COVID-19 Public Health Response (Extension of Act and Reduction of Powers) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Extension of Act and Reduction of Powers) Amendment Bill.

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

I move, That the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Extension of Act and Reduction of Powers) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

It’s a pleasure to address the House today and to see you in the Chair. As many in this House will know, the Act will expire on 13 May 2023 unless it is amended to continue it. Continuing the Act is important. It allows for appropriate public health measures to manage the risk posed by COVID-19. It allows us to continue requiring the key public health protections like masks in healthcare settings and isolation of cases to protect the most vulnerable members of our communities. It ensures that vulnerable members of our communities are protected while enabling much of our economic and social life to return to normal.

It’s important we do reflect the changes in the risk that COVID-19 poses, and we are certainly not in the position we were in, in 2020 or 2021, with respect to the risk posed by COVID. Those were extraordinary times. We faced a public health emergency and Parliament granted, through this Act, extraordinary powers. Those powers are no longer proportionate to the risk posed by COVID-19, so it is important that in continuing the Act we also make changes to ensure the powers are proportionate and streamlined and as simple as possible.

So this amendment bill retains a limited number of powers to implement public health measures necessary to support the ongoing management of COVID. We will be retaining the ability to put in place case isolation periods and mask-wearing requirements and, if necessary, requirements on travellers can be called on if things change and we need to step up our response. But most of the other measures, including those extraordinary powers such as lockdowns and managed isolation and quarantine, are resumed.

I know that there will be members of the House who are concerned about the threat that COVID variants could pose. I want to reassure them that were there to be a threatening variant that required a different response, Parliament would still have the ability to give those powers back, but it would be Parliament’s decision. As the most contentious and rights-limiting powers in the Act will be removed by the bill, it is no longer necessary for Parliament to periodically resolve that the Act continue, given the existing safeguards. There are safeguards and they remain within the Act; that is to ensure the ongoing proportionality of powers exercised to respond to public health events.

Keeping a basic legal framework in place provides sufficient time to consult on the design and replacement of a general piece of pandemic legislation or communicable disease legislation that would set New Zealand in good stead for any future events, rather than having to start from scratch as we had to in 2020. Continuing the Act ensures that appropriate public health measures are available to respond to risks posed by COVID, until such time the Act can be repealed and replaced with fit for purpose pandemic or communicable disease legislation. This approach will ensure the design of any future legal framework is informed by extensive community engagement, reflecting the views and impacts of all in our community. Any recommendations from independent reviews into the Government’s COVID-19 response will also inform any future legislation design.

This is an important next step in our evolving response to COVID-19. It is good that we are in a better situation than we were in 2020 and 2021. We’re still able to respond to the likely challenges that we face with COVID, managing the risks that we are currently facing, but it ensures that our response remains proportionate and we remove extraordinary and restrictive powers that we no longer need. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you. In taking this call at the first reading of the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Extension of Act and Reduction of Powers) Amendment Bill, I speak for the National Party.

The purpose of the bill, as has been explained, is to enable the ongoing management of COVID-19 by continuing the legislative powers needed to implement public health measures to support the COVID-19 response.

My colleagues Chris Bishop and Dr Shane Reti spoke at some length and detail during the initial stages of the introduction of the COVID-19 bill back in 2020, and, as is well-known, it was extremely controversial and concerns all New Zealanders about the imposition on democratic rights. This bill is mostly focused on removing COVID restrictions; acknowledging those impositions in 2020, some of which are now no longer fit for purpose and appropriate; but extends the Act for a further two years.

So, in taking this brief call, bearing in mind that this is under urgency, bearing in mind that the National Party was notified on Tuesday of this week, at approximately 4.30—I look at the clock, today is Thursday, 4.20, so just under two days ago—that there is concern around the haste and the urgency that there hasn’t been sufficient time for the introduction of this amendment bill, and, again, members of the New Zealand public are questioning why it is that there is no opportunity for this to go to select committee for submission. It may be that members on the Government benches are laughing at the statement that has been made; this is no laughing matter, because this is about the importance of New Zealanders’ democratic rights and the New Zealand Government addressing the COVID-19 response and the continuum of that appropriately.

So this bill is looking at removing, reducing, repealing, and limiting powers. At the second call, I will speak—or one of my colleagues will speak—further to what the limitations, removal, or repeal of the details to be addressed under this bill are. Pending that, however, the National Party does support this bill and commends the bill to the House.

Kia orana, Madam Assistant Speaker Kuriger. Can I congratulate you on your new role. I’m happy to speak in support of this bill, which primarily does two things. Firstly, it extends the Act, and, yes, with a two-year repeal time frame post commencement it provides some certainly in terms of the lifespan of the Act, rather than having to come back to the Parliament time and time again.

Secondly, it removes some of the powers, including, but not limited to, those around managed isolation and quarantine and lockdown powers as well. This is, I guess, important given the changing context within which our community operates and the profile and risk that COVID-19 presents. Just last week the Health Committee did hear from Minister Verrall in terms of scrutinising some aspects of the COVID response and in particular around the extension of legislation.

Health Committee members are very familiar with the scrutiny process, very familiar with the examination process that many elements have been subjected to, and the operational aspects of this Act, and so it’s within that context that I’m comfortable to commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Greens to share our whakaaro on this bill, the continuation of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act. The Greens do have some concerns around the relaxing of safeguards and protections. We feel that those have been disappearing too fast, and disestablishing the legal basis for many of these safeguards and protections before general purpose pandemic legislation is in place is concerning for us.

There are some good things about this bill. I like, for example, the removing of the warrantless search into marae; I think that’s a good move, and I want to acknowledge the National Iwi Chairs Forum, as they pointed out, rightly, that that was not the right pathway to go down as well, but also acknowledging many of the learnings that we’ve had through the COVID response as well, and those learnings that came out, like, for example, with the Delta outbreak report, where that learning was. I hope that this is something that we’ll continue to learn around the House, about empowering Māori communities, empowering our iwi leadership, and empowering our local communities, because that, as we have all found and seen, is how you best actually manage local responses to the COVID pandemic.

The legislation here was put in place to enable the Government’s health measures taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It makes several important changes which are intended to keep the Act relevant while more comprehensive general purpose legislation is developed which could be applied in any and all pandemics. So, extending the Act for another two years, removing the need for Parliament to periodically review and reconfirm the Act, removing the ability of the Director-General of Public Health to make orders under the Act, limiting the powers of the Minister to make only orders restricting resident New Zealanders that relate to (a) self-isolation and (b) mask use. Other orders also related to travellers during departure requirements, isolation and not boarding while symptomatic as well, limiting enforcement powers—and, of course, what I was talking about earlier around warrantless search into private dwellings, and once again reinforcing the lessons that we’ve learnt about empowering that local leadership, empowering our iwi and our Pasifika health providers, because they are the most connected to our communities. That is a lesson that we learnt as well.

However, we do have some massive concerns about this as well, because it’s all very well to—and I think it is a good thing to, you know, upgrade your tools, and we saw that with the response with officials around making sure that we engage properly with Māori communities. So the warrantless search thing didn’t work, wasn’t appropriate. However, putting your tools back in the tool kit is one thing; getting rid of the tool kit entirely is something else completely. So a number of us would’ve listened in to the announcements from last week which talked about the potential for there to be 11,000 daily cases over the summer break; also, the potential for there to be 100 hospitalisations per day as well. So I ask about the timeliness of this piece of legislation as well, and I understand that the Minister did touch upon that as well. Yes, we have moved through the winter peak, and that had a massive impact upon all of us. It is good that there is proactive thinking ahead about how to deal with related infections as well, because when I talk to people as well, they got COVID, they went into isolation, and then after they came out of isolation—I was one of those as well—they caught something else, because as the borders opened, there were more infections going around as well. So I totally understand and support that there needs to be a more rounded piece of legislation coming down the track which is COVID agnostic but actually captures all of those things which are continuing to come through the borders and impact upon people and families.

However, with the announcements made from last week around the potential for there to be a summer peak as well, I question the timeliness of this piece of legislation about parking all of those tools away. I talked about one good example about how the Government has upgraded its response, how we’ve all upgraded our thinking about how to better engage with Māori communities—ka pai; good thing. That’s a good thing to see. However, how does that relate to all the other different provisions? Why get rid of all the other tools? It would make sense to actually put the tools in the tool box, leave it there while we continue to move through the COVID pandemic, as opposed to just getting rid of the tools.

I worry about that in the context of the pressures on our health system, the amount of people we will be able to recruit for as nurses and health professionals. When you talk to them, they tell you about how overworked they are, how understaffed they are, and you can imagine, if there are 100 hospitalisations per day over a week in the middle of summer, the amount of pressure that that will create on our hospitals as well.

So, for me, what we actually need to see is we need to really think about, well, what’s the clear response here? What the Government needs to do is actually make that communication a lot clearer. Also, by removing all of these protections, how does it relate to actually how we’re going to get through the summer? How are we going to get through the summer? Summer is very different to winter, as we all know. I don’t know about you—sometimes, when it’s winter, it’s cold; you just want to stay home. You just want to stay home, stay with the whānau, keep warm, so on and so forth. But summer is a completely different beast. People want to get out, they want to connect with their families, they want to—there are festivals; our young people will want to go to festivals as well. So what’s the trajectory to make sure everybody is safe?

I was thinking about that in the context from one of the commentators from last week—and he’ll be no stranger to most of us—Professor Michael Baker, when he said earlier this week, actually, that right now the numbers are telling us that with every 100 cases, one person is going to hospital; with every 1,000, someone’s dying; and with every 20 cases, or perhaps fewer, someone’s going to get long COVID, which may be quite debilitating. What we can say to people is that it could be you, and we need to do everything that we can to avoid being infected or reinfected, because it could mean running a gauntlet of risks.

When I dived into the regulatory impact statement, I noticed that there were a number of options that were on the board as well. I wonder, because I think second reading is going to follow, then we’ll be in committee of the whole House, and then into third reading, if the Minister perhaps could reflect on whether this option that she has selected is the best one for this particular time. I would love to hear her rationale for it. So there are four options. Option one was just the status quo. Option two was continuing the powers in the Act without additional changes. Option three, which is the one that we have in front of us, was around continuing the powers in the Act, narrowing the powers of a core set of provisions for the ongoing management of COVID-19—so this is the default one that we’re working with as well. And option four is implementing disease-agnostic legislation, which is really important because as we know, when you when you catch COVID, as I was saying earlier, you might catch a bunch of other things, so having a piece of legislation that’s agnostic to COVID would be really, really important to have.

But I am curious about the proportionality aspect of it, and I’m curious about that in terms of the timeliness, our proximity to summer, the announcements that were made last week, and whether this is the right approach that the Government should be taking at this particular point in time given what we know is coming down the track with summer.

So I will leave it there. We still have some outstanding questions and concerns, and I know the Minister will have opinions on that, but at this moment the Greens cannot support this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and congratulations on your ascension to that role there.

💬 Hon Member: That’s right.

Ha, ha! The COVID-19 Public Health Response (Extension of Act and Reduction of Power) Amendment Bill—to me, this is a bill of two halves, or a tale of two halves; a good half and a bad half, depending on where you look at it and from what perspective. Now, ACT has been calling for COVID orders to be gone since October 2021. So we’re very happy to see quite a few reductions of the powers. So that’s fantastic, but the extension—to still carry on through to May, another two years; so 2025—it gets to me. We do need to be careful; however, I think New Zealanders have grown immensely. You need to see how well people now behave when they are sick, compared to only a few years ago, where people would turn up at work sick.

So I think most people are getting that message that they are adults, and they do know how to behave—that we don’t need to be told what to do. Most people now do wear masks when they feel sick, or if people are visiting loved ones or friends that we know that are immunocompromised, because nobody wants to get them sick. I think some people are even now wearing them, even if they’re not sick, because they are afraid to pass anything on.

From my previous background, working in serology, which dealt with quite a few infectious diseases—we’ve always had viruses, and viruses have always been around. It’s just how we learn to handle it. And I know COVID—yes, it is a new virus; it’s a new beast. However, we have had other virus outbreaks that have caused much damage within New Zealand, with measles outbreaks as well. So it’s not just COVID that New Zealanders have to worry about.

So the thing is that, yes, we do need to watch out for this, but then again we also have bacteria that can cause a lot of damage as well, like meningococcus; it’s a bacteria. We do have vaccinations, and if people choose to have been vaccinated, that is great, but again, it’s a choice for a lot of people. And as we’ve moved through these COVID orders, we’ve also had viral drugs now arrive in New Zealand, which help people.

But with this bill, as we’re saying, there’s the tale of two halves—the likes of removing the powers of warrantless entry to private dwellings and marae. This is fantastic. Why should people be able to enter anyone’s house? And yes, I understood that it was because of health issues, but still, that’s treating us like we don’t understand the rules and to stay at home. Yes, there’s always going to be people out there that always break rules. But that, to me, was encroaching on people a little bit too much.

Reducing the maximum penalties for infringement of criminal offences: now, when you look through this bill, I’ll bring up later how high those penalties were, you know, for the average person, especially now that we’re in a cost of living—and even having them dropped, and if they do come back into force, that’s a huge amount of money out of an average person’s pay packet if they were fined.

And then you also have—which makes most people really happy—the removal of managed isolation and quarantine. Now, this was heartbreaking for a lot of New Zealanders and it caused a lot of anxiety of loved ones not being able to get back here during this time. So we applaud the good, because that anxiety—I had family that had huge anxiety trying to come back to New Zealand for a job; they were 13 years away, and I felt sorry for those that couldn’t make it back for their loved ones that passed away.

Now, the bill retains some of the existing safeguards of the Act, such as the prerequisites for the COVID-19 orders, and the requirement that all COVID-19 orders be consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. Anything to do with New Zealand rights and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act; we have to give you guys a tick for that one as well.

So this is it: I’m not just opposing all of it. There are some really good things in here that we’re very, very happy to see that have been removed. But as we’re saying, we have to start treating New Zealanders as adults. We have to make sure that they understand what it’s going to be like to live in a world with viruses and also variants of COVID-19, the strains. By understanding and giving them the great examples of what is happening around the world, and following the best practices that are occurring—because we are lagging behind the rest of the world with how COVID is progressing.

So we can learn from that for, hopefully, when it comes back. But to have this for another two years on top from 2023, I think it’s a little bit too long, as well. So I think we could’ve dropped that back a little bit, because I think that we should be seeing more information, data, probably, by early next year.

The biggest thing of all is that there are so many more questions, and I think I’m going to leave it at this stage and wait for the second round, because I’ve got three more rounds to go and if I use up all my information in the first round—

💬 Chris Penk: Ha, ha! You haven’t used any yet.

I know you guys want to speak. So ACT cannot support this bill; we oppose it.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer—five minutes.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka, and I join my colleagues in congratulating you—I think I saw you last night as well—on your new position.

Tēnā tātou e te Whare. I rise to speak on behalf of Te Paati Māori in regards to the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Extension and Reduction of Powers) Amendment Bill—cripes, that’s a lot. Effectively, they are legislative tools that were created to uphold a public health response that failed Māori, that failed our Pasifika, and that failed our disabled communities. The Government’s saying that it needs to extend it to protect the most vulnerable is a bit of a hard tablet to swallow, to be honest, because from our perspective it’s always been seen as the “COVID-19 preferential health response”. Let me tell you why: over the last three years, whānau, hapū, iwi, and our own urban Māori organisations—Whānau Ora, our provider ora—filled Te Tiriti obligations of the public health response, which, effectively, side-stepped. In fact, what we saw was Māori providing the exemplary leadership and we saw, I guess, the whole way of avoiding or circumventing dire predictions for our people that, in fact, medical experts like Jonathan Jarman alluded to, because we had to step into the gaps where the public health response just wasn’t present.

If we were to support this extension—which we’re alerting that we won’t be—we would be ignoring its performance, and it’s a performance that saw not only failure for us but it failed to provide equitable opportunities for Māori to access information, data, resources, and vaccinations. In some cases, we were actively blocked from our own efforts to protect our own communities, and I witnessed that with my very own eyes.

Every piece of advice that was given to this Government by tangata whenua experts such as Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā over the course of this pandemic was ignored by the Government. Te Paati Māori forewarned at the beginning that there would be a mess and that there would be division, and we saw some of that. We saw from the knee-jerk reactions and examples of the mandates—that were scrapped anyway—that a one-size-fits-all approach was not going to work, and, in fact, it contributed to vaccination hesitancy and a lot of the division we see in the nation today. It wasn’t just us, as Māori politicians and Māori hauora sector experts, but there was also a damning report from the Waitangi Tribunal, which everyone seems to have forgotten about, called Haumaru, which highlighted the inequities and higher rates of infection for Māori and Pasifika, with huge recommendations that the public health response needed to be seen actively and be proactively taken on board.

So Māori constantly found ourselves having to pick the pieces of what we saw as reckless Government legislation that continued to marginalise and often criminalised our people, and had the Government heard Māori and engaged better at the beginning, we may not have found ourselves peaking in cases today because of mistrust and fatigue.

When the original Act was brought to the House, Te Paati Māori voted against it because we saw it as a failure of inclusive leadership. It failed to provide a pandemic response that worked for all people of all cultures and of all socio-economic circumstances, and it was a response that entrenched rather than eliminated inequities and disparities, many of which we see manifesting today.

So we’ve had to make huge sacrifices to ensure that the team of 5 million were protected. We changed our tangihanga, we changed tikanga, we closed marae, and in some areas, to ensure our vulnerable communities were protected, we did things that haven’t been done since muru raupatu. We are dealing with a once-in-a-generation crisis and we needed to have access to all tools to be able to be accountable for our people.

Tangata whenua know what happens during pandemics, and it was our people who bore the brunt of the virus. So while we support the intent of the Act and the public health measures, we could not in good conscience vote for legislation that enabled warrantless searches of marae by the State. This was a huge oversight, and we know that it could have been avoided.

The Act explicitly singled out marae—the cultural, economic, and last bastion of our mana motuhake. So I want to mention before I close—because I’ve got a couple of other calls to make as well—that I’m glad to see that you have learnt and I’m glad to see that you’ve gotten over this fetish for invading our marae by removing these provisions from the extended legislation, but we will not be in a position to support. We cannot support the extension of State power for another two years if nothing is going to happen to keep Māori, Pasifika, and disabled whānau safe. On that note, Te Paati Māori will remain consistent in not supporting it today.