8. Question No. 8—COVID-19 ResponseCHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 ResponseQuestion No. 8—COVID-19 Response8. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister for COVID-19 Response: Did Cabinet agree yesterday to vaccination rate targets in Auckland and New Zealand to allow COVID-19 restrictions to lift; if so what are they?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): The Government's overall target for COVID-19 remains to get every New Zealander taking up the opportunity to be vaccinated. Everyone who can be vaccinated should be vaccinated. As the Prime Minister has just indicated in the answer to her question an announcement on the thresholds for shifting to a new COVID-19 protection framework for a highly vaccinated population will be made on Friday. We are working through the final details of that including the interrelationship between the rates of vaccination and the potential new requirements in the new framework.Chris Bishop: Point of order Mr Speaker. The question was very specific as to whether or not Cabinet agreed to vaccination rate targets. I think the Minister said words to the effect of they're working that through. It doesn't actually answer or address the question.SPEAKER: Is there any response to that?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I'm happy to elaborate further on the answer if that would be helpful.SPEAKER: I think it would be. I think at least the first leg should be addressed.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Cabinet made some in principle decisions. Details are still being finalised.Hon Simon Bridges: Still writing the press release.SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member can take a call if he wants to.Chris Bishop: Does the Minister mean therefore that Cabinet will finalise the decisions reached in principle yesterday before the announcement on Friday?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: There are specific Ministers working through the details of that and of course the announcement will be finalised before the announcement is made.Chris Bishop: Why has the Government not published the vaccination rate target agreed at Cabinet yesterday and given some certainty to Aucklanders and New Zealanders desperate for a roadmap out of the situation they find themselves in?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Probably for a similar reason to the fact that the Leader of the Opposition demanded to know what the Government's targets were and then refused to release her own despite the fact that they've clearly already decided what they are which is that we're working through the details. We want to be able to answer all of the detailed questions that will flow from the announcement when we make it and so therefore we will do that on Friday.Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern: Has the member seen any reports of any other parties in this House and whether they've finalised the no less than three different targets that they've had around vaccination rates across New Zealand?SPEAKER: Now I think the Prime Minister knew that was out of order. Therefore she will withdraw and apologise.Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern: I withdraw and apologise.Chris Bishop: Why didn't the Government announce yesterday their in principle decisions to use his words around what the vaccination targets that Auckland and the country needs to get to to have COVID-19 restrictions loosened?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The Cabinet made some in principle decisions. The details of that have been delegated to a group of Ministers to finalise and that is the process that we're going through at the moment.Chris Bishop: Why is the country waiting until 63 days into this Delta outbreak before finding out what vaccination rate New Zealand needs to get to in order for restrictions to loosen?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I note that the member asks that question on the day that we have recorded the highest number of COVID-19 cases that we have had since the pandemic began. There is still a lot of uncertainty around the pandemic and the Government continues every day to get new information new modelling new projections and we want to make the most informed decisions that we possibly can. We are acutely aware of the fact that when we make these decisions going backwards isn't an option. Once COVID-19 cases take off it's very difficult to contain them. We want to make sure that the success that New Zealand's had in containing COVID-19 continues in as much as that is possible in light of the Delta variant that we are dealing with. This isn't a fast and easy process; there are a lot of different things that needed to be weighed up and traded off. The fact that the Opposition themselves haven't been able to maintain a consistent position over the last few weeks despite not being responsible for anything shows that it is actually a complicated set of issues.