Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. Now 11 November is the day the committee or the day the Minister wants the shortened report back to be. I was sitting here thinking 11 November—why does that ring a bell with me? It's Armistice Day but it's also the day of the dismissal in Australia. It's the day that the Governor-General was instructed—it's the day of the Whitlam dismissal when Sir John Kerr dismissed the elected Prime Minister of Australia. Of course in Labour Party legend this is the end of days. I'm sitting here thinking And that's relevant." Some people might think "Well why is that relevant?" It is important because—it's obviously not an extreme that is happening here but as Michael Woodhouse just made mention the slow whittling away of democracy and the way our system works is occurring. This is obviously not as extreme as the dismissal but it's in the same vein because here we are expanding extending or potentially extending the powers enormous powers the Government's given to itself or the Parliament has given to the Government under the existing COVID-19 Act. They want to just have a very short select committee process and not allow the Health Committee to do its job and examine the bill properly.There are two particular things I think the committee needs more time to look at. The first is the penalties. Now I've been reading through the regulatory impact statement in relation to the penalties for non-compliance and it is actually very concerning because the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee says as a matter of public policy that in general infringement fees should not exceed $1000 and if they do exceed $1000 preferably the amount is fixed in primary legislation. Well somewhere between the drafting of this bill and the draft bill prepared and the actual bill that we have before us the Minister decided a good penalty would be $4000. Now I'm not saying that's necessarily the worst idea but we're going to have to get to the bottom as a committee—and I'm on the Health Committee now—of exactly why that happened and how we've ended up with this very large increase in the penalties for breach of managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ).Obviously we're in favour of penalties and infringement notices but that is a massive increase and the officials actually advised against it. They didn't just advise against it. They said 25 percent higher would be the right thing to do—an infringement fee of $1250. They gave two other options $1500 or $2000 and the Minister's gone for $4000. So I strongly suspect he's just kind of put a finger in the wind and said "What sounds about right? Four thousand bucks. Well that's tough. That'll give me a headline."—'Minister cracks down on MIQ absconders' or something. You know it probably did give him a headline. I suspect the reason I know about it is because it was in the news. That's all good. But we're going to have to find out exactly why we've gone for $4000 because we're dealing with issues of rights here. So that's very important. I for one would want would want to hear from the legal beagles who monitor these things. Graeme Edgeler's going to make a submission I'm sure. We're going to want time to consider Mr Edgeler's submission alongside others.The other thing that we're going to have to consider—and this actually goes to the heart of the legislation and is another reason for a decent look at it at the select committee—is how long are we going to need this legislation for? That kind of goes to the heart of our COVID response. I heard the Minister's speech. The Minister said "Well even under National's plan you'll need various elements of it." and that's true. No one's ever denied that. He seemed to think it was a slam dunk argument but we accept that of course. In responding to COVID the Government does have to give itself the ability to move with flexibility and I think that in general the orders that the Government passes in relation to mandatory testing and things when they're actually enforced—because there was quite a long time there where the Government had the orders in place or they said they had the order and no one was actually doing the enforcing. It's only in the recent last couple of weeks or the last few weeks that there's been a huge enforcement. Generally that's worked pretty well.So no one's pretending that we're not going to need some piece of legislation but how long for? The Minister said in his contribution and I give him credit for this no one wants a piece of legislation like this for longer than is absolutely necessary. I know Chris Hipkins is a—to be fair to him—dedicated parliamentarian who believes in the rule of law and believes in Parliament for the sake of a Parliament and the benefits that a Parliament brings. Some of the things that Mr Seymour talked about are relevant here as well. I know that Chris Hipkins believes in that. But we are going to have to get to grips with the issue as to how long the Act is going to have to be extended for. That is a difficult tricky issue because it involves the operation of MIQ. It involves our border restrictions and how long they might be there for. It involves whether or not we're going to gradually open up.There's been a lot of heat and light today and you know a few Labour Party backbenchers very unfortunately said a few things that I think are going to come back to haunt them in the next few months about how the National Party wanted to kill people because they wanted to open the borders. By the way news flash to the New Labour backbenchers that's Government policy—or at least apparently it is purportedly it is Government policy to gradually open the borders. So I look forward to you castigating the Prime Minister when she duly stands up in a few weeks and gives a speech about how double-vaccinated travellers are going to have greater freedoms to come back to New Zealand. So all of the criticism about National wanting to kill people in their beds which have been lobbed by Labour members today will sound reasonably delicious when the Government announces a similar policy because we all know that's happening. In fact it's kind of already been announced at least ostensibly a couple of weeks ago in the Prime Minister's reconnecting New Zealand speech. So those comments will haunt them. But we're going to have to get to grips with that. What does that mean in terms of our overall COVID strategy and what does that mean in terms of our response?One issue we're going to have to grapple with is rapid antigen testing for example. It's explicitly banned in New Zealand. One of the orders that has been issued pursuant to this Act basically—or it doesn't basically; it does—prohibits people from bringing rapid tests into the country unless the Director-General of Health allows them to and so far he's said no apart from 30 or so cases which he's allowed for the ministry. So if you're the Ministry of Health you can have a rapid test to test it or for various reasons but if you're a pharmacist or you're a school or you're a trucking company who wants to test your workers at the Auckland boundary on a daily basis—that would be a sensible thing to do—you can't. You are banned from doing that. So we're going to have to get to grips with that through the legislation as well. I suspect there are going to be people who turn up to the committee and make that exact point that I've just made and we're going to want to hear from them.I think we're going to have a lot of submissions and that's the final point I want to make as to why we need more time. I think there's going to be a lot of people who go and make submissions in relation to this. I haven't even mentioned the Borrowdale litigation before the court which actually is relevant. Andrew Borrowdale—I've never actually met him but I'm told he is a former parliamentary draftsperson. You could describe him—since we're talking about history; I started my speech talking about the dismissal. To go to the 1970s again he's sort of like a modern-day Fitzgerald. For the listeners with long memories Fitzgerald was the man who back in 1975 said to Muldoon "Actually Robert Prime Minister just because you said on the election campaign trail that you'd get rid of the Labour Party superannuation fund mandatory contributions"—that operated from 1974 to 1975 I think; about nine months—"doesn't mean you actually have. You have to legislate for that."One of the greatest things I ever got when I first became an MP was from very good lawyer friends of mine Gareth Richards and Jonathan Orpin both barristers. They gave me a framed copy of the whole Fitzgerald v Muldoon judgment and it's on my office wall. The reason they gave it to me is because it's a tribute to the power of Parliament and the rule of law. The whole principle is Prime Ministers don't get to make the law by themselves. Parliament makes the law actually. The Prime Minister can't just decree things to be the case; only Parliament can do that. Why is that relevant for this? It's relevant because we're going to have to grapple with the powers that the Parliament gives to the Governments to make orders under this Act. In relation to the Borrowdale legislation that goes all the way back to the powers that the director-general exercised under the last COVID legislation and the last COVID lockdown. So those fundamental issues of constitutional importance raised by Mr Borrowdale harking back as I say to the Fitzgerald v Muldoon days in 1975 we're going to have to grapple with again. Those are deep fundamental issues and the committee needs time to deal with it. November 11 is too short a time to do that properly. Thank you Madam Speaker."