6. Question No. 6—Prime MinisterHon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime MinisterQuestion No. 6—Prime MinisterHon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you Mr Speaker. To the Prime Minister: when she said on 11 August We have a resurgence plan that we will now activate." that plan—SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will read the question as per the question sheet. 6. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Is the resurgence plan she referred to on 11 August publicly available and is it being rolled out as effectively as she believed it would be? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes. On 15 July the Government released a public version of the "Stamp It Out" plan. Following the release of that plan we've continued our work to update our precautions and controls. These updated plans have also been made publicly available once approved by Cabinet and are all part of our plan to make consistent improvements to our protections and response based on evidence and what we are seeing overseas. The approach taken to the new cases in Auckland is being rolled out consistently with the Government's planned approach. Hon Judith Collins: Why hasn't the Government made that plan widely available to the public? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I just set out it has. It is publicly available. We have continued with iterative plans though since that time which have taken into account some of what we've seen offshore. I would reflect for instance that the original resurgence plan which had a number of scenarios sitting behind it didn't necessarily take into account what we've since seen in Victoria where smaller localised lockdowns haven't been as successful as they would have anticipated. We've adjusted some of our settings to incorporate that. Hon Judith Collins: Is this the plan? [Holds up a one-page document]Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Is that your question—sorry? Hon Judith Collins: Is this the plan? Hon Grant Robertson: You sit down after you do the question. SPEAKER: If I wasn't helped by the Minister of Finance I might have intervened more severely but I will give the member a warning that she will not do that again because she does know it's out of order. She is a very experienced member and she should know better—she does know better. Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: What the member has held up is a front-facing document which has sitting behind it a much more comprehensive detailed plan that went through Cabinet. That's worked through with the all-of-Government group. That also works through with agencies including those who have responsibility with deploying the plan. Then what is released is a summary version which gives an indication of how we would deploy our existing alert level framework which is very publicly available. It is not the only element of work. We since then have as I said gone back to Cabinet to put more detail behind it to reflect what we've learnt from the likes of Victoria. So we have had another iteration since that time. Hon Chris Hipkins: Can the Prime Minister confirm that when she called a press conference to announce the details of that plan she was accused of scaremongering? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Apparently I'm now being accused of not doing enough scaremongering. We did release that plan. I set out our intent there. I also set out that Cabinet would do more detailed work to sit behind it. We did do that detailed work. Agencies involved in deploying our resurgence plan have been involved at every step of the way and that's the important part—they have been involved in the decision making. That is why you have seen 123000 tests 1800 contacts traced up to the standard that we expected within 48 hours and the ability might I add to move a whole city to level 3 restrictions in a profoundly short period of time—because we had a plan. Hon Judith Collins: Does the resurgence plan include details as to how people would be able to move across regional borders if they are at different alert levels; if so does she think it is acceptable for a uniformed paramedic travelling into Auckland for work to be held up for over an hour before being allowed through the Bombay checkpoint? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes we did work through the issue of regional boundaries. I even spoke publicly at a press conference around how we would anticipate those being monitored the fact that they would be based on either boundaries as we have with councils or civil defence boundaries and that we would look to use the police over the army. We have multiple checkpoints set up around Auckland. Some areas we're being able to separate out general flow with freight and others and I would include emergency services. Some areas it's not possible to set up two chains of flow and unfortunately as the police are checking through that people are coming in who are meant to be coming in it does mean that we may in some areas have backlog. Hon Judith Collins: Does the resurgence plan include protocols to ensure that essential workers such as medical staff were issued with cards or permits that would allow them to cross regional borders to get to their workplaces? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I'd point out to the member that even with guidance on who should and shouldn't be allowed through—which of course is really the parameters of our alert level framework—it is impossible when you have such a large amount of people coming through to checkpoints to make it instant. Anything is going to require a physical check by an officer and that is going to take some time. Hon Judith Collins: Is she confident in her resurgence plan when it took more than 2½ days to get testers on site at the Port of Tauranga following an order that all port workers needed to be tested? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I would reflect that my recollection is we already had health orders from some time ago for our maritime borders that did require for instance that anyone who was coming in on a ship or international crew had requirements around how long they had to be at sea before they would be allowed to exit the port. We had requirements around social distancing at the port between those who might be part of international crew. We even had requirements around whether or not they were able to access welfare centres. We then supplemented that with requirements around testing if anyone were to try and exit a port. Overlaying that we've put in a testing regime. We have focused on Auckland port particularly and that's because of the link between the port and Americold. But I would remind the member that whilst we've had several thousand tests now undertaken at Auckland port—2229 tests taken at Auckland port—we are also covering a large number of contractors who are able to access the port so obviously that does take a bit of time. Hon Judith Collins: Does her resurgence plan specifically exclude butchers and greengrocers from being able to open their shops and if so why? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member will be well aware that it's actually our alert level framework that deals with restrictions around who can and cannot operate."