Hipkins ChrisCOVID-19 PUBLIC HEALTH RESPONSE AMENDMENT BILL (NO 2)First ReadingHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I present a legislative statement on the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2).SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I move That the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 11 November 2021 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions) during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 193 195 and 196.The COVID-19 Public Health Response Act first drafted in April 2020 is a very significant piece of legislation in our COVID-19 response. At the time that particular Act was put into place we did not know how long we would be dealing with the pandemic and there were a lot of things that we didn't still know—at that point—about the pandemic. As the year has evolved—or the year and a bit—since that was passed we have of course found out a lot more about COVID-19 about the sorts of measures that we need to take in order to be able to respond to it the sorts of risks that we are dealing with and the sorts of measures that we might need to have in place to be successful in our future response to COVID-19.It is fair to say as we head towards a more highly vaccinated population that we are entering a new phase in our COVID-19 response. Some of the tools that we need in that new phase are going to be different to some of the tools that we needed previously. The stakes will also be quite high though for decisions that are taken not just by Government but by individuals.So if I highlight one of the aspects of this bill in particular the increase in fees and infringements for those who break rules. At the moment the consequences for someone who knowingly breaks the rules it can be relatively trivial yet the consequences of that decision can be very very high. For example what we call the border averters: someone who—as part of the trans-Tasman travel arrangement—travelled from a place where they were not allowed to travel to New Zealand to a place that did have travel to New Zealand in order to get around border restrictions and brought COVID-19 into the country with them would be subject to a relatively insignificant fine in relation to the overall cost of what they had done. So this bill provides the opportunity to increase those infringements and those fines for that type of activity more in keeping with the scale of the potential offending that could be taking place.It still reserves the ability to impose a fee at a lower level than having to through the courts to impose a fine at a higher level but even then the fee itself is increased; the ability to impose a fee of up to $300 as it was under the current legislation—which I think most members of the House would agree is a relatively small amount of money given the potential severity of some of the things we're talking about—that increases to $4000 and again I want to note that that's in keeping with the potential severity and the potential consequences of people knowingly breaking the rules.There are a number of other provisions in the bill that draw on the lessons that we have learnt from our response. The current outbreak that we're dealing with is a reminder of the significant social and economic impacts that COVID-19 can have on New Zealand and the strain that it can place on our health system the potential consequences of not being able to stamp out cases where they emerge and not being able to continue to suppress the virus.So to run through a few of the key provisions in the bill it does extend the term of the Act from May 2022 to May 2023. At the moment I think it is likely that we will need to be able to use the provisions in this legislation beyond the middle of next year and so therefore we're extending the time frame for it. I've been on record many many times in this House already saying that I think that the New Zealand Parliament should only have on the statute book a piece of legislation of this nature for as long as is absolutely necessary. That is why we're only extending for one further year at this point because I think it should be subject to regular review. I'd also point out that we are continuing the requirement for it to be regularly confirmed by Parliament—this piece of legislation. So the Parliament will continue to have opportunities to debate and to hold the Government to account on its use of what are extraordinary powers and I don't underestimate that.The bill will help to futureproof the legislation making changes that are necessary today by ensuring that we've got sufficient flexibility to adapt to the ever-changing environment that we face. The primary Act enables the Minister to make orders to aid in the dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic including for example the ability to impose alert level restrictions. The alert level framework itself does not exist in law; the alert level framework is a guide that is set up by the Government that guides the decisions that we take in issuing orders under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act.So whenever we make an alert level decision—people might be interested to know this particular piece of the process—Cabinet will agree to the parameters of whatever the alert level decision is. There's typically then a notice period depending on what the nature of the change is. Before that comes into force Parliamentary Counsel Office will draft the legal instrument to give effect to those decisions. That then comes to me to read to scrutinise to sign; once I've signed it it's then gazetted and at that point it becomes a legally enforceable order. Those orders are often arriving quite late in the piece. So when we bring areas either up or down the alert levels often we might be giving a period of—if we're going up the alert levels less than 24 hours and the order sometimes is arriving not long before midnight to take effect at 11.59 p.m. So the turnaround time frames are quite brief. That is one of the reasons why we do sometimes see that there's a need to amend the orders that are put in place because they are often put together very quickly and while the Parliamentary Counsel Office do have a series of templates that they have worked up there is a need in order for us to continue to adapt and evolve those.This bill includes improved flexibility for the making of COVID-19 orders; the effective management of the laboratory testing regime and systems; the strengthening of the infringement regime which I've already referred to; improved delegated decision-making—there are issues and there have been issues highlighted in part by the Regulations Review Committee sometimes about some of the things that I have delegated under the Act where the Regulations Review Committee have argued that it could be inconsistent with the way the delegation framework in the Act operates and so we've taken that on board and tried to fix those and amend those. Most of the delegations are pragmatic ones to allow decisions to be taken faster where they concern individual people without them having to go through a ministerial decision-making process. But we want to make sure that that is transparent and that that is tidy and so we've made some changes there. Some further changes to support the effective operation of our existing managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities and some other technical amendment.The specific legislative provisions for the operation of managed isolation and quarantine facilities—I just want to talk about those briefly. MIQ had been up and running for about five weeks at the time the primary Act was put in place and things have changed quite a lot since then. So a number of the policies included in this bill particularly those related to MIQ facilities have been enabled already through COVID-19 orders but are more appropriately put in place through primary legislation and so that is what we're endeavouring to do in this legislation.I only have a few minutes left so I won't go through all of the other provisions of the bill in great detail but what I will say is that yes we are intending to introduce this legislation and have it passed as quickly as we possibly can. That means that again this is a bill that is subject to a shortened select committee timetable—although I notice the select committee timetable that the members opposite were proposing for the last bill that the House just dealt with—but it is important that we have this in place. Particularly as we start to make changes at the border it's important that we have the new infringement regime up and running and enacted into law because the consequences of people not following the rules as we look to make changes at the border are very significant and there should be penalties for those who knowingly and deliberately break the rules.So I do look forward to engaging with the select committee on what will be quite a tight time frame. I am sure that they will hear from members of the public on this bill. It will be a truncated process but I look forward to continuing the debate when the bill returns to the House in November.SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.