2. Question No. 2—Prime MinisterHon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime MinisterQuestion No. 2—Prime Minister2. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement in relation to COVID-19 restrictions We know that in the future we cannot ask people to live week by week not knowing when things will change"; if so when will she announce clear milestones for lifting current COVID-related restrictions?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): I stand by my full statement: "We know that in the future we cannot ask people to live week by week not knowing when things will change or how to help things speed up. We know that needs to change and we have a plan on how. While the announcements today will be about the next few weeks on Friday we'll provide the detail around the system we'll use to protect ourselves in a highly vaccinated environment. We'll give details on how we'll move into that new system and what will help us to get there."Hon Judith Collins: Why did she not announce clear milestones three weeks ago when she released a three-step plan for lifting lockdown in Auckland?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Because as we've always said our outbreak has been and continues to be different than those outbreaks we've seen in Australia where they were using vaccine to exit their outbreak. What we wanted to do was maintain the ability to continue to assess the progress of the outbreak alongside our vaccination so not necessarily say that everything would be contingent on single vaccination rates but to continue to assess the containment of the outbreak. That is why we made the decision of course as you know in level 3 to have a step 1 change that allows people to gather outdoors.Hon Judith Collins: Can she commit to telling students in Auckland and Waikato this week what the criteria are for when they can return to school so that they don't have to live week to week?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I've already signalled that the Ministry of Education will be making announcements around the near future around education in Auckland on Wednesday and obviously as I've already said in my primary answer we'll be looking to the framework for a highly vaccinated environment and the details of that being released on Friday.Hon Judith Collins: Can she commit to telling South Islanders this week the conditions for when level 2 restrictions will be lifted so that South Island businesses don't have to live week to week?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I've already said in my primary answer we've set out the time line for when we will be releasing the details of a framework for a highly vaccinated environment. What I will say in the meantime for the South Island is that you'll see that we continue to assess the parameters and restrictions that sat alongside level 2. Of course we've kept a level 2 environment in the rest of the country because we know the mobility of New Zealanders. We know that we're continuing to have to ship and transport goods out of Auckland into the South Island. But we did assess that we could lift the caps for for instance hospitality and those sites that are using the seated and separated rule to try and just ease a bit of pressure there acknowledging that the restrictions do have an impact.Hon Judith Collins: Does she accept that the Government's failure to deliver a plan to ease restrictions has seen small businesses living week to week and many destroyed?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I accept that COVID has destroyed many people's lives and affected in a disastrous way many people's businesses. Of course no country has had zero impact from COVID but it is fair to say that our country has had far fewer impacts than many when it comes to case numbers hospitalisations deaths and—of course—unemployment and the impacts of restrictions on business. We absolutely acknowledge this has been an incredibly difficult period for many but when we look at the overall impact of COVID around the world we have had a very different and far better situation than many many others.Hon Judith Collins: Can she commit to announcing the conditions this week for lifting the Auckland regional boundaries so split families across New Zealand don't have to live week to week?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I've already talked a little bit this morning about some of the thinking that we're doing around the Auckland boundary and one of the issues we have is of course the desire of the South Island for instance to be without any restrictions but equally the member has now raised also the desire of Aucklanders to be able to move around. So we as Government have to navigate those two competing interests and keep people safe but also acknowledge that there are of course incredibly important reasons that Aucklanders wish to move again. So we are doing some thinking around how regardless of the situation of the outbreak in Auckland we might be better able to enable that safely.Hon Judith Collins: Does she now accept that when she said earlier this year "I support the fact that we have been later in the pecking order" her decision not to prioritise vaccinations for New Zealanders resulted in Auckland's 62-day lockdown?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I utterly reject the premise of that member's question.Hon Judith Collins: Will she apologise to New Zealanders for failing to get them vaccinated earlier and leaving us as sitting ducks for Delta?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I also completely reject the premise of that question. We entered into talks with pharmaceutical companies before they'd even finished their clinical trials. We were purchasing vaccines across multiple portfolios before it was even clear that they would necessarily be successful. Despite the constant misrepresentation of the Opposition on this issue we were very early in our purchasing. Whether or not we were amongst the first to be delivered to is a very different question but I utterly reject any suggestion that we did not do everything that we could to ensure that we had access to vaccines.David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister accept or not accept that New Zealand has been one of the last countries in the OECD to get its population vaccinated?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We've already overtaken many other countries for whom the member would compare us to. Of course when it comes to first doses I believe we've overtaken Australia now the UK—a number of other countries that the member continued to compare us to we have overtaken. The difference is that we've always taken our own approach on COVID. We've always said that we want a situation where we keep people as safe as possible and at the moment that means trying to keep the outbreak as low as possible while we get very high vaccination rates because that means that when we move we will be able to continue to try and keep that outbreak and those numbers as low as possible. There's very few countries that have been in that position and there are few countries that have been in ours. But I don't for a moment trivialise the impacts of lockdown."