Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Mr Speaker I rise at this auspicious occasion in parliamentary history. It's almost the first time in the history of our Parliament that the ACT Party has more members in the Chamber than the National Party. I just couldn't help but point that out. I'm not quite sure what's happening there but I hope that they haven't got lost somewhere in the building or complex!In any case this is a very serious matter that we should turn to. The history here is that there was a lot of dissension over—oh here comes another one; we're back—the COVID19 Public Health Response Act. And I guess the safety valve that the Government put in place—and I think it was a good one—was to be able to continue to debate the orders that were put in place because we gave some pretty extraordinary powers to the Minister and the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Health that would restrict New Zealanders' freedoms. We felt that Parliament being an elected House of Representatives should have the ultimate oversight over that and it has. As ACT we believe that these orders certainly haven't threatened New Zealanders' basic liberties in any particularly pernicious way and we'd actually encourage the Government to start using them more surgically for want of a better term so that it can combat COVID-19 without putting such damaging blanket restrictions on New Zealanders' freedoms such as for example spending most of the last three weeks under some level of restriction.As Aucklanders that is having a devastating effect on kids' education on people's non-COVID healthcare on businesses going broke. I've got businesses—the Minister said the events space is going well; he should ask the people at the ASB Events Centre an iconic venue in huge trouble. You ask Well what does that mean?" and "Why is that relevant here?" Well we have orders and restrictions under the alert level regime at least which mean that you can go to a shopping mall with thousands of other people—Westfield Newmarket every Saturday every Sunday; there's more people in that mall than a lot of towns in this country—and yet ASB Showgrounds can't have an event with the same number of people even though they're prepared to put much more stringent controls into the access that people have. We'd make the case on behalf of the ASB Showgrounds and other people trying to hold events that actually the Government should use these powers it has to make orders that are a lot more surgical in the way that they keep people safe from COVID and allow people to go about their business. You can go to Westfield Newmarket with a couple of thousand other people at a time constantly going in and out—very dangerous. Having a controlled restricted entry in and out with special planning of where people can stand at any given time within the ASB Showgrounds—people who are experts at tracing who comes and goes from their exhibitions for other reasons by the way—they can't do it. And I think that's an example where it could be more surgical.Another example you know we've got air border orders that we are confirming here. The border is now facing quite a range of different people. We haven't had a case from Australia if I understand it for months but we're still getting cases almost every day from other parts of the world. There are countries that are very close friends of New Zealand particularly our friends in the Pacific—you know your Samoa your Cook Islands—where they have no cases of COVID and haven't had for a long time in Samoa's case ever. They are at greater risk of catching COVID-19 when they get put in managed isolation at the Pullman in New Zealand than they are in Samoa or once they get out to the rest of New Zealand. The question is why do we endanger them like that? Again the Government could use the orders the powers this Parliament's given it to be more surgical to actually start treating different risks differently.So far from saying that we need to restrain the Government or stop it from using these orders I'd actually encourage them to make use of the powers that Parliament's given the Government to put in place orders that allow people to maximise their freedom and prosperity without having to be further endangered by COVID. There's lots of opportunities to do it; I've given two. What do I know? I'm just an Opposition member of Parliament who's identified two pretty obvious opportunities that the Government hasn't used. I think if the Government was to bring the extraordinary resources that it has $100 billion a year budget I suspect it could actually think up quite a few more ways to use more surgical orders. Here's another one: we have an NZ COVID Tracer app. Now I'd be willing to support the Government saying actually not only is it mandatory for businesses to display a QR code it's mandatory for visitors to those businesses to use them. Let me just tell you how it works; it's pretty simple. Person A Matt Doocey comes in. Now if there's 50 percent usage then there's a 50 percent chance that we get him. Now of course I know Matt Doocey uses it all the time; he's a good citizen very good representative of the people of Rangiora.Hon Scott Simpson: Hard-working MP!DAVID SEYMOUR: Yep hard-working MP. Fifty percent chance that Person A uses it. Then the next person that comes in Scott Simpson hard-working MP for Coromandel 50 percent chance that he uses it. The chance that both of them scanned in at the same place is only 25 percent and that's if 50 percent of people are scanning in. The chances of actually connecting two people who are there is only 25 percent. Now in reality we're lucky if 10 percent of people are using it and 10 percent times 10 percent is a 1 percent chance of it working. So all the good people like Scott Simpson and Matt Doocey hard-working representatives of provincial New Zealand who scan in wherever they go—and there's Stuart Smith he's looking for a bit of attention in the back there—Stuart Smith: Absolutely!DAVID SEYMOUR: He's from Kaikōura and he scans in. All the hard-working people like Scotty and Matt and Stuart—I should say Simpson Doocey and Smith Mr Speaker because I want to follow the Standing Orders—they're all working hard along with a whole lot of New Zealanders who go and follow the rules turn their Bluetooth on and scan but the reality is that so few other people are doing it that the Government's not tracing anyone.We heard that; the silence was deafening. During this Valentine's Day outbreak we did not hear anything from the Government. If they'd used the NZ COVID Tracer app to actually connect any cases in that cluster they would have been shouting from the rooftops. They would have been saying the Tracer app is working; I guarantee it because this Government's good at nothing if not publicity. The fact that we didn't hear from them tells me they didn't trace a single contact using the NZ COVID Tracer app. Well I'd be supportive and ACT would be supportive of the Government using the powers it has under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act to actually put in place some mandatory requirements. It's already mandatory for a business to display a QR code; why not make it mandatory to sign in? There's another way they could use these powers and if that means that we can trace a cluster faster and not have to have a whole city under lockdown at varying yo-yoing levels of restriction for three weeks I think that's worth it. And I say that as someone who is nothing if not a civil libertarian. I'd put my reputation as a civil libertarian up against anyone in this House and I think actually it is worth balancing the requirements that people have in facing an epidemic in order that we maximise our overall freedom. There is no freedom for people losing their businesses no freedom for kids missing out on their extra-curricular activities and their school. There's no freedom for people missing out on their mammograms who actually don't know they have breast cancer as a result. Those are the kinds of things that we need to be thinking about and so I commend these orders I encourage the Minister to actually get to work in making more of them.Because here's the thing: one of the key roles of Government in the case of an epidemic an emergency like this—but actually in general—is to be an effective and efficient regulator; to set clear rules of the game that people can find and read and understand so they know what the rules are and they understand what the consequences might be of breaking them. As we've seen in the last few weeks when the Government doesn't do its job of making the rules clear confusion ensues and people get locked down. We don't want that. So the next thing the Government could do that I would encourage the Minister is to take these orders and actually publish a comprehensive chart of the circumstances in which people can find themselves and say "This is what you do if you suspect you're sick" and then the flow chart tells you what happens when you get tested and what happens to people who're near you. Because actually I know people who have been in this situation and they've found it damn difficult to find out what the answer is. And the next thing they should do is actually show the authority show the specific order that makes it a requirement to do such and such a thing if you are in a certain circumstance. Because at the moment the Government's got all this legislative power to make the rules; they're not making them surgically enough they're not making them clear and they're not linking their communications to the rules. Those are all ways the Government could do better.It's not often that this Government will get encouragement from the ACT Party to make regulations and talk about its regulations. This is actually one of those times. And so with that I commend these orders. I hope the Minister will take them seriously and use them better to maximise New Zealanders' overall freedom and welfare. Thank you Mr Speaker.Motion agreed to.Orders approved."