Seymour David; Dean JacquiDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to this COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2). This bill is a really sad day for the evolution of New Zealand's COVID-19 response. It has to be seen in that wider context. Let me give you a Cook's tour of how we got here where we need to go and where this bill is taking us.No country had greater natural advantages in dealing with a pandemic than New Zealand. You don't have to take my word for it. I've asked the Minister for COVID-19 Response to name a country that had more advantages than New Zealand and he couldn't think of one. If he can't think of one then I don't think anyone can because no country has New Zealand's combination of isolation of low population density a young population a population that has high social capital where if the Prime Minister says Oh look it's pretty bad; just go home for seven weeks put a teddy bear in your window and we'll call you." people actually do it. Now you try doing that in France or Italy! We have a country that is wealthy compared with most countries. Our country was prepared and in a better place to respond to COVID than any other country and we were the 63rd country to get a case; so we actually had time to prepare. But even then the Government didn't. Let me take you back to the days of 21 March 23 March and 25 March of 2020. Those were the days that the Government announced the alert level system—1 2 3 4—put New Zealand on Monday the 21st into alert level 3 and on Wednesday put New Zealand into alert level 4. And in those days when the rest of the country was already dealing with it and we'd been lucky so far this Government said "We think we have to flatten the curve." Even the elimination strategy was not deliberate; they actually stumbled into it. A few weeks in the Prime Minister thought "Oh I think we could completely eradicate it." and we did. And we as a country enjoyed a long summer both metaphorically and literally with very little COVID afforded by our ocean fortress with the Tasman the Southern and the Pacific Oceans protecting us from COVID. Three times we managed to beat back outbreaks in August in February and again later in 2021. We managed to have an outbreak and eradicate it and that was a good thing helped by our natural advantages. But the Government at that point like a lot of people who are lucky started to think it must be all us and they got a bit complacent. They didn't increase the number of ICU beds. They didn't think "Gee we should order some of those vaccines everyone else is ordering." And when they did order them they didn't think "Hmm everybody's got a QR code scanning app on their phone. Maybe there should be a QR code in the vaccine booths so that people can make an electronic record that might come in handy a bit later if we want vaccine certificates." They didn't think of any of those sorts of things and suddenly something else came along: Delta. And when we were hit by Delta the Government was helter-skelter. They did not make the preparations for this new paradigm. The Prime Minister in question time today was saying "We don't have Alpha anymore; we have Delta." It was like she was shell-shocked like she'd just figured it out now. I mean it was quite extraordinary. I think it takes a while for things to sink in with our Prime Minister. That is the sad truth charismatic as she may be. The problem was that the Government got a bit complacent and they thought they were going to hit a perfect home run. Here's what they thought and I know this to be true because I had a special briefing from the Minister for COVID-19 with my good friend and colleague Chris Bishop and Ayesha Verrall who I really like because she's very honest and probably shouldn't be in politics said in that briefing "Doesn't matter. We're going to have the vaccine." Chris Bishop: Yeah.DAVID SEYMOUR: You see this Government thought—oh and the great thing is I say to Chris Bishop the Prime Minister offered me another briefing. So I went along to Chris's briefing and I think that I should take him along to the briefing the Prime Minister's promised me. So we're looking forward to that new briefing. But nevertheless I digress. You see they thought they were going to hit this home run. The vaccine was going to give population immunity and the managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) would keep the virus out so we would be able to go all the way through with no problems and the Labour Government with the Midas touch would sail through and say "We had almost no outbreak almost no deaths almost no impact. It was all good."But unfortunately two things went wrong. One was the Delta variant that broke through MIQ. And the second was the vaccines weren't quite perfect. Now Madam Speaker I know you probably read ACT's COVID 2.0 paper back in March that said there are mega trends driving this pandemic now. One is vaccines the other is variants and the other ones were technologies and fatigue. Well hasn't come true. We have a problem now where the variant meant Delta got through the border and the vaccines haven't been done in time and we don't have the vaccine passports; so we're actually stuck unable to move to the traffic light system and New Zealanders are now paying and paying and paying.I could give you story after story having visited Auckland a couple of weeks ago and walked around and visited real shops—not staged photo ops like the Prime Minister—just walking up to people and saying "How are you going?" and hearing what real people had to say. I heard for example someone who was an accountant and he said "I probably shouldn't tell you this but I've got a hairdresser who on my books at the start of this outbreak on the 18th of August had 100 grand in the bank cash ready to handle anything. Now they're in debt. They've burnt all their cash reserves keeping their staff in some level of wages and paying their rent and their insurance and their bills. And now they are broke and they don't even know when they're going to be able to open." That's the effect of a Government that just was not prepared to deal with Delta. Along comes this bill and this bill—here's what it could do. It could be saying that COVID is going to be endemic everyone in New Zealand will get it and the question is how safely we transition how able we are to protect lives how long it takes and how much costs we stack on to Government and business and future taxpayers in the meantime. Those are the only things that matter. This bill could be taking us on a pathway to get vaccination rates up in those final few percentage points with incentives and partnerships. It could be about using new technology. But it's not about any of that. It is about reinforcing the command and control approach of locking down and locking out—party like it's March 2020. That's where this Government's mind-set is still at. We heard from the Minister—I mean one of the most extraordinary things in this bill is that it basically allows the Government to take people's property if they are a testing lab. It's a little bit like if you wanted there to be lots of generators—I heard Eric Crampton say—if you wanted lots of generators in your community in case there was a power cut imagine if the Government passed a law saying: if there is a power cut we'll confiscate your generator. What's that going to do to investment in generators? What do you think it's going to do to people investing in lab technology in New Zealand if you live in a country where the Government can just take it?And the Minister—I mean one of the Labour members—I sometimes find they're interchangeable. But one of them said "Look there's compensation." Well it says compensation at the market rate. What's the market rate Shanan Halbert in the middle of a crisis? How do you set that market rate? Oh and once that rate's been set there's no court of appeal. Now I think Shanan Halbert is a lawyer I think. Now he should surely know that usually you're allowed to appeal. This legislation means you can't appeal beyond the District Court. Taking that property is totally outrageous and the Government says it's because testing is so important. Well here's the question: if I'm in New South Wales I can go to the pharmacy and buy a rapid antigen test; I can't do that here and yet this Government says testing is so important. This bill could be legalising rapid antigen testing for everybody but it's not. Sadly we have a Government that is stuck in 2020 lets people pay and pay putting forward legislation that kicks the can down the road while people keep suffering. That's why ACT cannot support this bill. Thank you Madam Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Sarah Pallett. David Seymour: Oh this'll be good"