them a huge amount of regulation-making power. There are a number of questions about what those regulations are going to look like. I think it behoves the Ministers who are responsible for this bill to make sure that we at least know what is being planned.

Now, one of the things that staggered me through the last eight to 10 months of this process is the almost complete ignoring or overlooking of a very important piece of legislation that I was the responsible Minister for, and that was the Health and Safety at Work Act. It really surprises me that the Government hasn’t taken the opportunity to remind persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) of their obligations under that piece of legislation. Instead, they have, effectively, run over the top of it with this bill and many others, I have to say. But I want to remind the committee, before I ask my questions of the Minister or Ministers, what the primary duty of care under the Health and Safety at Work Act is, that is for the PCBU to ensure, as far as reasonably practicable, the health and safety of the workers who work for the PCBU and whose activities, in carrying out that work, are influenced or directed by the PCBU. In paragraph 36(3)(g) “that the health of workers”—the health of workers—“and the conditions at the workplace are monitored for the purpose of preventing injury or illness of workers arising from the conduct of the business or undertaking.”, and the fact that the Government has completely overlooked this, I think, speaks to the low level of trust that they have in business to do the right thing.

One of the things, I think, having been the Minister that ran the gauntlet for 18 months in the passage and introduction of the Health and Safety at Work Act, is that not a single word of that Act has actually been changed by this Government in the four years they’ve had the opportunity to do so. Indeed, the previous Minister has said that it was actually in very good shape.

Now, here’s my first question, and I should add, and the Minister was quite rightly pointing out that he’s responsible for parts of it, even in Part 1—but the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety is available, I note, and I would encourage and welcome a response through a call from the seat that the Minister’s in, rather than being in the formal chair, if that’s appropriate. But in clause 4, “Section 5 amended (Interpretation)”, the definition of an “affected worker means a worker who was employed or engaged by a PCBU to carry out specified work”. And that key word there, I think, is “engaged” because the definition of “a worker” under the Health and Safety at Work Act includes a contractor or an employee of a contractor. So I’m assuming, and I need this confirmed, that the affected-worker clause in this bill means also contractors and employees of contractors and subcontractors. That’s important because what we’re then setting a regulation, potentially, to do is to extend the reach of a workplace beyond one’s own employees and into the employment relationships of other businesses. So my question is: is that what’s intended, and, if so, what is the expectation on the requirement for somebody to be vaccinated and then be, effectively, put off. Because it’s easy to say, “Well, I don’t want that subcontractor in my workplace.”, but it’s another thing altogether to then have some kind of obligation for a four-week notice period and a payment of compensation.

The second question in this call is relating to proposed new section 11AB “Orders that can be made under this Act”, and this is where, really, we’ve got to get to tin tacks. “The Minister may … make an order for 1 or more of the following purposes: (a) specifying work, or classes of work, that may not be carried out … unless the affected worker is vaccinated,”. Then in subclause (b) “specifying work, or classes of work, that may not be carried out by an affected worker unless the affected worker reports for and undergoes medical examination or testing for COVID-19 …”. So we’ve got a class of workers where they must be vaccinated and a class of workers where they could be vaccinated or tested regularly. What I’d like to know, I think the committee would benefit is: what would the jobs—[Time expired]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Rather seamlessly, I’d like to follow on from that and just ask the Minister in the chair, the Hon Chris Hipkins, about clause 4—Part 1, clause 4—which amends section 5 of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act. It changes the interpretation. There’s quite a number of new terms introduced into the legislation. There’s a “vaccination authorisation”, a “vaccination certificate”, a “vaccination exemption”. There’s “exempt person means a person who has been granted a COVID-19 vaccination exemption”, “specified COVID19 vaccination exemption criteria”, “vaccinated”. These are all the new terms that are introduced.

Now, what I find interesting, what I really want the Minister to address, is where do these testing requirements come in? Because, as Michael Woodhouse, who was speaking just a second ago, pointed out, the bill very clearly contemplates that some people who are required to do work will be able to meet the criteria by being vaccinated or tested. And this is not only important in the context of the bill, which contemplates vax-or-test, it’s important in the context of the response to COVID-19 globally. Because, in quite a number of different theatres the requirement is to be either vaccinated or tested, not just vaccinated. And once you think about that, you have to start asking, well, what is the purpose of this piece of legislation?

Now, some of the Labour members—and I don’t know if they were reading the bill notes that they were provided or they’re confused or just not sure how to fill in their whole two minutes, but a number of them said that the purpose of this legislation was to raise overall vaccination rates. Well, the Minister should tell us, is that the purpose? Is this legislation there to incentivise the wider public to get vaccinated? Because, if that’s the case, I would suggest there are other ways to achieve that, and, at the margin, we’re pretty much as far as we’re going to get. We need incentives and persuasion, rather than coercion.

But I think the Minister should tell us, you know, the underlying purpose. I mean, there’s no purpose statement, there’s no amendment to the purpose statement of the principal Act. The purpose is really helpful to know, and once you know that purpose—if it’s to increase vaccination rates overall, then what we’ve seen in the interpretation section makes sense: it’s all about vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate. But, actually, there is another purpose that the Minister himself has raised. He stood up and said, “Well, actually, this is about protecting people from harming each other.”, that a person who is not vaccinated is more likely to have a bigger viral load and pass it on to someone who, you know, may be either a child who can’t be vaccinated or somebody who is vaccinated—but, as we know, even those of us who are very strong proponents of vaccination against COVID-19, it’s not the 100 percent sterilising immunity silver bullet that some of us had hoped for. You know, you can harm somebody else.

So, if the purpose of this legislation is actually to stop some people harming others by carrying COVID-19 and potentially affecting them, then you’d have to ask: is the way to address that purpose not to ensure that somebody is actually vaxxed or tested? Because, you know, if vaccination protection is not 100 percent, then there must be some frequency of testing that actually gives an equivalent guarantee that a person you meet is not going to pass on COVID-19. And I wonder why, in the interpretation section, there’s no mention of what it means to be tested. It’s all about vaccination, even though testing is mentioned elsewhere in the bill.

It’s also important in the wider context of a response to COVID-19—and Madam Chair, this is important, so I hope you’ll grant me at least a few more minutes on this call. You know, you look around the world, the vax or test idea is being widely embraced—Denmark, for example. I mean, they have an app that says if you show that you’re either vaccinated or tested, to demonstrate that you’re unlikely to harm somebody else with COVID-19. Air New Zealand, much closer to home: for domestic flights they’re not insisting on vaccination only; they’re saying it’s vax or test. And then there’s the New Zealand Government, even closer to home: the Minister himself is saying that when people leave Auckland—and I know this is a bit of a sore point, so I’ll try not to bring it up too much for this Minister—but people will be able to show their credentials for leaving Auckland and that they’re either vaccinated—[Time expired]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I note that the Government has already dropped its own Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) on to the floor of the House, SOP 100. In fact, the Government had an SOP on the floor of the House before the Opposition did. That’s how poorly and shambolic this process is. So I suppose my question is to the Minister, Michael Wood: what is the purpose of SOP 100? And if he could enlighten the House as to how that missed out the bill drafting process? And you know, if it’s OK with us, it’d be good to know what the other SOPs are that are coming down the line, if, indeed, there are any further amendments.

One in particular that I’m looking for, that we didn’t get an answer from the Minister in the chair before in relation to, is, again I go back to why the legislative statement that’s been tabled makes reference to the Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries. It’s a genuine question. Why is that person mentioned in the legislative statement when it’s not in the bill? So we look forward to finding out exactly what’s happened there; something’s gone awry there.

But, of course, this is what happens when Parliament is put into urgency to pass a bill through all stages. I’m going to make a prediction now. I’ll make a prediction: we will be back at some point in the next six months to fix up this bill. There’s just no doubt about it. I mean, the COVID-19 Response (Management Measures) Legislation Bill, I understand, needs fixing as well. That’s the one that we only passed two weeks ago, and we made a mistake in passing that, too.

So, anyway, a further question is a very genuine question, and I asked it before and we haven’t had an answer yet. But I want to know what particular part of the bill allows the Government to make rules in relation to vaccination mandates for specified workers. And I’m reading from an article in which the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety, Michael Wood, is quoted this morning—in fact, it’s based largely on a press release that he issued—which is that unvaccinated staff and businesses where vaccine mandates will not be able to continue their work unless they are fully vaccinated against COVID 19 by 17 January. The Government, on Tuesday, set out new requirements for workers to be vaccinated at businesses where customers need to show My Vaccine Pass under the new traffic light system. Makes perfect sense, in some ways. If you have to be vaccinated to enter the business, you have to be vaccinated to work at the businesses; that make sense. It brings things into line. It’s the logical corollary of having a vaccine certificate system for some businesses. The question is just this: where is the provision in the bill that allows the Government to make rules regarding that? That’s fundamental—that’s critical. The Government put out a press release about it this morning and has made much of those requirements. And I may be missing something here, the Government may be relying on clause 6, which is the new section 11—well, section 7 which is amended—but I can’t see it in the legislation. We’ve got the shadow Attorney-General here, Mr Penk. He may want to comment on that, as well, but I can’t see it. And so it’s a genuine question from officials as to what is the empowering provision in the legislation?

A final further question before I hand over to other colleagues is in relation to the risk assessment framework. Now, again, we had a press release from the Minister this morning saying, “Don’t worry about it, guys. There’s a risk assessment framework coming, Parliament will legislate for one when it comes to businesses making up their minds as to who needs to be vaccinated and who doesn’t. It’s all under control. Don’t worry, we’ll publish the regulations in mid-December.” And, of course, this has all been done very, very hurriedly.

💬 Hon Member: Another announcement of an announcement.

Well, yeah, exactly. Another announcement of an announcement. And there’s no constitutional problem with Parliament passing an empowering provision to allow the Government to pass regulations, obviously. But it is a bit unusual that the Parliament would give the Government the power to promulgate something and put out a press release simultaneously on the same day without getting any real indication as to what will be in the framework. That is slightly unusual. And so I suppose one real question is: would it be better for the risk assessment framework to actually be in the primary legislation? In fact, that is a really genuine question: why the risk assessment framework is not actually in the primary legislation.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on this COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill. I’d like to just ask a few questions in regards to clause 7. And I guess my first question to the Minister is: we’ve heard a lot about the traffic lights which have been announced by this Government. And my question here is: is the new section 11AA the empowering provision which the Minister and the Government intends to put New Zealand into reds and oranges and greens—I hear Auckland’s meant to be the great red light district next Friday, is what they’ve announced. The rest of the country is going to be the orange light district, but we still don’t know what green means. The question I’ve got for the Minister—I’ve got a number of questions, actually.

💬 Chris Bishop: That’s Wellington Central.

Wellington Central, well, maybe that will be Green. That’s where the Greens hang out, isn’t it?

But I’ve got a number of questions here. New section 11AA starts by saying, “(1) The Minister may make a COVID-19 order under section 11AB in accordance with the following provisions: (a) the Minister must be satisfied that the order does not limit or is a justified limit on the rights and freedoms in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990;”. My first question relates very much to that point, which is the fact that all New Zealanders have accepted their rights being limited in the past 18 months in regards to COVID-19. And I think most New Zealanders would accept the need for their rights to be limited in some way going through what has been a global pandemic. But the question I’ve got coming through this is when it comes to how the Minister is satisfied going forward—because we’ve spent the last 18 months dealing with what initially was a major crisis, a new disease which no one knew much about. Now we’re moving into a traffic light system, which is apparently safer, and we’ve, obviously, got the vaccine, we’ve got boosters, and we’ve got rapid antigen tests. We’ve got so many tools that we didn’t have 18 months ago to be able to manage and address COVID-19. And so my question here in regards to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is: how is the Minister going to be satisfied that an order does not limit or is a justified limit on the rights and freedoms in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act?

I do just note that this process that we’re going through tonight does not give me much confidence that this Government is actually going to take this seriously. On 23 November, the Hon David Parker, which I believe was today, got sent the Consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990: COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill report. And it says in paragraph 2, “This advice has been prepared in an extremely short timeframe due to late receipt of the Bill that was not in compliance”—not in compliance—“with Cabinet Office … [guidelines].” It’s not like this bill doesn’t address or impact on many people’s human rights at all. I mean, it only impacts on your right to refuse to undergo medical treatment. It only impacts on freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of association, freedom of movement, freedom from discrimination, right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. That’s all the rights which are impacted by this piece of legislation, and the letter was received this morning, or maybe it was this afternoon. But that’s how much thought this Government put into how much impact this has on people’s rights and freedoms.

We’ve had 18 months to be thinking through this—well, at least if you think Delta arrived in New Zealand in April, from April to now to think through what’s the framework, given vaccinations, given all the other tools that have been developed since this pandemic started, all that time since April to actually think this stuff through, but their letter arrived this morning. So can the Minister give me some confidence and answer the question: what it means to be satisfied that the order does not limit or is a justified limit on the rights and freedoms? And what consultation is the Minister going to undertake with Government departments? Or what legal advice or opinions is he going to seek?

💬 Chris Penk: Will he release it?

Is he going to release—it’s a very good question from my colleague Chris Penk. Will he release that opinion or that legal advice? Is he required to get legal advice as to whether it is a breach or whether there’s a limit or how that’s being balanced up? These are questions I think New Zealanders would actually like to have an answer for. These are the types of questions which should have been fleshed out at a select committee, but we are having to ask these questions here during this process in the committee of the whole House.

I’ll run through a variety of the issues that have been raised so far, and perhaps if I start with some of the general themes first.

The provisions in this bill that relate to vaccinations very much follow a similar format—or, effectively, the same format—as the existing legislation, which is that they are quite broad, empowering provisions that do allow those questions of detail to be established through the orders that can be issued under the Act once it has been passed. And I would note that, when the original legislation was passed by the House, there was actually broad support across the House for that, recognising that these rules are complicated and that, in dealing with a global pandemic, you are often dealing with a situation that changes quite quickly and that there are a lot of unknowns and you do need to be able to change and adapt. You do need to be able to fix things, because almost everything related to COVID-19 has been done quickly—more quickly than would be done in a desirable set of circumstances—and, therefore, there will be areas where we need to go back and where we need to correct things, or we need to change things because the circumstances have changed. So, by having reasonably broad, empowering provisions, we create the flexibility to be able to do that.

I’ll run through some of the questions. In terms of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, the requirement for the Government to follow the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, we still have to do that. The obligations upon Ministers in implementing orders under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act do still continue, and the same requirement exists in these provisions as for all other provisions in the Act. And I note that many of the orders already made under the Act have been supported by the Opposition, and, in fact, in many cases over the last 12 months or so, they have been demanding to know why we haven’t been more limiting of people’s rights in some of the provisions. I think about some of the debates we’ve had around managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ), for example. I know they want to suddenly do away with it now, but it was literally, it feels like weeks, it may be a few months ago now, they were thundering, demanding in this House, why we weren’t being more strict in our MIQ arrangements. So the existing provisions that apply to existing orders apply to the new orders.

In terms of the empowering provisions for the vaccination certificates and the workforce mandate, section 11 will be done as an amendment to the existing vaccinations order.

In terms of the purpose of the Supplementary Order Paper to ensure absolute clarity for employers about how the paid notice of termination provisions operate, it’s to ensure that the payment is just for the notice and that there’s no notice compensation on top of that. So it’s a clarity issue.

In terms of the Government policy statement—the statement that I tabled in the House referring to the Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries—the members are correct; that does refer to an earlier version of the bill, and those sections were decided to be not required. So they’re not in the version of the bill that is tabled. So the version of the bill that is tabled is correct.

I’ll let the Minister concerned speak to the issues around a person conducting a business or undertaking—or PCBUs—that Michael Woodhouse has raised.

If I run through quickly now, because it is a good opportunity to do so, the Supplementary Order Papers tabled by the Opposition and set out the Government’s views upon those. The first of them is in the name of Chris Bishop and concerns changes made in the House under a different piece of legislation last week, regarding COVID-19 testing consumables. I would argue that that is outside the scope of the legislation, although that’s not my decision to make. But I would say that it would directly contradict a decision made by the House just last week.

In terms of the requirement suggestion, by Chris Bishop again, that the House of Representatives be required to review the Act, of course the House is the master of its own destiny; it does not need a legislative requirement to do that. If the House wishes to conduct a review of anything, it can do that. And if the select committee wishes to conduct a review of the Act, it has the power to do that now. So, therefore, those provisions are unnecessary.

In terms of Simeon Brown’s suggestion that the vaccination provisions exclude religious places of worship, I would note to him that, actually, some of the biggest clusters of COVID-19 cases that we have dealt with in the time that I have been leading the COVID-19 response have, sadly, involved places of worship. And, in some cases, people have died after contracting COVID-19 at a place of worship. So I would oppose that. In terms of within the traffic light framework, people will still have the ability to attend places of worship if they are unvaccinated, but there will be limits on the number of people who are able to participate in those services. And that applies to a number of the amendments that are proposed by Simeon Brown.

He has also proposed that tangihanga be exempt from the vaccination requirements, which I think is interesting from somebody who, in this House, has been questioning why the Mongrel Mob, in their tangi, didn’t have to follow the COVID-19 public health response guidelines. He now suggests that that should be enshrined in law—that they wouldn’t have to follow those guidelines. The Government does not believe those amendments would be in the public health interest.

In terms of the remaining issues that, I think, Simeon Brown has proposed, a series of amendments that relate to human rights, as I’ve already indicated, the Government continues to follow the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in making its decisions under this Act. In terms of the process questions that the member has raised, the Government gets advice from Crown Law on every order that we make under the Act, or every order that I make I get advice from Crown Law on that. And I also get advice from the Director-General of Health on every order that I have made under that. Crown Law advice, as the members opposite who have been Ministers will be aware, is subject to legal privilege.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to speak in this, the committee of the whole House stage of COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill. Like colleagues on this side of the House, from at least a couple of parties, we do have significant questions about a piece of legislation that is being rushed through. The ink is barely drying on it, and we have the prospect of this becoming the law of the land in a hugely complicated, hugely significant way, potentially in less than 24 hours plus the time it takes to have Royal assent given.

I have very significant misgivings, which I would like to be allayed by the Minister’s responses to questions I have in relation to the courts and tribunals of New Zealand. This is a portfolio area of mine, but should also be of interest to every member of Parliament and all those who care about the reasonable conduct of public life in New Zealand as protected by the courts. So my question, which is an overarching one, which I’ll break down into a number of more specific points, is: what effect does this legislation have on the courts of New Zealand? For example, are judges who are duly appointed—and are not subject to political or, indeed, other branches of Government interference as to their employment—affected by the vaccine mandates or the operation of these orders in a way that would cause them to conduct the affairs of their courtroom in a way that is, effectively, directed by the Executive? For example, is a witness to a court case required to be vaccinated, and if he or she is not, is he or she able to participate or not participate in accordance with this so-called traffic light system, which we’ll use by way of shorthand? Likewise, defendants, plaintiffs, those who deserve to have their day in court—a constitutionally protected right under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which, along with other rights and freedoms contained therein, you would not necessarily know if you’re a casual observer, but which we were assured by the Government, it bears in mind, as the Minister has stated, perhaps in slightly patronising tone, those on this side of the House who have been Ministers before know that such advice is privileged. Well, others know that too, and that doesn’t lessen our desire to see the working, see the justification, at least to understand where the Government’s head is at in terms of some of these restrictions.

Of course, it may be possible that there are justified limitations, but the thing about justifying limitations is that one has to justify them. If one doesn’t spell them out and if one spells them out in the form of a letter that is arriving on the desks of the legislators, indeed, the Attorney-General himself only received today, presumably—23 November 2021 being today—the advice in relation to the consistency of this legislation with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, it begs belief that we should be expected to believe that a robust scrutiny has taken place in relation to consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

What about jurors? Can either of the Ministers, indeed, any of the Ministers—and I note that the Minister for Courts is here in the House, I don’t know if it’s within the rules of the committee to allow him to comment in that capacity. Certainly, I would welcome him taking a call, even unofficially, to provide his advice in relation to this, if, indeed, he’s turned his mind to it. What about jurors who are supposed to be selected? “Twelve good men and true”—of course we’d say “good people” in this day and age—randomly selected by way of population, not subject to limitations as a zealous Government might impose for, you know, perhaps perfectly valid public health reasons. What is the impact? What is the effect of that? The work that they would be undertaking, you know, affected work, perhaps, specified activities—who knows?

How are the courts and tribunals of this country to be conducted in relation to this? Are they separate because it’s a separate branch of Government and it’s not for the executive or, indeed, Parliament to interfere with that? Or will they be required to play ball along those lines as well? Do the dictates of open justice, which would allow, all things being equal, that members of the public can attend court hearings? What if we have more than 100 warm bodies in a courtroom—a number of whom would be, sort of, participants proper, others who might be observers—does that fall foul of the traffic light system in certain levels, according to this legislation?

Huge constitutional implications. I would be surprised but delighted if the Ministers opposite have given any thought to it, and I would certainly welcome the opportunity to hear from them now about what provisions they’ve made for that, if indeed any at all, and I look forward to then being able to ask a number of other questions in different relevant areas.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thought I’d just take a fairly brief call at this stage to address a couple of the specific points that were raised earlier on in the debate by the Hon Michael Woodhouse relating to the relationship to the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) in terms of the bill that the committee is considering. I take the point of the member on board that the Health and Safety at Work Act remains the primary vehicle that we have in place that places a primary duty of care on employers in respect to the health and safety of workers for whom they are responsible. The assurance that I would give the member is that that does remain, and that is not affected in any way by the provisions of this bill. In fact, I’d note clause 33AB on page 11 of the bill. I’ll just quote directly from it, which might provide some assurance and clarity here: “To assist a PCBU in meeting their primary duty of care under section 36 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, the PCBU may, in accordance with the assessment tool, conduct an assessment of the work carried out by workers”. So we have a very clear link here between this piece of legislation and that primary duty of care that employers do owe.

Just to delve further into that point: the issue that the Government is attempting to address here through the creation of the vaccine assessment tool is not to replace any requirements under HSWA but to give greater support and clarity to employers who are trying to exercise their duties under HSWA.

We’ve heard a very, very clear message from, actually, interestingly, both employers and unions largely in unison around this, that while there are existing health and safety assessment tools that employers can use, and some are—particularly larger employers are making use of them at the moment—that especially for smaller employers who might have more limited access to HR and legal resources, a simplified assessment tool will be extremely helpful for them in terms of coming to reasonable judgments about whether it is reasonable to require a vaccine for certain kinds of work. That is the intention of the vaccine tool that is enabled by this piece of legislation. Again, I just affirm that that links through to the primary duty of care under HSWA, as set out by clause 33AB.

The second point that the honourable member raised related to the definition of “affected worker”. I think he was really just seeking clarification as to whether the definition of “worker” that we are using within this piece of legislation is consistent with the definition of “worker” that we use under the Health and Safety at Work Act, and I can confirm that that is the case. We do want to have consistency between the legislative regimes. If I can just point out why that’s important, if we think, for example, about the provisions that we’re working towards when orders come into effect that will require workers in COVID-19 vaccination certificate worksites to be vaccinated, we would most certainly want there to be a consistency of application by someone who might be employed as an employee or a contractor. If, for example, we’re talking about a hospitality venue, regardless of whether you, as the customer, are being served by someone who is an employee or, if for some reason, that person is a contractor, we would want consistency in terms of the way that the vaccination requirement plays out across both of those people. So that’s why the definition of “worker”, consistent with HSWA, is the one that we have used there.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m pleased to take a call on what is a very important piece of legislation, the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill. The Minister in charge, Chris Hipkins, referred to the fact that the Opposition has supported some of the COVID orders in the past. And I just want to put on record a couple of things. Firstly, when the outbreak first occurred last year, there were lots of elements that were unknown, and the Opposition was very careful in carrying out its responsibility to support the Government as much as possible, at a time of crisis when it was a national emergency, to ensure that New Zealanders understood the importance of what was occurring. I think the difference, in terms of where we stand here—and my colleagues on the Opposition benches at this point in time—is the fact that this is a Delta outbreak, which, of course, the Government has known about for quite some time and had a lengthy period of time to plan and prepare for.

So to be here on 23 November, debating legislation under urgency that will have a significant impact on New Zealanders’ rights and freedoms with zero opportunity for the public to be involved, is quite abhorrent. That is why the Opposition will be ensuring that the voices of the public are brought into this Parliament, if not by the Government—who, in many peoples’ view, the fact that it is the first majority Government ever places a higher bar of responsibility on ensuring that power isn’t abused. And in legislation like we are debating today, there is a serious obligation—one that in my view, and the view of the public, the Labour Government is not discharging with any form of responsibility.

So I’ve got a couple of questions—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: Oh good!

—for the Minister, and I think the senior whip should be a little patient and shouldn’t trivialise a debate in this House under urgency.

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: You’re halfway through.

I’m not clock watching, and I suggest that that member doesn’t, because that member is trivialising every single person in the New Zealand population who has on multiple occasions contacted every member of Parliament and Opposition members—hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of emails, thousands of people who have signed petitions, shocked and disgusted at some of the decisions that the Labour Government is making and ramming through in Parliament tonight.

So a couple of my questions, one is reflecting on my colleague Chris Penk’s comments that were related to the courts. I note clause 7, inserting new sections 11AA and 11AB, which is all around orders in relation to specified work. And as the Opposition spokesperson for social development and employment, I’m particularly concerned about those New Zealanders who have a range of challenges who have to interact with Government agencies, one of which is the Ministry of Social Development. I have not seen any confirmation—I’ve not been reassured in any way, shape, or form that no New Zealander will be excluded from a Work and Income office if they are not vaccinated. I think these are the sorts of practical issues, when we’re passing legislation like this, that New Zealanders want to be reassured about. So I’m specifically asking a question—actually, I want a guarantee. I want a guarantee that no New Zealander will be excluded from a Work and Income site. As we know, many people have had to interact online or by phone, and for many people that is not the way they are most comfortable. So to be able to turn up to a Work and Income office—and many people have complex challenges that they want to discuss with someone face to face—I want an absolute reassurance and commitment from the Government—[Time expired]

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I’ll apologise to my colleague the Hon Louise Upston who actually had quite a lot to actually say, no doubt—like most of us.

It seems a little bit ironic, me standing in this House to debate something in the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill, because it is almost like Groundhog Day, where we are actually dealing with certain things that I thought were, apparently, dealt with completely and utterly 100 percent securely last week. But we have new legislation which actually fixes something that we apparently passed last week.

So I have a question for the Minister: does the Minister stand by his statement to the New Zealand Parliament during the committee stage of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2) that, and I quote, “The advice that the Government has had is that this provision isn’t actually necessary because the existing provisions that are in place already make that clear. However, we have heard the concerns from others that they would like to see that explicitly stated in the Act. That is the reason why we have agreed with the committee’s recommendation to insert these additional provisions.” These relate to my speaking in the House in relation to my Supplementary Order Paper 85 and my concerns regarding data protection and privacy concerns related to the bill that was actually passed last week.

So I’d like to ask the Minister if he actually stands by his statement. If so, why? If not, why not? There are also a couple of other questions that I’d actually like to ask. In terms of that, I note that the new legislation will amend the recently inserted section 34A of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020 that was only just debated last week, as I said, Groundhog Day. In particular, it amends subsection (1) to add the following further subsection as new subsection B, and I quote, “enforcing the Act or a COVID-19 order (including for the purposes of proceedings against a person for non-compliance)”. Why does the Minister actually believe this new section is, in fact, needed, when he said we didn’t need to actually amend anything last week?

Also, did the Minister make a mistake when he informed the House that new section 34A of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2) provision isn’t actually necessary, as he said last week? When the Minister stated during the committee stage of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2) in this discussion of new section 34A that he wanted to “underscore the public’s desire for clarity.”

Why is he now further confusing the public through additional amendments under urgency just one sitting week later? Does he believe that he made a mistake last week; if not, why not?

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I want to thank the Minister for answering some of the questions that were asked, but sometimes it’s the questions that the Minister doesn’t get up and answer that are the most revealing. Now, I just want to restate, as I was asking last time I had the call on this committee—I want to understand what the purpose of this bill is. Is it to get overall vaccination rates up, as some Labour Party members have claimed during this debate? Or is it to protect people from each other, acknowledging that some people who are vaccinated are less likely to infect people who are not? And if it’s the latter, which is what the Minister said, and I think that’s what should be the purpose of this legislation, then why is there so much reference in the interpretation section, and, indeed, most of the bill, to “vaccination”, but very little reference, certainly in terms of interpretation and definition, to what it means to be tested and what sort of testing regimes might be put in place?

So that’s one question the Minister hasn’t answered to date about the purpose of the bill and what the relationship between testing and vaccination is in achieving the purpose. Has, for instance, the Government got any guidance on what frequency of negative tests might give a person equivalent assurance that a person who is not vaccinated is just as unlikely to pass on COVID-19 to them? It’s a very important number, and you’d hope the Government sought some data on that, so I’ll leave that for now. But that’s a question that hasn’t been answered and that the Minister should get up and answer.

The second question has been alluded to by a number of people who have gotten up and given speeches, but I’m not sure that it’s really been put together the way it might be, which is: how does this piece of legislation connect with the traffic light system? Because we’ve got a Government that almost seems to be confused between governing by press release and governing by statutes—you know, primary and secondary legislation made by this House and passed under the authority of the House as regulation by Ministers. They seem to be confused by the two things.

I think that’s why the Prime Minister frequently announces that she’s going to make an announcement. It’s almost as though an announcement is, in fact, a policy or a solution, and forecasting one of those is as good as forecasting doing something.

💬 Chris Bishop: Real Fitzgerald and Muldoon.

And we saw it—well, we saw it with the requirement—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: Talk about the bill at any time you like, David!

—for people to be—we saw it—what was that?

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: You can talk about the bill, at any point.

Oh—ha, ha! Now, you can see why Duncan Webb was a law professor, because if he had to make his money as a comedian, he’d be broke, you know. Good old Duncan Webb. Look—do you have something else to say?

💬 Hon Member: He’s gone all red.

No, he’s gone red behind his mask. It’s pretty hard for someone to show that their face has gone red through a mask that’s coloured black, but Duncan Webb has actually managed it. In any case, thanks for playing.

Look, there’s some serious matters to be debated here, and one of them is: how exactly does this legislation fit with the traffic light system? Because we saw, in the case of the mandate for medical workers, the Government did the announcement that medical workers had to be vaccinated, and it was another two weeks before the order was actually passed into law. That was a real problem, because people who are actually in the business had enormous practical difficulties. You know, they’re saying, “Well, which staff exactly are covered and what’s the consequence if they’re not vaccinated? And, you know, how do we actually verify that they are or aren’t?” All of those things. It took two weeks to sort that out.

In the end, the law only dropped on the Monday, and I think it was the Friday that actually the first dose had to be had by. That’s a real problem when you start doing announcements or lawmaking by announcement or by press release, and I worry that it’s going to be kind of the same with the traffic light system. We had the big announcement, although I’m not sure that it was as politically effective as the Government hoped, but that’s another story. But only now are we getting legislation that might help bring it to pass. And yet, you know, there’s so many serious questions around how it will work—for example, I asked the Prime Minister in question time today, “What’s going to happen when the regulations haven’t been drafted?” [Time expired]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to join Mr Seymour in acknowledging the Minister’s attempts to address at least some of the questions, and I agree that it’s not what he answered; it’s what he didn’t answer that’s important. I think that as we try and tease out what these regulations might look like—because all we’ve got is another bill to create a regulation-making power, the details of which we are unaware—I’d remind the Minister that as far as I can tell, he didn’t answer the question of which classes of work will be required to have a worker vaccinated, or vaccinated and tested. We didn’t get an answer to that, and I’ve found it fascinating that he spent more time in his answers addressing the National Party’s Supplementary Order Papers than he did on answering substantive questions on the bill, as if he’s as busy as Dr Webb is—a bit busy and important to be bothered with the, sort of, technical details—and he just needs to be somewhere else. Well, I’m afraid we need better answers than that, Minister.

I want to continue the line of questioning from my friend the Hon Louise Upston, and for me it relates to section 11(3)(h), which inserts a clause “requiring persons to permit individuals to enter a place or receive a service whether or not those individuals are vaccinated,”. So the majority of the bill is actually about preventing certain things and constraining people’s freedoms if they are not vaccinated, and then we have this mysterious clause in here, which basically says, “Oh, by the way, for some individuals, they’re going to have to just let an unvaccinated person come into their place of work.”

Now, we have that already, albeit, actually, vaccination status isn’t yet a barrier and it will be by Friday week. So, actually, everybody can go and get a haircut down my way; by Friday week, they won’t be able to. Everybody can go to the pharmacy. I presume this is what this clause is about, Minister, but it would be quite good to have a better clarification about who is intended to be affected—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: Which clause is this? Remind me which clause?

This is clause 6(3)(h), amending section 11(g), on page 5. It’s, basically, saying that even if they’re not vaccinated, they can come in. Now, for a private organisation, I think that’s a really big reach into the autonomy and decision making that a business may make not to allow an unvaccinated person to come on to their premises.

Now, it may have what the Minister believes is good intent. It may relate to a healthcare setting, for example, but even then, I think we need to know what we’re empowering the Government to do. Take a GP practice. A GP practice may make a decision not to allow unvaccinated people on to the premises. Maybe they’ll do consultations by Zoom. Maybe they’ll get blood tests picked up by an authorised test-taker. The hospital I used to manage in Dunedin has already issued a policy that says that patients must be vaccinated before they are admitted. Visitors can’t come in unless they are vaccinated. Now, that’s a pretty big step. I’m not sure I would have taken it quite so black and white. But is the Government now going to pass a regulation that forces them to accept an unvaccinated patient or an unvaccinated visitor? Does it apply to the pharmacy? Does it apply to the supermarket?

At the moment, supermarkets, or dairies, or whichever convenience store it might be, haven’t been prevented from having an unvaccinated person—service stations. We have no idea what the reach of this regulation-making power is. We don’t know, under clause 7, new section 11AB, who is going to be specified as needing to have been vaccinated, vaccinated and tested, or tested, and we equally don’t know what the Government intends to do in respect of requiring people to be accepted, even if they’re not vaccinated. We’ve got to tease this out. We’ve got a few short hours to get the best understanding about what the Government is intending, and these are important questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair. If I run through a variety, or as many of the questions as I have not already answered. A number of members have questioned about whether or not the bill allows for a vaccination or test requirement, and, yes, the answer to that is: it does. So it’s not specific on the context in which a vaccination or a test requirement should be required. It allows the orders to determine, though, that a test requirement could be put in place in lieu of a vaccination requirement. So the legislative framework that the Parliament is being asked to pass now absolutely allows for that. So that, as the orders are drafted, if the decision was to allow, in a particular context, people to be either vaccinated or have a test, an order made under these provisions, that Parliament’s being asked to enact, would be allowed for there.

In terms of Louise Upston’s question, the Government has been very clear that no person would be excluded from a Ministry of Social Development Work and Income office on the basis of not being vaccinated. That falls into the category of, effectively, what we’re calling, loosely, “life-preserving services”, where a vaccination requirement should not be in place. So that also includes supermarkets, healthcare services, pharmacies, and so on.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: Private healthcare services?

Any healthcare services, health and disability services, broadly defined, where people rely on those, they should not be excluded from those by a vaccination requirement.

In terms of Melissa Lee’s questions around privacy provisions, do I stand by my statement? Yes, I do stand by my statement. They were very good statements, in fact. And, in fact, the position that I put forward was that people have asked for additional clarity and just additional certainty. That was absolutely the case when we passed those provisions last week. The reason that we’re inserting additional provisions in this bill is because we’re inserting additional requirements, and so we’re providing additional reassurance there.

In terms of David Seymour’s question around what the purpose of the legislation is, a tip for the member, he’ll find that on the front page of the bill, under the “General policy statement”, “The amendments make vaccination a more prominent part of New Zealand’s COVID-19 response framework.” I am being a little facetious to David Seymour, and I think he knows that.

But the wider questions that he had around this particular topic around, for example, what level of testing would be sufficient to provide people reassurance that it was a satisfactory alternative to vaccination, the answer to that question is it very much depends on the context and on the frequency of the testing, and that that situation can actually change as the situation we’re dealing with evolves. So the frequency, for example, of our border worker testing has recently changed as a result of the changed risk profile that we are dealing with there.

In terms of his comments around announcements of policy, and he quoted the oft-referenced Fitzgerald v Muldoon case. I think it’s worth remembering in Fitzgerald v Muldoon, Muldoon was making an announcement with no reference to Parliament or no delegated ability by Parliament to do that, and, in fact, he was doing so whilst not allowing Parliament to even meet. So I think the Government is a long way away from that threshold. The Government that—

💬 David Seymour: How is this different? It’s not different at all.

Well, we’re here in Parliament debating the empowering provisions that will allow the Government to be able to issues orders around vaccination, around testing, and so on. So that is exactly the purpose of these provisions.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I thank the Minister genuinely for that engagement. Just in relation to one of the points he made in relation to my colleague Louise Upston’s argument, the Minister just said that the Government’s been very clear that there’s a range of life-preserving entities and settings where people will not be required to be vaccinated—and I’m assuming he’s relying on clause 6(3), which says, “After section 11(1)(g), insert (h) requiring persons to permit individuals to enter a place or receive a service whether or not those individuals are vaccinated, have a vaccination certificate”, which is fine; that’s great. That gives the Government very broad power. My question is: would it not be better for Parliament to specify the range of circumstances that those orders should be made to? That would be Parliament spelling out for the Government the powers with which the Government should act, and also giving some direction to the Government around which scenarios the House thinks that people should, essentially, be able to access.

That is also the second question I have, which relates to the legality of what the Government proposes to do once the bill passes. The Minister, earlier on in his remarks, made mention of one of the judgments to do with mandatory vaccination at the border, and he made mention of one of the judgments of Justice Cooke. I’ve gone and read those judgments—or I read them a while ago, but I’ve now re-read them—and the critical point that Justice Cooke made, in relation to the border mandates, was that he found that they were, in the legal parlance, vires. So he found that they were legal—Parliament had authorised them—but that was not a slam-dunk argument. That was not something that the court found definitively. In fact, if you read it carefully, he’s quite worried about them. So, at paragraph 76, he says that the applicant’s arguments are not ultra vires, but, at 77, he says, “I note … that this is not a self-evident conclusion. It is perhaps of some surprise that such an important aspect of the response to the risk of COVID-19 has been implemented through a section that makes no express reference at all to vaccination.”

Now, the critical take-home point from that is that the courts are saying to Parliament: “Parliament, you must be very clear with what powers you are giving the Government, and the Government has to follow the law that Parliament lays down.” And the Government has turned up here with new section 11AA and 11AB—and the Minister made reference to that before. And I accept that those new provisions will make it easier for the Government to impose vaccination requirements for some industries later. But here’s the critical point: I am worried about the overall legality of the framework. And I can’t see, in the legislation that is before the House right now, the empowering provisions that allow the Government to, firstly, impose the various restrictive settings at each traffic light colour, for want of a better phrase—red, orange, and green. And then, secondly, I come back to the point I’ve made before, which I haven’t really had an answer to, and I think we deserve one, which is: what is the provision in the legislation that allows the Government to set in place a rule that you have to be a vaccinated worker or employee to work at a place where vaccination certificates are required?

So, to use the vernacular, if I’m a hairdresser and I use vaccine certificates to say that you have to be vaccinated to come and get a haircut at my salon, what is the bit of the legislation that allows the Government to say, “To also work at that salon, you must be vaccinated.” It’s a very, very important point, because, if the bill doesn’t allow the Government to do that, then the Government’s got a massive legal problem on its hands, because the whole framework and the architecture that they are purporting to establish will fall down. So we need to know what the provision is, and if it turns out that a Supplementary Order Paper is required and the Government’s overlooked something, well, then we’ll have to have a look at it, but we need to know what the answer is.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I just want to acknowledge that fine contribution from my colleague Mr Bishop, because I think you are raising—and I’m talking to Mr Bishop here—a very strong point about the legality of this bill.

I also just want to ask about the same clause, clause 7, which inserts new section 11AA. I note that the Minister may make a COVID-19 order under new section 11AB in accordance with the following provisions: the Minister must be satisfied the order does not limit or is a justifiable limit to the rights or freedoms of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and the Minister must have consulted with the Prime Minister, the Minister for COVID-19 Response, the Minister of Justice, and the Minister of Health, but may have consulted with other Ministers. But before making the order, the Minister may consult with the director-general and must be satisfied that the order is in the public interest.

So I just want to clarify: as I understand it, we haven’t yet had a bill of rights consideration of this bill, and I’m just looking at Mr Bishop there. It is one of the issues I would have thought that was pretty paramount. When you are talking about a Government that is looking to make quite significant changes to an operating framework for businesses and individuals, I would have thought that raises quite significant issues.

So one of the questions I’d like to put to the Minister is: given these overarching powers to create new regulations on the hoof, in effect, why was consideration not given to specifically make any changes subject to consultation? And it may be a “must” or a “may”, but I’d prefer if it would have been a “must”. First of all, the Chief Human Rights Commissioner, Professor Paul Hunt, would have been a natural person to specify in that case, as a way to make sure that any of these provisions are actually appropriate for New Zealand and for New Zealanders who, some are, quite naturally—and I know that my good colleague from the ACT Party is very much on the same line of thinking here that people do have freedoms. I think it’s important that they are protected and that bills like this do not overreach and actually unnecessarily impinge on people’s activities to be able to go about things that they like to do on a day-to-day basis.

And the second one is: why wouldn’t the Opposition be subject to consultation on this? Why wouldn’t the Leader of the Opposition, and maybe the leader of ACT, but certainly Opposition parties be at least consulted on this? It may not mean that they need to be involved in the actual determination, but at least the requirement that the Opposition parties be consulted about some of these far-ranging elements that could be passed under these regulations.

And the third one is: why wouldn’t the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, John Edwards, be part of that consideration? That is really important, because privacy issues are, again, a major consideration around COVID issues. I think I would like to ask the Minister just to respond why none of these issues or parties were deemed to be appropriate.

The last point I want to do before closing out, because I’m very conscious that we’re getting close to 10 o’clock—but why is it, before making the order, the Minister “may consult the Director-General of Health”? I would have thought of all of them that there would have been a requirement for “must”. So why is it only a “may”? Because all we’ve heard from the Government over the last 18 months is that they listen to science and, of course, the science has been provided in advice from the Ministry of Health. So that’s been the underlying reason why the Government has chosen to take certain actions, because, in essence, it’s been subject or as a result of advice provided by the Ministry of Health. So why the sudden change of plan? Why does it become appropriate that Ministers think that they can now do whatever they want without having regard to the Ministry of Health?

And so I am very much looking forward to the Minister at least discussing these issues, because I think it cuts to the core of what New Zealanders want to know, and they want to make sure that regulation is not slipped through at the dead of night, at three minutes to 10, which is what’s happening tonight, and that their positions are protected, and they can go about doing their daily work, as they so wish.

The time has come for me to suspend the committee for this evening. The committee will resume at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 9.58 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday).