8. Question No. 8—Prime MinisterDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime MinisterQuestion No. 8—Prime Minister8. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her statements and policies?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes. I especially stand by the Government's COVID-19 vaccine and immunisation programme that as of yesterday had delivered two and a quarter million doses. We're now delivering more than 250000 doses a week which is more per capita than Australia South Korea and Taiwan. I know the member will be interested in that comparison. I also stand by our booking system which now has over a million active future bookings across 323 vaccination sites. That is why we are able to announce the expansion of the eligible general population to those over 50 from Friday. We are getting on with the job of vaccinating New Zealand and I do want to thank every New Zealander who has either been vaccinated or has booked to be vaccinated because it is the best way to support our recovery.David Seymour: Why then did that policy the Prime Minister is so eager to stand by see only 9 percent of exposed workers in Tauranga this week vaccinated?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As has been well traversed in this House we want every front-line border worker to be vaccinated. Obviously you will have seen that we mandated those particularly that the Government has direct employment over early on in our vaccination roll-out. We were very keen to see those who were privately employed particularly at the port to be part of that as well. There were concerns that mandating that requirement would lead to skilled specialists for whom a port is reliant on in order to maintain operations potentially moved on from their roles and supply chain issues. You'll see from the very lengthy list that both the Minister and I have shared around the activity that has taken place every effort has been to encourage that voluntary uptake but when it was still too low we moved to mandate.David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister stand by her Government's appointment of the Strategic COVID-19 Public Health Advisory Group chaired by Sir David Skegg just over four months ago in early April? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes.David Seymour: Has the group provided valuable advice that might inform her announced announcement about COVID strategy coming this Thursday? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes.David Seymour: Who funded the group? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course our COVID-19 response is funded by the Government. David Seymour: Why then has none of the advice produced by that group chaired by Sir David Skegg in the last four months been released for the people who paid for it—actually the taxpayer—to view? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Thank you for the opportunity to inform everyone publicly here today that everyone is welcome to tune in on Thursday to the public forum that we have organised in order to rather than wait for a proactive release of information—to not only publicly provide in writing the advice that we received but to also put on a platform the group themselves in order to provide and respond to questions around that advice. Then immediately after we will be providing a response to the advice that we have received. So actually I think we've taken measures to be very open about the advice we received that as you can imagine did not come in immediately. We had separate sets of advice that we added questions to and we'll be releasing that this week. David Seymour: Have any ideas coming from the advice been subject to focus groups or other forms of public opinion research in the last four months?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The most important place for the advice to have come would have been to Cabinet to make decisions. And of course the other point that I would make is that our response has been driven by science and evidence all the way through and that has served us well. Where you have seen the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet engage in additional research it's often been around decisions that have already been made such as the vaccination roll-out to see why people might be hesitant and how we can overcome that. I would have thought the member would support those initiatives because that is the best way we can protect our health and our economy. David Seymour: Why couldn't the Prime Minister just answer the previous question by saying No"?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Because I believe that's not the case. But if the member ever chooses to put a question in writing in advance I can be 100 percent sure. David Seymour: Will the announcement on Thursday include any tangible steps to increase managed isolation and quarantine capacity that people can expect implemented within a month? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That's not the purpose for which we set up this group. We absolutely have been working to try and utilise and bring on as much capacity as we can whilst balancing that against the risk that additional capacity produces. So actually we don't need that group to investigate those questions. That's already something that Minister Hipkins works on on an ongoing basis. At the moment we have the equivalent of a small New Zealand town in quarantine—over 4500 people. That is three times what Australia is bringing into the country. We work very hard to do so safely but we have worked hard to expand that capacity. That is in addition to the efforts we're taking now to bring in additional—on top of that—Recognised Seasonal Employer workers in September to take a bit of pressure out of the system and to support our horticultural sector.David Seymour: Will Thursday's announcement on COVID strategy include any tangible steps to bring new technologies new types of vaccine or new ways of distributing vaccination that people might expect to be implemented within a month?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The first thing is of course we've said we want everyone to have access to the information at the same time and we're doing that this week. When it comes to new ways of distributing vaccine again this particular group we've asked to support us for the next stages of our recovery particularly thinking about the next six months in preparation for beyond that—when it comes to the vaccine roll-out we are already utilising all those who can support us in providing new and innovative ways of vaccinating and supporting the vaccination roll-out everything from setting up sites in malls. I visited one recently that are doing 1000 people a day. We also have workplace sites that we've set up and the likes of Mainfreight are supporting us to learn from what we can do better in going into worksites so that we can expand that roll-out. We're increasing into GPs pharmacies. Marae have played a critical part of our roll-out and we also have recently made available a vaccination provision at the end of church services. I think we have been innovative in this roll-out and we continue to seek ideas—I'd happily hear some of the member's."