Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker and I want to wish you a very happy Easter and in fact everyone in the House and up and down New Zealand. For those people of faith I hope it's a time of special reflection for you and for everybody who's enjoying a well-deserved long weekend off it's a time for family a time to stay safe on the roads and make sure that you find where the bunny left all that chocolate because we can't afford to have any going to waste at this point in time.Hon Kris Faafoi: Don't worry; I'll find it.DAVID SEYMOUR: Kris Faafoi's laughing; he knows what I mean. He's not going to miss out on any chocolate this Easter. Kris Faafoi is going to hoover up the lot and good for him. He's been working hard.On the issue of these COVID-19 examination orders I think that we had a very interesting speech from the Minister and there were a couple of interesting points in it. One was that he started off by saying I don't think we'll be doing this much longer." He basically said he thinks COVID's over—it's become less complex and the parts that are required from the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act could just go into other legislation and be looked after under other portfolios. In other words he's the first Labour Minister to actually shrink the size of the Government by nuking his own portfolio and that's an awfully welcome thing but the ACT Party often being ahead of the curve on this sort of issue said back in November that it was time for this legislation to go. We started voting against it then. I hear somebody from the South Island—I don't want to get stuck on the specifics; Nicola Grigg I think—saying "Ha ha!" Well I know she's new here but I just remind Nicola Grigg that the National Party said they were going to vote against the legislation and then forgot to. It was so confusing the Speaker asked them if they got it right or not because from the speeches it sounded like they were going to vote against it then they didn't leaving only ACT voting against this legislation since November. It's about policy and process and they both matter.The facts are that we have been needing to move on from COVID for a long time. In fact the ACT Party's fourth comprehensive policy paper on the COVID issue—set out at moveon.kiwi for those who may be looking for some Easter reading—sets out why we need to move on from COVID restrictions and why so many of these rules no longer make sense but constrain New Zealanders in their everyday lives. An example of that was people trying to go in and out of the country and the Minister tellingly misspoke. He said "Oh we're going to let Kiwis come back if they're non-vaccinated." And then he said "But I want to be clear it's only citizens." So here's the thing. We've got a Government that started out saying it's all about public health and following the science. They said "Everything we do is driven by the evidence." Well can the Minister please tell us: where is the evidence that getting a New Zealand passport makes you immune to COVID? And if you don't have a New Zealand passport if you're one of those many New Zealand families who are permanent residents who may be citizens who have permanent residents in their family who have loved ones stuck overseas that they can't unite with how is it justified that because someone doesn't have a passport but lives in this country and pays tax in this country—does everything that a normal person does in this country as a permanent resident—has to go through seven days of managed isolation and quarantine but a person with a passport doesn't? There's just no rhyme nor reason no logic no cost-benefit analysis no justice in this COVID response when you make distinctions like that and that's one of the problems with the rules that are currently being debated.The ACT Party says that all people should be able to come to New Zealand whether or not they are permanent residents or citizens or tourists whether or not they come from a country that is a visa-waiver country or not because a virus doesn't care if you come from a county that has a visa waiver with the New Zealand Government. Biology just doesn't work that way. So why don't we say New Zealand is moving on and we're open for business with sensible public health measures?Here's another thing that has been put up under this COVID-19 Public Health Response Act which is not being abolished today but should be and that is that a person who comes from Australia has to isolate for seven days if they have a positive test. So let me paint a picture—here's how it works. You're coming from Sydney with your partner and two kids. You land at Auckland International Airport and they give you a couple of rapid antigen tests each and say "Do one of the first day and one on day five or six and if you're positive phone us. And then we'll make you isolate in the same place for seven days." So what you're doing is you've planned you're going go down to Rotorua have a look at the hot pools take in some kapa haka and then you're off down country. You fly through Wellington down to Central Otago rent a car and drive around. You've got your tickets for the Earnslaw and then—Dr Duncan Webb: You've missed Christchurch.DAVID SEYMOUR: Duncan Webb says "Why wouldn't you go to Christchurch?" Well if you knew Parliament was sitting that would be the time to go because you'd know that Duncan Webb was here. That's when I'd go to Christchurch—the best time to visit. If there are any Australians watching who want to go to Christchurch a beautiful city Tuesday to Thursday is the best time to visit.So you're on your way to Central Otago and you're hoping to have a bit of couple's time at the Onsen you've bought your tickets for the Earnslaw and to take the kids and show them the big steam engine on Wakatipu and you take your test and it says you're positive. Are you seriously going to isolate for seven days in one place and miss your flight back to Oz have to buy extra accommodation and not be able to use any of the other tickets? You're just not going to do it. Here's the question: if it's unworkable to have our current seven-day isolation rules for tourists why are we doing it to New Zealanders that need to go to work to feed their family? Our isolation rules no longer work and if the Minister's talking about backing down and no longer having rules that don't make sense—which he did and I commend it and I welcome it—then we need to get rid of our isolation rules that don't work. Seven days of isolation—and even if you keep testing negative every day you've got to stay inside. It's nuts. It doesn't fit with biology. In Singapore what is it? Seventy-two hours and then a negative test and you're free. Well that makes sense. That's what a sensible Government would do. So those are the kinds of changes that we need to see.But it's also a time when the Minister appears to be reflecting on how the COVID response has gone. He said we've done a great job. He said things are changing we're on the wind-down. Well if he's going to say that let me join in some reflections. There are things in life you can control and things you can't control. What the Government could control were things like delivering personal protective equipment (PPE) on time. Did it deliver it on time? Did it have contact tracing that met the gold standard of 80 percent of cases traced within 96 hours? Did it have a vaccination roll-out that partnered with GPs and pharmacies and hapū to get the vaccine to the people in a format they trusted on time and under budget? Did they have for example testing that was fast and reliable and easily scalable or did they rely on one provider and one type of testing and ban all others including saliva tests and rapid antigen tests? We know the answers to all those. Ashley Bloomfield went on TV and said there was no shortage of PPE and every night on TV we saw doctors saying "Well I haven't seen any at my hospital."Then there was contact tracing. It never got close to the gold standard. Even with low case numbers it never got remotely close to the gold standard. They gave up on contract tracing. The QR codes never worked. Then there was the vaccine roll-out and of course the GPs the pharmacists the hapū and the iwi weren't included in any kind of partnership to roll it out. That's why it was initially at least a disaster and only sped up when we had a real outbreak.Then there's the question of how we went with testing. Well that was the worst disaster of all. They spent half their time fighting with testing providers instead of actually getting testing done. And as soon as case numbers spiked up the testing regime completely collapsed because it hadn't occurred to them that batch testing doesn't work when you have higher rates of positivity. What did work with our COVID response? Well being in the middle of the Pacific was helpful. I don't know if Labour's taken credit for that at this point but I wouldn't be surprised. Having a population that was prepared to sacrifice by just going home putting a teddy bear in the window and awaiting further instructions at a moment's notice—that sacrifice great as it was propped up by huge amounts of money printing and borrowing—helped because whenever the virus got in we could do that. And closing the border and having successful managed isolation and quarantine worked but nothing that was happening within New Zealand was successful. The only reason the Government can claim a successful response is that for most of the last two years people sacrificed at the border and in lockdowns and that meant that there was no virus to fight anyway. The Government didn't have any tools to fight COVID-19 at home.So that is the reflection. If the Minister thinks they've done a good job let's be honest about what they could control and what they couldn't and what worked and what didn't. Not much. Not many if any initiatives were successful. With that we oppose these motions and we commend to everyone a very happy Easter. Ka kite."