Davis KelvinHon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti): I quite enjoyed watching the death throes of the Leader of the Opposition. I look forward to seeing Simon Bridge's contribution early next year and I congratulate him in advance.As I walked down from my office today I was handed a newspaper article describing the Māori Party's COVID plan. Now let me just say that it's full of contradictions it's full of double-speak and it's full of talking out both sides of their mouth. They say that they want to protect Māori and yet they do everything they can to undermine any initiative that's put in place to encourage Māori to take up the vaccine. Everybody knows that there's a global pandemic. Everybody knows that the right thing to do is to get vaccinated. We on this side of the House won't give up on our people but obviously the Māori Party have. Clearly they lack the fortitude to be straight up with our people and say Get vaccinated." It's a lot easier for the Māori Party to say "Don't worry about getting vaccinated because we're here just to criticise and blame the Government on your behalf."So let me just look at some of the points that the Māori Party have raised in this article. First of all they want to shut down New Zealand until Māori vaccination rates hit 95 percent. I say fair enough—if that's their goal 95 percent good on them but then again like I say they've done all they can to undermine the initiatives that have been put in place to increase Māori vaccination uptake such as the vaccine mandate. The vaccine mandate applies to about 40 percent of our workforce. If the Māori Party didn't realise actually Māori are part of our workforce and they also engage with Māori as they engage with the workers. But of course the Māori Party don't want to adopt the vaccine mandate except—and here's one of the contradictions—for front-line hospitals and medical clinics. I say to the Māori Party what about prison officers? Corrections officers are over 97 percent vaccinated. The front-line corrections officers are 97 percent vaccinated. That's so that we don't have Māori in prison dying from COVID—because we know that COVID comes in and it's most likely to come in on unvaccinated workers. And here was Rawiri Waititi earlier this year riding into Waikeria on his kunekune saying "Oh this is terrible. The people in Waikeria Prison are being mistreated because they can't change their linen every couple of days." He'll stand on his soapbox and worry about prisoners being able to change their linen every couple of days but he won't stand up and say that vaccine mandates are appropriate in prisons so that we don't have Māori dying in prison. That is a contradiction from the Māori Party. Then we talked about the schools and teachers. Now if any teacher—and I'm speaking as a former teacher a former principal and as the Minister for Children—believes that their rights override their obligations and responsibilities to keep children well and alive then I say "Haere rā teachers. I don't want you in our schools if you put your rights above your obligations and responsibilities to children. Haere rā." Children do not have the option of getting vaccinated at this stage. The most important part of a teacher's role and responsibility is to look after the wellbeing of our children. Teachers have to mitigate risks if they take the kids swimming if they go on a school trip if they walk their kids down the road to a sports day. They have to mitigate risks. They have to fill out a risk analysis matrix but the Māori Party don't think that teachers should have to get vaccinated to protect the children. I think of all those tamariki in the kura kaupapa close to 100 percent Māori—and they don't think that those Māori teachers have a responsibility to our Māori children. That is a disgrace on behalf of the Māori Party. They say that the Government has failed Māori. Well I ask them to look at their own leadership and former leadership in the Māori Party invoking rangatiratanga and mana motuhake to justify not getting vaccinated. Let me say that a rangatira was somebody who looked after the best interests of the whole hapū and if you're going to have individuals in the former leadership of the Māori Party standing up and saying they're invoking rangatiratanga just to look after themselves I say again: that person is not a rangatira.The Māori Party legitimises and are apologists for the anti-vaxxers; the Google doctors; the Facebook experts; the conspiracy theorists; the right-wing crazies who marched along with their Trump flags right next to the flag of rangatiratanga the Māori flag the flag of He Whakaputanga."