Whaitiri MekaHon MEKA WHAITIRI (Minister of Customs): E te Māngai o te whare tēnā koe. Otirā ngā mema katoa o te whare nei tēnā tātou katoa.[Mr Speaker greetings and to all members in the House greetings to you all.]I too want to add my sincere condolences as expressed by my whanaunga Dr Elizabeth Kerekere to the Sean Wainui whānau of Whatatūtū Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki. A very sad passing and I too want to add my acknowledgment to him and his whānau.Super Saturday—130000 vaccinations across the country; 21700 Māori of which half and half were 50:50. This was a huge achievement and I too want to add my appreciation to all our health professionals our Māori providers our Hauora providers our DHB staff for a mammoth effort. But we know this is only the beginning; we have much more work to do. And I thought it is important that we celebrate everyone's effort across the country. I myself was on the ground in Te Tai Rāwhiti. I want to acknowledge Turanga Health. I want to acknowledge Ngāti Porou Hauora and of course Hauora Tairāwhiti and the DHB who ran clinics in and through the rohe of Te Tai Rāwhiti.But what I wanted to touch on is acknowledging Super Saturday but also acknowledging the work prior to Super Saturday and obviously the work that we need post - Super Saturday if we're going to keep our Māori vaccination rates growing. Prior to lockdown prior to the August lockdown I visited all my clinics throughout Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and I've got a big electorate from Wainuiōmata right up into the East Coast. I visited those clinics to ensure that I understood how our clinics were set up how the vaccinators were resourced how the people were coming in and how they were awhi-ed and what experience they were having in those clinics and to speak to the clinicians themselves around some of the challenges. Every day since lockdown I zoomed with my four electoral offices where we examined the daily rates of vaccination across my four DHBs: Tairāwhiti Hawke's Bay Wairarapa and of course the Hutt Valley DHB which is part of Capital and Coast. Every day and to this day we continue to do that because it is so critical as the member for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti with the high number of Māori that we've got across my electorate that I'm informed as a local MP as to the challenges facing them.I also met with every four of my DHBs before Super Saturday to ensure that they were really clear that I was there to lend a hand not to take over but to ensure that a health response on the ground across my electorate was so critically important to lifting Māori vaccination rates. And every DHB chair and every chief executive engaged openly and were open to suggestions. My point to all of them was they needed to work with their Māori community. It needed to be a Māori-led response across my electorate and I want to say they did take that on board and they continue to do that.But not only that we had the Prime Minister come into my electorate. Just when you're trying to focus on getting rates in comes the Prime Minister. There's nothing like drawing the attention to the fact that we needed to lift Māori vaccination rates than having the PM in your electorate. So we had her at Wainuiōmata Marae where she engaged with Kōkiri Marae Services and Teresea and the team who are doing a stellar job out there. She then came to Flaxmere at Tōtara Health. She met with our Māori Hauoras at te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga. She went up to Wairoa and saw firsthand and engaged with the rangatahi about some of their concerns that they had around vaccination and she openly answered the questions that they posed to her. It was then on to Gisborne to meet with the Hauoras in Gisborne and then of course up the East Coast where she engaged with people on the ground. For a Prime Minister who is running this country and leading us through this pandemic I saw a side of the Prime Minister that was on the ground talking with people but also engaging people with vaccination hesitation. I saw that where she not only heard the concerns but also addressed in a very subtle way with those people who may have turned up that weren't contemplating being vaccinated—and the Prime Minister took them aside and had a word and that led to their vaccination. Who else in this House can say that they have done that? Have they found people who are hesitant? Have they walked into the clinics? Have they stood by them while they were phobic of needles and then just held their hands? That's what we've got in this Prime Minister: not only leading the country but getting down amongst all our clinics and our patients particularly our Māori vulnerable and convincing them to get vaccinated. I'm proud to be part of this Government committed to raising Māori vaccination rates. We have more work to do.