Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): I'm sure you will Mr Speaker. Sir I was hoping to encourage you with the prospect of some scintillating syntax. Sir I presume you have in front of you a copy of the amendment to the motion in the name of my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse so you probably would agree with me that the word remains" should in fact be "remain" because it's the subjunctive. But moving from that to I think a more important point—an even more important point. I think that the construction of the amendment should it pass is such that there are two elements of time. One is that rather than the committee being disestablished it remain for as long as two things are true: one as long as the alert level remains at or above level 2 with consequent restrictions on the operations of Parliament and—meaning that both must be satisfied—the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act has not been repealed.The significance of that in my submission is that it is a relevant consideration for the House that both these things must be in place. The significance is that the member Michael Wood suggests that because the House does not in his opinion currently have restrictions consequent on alert level 2 the motion is meaningless. However because that's one of the conditions that would need to be satisfied in fact we could go back to an alert level that is higher than 2 as indeed the motion points out. So there could be consequent restrictions such as we have already seen come back into play.The Prime Minister and others have made it clear that there's no "reverse ratchet"—that's my phrase but essentially that we are not to expect as a nation that we'll necessarily remain at level 2 only to go to 1 and then 0 if such a thing exists. But in fact we might. If a second wave were to hit these shores then we could go up to alert level 3 or 4 and therefore it might become necessary once again even if it were not necessary now for the Epidemic Response Committee to remain relevant and hence it should not be disestablished.The clue in the title is that this is the Epidemic Response Committee. It was set up in response to an epidemic. Unless the Government is arguing that (a) the epidemic no longer exists or (b) that it should no longer be responded to then it makes sense that the committee—the body that was sent in response to the epidemic—should remain in force.It's possible I suppose—I've turned my mind to the possibility that the Government is looking to do the right thing for the wrong reasons but I have searched my mind and my heart for these reasons and I think others on this side have canvassed the possibility that it might be inconvenient politically. I won't traverse that ground. I promise you that there'll be no repetition of that nature sir. Others have made arguments along the lines that—well effectively the arguments have been made that it's logistically difficult for the Government members because we have seen in the past week or so effectively Ministers who would otherwise have been appearing in front of the committee deeming themselves to be too busy—the ministerial diary equivalent of washing their hair on the relevant day such that they were unable or perhaps unwilling to appear.Then of course we've got the possible arguments about the committee being extraneous from a constitutional point of view. Here is Parliament goes the argument so why would we need a parliamentary committee to continue to examine these? In the absence of that again so goes the argument from the Government side should we not disestablish it? Well while the Epidemic Response Committee is indeed a creature of Parliament and as others have pointed out it has a majority of Opposition MPs—almost uniquely among the current other select committees—the fact is for other select committees there must be an item of business on the agenda; a piece of work as it's sometimes known. It's an interesting phrase isn't it—piece of work. It had a different meaning when I was first aware of it. But anyway if there's not something that's the subject of a petition or a particular bill or an annual review or an inquiry already before the select committee then issues can't come before it.So it is that that's the value of the Epidemic Response Committee—that it can bring forward these things in a way that is not otherwise able to be contemplated in a timely fashion by select committees. Of course this Chamber is primarily a legislative body we're making laws and yet the purpose of the Epidemic Response Committee mainly is actually to scrutinise the operation of laws that have already been passed and that's the value of it. Of course it has been until now it is currently and should remain into the future.My final point sir—and I'm conscious I won't take my full 10 minutes but I did promise you content that was relevant and non-repetitive. I hope the fact that I'm still talking—Hon Jacqui Dean: Scintillating.CHRIS PENK: In fact the Hon Jacqui Dean reminds me I promised you scintillating comments sir.SPEAKER: I'm checking I'm not as asleep as Matt King was earlier in the gallery.CHRIS PENK: Oh right. OK. Well I suppose if he's gone to sleep I should wake him up seeing as it was my doing in the first place. I suppose there's other explanations why Matt King might have that look about him but I'm not responsible for all of those.The final argument is—and I guess it's by way of summarising the ones that I've already been making and others too on this side of the House—if it's not the case that the epidemic has gone away such that we no longer need to respond to it and if it's not the case that there are issues that continue to rise in relation to the response not the epidemic itself but also the Government response to that however impressive or otherwise that might have been—well I think we can say rightly that the people of New Zealand will continue to be affected not only by the epidemic but also the Government response to it and so it's appropriate for that committee to remain in force not be disestablished. So I too add my weight and support to the motion as amended in the name of Michael Woodhouse namely that it not be disestablished but remain in force for as long as those two things that we spoke about earlier remain true."