Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Madam Assistant Speaker. If I could give you the too long; didn't read" version of that Minister's lamentable 15-minute contribution to this very important debate it would be: "Two people have died in preventable ways in a Government-run home isolation system. That's terrible and we weren't ready." That's basically the short summary of a very lamentable 15-minute contribution in this debate which is: we accept that two people have died in preventable ways—and that's to quote the northern health organisations' review of those deaths—we don't like that that's regrettable and the system wasn't ready. Well my question to the Government is: why was the system not ready? What we had was a stunning admission just then from the Government and in their response to media reports of these deaths that the system was not schooled up the system was not geared up to cope with the number of daily cases that presented in this most recent outbreak. And I quote the Minister: "The system wasn't ready for the rapid escalation in the number of daily cases. … [We expected] 100 to 120 cases a day. … [We were not ready for] 150 to 200."Here's a question. Why was the system not ready? When is Andrew Little as the Minister of Health going to stop blaming everyone other than the Government and his own ministry for the failings that he presides over? Because the thing that has come through with this Government whether it's vaccination passes or business or the health system readiness or rapid antigen testing or anything at all—when it comes to COVID the clear theme that comes through is it's everybody else's fault but the Government's. Everything that happens is everyone else's fault. It's never the responsibility of the Ministers. They're always able to disclaim responsibility. It's always somebody else's fault. Well the question for Andrew Little and the Government Ministers that will follow in this very important debate moved by Brooke van Velden is: why was the system not ready? Why has Sir Brian Roche written a report to Government in September this year 23 September saying that there are urgent issues with respect to New Zealand's preparedness for reconnecting—in other words opening up. And the current outbreak—and remember this is in September and the outbreak started in August—has revealed the very poor level of preparedness of the hospital systems for Delta. Why is that the case?I put it to you that unfortunately the Government spent the first few months of this year assuming that elimination would work. They assumed that they'd run the same playbook as 2020 which was very successful which was that we would erect the border barriers not let anybody in and we would use the hard measures of lockdowns to eliminate COVID from New Zealand again. The reason I say that I think the Government thought that is because that's pretty much what the Prime Minister said. When Delta turned up on 17 August and it had been in the community for a few days but the first case came through the system on 17 August—everyone remembers; here we go again. Delta has arrived; 20 percent vaccination. The numbers were so low. The Prime Minister turned up on national television and she said "short and sharp". Remember that? Remember a "short and sharp lockdown"? Poor old David Seymour got a $3000 parking bill because he believed her. I would have thought a guy who's been in Parliament for four years would know better than to believe the Prime Minister when it comes to exhortations from the podium of truth or the podium of mistruth as is now being called—the podium of platitudes as we now call it on this side because that's all we get these days. We don't get the truth from the podium; we get platitudes. But I would have thought David Seymour as an experienced member of Parliament would know better than to believe what he listens to from that podium. He got a $3000 parking fine poor guy because he thought it was going to be short and sharp. What's that?David Seymour: You can't even trust the PM with your parking now.CHRIS BISHOP: You can't even trust the Prime Minister with your parking. He thought it would be short and sharp. And as it turned out because there was no prep work whatsoever for Delta it was not short and sharp and because our vaccination rates were so low—20 percent in mid-August—we had to do the lockdown and it went on and on because there was no prep work for Delta. And as it turned out as the outbreak persisted the Government had no idea what to do. Now a sensible Government would have listened to people like Rako Science who said "Let's scale up the testing—let's scale up the saliva testing that we can provide. Let's carpet-bomb South Auckland with rapid antigen tests to try and find as many people with COVID as possible." But no no no. This smart Government that eliminated COVID last year they knew better. They'd just run the 2020 playbook and all would be well. Well actually what happened was all was not well and we have now spent four months the better part of the last four months of this year in Auckland in a lockdown which is only now lessening. There was no back-up plan from the Government. I don't like using the word "Plan B" because of the connotations that that has come to be associated with. So I talk about back-up plan. There was no back-up plan. It was assumed that elimination would work.And we know from the Government's own documents that from August the officials were writing to Ministers Peeni Henare and David Clark. They were writing to the Ministers saying: we are now starting some work on Delta. In August! Why were the officials writing to Ministers in August saying things like: "We're setting up a work programme to consider the effect of Delta on New Zealand."? Hmm. What a sensible idea that would be! I'll tell you when it would have been a sensible idea to do: maybe back in March and April because Delta was in managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) from the first week of April. The Prime Minister says "Oh well Delta. It's a very tricky virus you know. Look there's no playbook for it." Actually there was a playbook. We knew what was coming because we were the last to get it. That's the other thing. We were the last to get Delta because we're at the bottom of the world and we had these high barriers and we looked at the UK and we looked at the United States and we looked at Australia and we knew that it was going to come. But the Government only got on top of doing some work on it in August—in August! It's just unfathomable when it was in MIQ since April. That is the context for this report.The Government should have been ready. It was as clear as day to anybody that at some point COVID was going to turn up here again and we had to be ready for it and the Government had no plan. That's the context with which this report comes because if you read the report it makes it very clear that the Government had to very quickly stand up a home isolation system. Just read it. Page five: "The speed of change mandated by the rapid rise in cases cannot be over-emphasised with consequences including confusion and delayed response. … the rapid increase in the number of patients requiring the service far exceeded planning and expectations. Capacity … was initially overwhelmed." That's in the report and the Minister accepts it. The Minister accepts the findings of the report and he says "Well we'll put it right." Well that's all very well and good now but we need to know and the House needs to know why that was not done earlier. Why did the Government spend April May June July August September in denial about what Delta would bring?Barbara Kuriger: Because they're hopeless.CHRIS BISHOP: Because they're hopeless says Barbara Kuriger. Why did the Government spend all that time assuming that elimination would work? It's possible to walk and chew gum at the same time or it should be for a competent Government. Clearly we had to try and make elimination work. No one doubts that as a strategy. We adopted an elimination strategy that enjoyed bipartisan support across the Parliament particularly in the first six months of this year. Clearly we had to make elimination work but you don't put all your eggs in one basket. You do not. You have to plan for the future. What the Government should have been doing was saying "In the event that Delta turns up it will spread. What will we do when it does? Well we're going to end up with a lot of cases in ICU and a lot of cases in hospital and we're going to end up with some cases in the community; we need a plan for that." What is so clear from these documents from reading the Sir Brian Roche advice of September and reading the Northern Region Health Coordination Centre's own report is that no one bothered to do that. No one bothered to say: go away and do some work on home isolation. I got an Official Information Act (OIA) response from the Whanganui DHB the other day. Three weeks ago I OIA'd them and I said "What's your home isolation plan? I want to see a copy of it." They hadn't even produced one. This was three weeks ago in mid-November. You know you ask yourself why that is the case and the reality is there's probably no central direction. So I find this incredibly depressing because it was so clear that we needed to be planning for the future. Good government is not just about responding to what's in front of you on a day-to-day basis; it's not. It's not just about reacting week by week and turning up in question time and saying things are OK when they're not. That's not good government. Good government is thinking ahead. Good government is actually directing the officials to think ahead and to think about what's coming. And the tragedy of these reports and the tragedy of these two poor men who have died is they died in preventable ways. That's what the report says. If this Government had been on the job and competent from the outset they would not have died. Thank you very much."