Hipkins ChrisHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Well there you have it. Finally the National Party have indicated what they're going to cut: health spending. That is the one example that Simon Bridges could come up with of wasteful spending: in health. During a global pandemic health is the one area they could come out with to indicate they're going to cut. And of course they don't want to acknowledge the big drivers of growth in Government spending over the last two years: the wage subsidy—Hon Simon Bridges: Bureaucrats.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: —that's kept people in work. The bureaucrats." Simon Bridges says. Let's talk about who he's actually talking about when he talks about bureaucrats. Actually the wage subsidy accounts for a significant number of those—the people who were actually keeping businesses afloat by making sure they could access the wage subsidy. He could also be talking about the contact tracing teams who have made sure that we have kept COVID-19 out of the community employed by the Public Service. He could be talking about the extra staff working on the front lines at the Ministry of Social Development to make sure that we've actually got people getting the financial support that they need. Or the extra people at the IRD who have been doing a similar job. He could be talking about the extra social workers at Oranga Tamariki making sure that we're protecting and caring for our most vulnerable children. He could be talking about the extra staff employed by the Ministry of Education to work again with our most vulnerable children. They're not bureaucrats sitting in an office in Wellington; they are people who are in classrooms. They go into classrooms to help and to provide extra support for the most vulnerable kids. These are the people who the National Party thinks we should cut the jobs of. So I think that New Zealanders will utterly reject that. I want to acknowledge that it is an uncertain time for New Zealanders and that there are Kiwis out there who are nervous about where we're at with our COVID-19 response. Things have changed pretty dramatically in the last few weeks and I know that that has led to some New Zealanders feeling nervous and we see that in some of the consumer spending patterns that we're seeing at the moment. People are staying home voluntarily. They are isolating themselves. They are concerned about what they are seeing. They're concerned about the increase in case numbers and I want to speak directly to that. We are now entering and we are now well into a new phase in our response to COVID-19. It is a very different phase to the one that we were in two years ago when we were introducing restrictions when we were stamping out the virus. There are now tools available to us that there weren't two years ago. In New Zealand we have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. I want to acknowledge that: 97 percent of eligible adult New Zealanders have received at least one dose of vaccination; 95 percent have received their second; 70 percent of eligible New Zealanders as of today have received a booster dose; 51 percent of children who are eligible have received at least one dose of vaccination. The result is that that's changing the dynamic. We're now dealing with Omicron a variant that whilst it spreads faster it is more transmissible. It is resulting in fewer people in hospital and fewer people having those severe responses to it. So for many people who get Omicron in the next few weeks it will be a relatively mild illness. They will be able to stay home and they will be able to get better. As a result we have made other changes. The isolation rules have changed. It is now only those who have someone in their household who has COVID-19 who need to be isolating for that period. The rest of people who were otherwise previously called close contacts they are able to go to work but of course like all New Zealanders they should be taking the preventative public health measures that we want everyone to take: wearing a mask making sure that they're monitoring for symptoms washing their hands maintaining distance where they can. Those things will help to slow and potentially stop the spread of the virus. We do have a different way of testing now which is faster. It's giving us a faster turn-around in results. And while it wasn't a method of testing that we wanted to see in our elimination phase where we wanted the highest degree of accuracy possible it is now something that we can use at this phase of our response. There will be changes at the border. There are already changes at the border and we welcome back New Zealanders coming from Australia this week and from the end of the week Kiwis coming home from the rest of the world. In doing so we acknowledge that it has been a tough two years for those who have been separated by border restrictions. It's been a tough two years for those who have worked at the border and it is to them that I want to address my final comments.To Kiwis coming home: haere mai welcome. We know that it's been tough and we know that you're keen to get here and we welcome you home. To those who have worked at our borders we simply say thank you. You are national heroes. We acknowledge that you have paid a significant personal price for the job that you have done and we will make sure in this next phase as things change that you are treated fairly."