Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise to speak in support of the motion and against the amendment that has been put forward by the Hon Michael Woodhouse and I will address the latter first.The amendment has no basis. As I understand it from the text of the amendment it is put forward on the basis of the apparent restrictions on Parliament yet not one member who has spoken in favour of the amendment so far has actually clearly identified the restrictions on the operations of Parliament that are actually relevant to this debate because as far as I'm aware this Parliament—SPEAKER: Order! Order! There have been a number of irrelevant arguments made. I have asked people sometimes to stop and I probably should have asked them to stop more often. I'm not going to have irrelevant arguments made relevant by their reply.MICHAEL WOOD: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I'm simply responding to the amendment itself not the arguments that have been put forward and I struggle to understand how that is not in order.SPEAKER: Fair enough—keep going but make sure that you stay relevant and factual and within the tight confines of this debate not responding to irrelevancies.MICHAEL WOOD: Thank you Mr Speaker. So I'm referring to the text of the amendment which refers to the restrictions on Parliament as being the reason for why the Epidemic Response Committee should continue through the level 2 period. The argument that I'm putting forward to the House is that we have not actually heard in any coherent way what the restrictions on Parliament are that give a basis to the amendment because the Parliament is meeting fully at the moment. All of its functions are intact and being carried out. Select committees are meeting. Question time is occurring every day. Legislation is being considered. All of the scrutiny functions of the Parliament are happening now.This is a very important point and I come to an argument raised by the Hon Michael Woodhouse in his comments initially when he referred to the discussions that had occurred at Business Committee and I think somewhat confused the role of the Business Committee and the role of the House. It's important to be aware that it was the House which established the Epidemic Response Committee. I've checked the minutes of the Business Committee which did discuss this matter on 25 March in fact.What occurred at the Business Committee is that—and I'm quoting directly from the minutes here—the parties indicated they would grant leave to move a notice of motion on this matter". So it is appropriate for the House to address this matter because it was the House that established the Epidemic Response Committee. But I do wish to be clear that when parties used the forum of the Business Committee to discuss this matter it was on the basis that the Epidemic Response Committee had an important job to do while the House could not meet and while the normal scrutiny functions of the House—notably question time which holds the executive to account directly and publicly—could not happen. We have clearly passed that Rubicon and the House as I have described and as Chris Hipkins described earlier is meeting and is fully alive again.I don't come here to belittle or criticise the work of the Epidemic Response Committee in any way. It's met 24 times since it was established; I think that I've sat on it for 23 of those meetings. I agree with members around the House that its work has been important and that it's been something of a parliamentary and constitutional innovation that I think basically did work well. I acknowledge very genuinely the chair of the committee across those meetings the Hon Simon Bridges. Members on this side sometimes had disagreements around the process of meetings and sometimes around the way that they were run but basically it was a committee that worked. It had members from across the House engaging in good faith engaging with Ministers engaging with officials and engaging with members of the public. But as David Seymour said in the course of this debate it's not a substitute for Parliament. We have Parliament back now. That's the reason that this motion has been put forward in the House.I would say to members of the Opposition who have crafted sort of would-be Gettysburg addresses about the downfall of Westminster democracy in the course of this debate just to back yourselves. Those members have access to all of the scrutiny functions of the Parliament. They can ask good questions. They can engage on select committees. I note that there is a select committee that is currently set up that is engaging in a significant inquiry into some of the more important powers that the Government is assuming during this period. They have a full capacity to engage in that inquiry as well. So the mechanisms are there for members across the House to be engaging in the issues that are created by COVID-19 and the Government response already. There simply have been no firm arguments put forward that really describe why it is that the Parliament is unable to fulfil the function and the powers that it has at ordinary times now because the Parliament is meeting fully.I'll finish off just with a thought about the creation of this committee and the way in which it was done well. It was done well I think all round. Let's remember that it was set up by a Government motion. So this was the Government of the day saying that the Government would agree to a committee being set up that had an Opposition majority and an Opposition chair and it was agreed I think unanimously across the House. I return to the fact that it was agreed on the basis that that committee would function while Parliament was not meeting. So we had an important parliamentary consensus that allowed for the creation of this committee and significant goodwill between parties around that. I think that the Opposition does stretch that consensus and that goodwill when they go beyond the reason for the establishment of the committee in arguing that it should have an extended life.I just ask Opposition members to consider that because I think this committee has done its job well. It has most of the time shown this Parliament at its best and I think that the House would do well to honour effectively the consensus agreement that was reached between parties at the time of establishment which was that this committee would exist while Parliament was not meeting. Parliament is meeting now. It is doing its job. This committee has done well but it has come to the end of its time. I commend the motion to the House but not the amendment put forward by Michael Woodhouse."