Waititi Rawiri; Hipkins ChrisRAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): E te Pīka otirā kia ora tātou e te Whare tēnā koe e te Minita whakarāhuingia tō tātou whenua i tēnei rā ki Ahitereiria engari he pātai kē wāku hāngai tō ki a koe.[Mr. Speaker to the House I acknowledge the Minister who restricted access to our country today from Australia although I do have some questions that directly relate to you.]One of the key reasons why there is so much risk from trans-Tasman travel at this time is our low vaccination rates. Can the Minister confirm what the current vaccination rate is for Māori?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): What I can confirm is that around 9 percent of the vaccination doses delivered so far have gone to Māori New Zealanders. In terms of the age cohorts eligible Māori have uptaken the opportunity to get a vaccine at a higher rate than other non-Māori New Zealanders have and I thank them for that. One of the terrible health statistics that we have in our country is that Māori don't live as long as non-Māori and so as we've been working our way down through the age cohorts fewer Māori have been present in those older age bands. That is something that we should not be satisfied about as a country; it's something that we should be very concerned about. It is unacceptable that Māori don't live as long as non-Māori New Zealanders. But that has had an impact on our vaccination stats.RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): The Government has already admitted that Māori are at most risk so why haven't we dealt with the issues before now to ensure a greater level of protection for Māori?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): We have been working very closely with Māori health providers also with Pasifika health providers—another community that is at risk. In our sequencing framework we prioritised those communities most at risk including South Auckland because we knew that there were higher concentrations of Māori there who were going to be more at risk should COVID-19 come into the country and actually were the most likely community to see that kind of incursion in the event that that had happened. So we have prioritised that. As I said the statistics are encouraging in that they would show that there isn't the level of hesitancy in Māori communities that some people have been claiming that there is. I'm very heartened by that but I have also been making it clear to the DHBs that we expect to see a good focus on equity in the ongoing roll-out of the vaccination.RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Why aren't we seeing a higher vaccination rate for Māori in those age groups that you have mentioned or Pasifika peoples if we are most at risk when unvaccinated; and does the current vaccine protect us from the Delta variant?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): In answer to the last part of the question in terms of protection from the Delta variant yes it does protect us from the Delta variant. Vaccination protects us very well from all the variants of the virus. There's some questions about whether the Delta variant has an impact on the overall level of effectiveness but it would be at the margins. The vaccines are still proving to be very effective and particularly the Pfizer vaccines—the mRNA vaccines—are still proving to be very effective against the variants of the virus. In terms of the overall rates of Māori and Pacific vaccination and why we are seeing them sitting at around that 9 percent mark when the proportion of the population is higher it is because of the age profile of Māori and Pacific New Zealanders—they're a younger population. As I've said before I don't think any of us should feel particularly proud of the fact that Māori and Pacific people don't live as long as other New Zealanders. That is something that our health system as a whole needs to grapple with.The other priority groups at the beginning have been our border workforce people who are living in aged residential care facilities and so on. Again we have seen a lower representation of Māori within those groups.RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Finally was the decision to open up quarantine-free travel with Australia premature; and shouldn't the Government prioritise keeping our borders closed given we have already seen so many problems as a result?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I think it's a fair question. I don't think it was premature at the time but what I've learnt with COVID-19 over this last year and a half is that the facts change all the time. Things are a bit different now than they were back in April when we opened the trans-Tasman bubble and the Australians themselves have acknowledged that too. The Delta variant has changed a lot around COVID-19—it's certainly changed a lot for them. The New South Wales contact tracing system performed remarkably well in the earlier phase of COVID-19 but really struggled with the Delta variant and what they're seeing now is partly as a result of that. So I think things have changed which is why we've seen the suspension.