Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in support of these orders. We think it's important that New Zealand has a lawful response to a public health emergency and that's what the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act was intended to enable and that's what these orders are. So we broadly support them with one exception which I'll mention.It's important for example that we actually ensure that the people who are most at risk of contracting COVID-19 are required to be tested because as Chris Bishop has just alluded to the failure of the Government to make rules that are proportionate to risk not the institution but actually proportional to risk has cost us hundreds of millions of dollars through a lockdown in Auckland. This is actually a failure of the current Government across the board. It's often more focused on the ideology or the institution doing the delivery than it is on the actual outcome for the people who pay the bills—aka the New Zealand taxpayer and citizens of this country.Now if the Government's focus was on Is this person at risk of contracting COVID-19 spreading it to their friends and neighbours and causing a lockdown which will devastate New Zealand's business?" then they would have from the start said "Everyone regardless of whether they work for a public or private company"—or what particular company it is—"should actually be on a register." So we absolutely support the idea of having required testing for anyone who's a PCBU—person conducting a business or undertaking. Great idea. Pity we didn't think of it six months ago. It could have saved a lot of money.The one that ACT has an objection to is the actual ban on point-of-care tests. It's another theme of this Government's response that it has been again very fixated on who delivers the service: Ministry of Health good; everybody else bad out in the cold. That has held us back as a country. It's made our response to COVID-19 less nimble and less efficient. You have to ask yourself why the Government would take it on itself to actually ban the—they've done this all the way through COVID with Gazette notices banning testing kits. You know why shouldn't people be able to avail themselves of information? Why shouldn't New Zealanders be able to innovate in response to a crisis? That's how New Zealanders have traditionally faced adversity—by innovating and using better technology—and the Government's going out of its way to ban technologies being imported into New Zealand by citizens of this country. I think that's a real real shame.Finally we come to the restrictions on people coming—or finally in this particular report of the Regulations Review Committee—from India. The ACT Party thinks that this is the right thing to do. In saying that we acknowledge the terrible heartbreak and considerable resentment particularly within our Kiwi Indian community and the inconvenience that is being caused. But I want to be clear about why we support it. ACT has said all along that one of the things the Government needs to do in response to a pandemic is have a response that's proportional to risk. The logic is that if there's a place that has a new and more infectious perhaps more virulent strain that may be more resistant to vaccination then the risk of people coming from that country and bringing COVID-19 must be higher than from other places. So our response should be proportional to risk and putting restrictions on people coming from India was the right thing to do.Now here's the thing: we still don't let people come from Niue. I mean it's speculative that one day New Zealanders will be able to come to Niue which to some extent is actually legally part of New Zealand and that's actually a place—funnily enough for the benefit of the Labour members I'll name-drop Chris Luxon. When I went to Niue he was on the flight. He pops up everywhere you see. It's hard to avoid mentioning him. But—Matt Doocey: Those bald guys all look the same.DAVID SEYMOUR: Well I sometimes get him confused with Matt Doocey. I mean you know it's an easy mistake to make! But back on COVID-19 and the response to the pandemic—I mean this is important stuff.Greg O'Connor: A dollar each way.DAVID SEYMOUR: What's that from Greg?Greg O'Connor: Having a dollar each way.DAVID SEYMOUR: Greg from Ōhāriu—O'Connor; that's his name.Greg O'Connor: Ōhāriu—get it right. Ōhāriu.DAVID SEYMOUR: Yeah yeah yeah. It looks like he's been getting a bit of Irish courage during the dinner break again. In any case—Greg O'Connor: Some of us don't need it.DAVID SEYMOUR: Ha ha!Chris Bishop: Berocca!DAVID SEYMOUR: Chris Bishop says he's been having the Berocca. They've been passing it around on the Labour backbenches. It's dangerous stuff. Anyway we've got serious matters to debate here.The question is: if we're going to be proportional to risk when it comes to putting restrictions on people coming from India then surely the quid pro quo on that is we should actually have less restrictions on people coming from places like Niue coming from places that have no COVID whatsoever welcoming our Pacific friends as Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme (RSE) workers. So again a good idea but why don't we have more of this risk-proportional initiative?We've had the vaccinations order. This is something that has been very topical and of concern for a lot of people. This order says if you want to work in certain settings where you might be subject to getting exposed to COVID-19 working at the border or managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) or whatever then you actually have to be vaccinated. Again vaccination dramatically reduces the risk of harbouring and passing on COVID-19 because it prepares your immune system to fight it. People say "Well it's my right not to do it." Well actually let's be really clear about rights. Everyone has a right to refuse treatment. What people don't have a right is for someone else to give them a job on any terms they demand.If it's in the best interests of this country to avoid another lockdown to keep people in business and not going broke and if the way to achieve that is to ensure that the most vulnerable people are people who are prepared to be vaccinated—and I've personally been vaccinated and seem to be fine; people who think there's something wrong with me will probably maintain I was like that before—then I think actually it's critical that the law is in place to make sure that people who are working in those critical areas are vaccinated. Again I mean this goes back to ACT's policies our COVID 2.0 Response Plan. You know one of the principles is that New Zealand's response to COVID should be risk proportionate.Finally there's a couple of orders around MIQ and these are orders about making sure that we are properly using MIQ space. Now this was touched on also by Chris Bishop and it's an area—and I'm sure we'll hear a lot from Erica Stanford because she's worked hard standing up for her constituents from the East Coast Bays and beyond on this. The wastage of MIQ space may seem when you're just managing a big operation like not a major thing but I can tell you and I can tell people listening at home and especially tell this Government that to people who have faced heartache and separation from their families—losing jobs losing employers in some cases for nearly a year now—the idea that there are MIQ spaces going begging not being used is absolutely heartbreaking.So once again we commend these orders. It's a great idea except for the one banning technology which is bizarre. But we actually want the Government to use them because here's the thing: COVID has come back into New Zealand's consciousness in the last seven days first in Taiwan and then in Australia. We have seen how costly our complacency can be. Two other countries that thought they'd won island nations both of them like us with low rates of vaccination and that had not improved their defences—even if Taiwan started from a high base had not improved their defences over the last year. Suddenly in Melbourne and in Taipei you see what can happen.This Government's response is a cross between Dad's Army and Hogan's Heroes. If we were to ask the Minister—can anyone on the Labour benches get up and honestly say that New Zealand's response is more sophisticated than it was six months ago in testing and tracing? Have we got any new technology? Oh that's right; we're allowing saliva testing that was first recommended by the Government in September last year. I'm glad we're just fighting a microscopic virus; if this was an actual war we'd be toast by now.We need to do better than the Dad's Army Hogan's Heroes complacent happy-go-lucky approach that's seen Melbourne locked down and Taipei not far behind. It's not good enough to expect vaccination will solve all our problems especially not the way this Government's rolling it out. Thank you Mr Speaker."