12. Question No. 12—Prime MinisterHon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime MinisterQuestion No. 12—Prime Minister12. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she agree there needs to be a royal commission of inquiry into the Government's preparation for COVID-19 Delta; if not why not?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): I agree that there has been a need to ensure the Government's response to COVID-19 has been fit for purpose which explains the existence of two rapid reviews of the all-of-Government response: the Simpson-Roche review the Strategic COVID-19 Public Health Advisory Group the COVID-19 Independent Continuous Review Improvement and Advice Group and of course there are a number of technical advisory groups we've used to inform our response which includes the core Technical Advisory Group chaired by Dr Ian Town the Vaccine Technical Advisory Group the Testing Technical Advisory Group and the Therapeutics Technical Advisory Group which are all serving us well. We've also had a rapid audit of contact tracing for COVID-19 an ombudsman review and three reviews from the Office of the Auditor-General. I think this list demonstrates there has been scrutiny and we've adapted our response as a result at every stage of this pandemic. Specifically on any form of future review I don't disagree with the value in ensuring we learn from this experience. It is a matter of timing though and right now we're better to respond to the pandemic itself than to investigate that response. Hon Judith Collins: If she's learnt so much from the reviews that have already been undertaken then why is Auckland entering its 13th week of lockdown or was that part of the plan? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I'm not sure if the member has noticed but we are in the middle of a global pandemic and relative to most countries the response that has jointly been rolled out by New Zealanders has been one of the more successful ones if your measure of course is your hospitalisations your deaths and even the impact on the economy or overall the impact of restrictions over a period of going on two years. The reason that we are currently facing restrictions in Auckland is because of the pandemic and because Delta has been particularly more challenging than other variants and no country has escaped its impacts. Hon Judith Collins: So was it part of her Government's plan for fewer than 20 percent of the country to be fully vaccinated when Delta made it into the New Zealand community? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member will notice that we currently have rates of vaccination that are higher than some of the countries that started vaccinating many months before us. But we have a plan which is particular to New Zealand. We want to protect New Zealanders from COVID and we want to minimise its impact on our daily lives which means that we are using a combination of vaccines and public health measures and we are easing into that framework carefully to again ensure that we don't see our hospital system overrun—which has not unfortunately been the case for many other countries. Hon Chris Hipkins: Would having Government officials and others involved in the COVID-19 response not working on the COVID-19 response but instead taking time to appear before a royal commission and give evidence to a royal commission help or hinder that response? [Interruption]SPEAKER: Which member was it who interjected then? Which member was it? The member will stand withdraw and apologise. He knows what the rules are better than anyone else. Hon Michael Woodhouse: I withdraw and apologise. Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member is right to draw out that there would be consequence to at this point in the response drawing the attention of those who are critical to continuing to respond to the pandemic away to a review process. You can see we have of course ensured that we've had scrutiny through our response all the way through but we've done it in such a way that we can continue to respond to the pandemic as we also vary our response and learn from every stage because frankly no country in the world had a rule book for COVID-19. Hon Judith Collins: Why is it that more than a year since the Simpson-Roche report she still hasn't got saliva testing right throughout the country as they recommended? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We are using saliva testing. I'd point out as well that in the use of that saliva testing of course there are some jurisdictions some areas where we've created it as an opportunity to be used and some have chosen to use the nasal swabs instead but it is available and it is being used. Antigen is increasingly being used in health settings as well and we anticipate in the future it will be used more often as part of some of our contact tracing and isolation processes for vaccinated individuals to perhaps reduce down the need to have prolonged periods of time in isolation. Hon Judith Collins: So was it part of her unique New Zealand plan for Māori vaccination rates to fall so far behind the rest of the country despite multiple warnings all year that the Government needed to do more? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I've said many times in this House it is not fair to simply create a blanket statement about Māori vaccination rates generally. In some age demographics we have very high rates; unfortunately in the younger cohorts where we do have a larger part of the population we do have higher rates where we have not yet reached our rangatahi and we at the moment are doing everything we can to work alongside Māori health providers and others. Iwi and hapū have been doing an amazing job trying to drive demand to continue to lift uptake. My recollection is from the last time I looked that we were at roughly 74 percent first doses and I do expect to continue to see that increase; and for 60-plussers I believe over 90 percent. We want to replicate those results across the board. Hon Judith Collins: So was it part of her plan after all these reviews for hundreds of thousands of fully vaccinated Kiwis to be stranded overseas because of the managed isolation and quarantine lottery of human misery when there are now thousands of Aucklanders self-isolating at home and even in cars?SPEAKER: Order! There's irony in that question and the member knows it.