Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Well that 10-minute speech from the Attorney-General summed up his character I think absolutely perfectly: pleasant polite and then at the same time railing on anybody that disagrees with him calling anybody that doesn't support that Act or this motion inappropriate politicking saying that the public should rightly ask why members of this House do not support it if they don't and saying that they're baseless conspiracy theories—all of those criticisms that we heard when this bill was being passed under urgency were all from a bunch of conspiracy theorists. Well there must be hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them right around the country because we heard from a lot of them and they did not like what was being done to their personal freedoms and not only that the manner in which it was being done. Mr Parker calls that baseless conspiracy theories and says that it would be nonsense not to support him and his Government. Now months have passed since the Government deemed that the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act was necessary and we are in a different time. We actually went to level 2 at that point and there were notices made under section 11 of the Act that did provide constraints on the freedoms of New Zealanders and we're now out of that time. So just as the Attorney-General has reminded the House and the public why this Act was necessary I think it's also appropriate to remind this House and the public why my party felt that this was executive overreach inappropriate use of the powers of Government and the wrong process. The lack of public involvement in this and the scandalous sidelining of the Epidemic Response Committee in favour of a committee with a majority of Labour members on it to review the Act literally 72 hours after the Act was passed—now in 170 years of parliamentary democracy in New Zealand that as far as I can tell has never occurred. Acts are reviewed. We often build review clauses into bills to ensure that there is an appropriate scrutiny but that's usually after they've gone through the appropriate scrutiny of a select committee process. Now the Epidemic Response Committee did consider two pieces of legislation in short order. I was a member—I chaired actually the bill submissions and the consideration of those bills. We reported back to the House within 10 days and we made bills better as a consequence of that. We still don't know because the Attorney-General will not share the advice that he was given that either section 70 of the Health Act was appropriate for levels 4 and 3 or that the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act was appropriate and necessary for levels 2 and 1. The Epidemic Response Committee had to go through the extraordinary step of effectively summonsing the advice and the Attorney-General not only vetoed that but came to this House late one night and quietly passed a motion to kill off the Epidemic Response Committee because that kind of pesky democracy thing was getting a bit inconvenient for him. Darroch Ball: Because the House had started sitting again. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Now I want to—well we did it in the House. So Darroch Ball says Well the House was sitting so it was OK to get rid of the very committee that should have been examining this bill." Not only did the bill not go to it; we got rid of the committee and I remind the member that the committee had not concluded its business. There was still much to do otherwise why not have any select committees Mr Ball? I bet that would be good for Winston Peters and the New Zealand First Party: "Just get rid of all those pesky select committees because the public they just ask annoying questions and make annoying comments about what the Government wants to do." Well that Mr Ball is called democracy—it's called democracy. Now Mr Parker described this as an essential legal framework. I challenge the use of the term "essential". He talked about this Act replacing the 1956 Health Act. Actually it doesn't. The 1956 Health Act is still there and my reading of the 1956 Act is that it could even with some minor amendments have satisfactorily addressed the situation that the Government found itself in as it was moving to level 2 or level 1. We don't know what advice the Attorney-General got because he won't release it but I say to the Attorney-General—and he should know this better than anybody—something created in the 1950s doesn't necessarily make it out of date. It has stood the test of time. It does need updating and that's a much much larger body of work but I'm yet to see any compelling advice that that legal framework was not sufficient to manage the situation that we had and I think we need to remind ourselves what this Act gave the Government powers to do. Mr Parker said it was limited warrantless powers to break up mass gatherings. No it wasn't. It was a power to enable the police and authorised officers to go in the private homes of individuals in New Zealand and do a headcount. Darroch Ball: They can do that now. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: No they—only because of this Act Mr Ball. They have no without-cause reason—a warrantless reason—to go into houses for any other purpose. Darroch Ball: They can do it now. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: "They can do it now."—well the member needs to listen more carefully. If they have reasonable cause to suspect that a crime is being committed at that time then they can. So what they're saying is gathering in numbers greater than 10 is the same as attempted murder arson violent assaults—that's what we want do we? Do we want the police to be able to go into our houses and go "One two three four—11. You're breaking the law." Marae the same. That's what got the public so upset. Darroch Ball: What nonsense. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Yeah OK—go out on the campaign trail Mr Ball and tell the New Zealand public they're stupid because that's what your interjection is just saying. You know what? I support the rule of law but I also support the process of lawmaking. This has been an absolutely appalling appalling process and we still don't know why it was necessary. Section 11 powers were massive executive overreach and then they told the public their views weren't important enough "But we'll pay lip service to them after the Act has passed only we won't do that through the Epidemic Response Committee. We'll give it to the Finance and Expenditure Committee."—as if this is a finance issue. The only reason it went to that committee was because the Labour Party had a majority. The Finance and Expenditure Committee was extremely busy. They were flat out getting a number of other things through and yet—and I see Dr Deborah Russell over there. She probably was shaking her head when she heard that she had to take on that body of work and she probably thought "Well hang on. Haven't we got a perfectly good committee?"—a committee incidentally that through the lockdown and afterwards was credited worldwide as the exemplar of how representative democracy could continue through a pandemic. I remember Derek Cheng from the New Zealand Herald wrote that "If one watches question time viewers would have a very jaundiced view of our parliamentary democracy. But if one watches the Epidemic Response Committee faith could be restored because it was such a good process of examining dispassionately what the Government was doing and what could be done in an emergency." I went on a World Bank parliamentary global forum online in the early hours of Anzac Day April 25. We had some excellent submissions from around the world about what parliamentarians were doing and the biggest comments that were being made in the chat rooms that were the sidebar to the virtual conference were the concerns in modern democracies that the executive was putting aside the role of Parliament in making decisions and this is exactly what happened here in New Zealand. Darroch Ball: Oh that was National's idea was it?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Oh dear oh dear. So we can't support the motion. If we could not support the Act when it was passed and we were appalled by the process that was followed before during and after the Act's passage then it stands to reason that we stand with the public of New Zealand who were not baseless conspiracy theorists. They were actually advocates of freedom and personal responsibility to act appropriately without the long hand of the executive and its constabulary to reach into their houses without warrant to do a headcount. That alone is a reason not to support this Act. It's certainly the reason why the National Party continues to oppose its extension."