2. Question No. 2—Prime MinisterDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime MinisterQuestion No. 2—Prime Minister2. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all of her Government's statements and policies?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes particularly the recent announcement that Pharmac has signed an agreement for 60000 courses of Pfizer's oral antiviral treatment. Clinical studies have shown this treatment is highly promising with an 89 percent reduction in hospitalisations and deaths. Taken orally at the first sign of symptoms it can significantly prevent people from getting really unwell and requiring hospitalisation. The Government's decision to ring-fence $300 million for Pharmac to purchase COVID-19 therapeutics on top of an existing $175 million for medicines and supply chain costs means New Zealanders will have access to six world-leading therapeutics. Three of these are already in use in our hospitals and we're seeing the impact of that. Pending Medsafe approval the remainder is scheduled to arrive in New Zealand early next year.David Seymour: Why did the Government employ Pharmac to negotiate and sign the agreement for molnupiravir when the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) was tasked with the vaccine procurement for COVID-19; is the Government unhappy with MBIE's performance at procuring vaccines at all?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No.David Seymour: Does she stand by Ashley Bloomfield's statement six days ago that Our hospitalisations have very much levelled off across Tāmaki-makau-rau"; and if so why is Auckland at red when the COVID-19 website says red means the health system is facing "an unsustainable number of hospitalisations."?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Happy to address that question in two parts. Obviously Dr Bloomfield was referring to the fact that indeed as we see a decline in cases which I know we all welcome in Tāmaki-makau-rau we are seeing at the same time a decline in hospitalisations—as of today 66 current hospitalisations across our hospital network. The reason that that's heartening is because it demonstrates that it's not just the case that we aren't picking up cases in the community. If we were we would see those rates higher. To answer the second part of the member's question we said right at the outset—you might recall at the time that we announced that first set of settings for the country—that this set of decisions early on in the transition would be different. We've established criteria for the traffic light framework that will hold us in good stead for the management of the pandemic going forward. But as we move into it we've said we'll deliberately take a cautious approach because we've learnt from overseas: if you move too fast you run the risk of those cases getting out of control and no one wants that.David Seymour: Can the Prime Minister give New Zealanders a date when they'll be able to look at Government websites such as the Unite against COVID-19 website and actually believe what it says instead of having the Prime Minister say "Well this is just a start. We'll follow those rules later."?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I don't think as we transition into an entirely different way of doing things that New Zealanders have an issue with us being cautious as we do that because they want caution so that we maintain low case rates. Those countries who have given certain dates like Denmark who lifted the use of their vaccine passes in August put them back in November; Israel who lifted all their restrictions brought their vaccine pass back; and Norway lifted in September only to tell their people that they needed to bring them back in November. We're moving carefully so that we don't have to yo-yo in the way we've seen other countries who saw an explosion of cases because they moved too fast.David Seymour: Is the Prime Minister then saying it doesn't matter if New Zealand is the last country to emerge from COVID so long as she never has to admit a mistake?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I don't call the lowest case rates in the OECD the lowest hospitalisations and the lowest death rate a mistake. I call them a plan which New Zealanders have stood firmly behind.Christopher Luxon: What is the point of the criteria if it's not being followed?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We will absolutely use the criteria to inform our decisions. But from the very beginning we said for that first set of decisions as we transition we would act carefully because we have an outbreak we need to maintain control over and we need to assess the impact of the outbreak. The member wasn't here for the alert level transition but we did take similar steps as we transitioned into that as well.Hon Chris Hipkins: Can the Prime Minister confirm that on 1 December when some were arguing—[Interruption]SPEAKER: Order! I don't know where that's coming from but it's to stop.Hon Chris Hipkins: Can the Prime Minister confirm that on 1 December when some were arguing that all restrictions should be lifted and the international borders should be reopened there were just 130 cases reported in New Zealand as opposed to the 129000 cases in the United States the 48000 cases in the United Kingdom the 1400 cases in Australia or the 3146 cases in Canada?SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. [Interruption] The member will resume his seat. I mean we do have a new shadow Leader of the House—again.Chris Bishop: Not that new.SPEAKER: And if he wants to stay here he won't interject while I'm on my feet and he certainly will not deliberately breach the rules. He's meant to show leadership and an example and not interject during questions. [Interruption] No the member was as well. It's no good just blaming Mr Bridges. Chris Hipkins—oh the Prime Minister. [Interruption]David Seymour: Who will propose the times locations and protocols for checkpoints on public roads when iwi representatives are acting as enforcement officers under the COVID-19 public health Act amendments made last month; will these checkpoints be initiated by iwi police or the Director-General of Health?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The police and the member will be obviously familiar with the elements of that bill because it went to a select committee he sat on.David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister agree with Treasury that New Zealand had the second-largest fiscal response to COVID-19 in the developed world even before the latest lockdown and can she understand how borrowing and spending a hundred billion bucks might lead to 4.9 percent inflation and rising interest rates on Kiwis' mortgages?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Firstly we stand by the investment we made to keep New Zealanders connected to the labour market because that has resulted in some of the lowest unemployment that New Zealand has seen despite the fact we're in an economic crisis. At the same time we went into this pandemic in this crisis with some of the lowest levels of debt relative to GDP in the OECD as well. And so that's stood us in good stead and allowed us to invest in our people. We stand by this investment. It's been the right thing to do. The member's assertion that that therefore has resulted in the inflationary pressures we've seen—around the world we're seeing it. The OECD has just revised up their inflation estimates to over 4 percent because of Omicron. It's very much pandemic related.David Seymour: Does the Prime Minister stand by her finance Minister's statement from the 2021 Budget speech he gave that "Wage growth … will outpace inflation meaning more money in Kiwis' back pockets." in light of ANZ's comment last week that real wages are now falling; and if so when will wages start to outpace cost increases as the Minister of Finance promised just six months ago?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course it has with wage growth being at around 3.5 percent and inflation around 2 percent. And at the time that the member made that statement that was Treasury's future forecasting as well. What we see around the world though in the likes of the United States and others is that we have seen inflation increase as we've seen pressures on supply chain and increase in demand from consumers as our economies have recovered. We are not alone in experiencing that."