COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill

Members, we now come to the final debate. This is the debate on clauses 1 and 2, title and commencement.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I intend to move an amendment to clause 1 of this bill. It’s currently called the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill, and isn’t it interesting? It’s not called the “Traffic Light Bill” or the “COVID-19 Response Traffic Light Legislation Bill”. And that in itself is highly revealing, because if you read the bill—and it’s reflected in the title—there is not a single mention of traffic lights. The word “red” does not appear there.

Now, Auckland goes into red next Friday, and the definition of “red”, according to the published documents from the Government, is that the health system is facing an unsustainable crisis. We can’t cope. The health system can’t cope. We’ve got to have a red setting for a particular region. In the Prime Minister’s own words, the health system’s coping fine. She’s got no concerns about the health system. Things are going well and things are going to go well into 2022, according to the Prime Minister. But despite that, Auckland enters at red. It’s not actually clear why that is, because it contradicts the Government’s own criteria. There’s no COVID in the South Island, or Southland, anyway; they enter orange. Why? Don’t know.

But when you try and look through the legislation, to try and find out exactly how that all works, you won’t find it. You’d be lost, because the word “red” doesn’t appear, the word “orange” doesn’t appear, the word “green” does not appear. I think the Government is going to run into serious legal difficulties in relation to this bill because the powers it has given to itself are way too broad in relation to the legality of what it actually wants to do. That is a major reason why the National Party is opposing the legislation. And it’s something that has actually only been ventilated by the committee of the whole House stage. It was actually the back and forth with the Minister for COVID-19 Response and, to some extent, the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety that revealed the extent of what the Government is looking to do does not at all mesh with what they want to do, at least on paper or at least as has been announced by the Government.

So I’m going to move an amendment to rename the bill the “Traffic Light Framework Bill”, because that is apparently what the bill does. But, as I say, there is a mismatch between what the bill actually does and what the Government says it does, and there is no more fundamental thing for Parliament to do than to make sure that bills are named properly. It’s going to be very interesting to see if the Government votes for my tabled amendment to rename the bill to what they say it actually does, because the Prime Minister announced the COVID-19 Protection Framework and it immediately became known as the traffic light system. Everyone went, “Oh, yeah, that makes some vague sort of sense at a level.”, and then we get the legislation finally, and actually the legislation bears little resemblance to what’s actually been announced. In fact, even if you read the general policy statement in the explanatory note to the bill, there is no mention of the traffic light framework at all.

So I’m going to move to have it renamed, and it will be intriguing to see what the Government does in terms of the name. There’s a variety of other things I could try and rename the bill. Most of them would be ruled out of order, I suspect. But one could also think about renaming the bill the “COVID-19 Response Broad Sweeping Mandates Bill”, because that’s what the Parliament is giving the Government the power to do. Forty percent of the workforce, in the Government’s own words, are going to be covered by vaccine mandates—40 percent of the workforce. And you know how long the Parliament has spent—

💬 Hon Michael Wood: Are they against those mandates?

No, no, no. It’s not a question of that, Mr Wood. It’s a question of the appropriateness of the scrutiny that the House has had to do on this bill. Forty percent of the workforce will be covered by vaccine mandates within the space of 10 days, and guess how long the Parliament has spent debating it? Well, four or five hours—not even a day. We only started debating the bill yesterday, late afternoon, and here we are a day later, just before lunch, and it’s going to be law by the end of the day. That is a disgrace. That is a constitutional disgrace, and I’ll have more to say about that at third reading. But I want to know from the Government whether or not they will support my attempt to rename the bill.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I listened very carefully to my colleague Chris Bishop who, I think, raises very good points because I had written down here “Traffic Light Legislation Bill” so there’s a degree of synergy in terms of what this legislation should be called. Part of the problem for the Government over the last 18 months or so is that most New Zealanders who wanted to be responsive and positive and encouraging about reactions to the COVID pandemic have actually almost been now numbed into confusion by mixed messages, words that all sound very similar, and actually most New Zealanders, I think, now are literally rolling their eyes wondering: what does it all mean?

There is widespread confusion about the vocabulary that’s being used, the mixed messages that are coming out of the Beehive, the way that the conversation is now being framed because, initially, I think New Zealanders did understand what the Government’s plan was, they did understand what the communications meant, and they did understand the vocabulary that was being used. But when we have a piece of legislation of this sort, introduced under urgency, being rushed through the Parliament in less than 24 hours, and it’s called—I even have to go back and refresh my memory—the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill, most New Zealanders would not have a clue what that entailed, and the whole purpose of a title in a bill is that it should be, by definition, I think, somehow explanatory of what the contents of the bill actually are. And this bill, the name that has been given to it by the Government, just speaks volumes about the confusion and the state of anxiety and uncertainty that the Government has amongst their own ranks and that officials have in terms of advising them what the title should be, because, actually, it’s meaningless. It’s been rendered meaningless and confusing to ordinary New Zealanders who have to try and understand and get their heads around it.

This is a piece of legislation that’s actually really important, and it speaks to some control, some restrictions, and some fairly hefty, burdensome obligations, particularly on the part of non-vaccinated people, but also employers of those non-vaccinated people. But there’s no hint or suggestion of any of that in the name, in the title, of this bill. And so I think that the Government would be well advised to take the advice of my colleague Christopher Bishop and take some of his suggestions.

Another suggestion for the title of this bill, because it’s going to absolutely mean this to businesses—maybe it could be called “Another Cost to Business Legislation Bill”, because that’s, effectively, what it is: another cost to business. And again, once again, businesses are being burdened with the weight of Government policy, and it’s businesses that are having to bear the responsibility and the cost. None of that is mentioned in the title of the bill. And so, I’m hoping that others of my colleagues—and on this side of the House I know that there are representatives from other parties who want to take a call on this, and I’m going to be looking forward to their sense of whether they agree with me or not about the widespread confusion and misunderstanding of what the Government’s plan is, not helped at all by a bill that is referred to as the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill.

I’d be interested to know from the Minister how many other pieces of legislation and regulation and rules and proclamations have emanated from the Beehive and from this Chamber in the last 18 months that actually start off with “COVID-19 Response …” and then—fill in the gaps—because I suspect the number of the pieces of regulation, the pieces of legislation, now is getting pretty much out of hand and to a layperson, frankly, the title is meaningless. It means nothing to someone who is trying to grapple with the implications of the legislation contained in this bill and what it might mean for them, for their families, for their communities, and for their businesses. So I think this is a situation where if the Government was very keen on plain language legislation and to actually walk the talk of plain clear language, then wouldn’t they do that? But to name a bill of this sort the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill adds nothing to the content of the bill or to a layperson’s understanding of what it might mean to them.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Look, I’m staggered by this, Mr Chair. As you’d be aware, we’re debating the title of this piece of legislation, and if you’re one of the million and a half people living in Auckland, you’ve absolutely had a gutsful of the uncertainty that we’re all now living in.

To speak to the title, COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill, and Hon Scott Simpson alluded to the fact—you tell that to Auckland right now. If you’re a subcontractor or a contractor, you’re trying to make the determination, listening to what this piece of legislation will mean for your business, notwithstanding the environment is constantly changing. We’ve got new variants, apparently, offshore that are due to arrive, and we have this expeditious piece of legislation being pumped through the House in a matter of hours. I think it’s egregious. I couldn’t even imagine what would be an honest title that this bill deserves, but I support the member Mr Bishop, when he suggested the “COVID-19 Response Broad Sweeping Mandates Bill”. It certainly fits.

I move, That the question be now put.

The question is that Chris Bishop’s tabled amendment replacing clause 1 to change the title to the COVID-19 Response (Traffic Light Framework) Legislation Bill be agreed to.

The committee has considered the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill and reports it with amendment. Mr Speaker, I move, That the report be adopted.