7. Question No. 7—COVID-19 ResponseDEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) to the Minister for COVID-19 ResponseQuestion No. 7—COVID-19 Response7. DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: How will the Government ensure that Māori vaccination levels are equitable before moving out of the elimination strategy?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): In answer to the last part of the question the Government is not intending to move out of the elimination strategy. We continue to pursue a strategy of stamping out COVID-19 cases wherever we find them. The Government's always placed equity at the forefront of our COVID-19 response and the roll-out of the vaccination programme is no different. While we recorded an important milestone over the weekend with more than 50 percent of eligible Māori having received a first dose there clearly is still more work that we need to be doing. The Ministry of Health is using the data that we have available to drive an approach that's focused on those populations who have lower vaccination throughout New Zealand including Māori. The strategies are focused on ensuring the maximum uptake to measure progress looking at ethnicity age location and so on. It isn't enough for us to rely on a simple single measure. We have to look in a much more detailed manner where vaccination rates are higher and lower and the characteristics of those populations. Fundamentally the elimination strategy recognises that vulnerable communities would be the hardest hit by any COVID-19 outbreak so elimination remains the best strategy to ensure equitable outcomes.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Why did Cabinet choose to ignore the advice of Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā who issued a press release calling for Auckland to remain in level 4 and be joined by the Waikato region until we are absolutely certain that the spread of COVID-19 is eliminated?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: We haven't removed alert level restrictions in Auckland; we've moved from alert level 4 to alert level 3. I think it's useful to recall that we've managed previous outbreaks by only going up to alert level 3. We moved to alert level 4 because of the significance of the Delta variant and the fact that we know it is more transmissible that it had a head start on us and that we were therefore likely to discover potentially a significant number of more cases in the community which we did. Moving down from alert level 4 to alert level 3 doesn't mean we are not still pursuing a strategy of getting back to zero—that is absolutely what we are focused on. It's just we are increasingly confident that we know where the risk is and therefore we can manage it at alert level 3.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does he accept considering the nature of the outbreak and that Māori have the lowest vaccination rates of any group that the decision to move Auckland to level 3 presents far greater risks for Māori and that the much safer approach would have been to wait until Māori vaccination rates were much higher?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Lower vaccination rates amongst Māori are a concern and they do leave Māori at greater risk of an adverse outcome from COVID-19. That is something that I think we should all be concerned about. I fully endorse and back measures that are targeting Māori communities and I think that those who seek to undermine those are doing a great disservice to all New Zealanders as they do so. In fact we should be targeting all of those pockets of our community where vaccination rates are lower. We should do that proactively and proudly.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Has he seen modelling based on current vaccination rates on who are the 10 percent of the population the Government is willing to sacrifice if as the Minister of Health recently said level 4 restrictions won't ever be put in place again once 90 percent of the population has been vaccinated?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I addressed this very issue at my media conference earlier on today. When we talk about a 90 percent vaccination rate—and bear in mind the Government has not set a hard and fast target around vaccinations and we have persistently resisted calls for us to do so. When we talk about 90 percent that would put us amongst the highest vaccination rates in the world and that would be encouraging but that is not an invitation to 10 percent of New Zealanders to say I'm going to be part of the 10 percent that doesn't get vaccinated." We need every New Zealander who is eligible to be vaccinated to come forward and be vaccinated to offer the maximum possible protection against COVID-19.Hon Grant Robertson: How does the Minister think that increasing the Māori vaccination rate will be helped by political leaders saying things like "Mutations of the virus are becoming less deadly. The way the virus is mutating it's more easily transmissible but fewer people are getting severely affected by it." as the Leader of the Opposition did today?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think it's really important that our overall message to all New Zealanders at this point should continue to be that COVID-19 is dangerous; that people die from COVID-19 and are dying in large numbers from COVID-19 around the rest of the world; and the best thing that all New Zealanders can do and all those who are in New Zealand can do is come forward and be vaccinated to protect themselves to protect the people that they care about and to protect everybody else."