Parker DavidGENERAL DEBATEHon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Thank you Mr Speaker. It's one week shy of three months since 18 August and like a number of other members of this House I'm pleased to be released from the restrictions of Auckland this week to come to Wellington. It has been hard in Auckland and other parts of New Zealand that have had a prolonged lockdown but especially in Auckland which has had to suffer the consequences of that lockdown longer than other parts of the country. And we understand that it's been hard for families it's been hard for business owners and their workers particularly hard for those who live alone for families that live in apartments particularly in the early stages of the lockdown. But we're nearly there—we're nearly there. We're a small number of weeks—just a few weeks-away from 90 percent double-vaccination in Auckland.Our opponent in this battle—we must not forget our opponent is a highly transmissible mutating and deadly virus that we cannot reason with. We're fighting a pandemic here and we've been treading a careful line managing the risk as we've transitioned from protecting ourselves via the border to protecting ourselves via high rates of vaccination. And we're grateful for the support of the public throughout New Zealand but especially in Auckland who have borne the heaviest consequences of the restrictions that we've had to live with as we have built those vaccination rates.And it's very pleasing I think and reflects very well on us as a country that we can now reflect on the fact that we are already one of the most vaccinated populations in the world. We've got higher rates of vaccination than the United Kingdom than Germany than France than the United States. Our nearby neighbours in Australia are neck and neck with us and we've both done very well on that front.I think it's also worth reflecting on the fact that at the same period post the Delta outbreak in Australia relative to the Delta outbreak now in New Zealand their rates of infection are far far higher than we have achieved in New Zealand—far far higher. We are already making progress in returning to the freedoms that everyone in New Zealand wants.We've already got a more open lifestyle in Auckland. I know I was one of those that took great delight in being able to even meet one extra bubble of people in an outdoor situation. In fact I had a barbecue at midnight on the time that it was introduced and it was a delightful thing to meet with my closest friends and share a sausage in a piece of bread with a bit of tomato sauce.These things made a real difference to Aucklanders and since then of course we've had retail reopen and we've heard from the Minister of Education today about more schools opening in the next week. We've also heard more information from the Minister of Health the Hon Andrew Little today about how this extra time has also brought us closer to new medicines that enable us to better treat the disease and that fewer people will catch it now because vaccinations work and we know that vaccinations vastly reduce the risk of catching the virus reduce the risk of passing it to someone else and reduce the risk of hospitalisation and serious illness not just to the benefit of the person who avoids that but to the benefit of other people that need to use our health system.So I'm really grateful to the people of New Zealand who have cooperated with the Government through these difficult times and I'm so pleased that New Zealanders are now looking forward to a good summer holiday that the borders are going to be released in Auckland so that Aucklanders can leave. And yes we understand that that carries some unavoidable risks in other parts of the country. We have been very successful in other parts of the country—in stamping out the small outbreak that we had in Wellington and Christchurch and some other smaller outbreaks but we know that we're transitioning to a different part of this pandemic where we carry our protection with us where we rely upon a world-class health system to deal with the smaller numbers that will still end up in hospital.So I end by saying Thank you New Zealanders" and now I listen and wait for the second-guessing from the National Party."