Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Today is a good day because on 1 September everyone in New Zealand aged 12-plus can go and get vaccinated. And if there's one thing I want every Kiwi to know it's that they can go and get vaccinated. It is safe it is effective and every single person who gets vaccinated—every single person—protects themselves and also protects New Zealand. Every single person that gets vaccinated is a next step towards avoiding more lockdowns and connecting New Zealand to the world. So please go and get vaccinated.Can I start by saying thank you to our essential workers—the people doing the testing our nurses on the front line and everyone else out there being part of our COVID-19 response. I want to address two questions in my speech today. Firstly have we done a good job on vaccination? Because although it's great that everyone can go and get vaccinated now our charge in the Opposition is that it has taken too long to get to this point. We supported the lockdown because there was no alternative—there was no alternative. But it is undoubtedly true that with a higher rate of vaccine coverage the lockdown would be shorter and the lockdown would potentially be more regional rather than countrywide. That's what vaccination does that's what the modelling released by Dr Verrall and other expert modellers suggests and that's why vaccination is critical.No one's saying that if we had got it to 50 or 60 the lockdown wouldn't have been necessary but what we are saying is that it would have been potentially shorter and it would be potentially more regional. That's why it matters that we are the second slowest in the developed world. That matters and that is on the Government. The supply shortages are on the Government. It's not good enough for the Government to put their hands up and say There's nothing we could do about it." There are two sides in a contract—there's the New Zealand Government and there's Pfizer. And we have agency—the Government of New Zealand has agency in a negotiating process and the reality is we signed our contracts late we ordered late we didn't order enough and now we have a shortage.We've got this bizarre situation where the Prime Minister uses almost Orwellian language to describe what is a shortage. So she said the other day—I think it was last week—"It's not that we have a supply problem; it's just that we need to have a little less demand." Well that's what happens when you have a supply problem. And to make matters worse we have not ordered any boosters. I just find this unfathomable because the United States is rolling out boosters from this month other countries have ordered hundreds of millions of doses and New Zealand has not yet ordered a single booster shot of Pfizer vaccine. If we're going to take a precautionary approach which the Government says they like to do we should be doing that—we should be doing that. If we don't need them we can give them away. That can be part of our responsibility to the Pacific. But a least-cost approach a least-regrets approach means let's order them now.Secondly were we ready? Because Delta has been a game-changer as the Prime Minister says and our charge in Opposition is that the Government was not ready for an outbreak of Delta. Only now are we doing a review as to the infection control in our managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities. The Crowne Plaza passed all its audits with a public walkway next to an exercise area. Today we discover in the New Zealand Herald reported by RNZ that COVID-positive people are walking around in an underground car park. As one expert said that does not pass the smell test. We've had people queuing for hours to get a COVID test. And a year on from the Roche-Simpson report saliva testing is nowhere to be seen other than at MIQ and even that's taken way too long. We're not making use of saliva testing out in the community. In fact rapid antigen tests are banned. It's impossible to bring in a rapid antigen test which might help us contact trace and test and trace and they're banned by fiat. They are banned by the Government. It just beggars belief. Of course with contact tracing the Dr Ayesha Verrall metrics have been failed. In fact the Government admits that but won't give us any new metrics to assess the Government themselves against. And we are still hiring people to contact trace. In fact it took six days before we seconded people from the Public Service. So were we ready? No we were not. The vaccination failure is on the Government. The readiness failure is on the Government. We had no alternative to the lockdown.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed."