Luxton JoJO LUXTON (Labour—Rangitata): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise in response to the Prime Minister's statement this afternoon. I want to wish everyone a happy New Year and hope everyone has enjoyed their summer break and the reason that we've been able to have such a lovely summer break is because of the collective efforts of everyone right across New Zealand. In particular I want to take this opportunity just to acknowledge all of those who've been on our front line right through the last couple of years of this pandemic of this time of disruption and they are the health workers they are the managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) workers they are the essential workers—those people who work in our supermarkets our police our fire crews—all those people who have had to continue working on the front line throughout this time. Our rural sector our primary sector has been a sector that has really really stood up to the challenge during these times and really carried this country through economically; so I really want to acknowledge them also.The Prime Minister spoke this afternoon about the fact that the Government's focus was on saving as many lives as possible and I think that we should stand as a nation very proudly that we have managed to do that. One death is obviously too many but when we compare ourselves to countries around the world we have done outstandingly well.I heard members opposite earlier on talk about or criticise the vaccine roll-out and I think that that's a real shame when we stand here today and we have 94 percent of our population who are double vaccinated. We have 40 percent of our children who've had first doses and we have 1.5 million people—eligible New Zealanders—who have had their booster shot. So I think that rather than criticising the vaccine roll-out we should celebrate that New Zealanders have embraced it and that we've had the opportunity to access these vaccinations for free at no cost in order to protect all New Zealanders. But we're not out of the woods yet and we don't know what will come next and we don't know what variant we might see next but what we can do is plan as best as we are able to knowing what we know currently.I think that the things that the Prime Minister outlined in her speech today speak to some of those plans very well. She talked about preparing for winter and increasing the influenza vaccination roll-out programme to ensure that those that are vulnerable our most vulnerable have the option to be given the best protection that we can. Because what we know is there is a likelihood that there will be a lot of people hospitalised whether it be through COVID or influenza or other ordinary illnesses and things that people end up being in hospital for. But what we don't want to see is our health system overwhelmed and getting vaccinated is one of the ways that we can work towards ensuring that that doesn't happen.The Prime Minister also talked about other measures that this Government has put in place in working towards ensuring that that doesn't happen such as the 10 days sick leave. And yes it is an increased cost on businesses but it does ensure that people have the ability to stay home when they are sick rather than needing to go into work and spread their illness and therefore affecting the workforce in that way. Because we do know the workforce will be under pressure once Omicron really takes off. So the 10 days sick leave is something that has been a very good initiative in my view. Things like the healthy homes standard and the healthy homes initiative where that is going to be rolled out to another nine additional regions—I think that's really important where people come in and assess the home and think about ways that that can be made more healthy through curtains insulation bedding and the like.We know that COVID-19 has had a huge impact on mental health across New Zealand and across all walks of life and all ages and all ethnicities. Mental health doesn't discriminate in that respect. We've made some really great progress in the area of mental health but yes there is more work to be done and I'm really pleased to see that Mana Ake will be rolled out to more primary schools across the country. And when I visited a primary school back before this pandemic really took off in 2020 the principal there said that he had found that that was just absolutely invaluable for our children because it is our young children that bear the brunt often when they see how stressed parents are and things like that. So I think that it's really important that we are looking after our youngest and most vulnerable. Yes there is more to do but this Government has a plan. Thank you.