Verrall AyeshaCOVID-19 ORDERSApprovalHon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I move That this House approve the following orders made under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020:COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Amendment Order (No 5) 2022 (SL 2022/194)COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Amendment Order (No 4) 2022 (SL 2022/195)COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Amendment Order (No 5) 2022 (SL 2022/196)COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Amendment Order (No 5) 2022 (SL 2022/207)COVID-19 Public Health Response (Maritime Border and Other Matters) Amendment Order (No 2) 2022 (SL 2022/213).Mr Speaker may I congratulate you on your election to your role today. It is always a pleasure to see fellow former Ministers of Food Safety ascend to even higher ranks in this House. I'm asking the House today to approve COVID-19 orders to ensure that they are not revoked within certain time frames and today's motion approves five orders that came into force in June and July 2022. I'm grateful to the members of the Regulations Review Committee for their comments and observations which will continue to influence how future orders are drafted. I thank them for their diligent work in examining orders made under the Act.One of the orders today makes several amendments to the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order 2021 including removing the requirement for pre-departure testing for all travellers; expanding the category of people who are exempt from the requirement to be vaccinated; and allowing a person with COVID-19 symptoms to arrive in New Zealand if they have a certificate from a qualified person or a negative COVID-19 test. One of the orders today also sets out that if specified participants under the principal order are required to self-isolate they may leave their place of self-isolation to undertake permitted work in connection with these specified events. Another makes several amendments to the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Order 2022 which reduces the time period which a person would not have to re-isolate as a new case from three months to 28 days based on increasing information about the risk of reinfection; amends the definition of permitted work travel; and adds new categories of entitled permitted movement. The COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Amendment also refines the health and disability sector's workers which are required to be vaccinated and removes border and correction workers from the vaccination order.It's also worth remembering that we're now—on Friday it will be—almost a year since the Reconnecting New Zealand forum where we started a deliberate and safe reopening with the world. The orders we are discussing today build on that with changes to the maritime border order which welcomed tourists back to New Zealand. Amendments to the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Maritime Border and Other Matters) Amendment (No 2) 2022 include removing the prohibition on foreign ships arriving in New Zealand and it allows only people sharing a cabin with a COVID-19 case to be subject to self-isolation provisions.So I do not expect we'll be bringing many more of these COVID approval motions to the House but I would like to recognise the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act which has underpinned our response to COVID-19. It has allowed us to respond quickly as COVID-19 has evolved. Our response will continue to be based on public health advice and we'll continue to adapt to the challenges the pandemic brings. New Zealanders have worked very hard to get through this pandemic and as a result of those efforts we continue to move forward and change the way we do things.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon David Bennett): The question is that the motion be agreed to.