covid-19 orders — Approval

I move, That this House approve the following orders made under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020: COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Amendment Order 2022 (SL 2022/53), COVID-19 Public Health Response (Protection Framework) Amendment Order (No 4) 2022 (SL 2022/62), COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Amendment Order (No 2) 2022 (SL 2022/63), and COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Amendment Order (No 2) 2022 (SL 2022/75).

Once more, I am asking the House to approve orders that have been made under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act. There’s fewer of them this time—and, actually, these ones are more up to date than some of the others that we’ve been confirming previously. We’re getting to the point now where the orders that we are confirming by motion and in the House are the ones that have been progressively removing restrictions relating to COVID-19, and so many of these ones still remain in force.

So if I go through the four very briefly: the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Protection Framework) Amendment Order (No 4) made the changes to the face covering requirements that apply at the red setting, and that included removing the requirements around face masks for outdoor gatherings—allowing people to gather outdoors without having to wear a mask—and the vaccination requirements for students enrolled at registered schools when participating in extracurricular activities. Those changes were designed to ensure that vaccine mandates and vaccine passes weren’t preventing children from fully participating in school life.

The COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Amendment Order (No 2) 2022 reduced the isolation period for COVID-19 cases from 10 days to seven days. It also extended the period in which someone is not required to isolate again after they’ve had COVID-19 up to three months, so it extended it from one month to three months. So if you’ve had COVID-19 in the last three months and a member of your household gets it, you don’t have to self-isolate again.

The COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Amendment Order (No 2) 2022 removed the requirements for unvaccinated travellers to enter managed isolation and quarantine facilities for travellers from specific countries to be considered at low risk of transmitting COVID-19 on arrival in New Zealand. I should clarify that: that last one removes the requirements for New Zealand citizens.

The Regulations Review Committee examined all three of the orders that I’ve just mentioned and didn’t raise any concerns about them. They did express concerns about the fourth, and that is the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Amendment Order 2022. That’s the order that authorised the Director-General of Health to exempt COVID-19 cases from self-isolation requirements whilst undertaking specific work or travelling to undertake specific work, and it authorised the imposition of any conditions on that exemption. This was basically the ability for people in a limited number of circumstances who may have COVID-19 to go back to work where the risk of them not being at work was greater than the risk posed by them going to work when they had COVID-19. It’s a very limited provision, and actually I don’t think it has been used—certainly it hasn’t been used extensively—if, in fact, it has been used at all.

But the main concern of the committee was that that one may have actually gone too far; it may have contradicted the intention of the Act, which was to limit the spread of COVID-19. I thank the committee for being very conscientious, but I would note that the reason for the exemption was slightly different. So I am satisfied that there isn’t an inconsistency with the principal order, and I did write to the committee explaining the reasons why I thought that. The amendment did sit alongside the permitted work scheme. It was drafted with enough breadth that the obligations and duties of the permitted work scheme wouldn’t automatically apply to workers and their employers. I noted that the director-general can impose conditions for managing risk when exercising the exemption power. So, once again, I do want to thank, however, the Regulations Review Committee for the very conscientious and thorough way they have gone through scrutinising and considering these.

The COVID 19 Public Health Response Act has underpinned our response to COVID-19. It has allowed the Government to respond quickly as COVID-19 has continued to evolve, and it’s allowed New Zealand to emerge with a strong economy and record low levels of unemployment, and also, it should be pointed out, one of the lowest mortality rates in the world, downed to COVID-19. Having said that, our use of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act is narrowing, and I do think that we are now in that phase where we’ll be looking very closely at orders that have been made under the Act to ensure that where there is a need for any of the provisions in them to be preserved on an ongoing basis, they are transferred to appropriate legislative vehicles so that the House is in a position soon to either allow the Act to lapse or, in fact, to repeal the Act.

So we’re working through that process at the moment. We’re not quite at the point where we can do that with complete confidence, because, of course, we don’t know what’s around the corner. We don’t know whether future variants are going to have to throw up a new set of challenges that we may need to respond to. But we certainly know that many of the tools that we have been using previously are now sitting in abeyance and are not ones that we are likely to be using again any time soon.

So our use of the Act is winding back quite significantly. Many of the dilemmas and challenges posed by COVID-19 are ones that we can address through more regular legislative vehicles, and that is something that, as a Minister, I am committed to wherever possible we can do that—because I think the extraordinary powers in the Act, whilst justified at the time they were passed, the further away we get from the emergency crisis that we faced at the time, then the less justified that is and the more we need to look to use more regular parliamentary processes, including all of the scrutiny that goes with those. And certainly I am committed to getting back to that point as soon as we’re able to do that.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and can I just start my contribution by beginning where the Minister finished, which is in relation to the ongoing operation of the Act. May I say that Mr Hipkins may well go down as the first Minister in the lifetime of this Labour Government, or, indeed, Labour Governments in the last few times, to abolish portfolios and reduce the size of Government. That, I would say, is a good thing, because what we just heard from the Minister is that he is going to signal that we may well indeed replace, or at least repeal and replace, the public health COVID-19 Act, and we would welcome that on this side of the House.

We look forward to engaging with the Government as that process continues. I think I’m right in saying that the next motion we have to pass to continue the Act comes, I think, in early June, so it’s not actually that far away. So we may need a—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: Probably one more, and then I think we’ll be done.

Probably one more, he says—yep, that’s exactly what I was thinking. We may need a short extension, but I just would encourage the Minister—and I hope the Government are thinking about this—that on a few occasions we’ve had to very quickly, rapidly pass extensions and amendments and things like that, and I think that if people were honest with themselves, they would accept that the process has been not optimal. I think the Minister is actually on the record as saying that, and I’d agree with him.

So it would be good for the Parliament to have a bit of time to get its head around the various amendments that may be required. We, in the Opposition, are very happy to play a constructive role in that. A good amount of time at the Health Committee, I’m sure, with Dr Liz Craig and the Labour team there, will provide opportunities for National members to make a contribution. It’s not always the case, but I’m sure she will do that. We would welcome the chance to do that, because I think it is true that we won’t need the tools we have now, and we, on this side of the House, welcome some degree of normality returning to the place.

Maybe it will be the case that when we do indeed repeal and replace the Act, the COVID-19 portfolio will no longer exist, and Minister Hipkins can go back to being just the Minister of Education and the Public Service, State services, Ministerial Services, and the Leader of the House, and all of the other portfolios.

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: Don’t dangle that in front of me—that’s just mean.

“Don’t dangle that”—well, indeed, it’s not your call. It’s not the Minister’s call who is the Minister of various things, as, indeed, it’s not my call what portfolios I have. But anyway, we move on.

I do want to make a couple of points in relation to the orders, and I start, of course, by saying thank you to the Regulations Review Committee. When I was in sort of purgatory, I was on the Regulations Review Committee for three or so months, and it was a—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: Oh, don’t disparage that.

Oh, that’s a little bit mean. But when I had my time out of my current role, I was on the Regulations Review Committee. It’s a great committee. They do a great job, and they’re very well chaired by Chris Penk. It’s got some excellent members like Rachel Brooking on the committee, and Vanushi Walters as well. It helps to have lawyers on the committee, I’ve found. But they do do a good job, and they’ve done a good job assessing all of these orders.

I want to make a couple of points about a few of the orders. The first is in relation to—I’ve got to get the name right here—the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Protection Framework) Amendment Order (No 4) 2022 (SL 2022/62), which is the one to do with kids’ vaccination requirements in schools. There’s been a bit of public commentary around this. I do want to say that I think we went too far as a Parliament, and the Government went too far, in extending some of the vaccination requirements to children in and around schools, and the order that we are approving, essentially, is an acceptance of that point.

I, like many MPs in this House would have, have had correspondence with members of the public, raising what I would say were unfair applications of vaccine requirements in schools—13-year-olds finding it difficult to participate in after-school ballet classes, for example, or rugby practice. It was not so much cricket practice, but rugby was the one that particularly came to mind. You do just have to weigh up the costs and benefits and say, “Is there really a huge risk of young people participating in sport”—

💬 David Seymour: Costs and benefits—what?

—“and do they really have to have vaccine requirements?”, and I see David Seymour is saying, “Costs and benefits—what’s that?’, and I’m sure he’s going to make a very similar point to me. I think this order is an acceptance of the fact that we probably went too far.

The other point I would make is that the order and the various rules and regulations have had an impact on children outside of the classroom, because it wasn’t just about kids participating in sport at school but also about general sporting activities in clubs, for example. Lots of kids don’t just participate in sport and in the extracurricular activities at school and in and around the school grounds, but they also participate outside school as well in clubs and societies. It is definitely true that the vaccine requirement rules have had a negative impact on young people’s participation in civil society, and I think that that was wrong. So we welcome this order.

There are a few people out there who have said to me things online like “You know, the vaccine requirements—they’ve got nothing to do with the traffic light framework. They’ve got nothing to do with the protection framework.”, and this order actually proves that argument completely wrong, because of course it is true to say that the vaccine requirements that have been imposed on some young people are to do with the traffic light framework. They’re an integral part of the traffic light framework and, of course, we are now moving away from that, and we welcome that.

The second point I want to make is in relation to the various public health response air border orders, which is in the interim report of the Regulations Review Committee. The Minister said something very interesting in his contribution. He said that this allows unvaccinated travellers to enter New Zealand without entering managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ), and he corrected himself and said that it’s just about New Zealand citizens. Of course, that is the critical point, because just a couple of weeks or so ago, randomly, on a Friday night—and we’re yet to get to the bottom of exactly why it was announced unobtrusively on the Unite against COVID-19 website without a ministerial press release. But a couple of weeks ago, the Government quietly changed the rules and said that unvaccinated New Zealand citizens were allowed to enter New Zealand. Now, we welcome that, but it only applies to New Zealand citizens. It doesn’t apply to New Zealand permanent residents, of which there are a considerable number—thousands—in New Zealand.

A huge number of people are New Zealand residents and they are prohibited from entering New Zealand unless they are vaccinated, and the Government’s position, as outlined by the Minister on Tuesday in the annual review debate, was that there is legal advice that the Government can’t discriminate against New Zealand citizens who are unvaccinated. The question is, therefore, is it acceptable to discriminate against New Zealand permanent residents who are unvaccinated—because New Zealand permanent residents can vote. Not all countries allow permanent residents to vote, but New Zealand allows permanent residents to vote, and there are extraordinary privileges given to New Zealand permanent residents.

The Government position is that they cannot allow anyone other than New Zealand citizens to enter New Zealand if they are unvaccinated. If you are a New Zealand permanent resident sitting offshore right now, you have no right to enter New Zealand, and I just put it to the House that I think that is wrong. I do not think that is correct, and I tell you what, it is producing very invidious circumstances.

I have been contacted by people offshore who are unable to enter New Zealand. They have got to the airport, they have been told differing pieces of information by the folk at MIQ, the immigration department, and the people who run the airlines—who thought they could—and they have actually got to the airport and got so far as to get to the boarding gate and have been told that they should turn around and go away, because they won’t be allowed to enter New Zealand if they get on the plane, and the airlines don’t want to have liability for the passengers. So that has happened. There are New Zealand permanent residents around the world who are trying to come home to New Zealand, and they can’t enter New Zealand because they are not vaccinated.

The weird situation is that up until a few months ago, they could enter MIQ because MIQ was for all, and that was OK. If you were vaccinated you could go into MIQ, if you were unvaccinated you could go into MIQ, and everyone was sort of treated the same. But there was a pathway to come home to New Zealand. Nowadays, MIQ’s been done away with—this order does away with it; the one we’re talking about—but if you’re a New Zealand permanent resident, you have to be vaccinated to enter New Zealand, and I think that that is wrong.

I think the way we are treating New Zealand permanent residents—these are not tourist visas. These are not international students. These are not even people on work visas of particular types—essential skills visas. These are New Zealand permanent residents. They can vote in New Zealand, they’ve paid tax in New Zealand, and the New Zealand Government’s position towards them is “You have to be a citizen.” Apparently, that’s based on legal advice. I, for one, would want to see that legal advice. I asked the Government to waive privilege in relation to that legal advice. But I find that bizarre, and I think it’s wrong.

New Zealand permanent residents who are unvaccinated should be allowed to enter New Zealand in the same way that New Zealand citizens can. The current situation is disgraceful. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on behalf of the Greens, albeit remotely. Hands are in the air. People—on Zoom, anyway—are acknowledging the work of the Regulations Review Committee, for poring over the details of these orders, and that’s good. It’s important that we put a bit of a lens over this because things are moving very, very quickly.

I just wanted to reflect on the work that our health workers have been doing. They’ve been putting in the hard yards for the last couple of years, and just noting that Dr Ashley Bloomfield himself is stepping away. He’s done some, you know, pretty amazing work with a lot of his team as well. When I talked to our workers, you can see the strain and you can see the stress. So I do appreciate the need to move fast as well, but I’m also concerned that it gets a bit messy and it gets a bit muddled, but that’s just how it is when you’re in the middle of a pandemic.

We do hear a lot of people say, “Hey, look, let’s get back to normal.” But, for me, I feel like normal left the building a couple of years ago, and we’re in a situation where folks are just trying to do the best that they can. I say this as a parent. I have major concerns with how this will impact our tamariki and our children and our schools as well. We often have schools kind of opening and closing—you know, what does that mean? Teachers are working really, really hard, and now there’s this kind of expectation that they should be health workers as well. That’s tough and that’s messy and people are getting tired and all of that kind of thing, but I don’t think it’s a good reason to dump and run. I think it’s more of a reason to actually dig down and get into the nitty gritty.

Strangely enough, I tend to agree with some of what was said by the previous speaker about things being tricky and difficult, but I guess my response would be to instead of wiping your hands or going, “Hey, you know what? That’s just too tough.”, we should actually really think about how this will impact on those who are most vulnerable, and actually take a bit more time to actually do that. How will this impact immunocompromised whānau? How will this impact our disabled whānau? How will this impact on Māori and Pasifika communities, where the vaccination rates could be higher, and, particularly, thinking about it, with our tamariki as well? We need to have those new tools in place to make sure we do all the things that we can do to keep our communities safe as well.

And just reflecting on the schools as well, making sure that we sort out the ventilation and filtration of our schools and workplaces. That’s got to be on the agenda. We’ve got to make sure that we sort that out. We’re lifting this, that, and the other; making sure that that’s done is really, really important. Make sure that we get free N95 masks in schools as well. I think that’s important as well, and, actually, putting a bit of effort into the vaccine roll-out as well. I know folks are working hard and doing that, but there is still work to be done as well.

I’m just reflecting on some of these COVID orders as well. I agree with, as I was saying earlier, the impacts on children and stuff like that. It is tricky. But, as a parent myself, I’d rather do the tricky, you know, mental gymnastics about what this all means and keep my kids safe rather than just kind of stepping back and walking away from it. I’d rather look at it: “OK. What’s the best thing? What’s the best situation for our kids? What’s the best thing for our tamariki, mokopuna? How do we support those that are supporting our kids?” How do we make sure that when our teachers are actually having to decipher all of these different rules and these orders and the speed at which they change they have that support around them to make sure that they can make the best decisions possible on the ground at the time, and all the different permutations of our school communities, and what that could mean for them as well?

Then also getting back to making sure that we take care of our workers, take care of our healthcare workers, I was just thinking about this whakataukī, which goes like: ko to amorangi ki mua ko te hāpai ō ki muri [If things are done well at the back then things out the front are sorted.]—so making sure that we support our health workers, like when they come knocking on the door of Parliament, to make sure that they get better pay and conditions for all the stuff that they’ve been doing for all of us, that this Government actually pays attention and actually puts them to the front of the line. Because what I feel is often we hear a lot of noise but we don’t hear the voices that we really need to listen to: immunocompromised whānau, our disabled whānau. Those people are at the front lines helping and supporting our families, particularly our front-line health workers as well.

But, once again, thanks to the Regulations Review Committee for digging through the detail of this. That’s my contribution for today on behalf of the Greens. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I want to wish you a very happy Easter, and in fact everyone in the House and up and down New Zealand. For those people of faith, I hope it’s a time of special reflection for you, and for everybody who’s enjoying a well-deserved long weekend off, it’s a time for family, a time to stay safe on the roads and make sure that you find where the bunny left all that chocolate, because we can’t afford to have any going to waste at this point in time.

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: Don’t worry; I’ll find it.

Kris Faafoi’s laughing; he knows what I mean. He’s not going to miss out on any chocolate this Easter. Kris Faafoi is going to hoover up the lot and good for him. He’s been working hard.

On the issue of these COVID-19 examination orders, I think that we had a very interesting speech from the Minister, and there were a couple of interesting points in it. One was that he started off by saying, “I don’t think we’ll be doing this much longer.” He basically said he thinks COVID’s over—it’s become less complex and the parts that are required from the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act could just go into other legislation and be looked after under other portfolios. In other words, he’s the first Labour Minister to actually shrink the size of the Government by nuking his own portfolio, and that’s an awfully welcome thing, but the ACT Party, often being ahead of the curve on this sort of issue, said back in November that it was time for this legislation to go. We started voting against it then.

I hear somebody from the South Island—I don’t want to get stuck on the specifics; Nicola Grigg, I think—saying, “Ha, ha!” Well, I know she’s new here but I just remind Nicola Grigg that the National Party said they were going to vote against the legislation and then forgot to. It was so confusing the Speaker asked them if they got it right or not because from the speeches it sounded like they were going to vote against it then they didn’t, leaving only ACT voting against this legislation since November. It’s about policy and process, and they both matter.

The facts are that we have been needing to move on from COVID for a long time. In fact, the ACT Party’s fourth comprehensive policy paper on the COVID issue—set out at moveon.kiwi for those who may be looking for some Easter reading—sets out why we need to move on from COVID restrictions and why so many of these rules no longer make sense but constrain New Zealanders in their everyday lives. An example of that was people trying to go in and out of the country, and the Minister tellingly misspoke. He said, “Oh, we’re going to let Kiwis come back if they’re non-vaccinated.” And then he said, “But I want to be clear it’s only citizens.”

So here’s the thing. We’ve got a Government that started out saying it’s all about public health and following the science. They said, “Everything we do is driven by the evidence.” Well, can the Minister please tell us: where is the evidence that getting a New Zealand passport makes you immune to COVID? And if you don’t have a New Zealand passport, if you’re one of those many New Zealand families who are permanent residents, who may be citizens who have permanent residents in their family, who have loved ones stuck overseas that they can’t unite with, how is it justified that because someone doesn’t have a passport but lives in this country, and pays tax in this country—does everything that a normal person does in this country as a permanent resident—has to go through seven days of managed isolation and quarantine but a person with a passport doesn’t? There’s just no rhyme nor reason, no logic, no cost-benefit analysis, no justice in this COVID response when you make distinctions like that, and that’s one of the problems with the rules that are currently being debated.

The ACT Party says that all people should be able to come to New Zealand whether or not they are permanent residents or citizens or tourists, whether or not they come from a country that is a visa-waiver country or not, because a virus doesn’t care if you come from a county that has a visa waiver with the New Zealand Government. Biology just doesn’t work that way. So why don’t we say New Zealand is moving on and we’re open for business with sensible public health measures?

Here’s another thing that has been put up under this COVID-19 Public Health Response Act, which is not being abolished today but should be, and that is that a person who comes from Australia has to isolate for seven days if they have a positive test. So let me paint a picture—here’s how it works. You’re coming from Sydney with your partner and two kids. You land at Auckland International Airport and they give you a couple of rapid antigen tests each and say, “Do one of the first day and one on day five or six, and if you’re positive, phone us. And then we’ll make you isolate in the same place for seven days.” So what you’re doing is you’ve planned, you’re going go down to Rotorua, have a look at the hot pools, take in some kapa haka, and then you’re off down country. You fly through Wellington down to Central Otago, rent a car and drive around. You’ve got your tickets for the Earnslaw, and then—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: You’ve missed Christchurch.

Duncan Webb says, “Why wouldn’t you go to Christchurch?” Well, if you knew Parliament was sitting, that would be the time to go, because you’d know that Duncan Webb was here. That’s when I’d go to Christchurch—the best time to visit. If there are any Australians watching who want to go to Christchurch, a beautiful city, Tuesday to Thursday is the best time to visit.

So you’re on your way to Central Otago and you’re hoping to have a bit of couple’s time at the Onsen, you’ve bought your tickets for the Earnslaw and to take the kids and show them the big steam engine on Wakatipu, and you take your test and it says you’re positive. Are you seriously going to isolate for seven days in one place and miss your flight back to Oz, have to buy extra accommodation, and not be able to use any of the other tickets? You’re just not going to do it.

Here’s the question: if it’s unworkable to have our current seven-day isolation rules for tourists, why are we doing it to New Zealanders that need to go to work to feed their family? Our isolation rules no longer work, and if the Minister’s talking about backing down and no longer having rules that don’t make sense—which he did, and I commend it and I welcome it—then we need to get rid of our isolation rules that don’t work. Seven days of isolation—and even if you keep testing negative every day you’ve got to stay inside. It’s nuts. It doesn’t fit with biology. In Singapore what is it? Seventy-two hours and then a negative test and you’re free. Well, that makes sense. That’s what a sensible Government would do. So those are the kinds of changes that we need to see.

But it’s also a time when the Minister appears to be reflecting on how the COVID response has gone. He said we’ve done a great job. He said things are changing, we’re on the wind-down. Well, if he’s going to say that, let me join in some reflections. There are things in life you can control and things you can’t control. What the Government could control were things like delivering personal protective equipment (PPE) on time. Did it deliver it on time? Did it have contact tracing that met the gold standard of 80 percent of cases traced within 96 hours? Did it have a vaccination roll-out that partnered with GPs and pharmacies and hapū to get the vaccine to the people in a format they trusted on time and under budget? Did they have, for example, testing that was fast and reliable and easily scalable, or did they rely on one provider and one type of testing and ban all others, including saliva tests and rapid antigen tests? We know the answers to all those. Ashley Bloomfield went on TV and said there was no shortage of PPE, and, every night on TV, we saw doctors saying, “Well, I haven’t seen any at my hospital.”

Then there was contact tracing. It never got close to the gold standard. Even with low case numbers, it never got remotely close to the gold standard. They gave up on contract tracing. The QR codes never worked. Then there was the vaccine roll-out, and, of course, the GPs, the pharmacists, the hapū, and the iwi weren’t included in any kind of partnership to roll it out. That’s why it was initially, at least, a disaster and only sped up when we had a real outbreak.

Then there’s the question of how we went with testing. Well, that was the worst disaster of all. They spent half their time fighting with testing providers instead of actually getting testing done. And as soon as case numbers spiked up, the testing regime completely collapsed because it hadn’t occurred to them that batch testing doesn’t work when you have higher rates of positivity.

What did work with our COVID response? Well, being in the middle of the Pacific was helpful. I don’t know if Labour’s taken credit for that at this point but I wouldn’t be surprised. Having a population that was prepared to sacrifice by just going home, putting a teddy bear in the window, and awaiting further instructions at a moment’s notice—that sacrifice great as it was, propped up by huge amounts of money printing and borrowing—helped, because whenever the virus got in we could do that. And closing the border and having successful managed isolation and quarantine worked, but nothing that was happening within New Zealand was successful. The only reason the Government can claim a successful response is that for most of the last two years people sacrificed at the border and in lockdowns, and that meant that there was no virus to fight anyway. The Government didn’t have any tools to fight COVID-19 at home.

So that is the reflection. If the Minister thinks they’ve done a good job, let’s be honest about what they could control and what they couldn’t, and what worked and what didn’t. Not much. Not many, if any, initiatives were successful. With that, we oppose these motions, and we commend to everyone a very happy Easter. Ka kite.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m just going to take a short call; I don’t intend to address all the aspects of the COVID orders that are being passed. But it would be remiss of me, as the MP for Tāmaki, not to add a voice around the unvaccinated permanent residents who are not being allowed back into New Zealand. So it’s in that space that I want to speak, and particularly to those amongst my electorate who call themselves the “forgotten of New Zealand”—on this side of the House, you are not.

We are, ultimately, in a very strange and discriminatory situation here, where citizens of New Zealand are allowed to return, but we find that, actually, permanent residents are not. I’m not going to belabour the point that there are basically no differences between a citizen of New Zealand and a permanent resident. There’s a few—they’re quite small—but we just need to remind ourselves that we’re surrounded in this country already by Kiwis who are citizens and permanent residents. We make no distinction in our daily lives: permanent residents can vote, and most importantly—particularly to a Labour Government—they pay a lot of tax. So it feels to me both legally and morally wrong that we are not allowing them to return.

Even if you do not agree—or, rather, members opposite don’t agree with me on that front—even on a pragmatic point of view, allowing New Zealanders who are permanent residents to return makes sense as we’re crying out for extra help, labour, and support. Every day in this House we hear stories, and we debate stories, about how hospitality, tourism, and pretty much every and all industries in New Zealand need more people. While we keep the border locked out to those on other forms of visas, it would make absolute practical sense to allow unvaccinated permanent residents of New Zealand to return.

The final two points, very quickly, I would like to make. There are two points, as I say. The first is, the risk of COVID is everywhere now; it’s almost ubiquitous. There is no health logic that I can see of keeping people out—it’s not as if they’re bringing something into the country that’s not here. As I say, COVID is everywhere. Bizarrely, yet possibly—if you wanted to really push the point for the sake of almost exaggeration—you’re probably more at risk of getting COVID from someone in New Zealand than from an unvaccinated permanent resident returning.

And the final point, really—and maybe this is just an encouragement to Kiwis as we go into this Easter weekend—please do not forget those other Kiwis who are still overseas. In fact, let’s not forget permanent residents of New Zealand currently who would love to travel for various reasons. I have one situation, again in my electorate, where someone who’s a permanent resident is desperate to go overseas to see a dying loved one, but in effect they cannot, because there is no guarantee of return. And I just again want to reiterate: I think that is legally wrong, and I think that is morally wrong. So, as I say, as we go into this Easter weekend—one that is meant to be one of hope—can I ask Kiwis to not forget those permanent residents of New Zealand still stuck overseas. And to the many who have contacted me through social media and in my electorate, from me to you, I say: you are not forgotten.