Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Mr Speaker. I didn't come to the House with the view of taking a call today but Minister Parker's comments have spurred me into action. I'll just take a short call because I spoke in opposition to the original piece of legislation that was put forward. I made a number of comments and I—as I often do—put my speech on my social media page. I didn't post it; I just put it there. Within a couple of weeks it had had 141000 views thousands of comments and thousands of shares. There's a reason for that and it's not because there is a minority of baseless conspiracy theorists out there; it's because there is a huge number of very concerned New Zealanders. The reason that Minister Parker came to the House today and was so very defensive about his position on this bill and had a good jab at us and a good attack—probably at me in particular because I made that speech and I had such a great reach; he probably watched it—was because he knows that he has a problem. He knows that he's got a problem with his own Māori caucus. I've spoken to members of his Māori caucus when I've been walking around these halls and they said to me themselves that this was the single biggest issue that was brought to their attention by their constituents in the whole of this Parliament. Now what does that tell this House? That tells this House that these guys have got a problem. The majority of New Zealanders believe that you have a right to privacy in your own home without the police being able to come in and do a headcount in case there's 11 people at your kid's birthday—which was the case that I pointed out in my first reading speech on this—because your neighbour is so terrified of COVID because this Government's put everyone into a state of panic. There might be 11 people at a birthday party 11 people at a lunch or 12 people at some gathering and the police can come in and do a headcount and that is exactly what this law does. That is exactly why every member of the Māori caucus of the Labour Party has been lobbied on this for the last few months. They know it's a big problem. They have told me themselves how big an issue this is and that's why those members are so very defensive. They come to the House today and try and explain it away as some conspiracy theory. Well actually I think we need to give a little bit more respect to the people of this country—that they are allowed to have concerns over this bill. The concerns that they hold are well founded because they know very well that these powers are likely to be abused especially in certain communities—because they've experienced it in the past and they will experience it in the future—and they have every right to ask questions. It's not anti-democratic. It's not a conspiracy theory. That's what we do in a democracy: we ask questions around parts of law that we think are a massive overreach and in this State are turning New Zealand into what I described in my speech as a police State. You have the right to enjoy the freedom and privacy of your own home without the police coming in to conduct a search and a headcount based on the amount of people you may have in your house. I spoke to a number of police officers around this. I said to them In what circumstances would you go into someone's home without a warrant?" and they said "Well actually we hardly ever do that for good reason because if we ever do the judge always pulls us up and it hardly ever goes through." They said that you've pretty much got to be chasing someone into that house with a gun. You can walk past someone's house see that there's a pipe in the window and you still wouldn't go in without a warrant. They said "We hardly ever do it." I remember very well in the House when I gave my speech we had the Labour members getting up and saying "Oh well you know noise control officers have warrantless powers of entry."—which is absolute rubbish. They don't. They have warrantless powers of entries to the property but not the house. But that was the rubbish that was spouted by the other side of the House. This is a massive overreach. The Māori members of the Labour Party and people around New Zealand are correct when they think that this is a massive overreach. They are right to be asking questions and it is absolutely despicable that the Minister would come down to the House and call them baseless conspiracies and say that these are all conspiracy theories. Well actually we have a little bit more respect for these people. We believe that they have the right to ask these questions and we will put these questions in the House as well. Like I say 141000 people who watched my video and the thousands of people who commented and the certain sectors of this community out there who are very worried about this bill have absolutely every right to be worried. We will stand up for them which is what we are doing and we continue to oppose this bill."