Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I want to start by echoing the comments of the Minister the Hon Chris Hipkins in relation to vaccination: COVID is here. It is not going away. This summer Delta will spread throughout New Zealand and I encourage everyone listening to go and get vaccinated. This pandemic is a pandemic now of the unvaccinated and Delta will find you if you are unvaccinated. And if you doubt that just have a look at who is in hospital. Overwhelmingly they are the unvaccinated. So we support strongly the idea that people should get vaccinated but we do not support this bill and I want to explain why that is.The first thing I want to do is to examine what the Minister made mention of in his speech in relation to the Government's response in the last six months. Because there has been an assumption I believe by the Government that the elimination strategy would continue forever. The evidence for that is littered throughout the Government's response this year. There was no backup plan and that is why we now come to the traffic light framework developed on the fly and scrambling. And if you doubt that that is the case I invite you to read the departmental disclosure statement which makes it very clear that there has been very little consultation very little analysis and very little work done in advance of this. In fact the drafting instructions for this bill were only issued on 27 October five days after the actual framework was announced. And now we find it's not going to a select committee. In fact it will be law sometime this week. Again if you doubt that this has been developed in a rush I point you to the legal advice given to the Attorney-General for the consistency of the bill under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I quote This advice has been prepared in an extremely short time frame due to late receipt of the bill that was not in compliance with Cabinet Office Guidance." I'll tell you what that guidance was. The guidance says "All bills or all policy proposals that go to Cabinet have to have a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act." Guess what? The traffic light framework when it went to Cabinet on the Monday preceding the Friday announcement had had no such analysis done on it by the Ministry of Justice officials. How disgraceful. And if you doubt that this bill has New Zealand Bill of Rights Act implications just read the legal advice because it impacts at least eight and you could probably think of more.So this has been developed in a rush and it reflects a Government that was in denial about the potential failure of elimination. They had no backup plan—they had no backup plan. And I point you to the fact that the official Government documents released to me and to others under the Official Information Act show that the Government only started doing the planning for Delta when Delta arrived—the start of August. They didn't do the specific managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) upgrades until after Delta had escaped. They only established the COVID-19 Testing Technical Advisory Group in August. That's the group that said "We're too late on saliva testing. We're too late on rapid testing. We're behind the eight ball."; and the vaccine certificates that are the subject of this bill Cabinet only authorised their development in July and they only signed the contract with the IT provider a month ago on 13 October. It has been obvious to any reasonable fair-minded observer for the better part of this year that we would need vaccine proof we would need a form of vaccine pass. But the Government was on the go slow on it only approved the work in July only signed the contract in October.The Government had to scramble on mandates. I remember sitting here in the Estimates in September saying to Chris Hipkins I specifically asked him "Is the Government considering mandates for teachers?" Because every other country or many other countries were doing exactly that in response to Delta. And he stood up and said "We're not considering that right now." That was literally just over two months ago and then a month later the Government had to quickly scramble on vaccine mandates for teachers—Barbara Kuriger: Making it up as they go.CHRIS BISHOP: Caused enormous unease and anger in the sector. Exactly—and my colleague Barbara Kuriger says they're making it up as they go and that is precisely the point. Because there was no back-up plan we have had to scramble in response to Delta and now the chickens are coming home to roost.Why is it 18 months into a global pandemic that there are fewer ICU beds now than there were in April 2020? Why is that the case? When I explain that to people they literally say "Well that can't be true." People cannot believe it. They say "Well that can't be correct. The Government's borrowed all this money they've borrowed $50 billion for the COVID fund." and I say "Yeah but the official numbers don't lie. There are fewer resourced ICU beds now in November 2021 than they were in April 2020." How remarkable is that? Only Labour could borrow $50 billion and end up with fewer ICU beds. Only the Labour Party could do that. It's just unbelievable.This bill has some useful elements to it and my colleague Scott Simpson our workplace relations spokesperson will talk about the vaccination assessment tool when it comes to business because we acknowledge that business wants certainty and clarity when it comes to how to apply vaccine mandates in the private sector. But generally this has gone through a repugnant process. You just have to read the departmental disclosure statement. Some of these comments are absolutely laughable: has any further impact analysis become available for any impacts of the policy? No. For the policy to be given effect by this bill is there any analysis available on the size of the potential costs and benefits? No. The potential for any group of persons to suffer a substantial unavoidable loss of income? No. For the policy to be given effect are the potential costs and benefits likely be impacted by the level of effective compliance or non-compliance with obligations or standards? No. All of these things are deeply contestable and it's just unbelievable the level of work that has—or actually in relation to this has not—gone in.This bill is so shoddily done that the legislative purpose statement says it will require vaccination where the Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries has determined this is necessary. It's not even in the bill. It's literally not in the bill. The legislative statement that the Minister has tabled makes reference to the minute the Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries—it's not in the bill. There is no reference as far as I can see unless I'm looking at an old copy of the bill that that is the case. This has been done as a rush job. It has been done in a very very poor manner.In relation to some of the substantive items that we object to—and there will be many opportunities to get into many other substantive aspects during the committee of the whole House stage a lot of questions that the Government will have to answer. The Opposition does not object to the concept of vaccination certificates. In fact we've been calling for them since February. The question is this: should it be the Government that goes around and says to private businesses in hospitality or hairdressing or retail or whatever that you must do the following things or should it be individual enterprises and individual businesses and individual people who make up their minds? That should be the starting point for any proper analysis of rights and benefits in a free society.We say on this side of the House that private property and free enterprise should be the guiding principles behind which we examine any legislative proposal. It should be over to individuals to decide for themselves. So it may well be that a bar decides that they only want to allow fully vaccinated individuals into their bar. If I was running a bar I might well consider that. But that is very different to the Government saying that they have to do that. If I'm an individual and I choose not to be vaccinated—and regrettably there are some people out there who have made the decision not to be vaccinated. I think they're wrong but that's over to them and at some level they will bear the consequences of that decision. If I choose not to be vaccinated then it's over to me to choose how my interaction exists with the rest of the world. If I find I can't go to a bar or a restaurant because they only allow vaccinated patrons then I will bear the consequences of that in the same way I will bear the health costs. That should be the starting point not this massive legislative overreach which is the Government's shoddy proposal."