Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): No one is disputing that there is a need to stay vigilant. No one is disputing that we all need to continue following the public health advice that's been so prevalent and so much driven into us or drilled into us over the last seven or eight weeks or longer and that I think need to be continually repeated messages. I found it fascinating that we have to tell some people that it's a good idea in most circumstances to wash their hands that we should also clean down hard surfaces—those basic sorts of things. Yep we've got to keep doing it and we've got to also maintain respectful distance for a time longer.But the question is: when there is no pandemic notice and no epidemic notice who's making the decision that we continue to have these restrictions that can be now imposed on us if this bill passes by a simple notice largely driven out of the Prime Minister's office and enforceable—enforceable—with immediate fines and possibly court action? There doesn't seem to me to be a regime where the whole team of 5 million or so is being asked to put all hands to the pump and get stuck into beating this thing. The worst of it is that the price that's being paid for that win is going to be decades long for all New Zealanders and it bothers me that as we have seen now the benefit of New Zealanders' largely voluntary response—I won't get into the issue of legality; that's got a bit more to play out yet—that I think would have been there regardless of what law was particularly called on because of the circumstances that existed seven weeks ago the benefits from that are not now being realised to the extent that they should be.It won't be long before the number of New Zealanders losing their jobs every day and going on to the jobseeker benefit—and remember that that's only a fraction of those who are losing their jobs. There are many more who don't qualify for that who would have been in work. That number will very quickly escalate to a daily total bigger than the entire number of people infected by COVID-19 over the last seven weeks. Now if you put that into some perspective it gives an opportunity I think to show a lot more trust in New Zealanders because the other thing that's not being recognised here is that we are never going to be without it. Yes there will be a vaccine at some point and there will have to be other vaccines as there are mutations of this particular COVID virus but it's not imminent. So we are going to have to work out how we live with it. Are we going to be in a level 3 lockdown right to the duration—well for the foreseeable future?I want to congratulate the Government for accepting the limitation of 90 days or so before Parliament reaffirms any actions that are taken under this bill. That's a good thing. The good thing about it is it will mean that the decision makers—in this case one decision maker: the Prime Minister—will have to think about all the broad consequences of any decision that's made. I want to acknowledge the Government for deciding that the enforcement officers couldn't be just anybody plucked off the street given a badge as it were and told to go around knocking on doors and using their powers if they thought it was reasonable in their view. There is now as Crown employees or Crown appointees or Crown contractors the opportunity for a great deal more control over that. It's important. I think that's good but I'm disappointed that they could not have seen that it was an opportune time to include the whole of the Parliament in the consultation only—consultation only—on the section 11 decisions.We did move a Supplementary Order Paper—it was defeated by the Government—that would have had the Prime Minister consulting—that means picking up the phone and talking to—the Leader of the Opposition when there was a proposal to introduce some section 11 amendments. Now consultation doesn't mean have to do as they're told" or "must listen to every little point" or "consider every little point"; it just means "have a discussion". This Parliament has a party of 55 on this side of the House—the largest party in the House the largest number of voters per party of any in the House—but the Government has decided no consultation on that basis absolutely not. I think that's a weakness in the bill that's being passed now—one of many.The other thing that bothers me a little bit about this is under those section 11 notices—you start to analyse in your head—what are they going to be used for? One area we've seen of course is perhaps a continued restriction on church services perhaps a continued restriction on the funerals. We're told that the number is going to be 10 for those sort of activities—10 people. A week ago it was going to be 100. It's gone down to 10 and maybe in another week's time or two weeks' time it'll be expanded out a little bit more. That's one area that is of concern. The next though is in the hospitality area.I do worry that some of the influences in this bill particularly from the police may be sort of an underlying desire to have some sort of local alcohol policy applied across the whole country. I would hate to see uniformed policemen going into bars counting heads checking times measuring distances and any other restriction that might go into one of these. That's not good use of police time because one thing we can be sure of is that while the country has been diverted over the last X number of weeks worried about this COVID virus crime has continued. It's also a known fact that when you do have a disaster of this sort that you're trying to deal with—a crisis or whatever you want to call it—criminals always find a way to benefit from it.So I don't want to see the police made some sort of pseudo crowd-control organisation. I think they came dangerously close to that with some of that footage that was shown of them shuffling people off Sumner Beach a few weeks ago. That was not a good look. And to tell New Zealanders who were quite peaceably going about things keeping their distance that it was OK for them to be running on a beach but not sitting there having a bottle of water was I think a bit of a disgrace. It sort of worries me that many of that type of element is captured here. I feel sorry for those police staff who were required to do that because they're New Zealanders as well. They think like the rest of us. They enjoy the freedoms that the rest of us enjoy and they don't particularly I'm sure like having to enforce stuff that in the end is a little bit on the petty side.So we're not supporting this bill because there has to be a line in the sand that at least starts to say to New Zealanders there is some light at the end of the tunnel that we are going to be able to work out how to live with this virus in the world in the future because it will not be going away. It will not be totally eradicated and it probably hasn't even inflicted the greatest amount of damage that it will eventually because of many other countries in the world where we just don't even know what's going on.So yep we've got to do some things that protect our local economy but part of it has to be trusting New Zealanders to accept that in this new environment they've got to do what is best for them and what is best for the country. Unfortunately this bill takes away that sort of element of trust takes away the element of discussion with New Zealanders about what would be a good thing to do and most concerning of all it concentrates all of the decision making in the hands of one person the Prime Minister without any requirement for what the Prime Minister must consider before deciding to gazette the circumstances that will lead to a section 11 notice.Be clear: it's the section 11 notices that will put the restrictions on church services the restrictions on attendance at funerals the restrictions on public gatherings the restrictions on cafes the restrictions on bars—and you could go on forever. But in the end we need to lighten up a little bit trust that New Zealanders have done a good job and will continue to keep up those public health messages and make sure that we are all aware that this is something we live with from this point on."