Simmonds Penny; Rurawhe AdrianPENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I rise to take this split call to speak in opposition to the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill. After spending much of last week amending the legislation when it was already out of date we have another bill to amend it and this bill and the processes to pass it are absolutely indicative of the Government's whole approach to COVID: confusing lacking in planning haphazard slow self-congratulatory arrogant and an affront to democracy in New Zealand. Let's have a look at each of them. Confusing—well we're moving from alert levels to traffic lights which the Government's own research has says people don't understand. Planning: this Government did not plan for Delta. Every advantage that we've had it's squandered by not planning when we had the opportunity to do so. They spent last year basking in the glory of their success over COVID which turned out to be not so successful after all and they should have been spending time getting our population vaccinated so that when Delta hit we were not sitting at 20 percent of our population vaccinated. Arrogant: because they see no need for people to have a say in this. For something that is potentially life-changing for many people they don't feel that they need to have any say in it. It is something so fundamental to the rights of New Zealanders but they don't need to have a say in the select committee process. So this bill impacts on both vaccinated and unvaccinated and my colleague Chris Bishop was at pains to say that National is fully supportive of getting as many people vaccinated as possible but it's really important for this Government to understand how life-changing this is for some people. I spoke to a young man living with a very serious physical disability in Dunedin last week. He needs to have 24-hours-a-day care to stay alive. Three of his five caregivers are unvaccinated. He has spent two months advertising to get caregivers and hasn't been able to. For another young adult with Down syndrome his parents are his paid carers. They are not vaccinated and so he faces the prospect of being taken from his family. This Government needed to hear from these people to understand the impact and think about how their bill needs to be implemented so that it does not put these people at risk in the way it is going to. The traffic light system is confusing. Green is meant to be fairly well Go ahead" if there is no COVID in the community and it's not going to threaten to overrun our health system yet the South Island—and particularly the lower South Island which doesn't have any COVID in the community or in the health system—won't be at green. The Prime Minister has said that no region will be at green so what does a region have to do to get to green if not having COVID doesn't let them be at green? So all the people impacted by this: the people with disabilities the people running businesses who will have to implement the vaccine pass verification and who knows whether they have to just visually see that or use the app because the Prime Minister tells them one thing and the Ministry of Health tells them another thing—all these people deserve to be able to have a say. They deserve to be able to scrutinise the legislation to submit on it and to have their say. But this Government has said "No we know best. We know all and you people out there you don't need to be heard on these matters that are going to impact on you. You will just do as we tell you. You will remain controlled by us without any input." DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired."