Hipkins ChrisADDRESS IN REPLYDebate resumed from 9 December 2020.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): It is a fantastic time to be a New Zealander and to be here in New Zealand. One only needs to turn on the TV news every night to understand just how fortunate we are to be here in Aotearoa when around the world COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on economies and societies and lives.The good news continues for New Zealanders and we saw that just this week when employment rose by a further 17000 people in work during the December quarter. That is a significant improvement in our employment statistics at a time when all the forecasts had suggested we would be going backwards. Our unemployment rate fell from 5.3 percent to 4.9 percent. Compare that with Treasury's Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update where they forecast the unemployment rate would grow to 6 percent. Of course that in itself was lower than their projections at the height of our COVID-19 response where they expected it to go significantly higher than that still.New Zealand is doing very well. Consider the construction industry. Construction jobs rose by 21000 annually which included those people working as plumbers electricians and roofers and that more than offset the impact of COVID-19 on our tourism-related industries. These results are the result of the Government's decisive actions to keep New Zealanders in work and to make sure that we are supporting New Zealanders through the challenges caused by COVID-19. In the middle of a global pandemic New Zealanders have put their trust in this Government. We recognise the big responsibility that comes with that and we are absolutely committed to seeing this through.We have three overarching objectives that are guiding our response: first keep New Zealanders safe from COVID-19; second accelerate our economic recovery; and third lay the foundations for a better future. The protections that we have put in place against COVID-19 have been amongst the most effective in the world: 105000 New Zealanders have returned home through our border since we established our managed isolation facilities and yet we have had fewer than a dozen incidences of people transferring COVID-19 to others during that time through our managed isolation facilities. That makes them among the most successful in the world—more successful than those in Australia and other countries. We can all be proud of that and we should be proud of those working at our border and we should thank them for their commitment.In terms of accelerating our recovery New Zealand is doing incredibly well. Our five-point economic plan to cushion the blow to the New Zealand economy is working. We are investing in our people. We are seeing people upskilling we are seeing people taking on apprentices we are seeing people enrol in tertiary education and we are seeing people taking up training opportunities through the reinstatement of things like the training incentive allowance which is assisting sole parents to get back into work through better training and better qualifications.We are creating jobs through a big economic stimulus package and we see that up and down the country in the infrastructure projects that are under way and that are developing whether it be in transport whether it be our schools our hospitals—we are picking up the pieces after a decade of neglect of our infrastructure. This is the infrastructure Government.We are preparing for the future by making sure that we're increasing the amount of our electricity that comes from renewable energy with a goal of getting to 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030. We are supporting our small businesses through things like the Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme and we are making sure that we are positioning ourselves globally in the wake of the pandemic.We're tackling the big challenges of the future: climate change child poverty and challenges like housing that have been too long neglected—a challenge that built up under the last Government. They did not rise to that challenge; they did not address that. This is a Government that has been relentlessly focused on the issues that matter to New Zealanders.And that is a bit of a contrast to what we are seeing from the members opposite. What did they spend their summer holidays doing? Well David Seymour spent his summer holiday taking out a two-page personal ad in the Woman's Weekly. We then saw Dr Shane Reti so determined not to be distracted from the issues that matter that he got very quickly distracted by issues that didn't matter and thought that the liaison between a managed isolation worker and a returnee was a ploy by the Government to distract the National Party—just pass the tinfoil hats Mr Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Or Madam Speaker.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Madam Speaker. Then we have the absolute pearler. We have David Bennett. David Bennett wants a road to Tauranga a Waikato medical school and apparently wants to pay for them by introducing lover taxes". I would quite like to know who's going to have to pay these lover taxes. He must be committed to them because he took out an ad in the local paper to promote his new concept of lover taxes—something that either people of Hamilton clearly didn't leap at given that he lost his seat. I think it was the lover taxes that did him in in the end. I want to know who has to pay and what the criteria for his lover taxes will be.Poor old Simon Bridges continues to "count my chickens for granted". I'm not entirely sure exactly what he was meaning there. And then of course we had Paul Goldsmith's bizarre theory that we would stop teaching economics in our schools if we didn't make it part of the history curriculum. I am sorry to disappoint the member who would be the member for Epsom but whilst of course things like historical attitudes to racism will be covered as part of the New Zealand history curriculum when it's taught in our schools I wouldn't be banking on a sudden surge of demand for his biographies of Don Brash and John Banks Mr Speaker. I think he should stick to falling asleep during Judith Collins' speeches Mr Speaker; I think that's going to serve him far better.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Or Madam Speaker.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Then of course we have Christopher Luxon yet to make his debut here in Parliament but in his first public debut as a member of Parliament he fell down at the first opportunity and of course today we have clearly learnt that he has recently graduated from the "Murray McCully school"—Matt Doocey: Point of order.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Point of order. [Interruption] The member will resume his seat.Matt Doocey: Thank you Madam Speaker. Sorry to interrupt that speaker but he is a very experienced member of Parliament and will clearly be aware this is not a general debate slot but a debate on the Speech from the Throne.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you. The Minister will resume his speech. This is a very wide-ranging debate. Thank you—the Hon Chris Hipkins.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It is indeed. Thank you very much Madam Speaker. Clearly Mr Luxon has recently graduated from the "Murray McCully school of ethical diplomacy" and I'm sure that we will hear more about that in the days and weeks to come.Mr Speaker—Madam Speaker—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order!Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Sorry Madam Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: It's force of habit Madam Speaker. New Zealanders have given this Government a great responsibility—the responsibility to ensure that New Zealanders are kept safe the responsibility to ensure that we bounce back from one of the greatest economic challenges that anyone in New Zealand will have seen in their lifetimes and we are absolutely committed to making sure that we will do that. As the Minister for our COVID-19 response I am absolutely committed to ensuring that we have a very safe and secure border and we are seeing evidence of that on a daily basis as thousands of New Zealanders return home on a weekly basis and they do not bring COVID-19 into our community. Again I want to acknowledge the work of tens of thousands of people up and down the country working at our borders to make sure that is happening. I want to thank the international airlines for their cooperation in that effort. They have been remarkably successful in working with us to keep COVID-19 out and we appreciate that.We are preparing for a vaccine roll-out the largest vaccine roll-out New Zealand will have ever seen and I think that that is something that we should all be taking very seriously. We should be looking very closely at the international evidence around vaccine efficacy and that is the approach that this Government has taken. We have purchased four different vaccines so that we can make sure that New Zealanders get the right vaccine for them the most effective vaccine for them and the science on that is still being settled which is why our approach of a balanced vaccine portfolio has absolutely been the right one.There are huge constraints on vaccine manufacture and supply around the world. New Zealand is doing very well and I think when people see the vaccine roll out around New Zealand they will see that it has been very well planned for and prepared for. The one remaining thing to be determined is the exact date on which that campaign will start. I can tell you it will start within a couple of days of the vaccines arriving in New Zealand. They still have to be unpacked and they still have to be prepared for the vaccination campaign to begin but that work will start the hour that they land in the country—we'll be working very quickly to get them out as quickly as we can. We do not have a specific date for the arrival but we are prepared for it whenever it should arrive.All New Zealanders can be proud of our COVID-19 response. We are a very very fortunate country at the moment."