Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. Well the Budget delivers a lot of money for the COVID response and that is quite right but the question I have to ask is: is the oversight and the efficacy of that money being monitored properly? Because it was an extraordinary morning at the Health Committee this morning. Three things came out today that I want to make mention of because sadly in April 2021 we are still talking about issues at the border around testing that were identified in September last year and then again in February earlier this year.There is the sense of déjà vu in the building because Mr O'Connor talks about the strong border response of the Government and to some extent that is correct but there are critical failings in the system and they have been exposed today. The first point was what we heard this morning in relation to case B from the latest cluster at the Grand Millennium. It was a generally farcical select committee process this morning but in and amongst the 25-minute lecture from Dr Bloomfield and Carolyn Tremain—including the description of the end-to-end user experience of managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) and a description of the science of COVID-19. After we had the 25-minute lecture we got a chance to ask some questions—not many but some—and I asked the very simple question: case B was tested on 8 April; when was the last time he was tested?Hon Michael Woodhouse: And what was the answer?CHRIS BISHOP: Well the answer was firstly obfuscation and I asked again and eventually we got the answer. The answer is November last year. So for six months we've had a border worker a front-line border worker working in MIQ who has not been tested. He's meant to be on a fortnightly cycle. So from November to April there were meant to be fortnightly tests for COVID-19 but for six months that did not happen. It's worth noting in passing that if I hadn't asked the question and actually pressed the officials on that question when were we going to find out about that? When were the officials going to tell us that salient fact? So that's the first point. Now I think we can all agree that that is very concerning. We kept trying to ask further questions about it but Labour members don't like the scrutiny and so we were forced to end the session.The second point flows from the first which is that 450 workers it transpires are not being tested regularly according to the law. And again in September last year we had a big hullaballoo here and in the public domain around the testing regime. Members opposite will remember the shemozzle in August around the August cluster. We were assured by Ministers then that things were going to get better and they put in place these mandatory testing orders. The rules are clear: if you are within the scope of the testing order you have to get tested every two weeks or in some cases every week. What we learnt this evening broken by Michael Morrah on Newshub is that 450 people in the last two weeks have not complied with the testing order. And it's worse than that: the Government admits that 85 of those 450 may never have been tested—may never have been tested.So what we've got is a situation where we've got dozens of people working at the border who are in our front-line response who may never have been tested. At the very least 450 of them haven't been tested properly in accordance with the rules laid down by the Government. Now I think we can all agree that this is not good enough. So that's the second thing.The third point is it transpires—again from the committee this morning—that not all the companies that work at the border are actually using the COVID border testing register. We know that there are dozens of companies and therefore hundreds of people that are not using the register that the Government has belatedly provided and that is really important and I'll come back to that.So quite a lot flows from those three facts. The first question is: why have there not been any checks? Well the Government says today Well he was lying." OK. The Prime Minister just asserted that. Chris Hipkins says there's going to be an inquiry. The Prime Minister has helpfully pre-judged that inquiry for the rest of us. So I hope it doesn't turn out to be like the situation with the KFC worker in February when the Prime Minister essentially went on national television and vilified them and it turns out she owes them an apology—an apology by the way we are all still waiting for as is the KFC worker. So the Prime Minister said that that person is lying and Chris Hipkins had the temerity to say "Well we can't have an urgent debate because we might end up litigating what case B did or didn't do." Well his own boss the Prime Minister was already on the record alleging that he had lied. So they say that he's lying. OK we'll wait and see what the truth is there.That obviates or at least obscures the major point which is: how have we designed a system where someone can go six months without being checked? How is it that the system allows someone to get away with not being tested and not following the law? Then they said "Oh we'll have an investigation." And by the way it's worth nothing that we didn't find that out this morning. The officials didn't bother to tell us that there would be an investigation this morning. The media had to ask them that afterwards and that's something that we'll be following up. Then we heard from the Prime Minister that there were private security companies involved. Well yes that's irrelevant. Of course there are private security companies involved at the border. Although it's worth noting in passing that we were told last year that the Government was phasing out private security. It turns out that hasn't happened either. So that's the first question. Then the second question is: what has happened to the register? Why is it not working? And again this is not a new issue. We talked about this in August; we talked about it again in February. Today we discover in response to questions that the Government will make it mandatory from 27 April. Well why are we only making something mandatory from basically the start of May when we've been having these problems since September? How hard is it to design a system that records people's testing status and design a system where that is checked every fortnight or at least sufficiently enough to assure ourselves that people are being tested? Where are the checks more generally? Because if we make the testing mandatory New Zealanders rightly expect that the Government will follow that up.This is a very important point because as members opposite have told us on so many occasions ad nauseam the border is our first and best defence against COVID slipping into the community. The reality is that it just takes one error. It just takes one mistake. This is not theory. We know this to be the case because we have seen it over the last few months and running back into last year. All it takes is one error or one slip and COVID is caught by someone and then it spreads.The reason we have the testing regime at the border is to make sure that people who are working on the front line who are coming into contact with people from overseas who have COVID—and we know that there are more and more people arriving in MIQ from places like India for example who have COVID. The reason we make them get tested is to make sure that they're working there without it so that they don't spread it like case A did to case B who spread it to case C. Now we're all hoping beyond hope that this cluster does not spread any further. So that's why we have the testing regime. But the quid pro quo of establishing the testing regime is that the Government goes and checks that people are being tested.It's not just good enough for the Government to say it's incumbent on the employers. Firstly half the employers at the border are the Government and secondly don't punch down and blame security guards who can't fight back because they're in quarantine. Don't punch down and blame them and try and obscure the Government's own ineptitude and incompetence for setting up a regime that does not work. It's deeply unedifying from the Prime Minister. It's deeply dispiriting for the country and the country deserves better than the shemozzle we have been dished up as revealed today."