Simmonds PennyPENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in opposition to the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2) which amends the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020. I feel like I've seen more of these pieces of legislation than most people should in their lives. I've been in the Regulations Review Committee and I wonder what that committee did before COVID! However this bill is to bring about better reflection of the knowledge supposedly that this Government has of how long the public health response may be necessary. Now that should put fear into most of our hearts I would think. My colleague Nicola Willis said it shows how pessimistic this Government is because essentially this bill allows the Minister to make orders to deal with COVID for things like lockdowns and managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) for a further 18 months extending out to May 2023. That really should be alerting all New Zealanders to the possibility of how crippling this Government's inaction could be for us.Now I think that's particularly pertinent when some of the things that are happening around the world show where we could be and I note today that New Zealand has fallen by 37 spots on the global ranking for best places to be amid a pandemic. I know that the Government were very proud of when they were number one but they have fallen from number one to number 38 out of 53 on a global ranking. We've fallen behind nations in Europe in North America in the Middle East in Africa in Asia and in the Pacific and sitting at the number one spot now is Ireland with a similar population to New Zealand. They have claimed the number one spot with 90 percent of their population over 18 vaccinated. In fact they are considered to be the vaccine poster child. I think it's quite interesting to have a look at the factors that are taken into account with these rankings. Well obviously virus containment is one of them. Healthcare quality—well that certainly wouldn't have been working out well for us. We know that we have one of the lowest numbers of ICU beds per thousand head of population in the OECD—so there's our ranking slipping immediately. Another criteria is vaccination coverage. Well that wouldn't have worked out particularly well for us either. Another factor is the progress towards easing border restrictions and restarting travel. Well clearly that wasn't going to work well for us either. In these criteria they also looked at who had the strictest lockdowns and here New Zealand did shoot to the front. New Zealand along with Malaysia were judged to have the strictest lockdowns of all 53 economies on the list. So it is no wonder our businesses are hurting.Perhaps you'd like to know Madam Speaker who the top 10 countries are: Ireland sitting there shining at the top; Spain the Netherlands Finland Denmark UAE France Switzerland Canada and Norway. New Zealand is faltering in the era of vaccination. Now Shakespeare had a term for this—being hoist by your own petard. And if I was a little less precious about it and more true to my rural roots I might say that the chickens have come home to roost. This Government has had an ideology of centralisation and Government knows best." They've had that ideology for education for three waters for health and for vaccination. This morning at the Health Committee we had a number of Māori health experts talking about vaccination and about Māori inequity in COVID. These women had a wealth of experience but their wealth of experience and expertise had not been listened to. I found it incredibly humbling listening to the work that two of these Māori GPs had been undertaking. But one of those Māori GPs said how incredibly difficult it had been to be able to get registered to be able to use the vaccine. They had had to be incredibly committed to their patients. They had had to jump through all sorts of hoops to be able to distribute the vaccine. I thought it was incredibly sad that this Government had not recognised the wealth of experience and knowledge and capability at grass-roots level for our Māori communities to be able to get that vaccine out when we should have.We then listened to Pasifika health experts and we wondered why in some of the Pacific Islands they had been able to get to vaccination rates of—Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order Madam Speaker. I just seek your guidance on the topic. This isn't about general proceedings before the Health Committee. It's about a piece of legislation before the House which doesn't appear to be being addressed.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you very much for that. I think the member should be aware of the provisions in the bill and I'm looking forward to her sticking a little more closely to the subject of the bill. Thank you.PENNY SIMMONDS: Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm very keen to stick to the matters around COVID and that this legislation will enable the Minister to be able to continue to make orders around COVID—that is lockdown levels MIQ vaccination and those matters pertaining to COVID. I thought that vaccine was actually quite relevant to COVID so I'll continue on about the Pacific health experts who were able to tell us that a number of the Pacific Islands have been able to get to over 90 percent vaccination rates because they had used their community links. Then I look to what's happening with the disabled community during COVID and I despair over the vaccination rates for our disabled community. When it was sitting around 70 percent for the general population it was 37 percent for the disabled community. I'm reading from one of the disabled advocates who said "Most of the houses we are delivering food parcels to"—this is in lockdown just to ensure that Dr Webb can see the relevance of it; lockdown from COVID—"have their curtains closed and are peeking through."Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order. The member is yet to refer to a single provision of the bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you. Thank you very much. The Speaker is the sole judge of relevance and I've asked the member to come to order. I'm listening and watching very closely.David Seymour: Point of order. As you rightly said the Speaker is the sole judge. The member is now trifling with you and undermining you. He's done it twice. I think he should go.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you very much for that advice.PENNY SIMMONDS: Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm now enlightened because if the Government don't see COVID lockdowns and vaccination rates as to do with COVID and legislation that enables these things to happen then we are in quite serious trouble.So delivering food parcels—they "have their curtains closed and are peeking through so we're seeing a level of isolation and fear that we've not witnessed before." she said. "We have this cloak of fear amongst our disabled communities who don't understand what's going on because the information out there isn't accessible to them."So my concern is that this legislation allows the Minister to continue to be making these sorts of orders to continue to put us in lockdown to continue to have MIQ and it extends the possibility of that out to May 2023 when we can clearly see across the rest of the world that they are opening up and we are falling behind. Therefore we should be very concerned if this is the rate that this Government thinks they are going to get COVID under control in New Zealand. For that reason for that very pessimistic reason for that very concerning reason of the impact that it will have on our communities such as our Māori population our Pasifika population our disabled population and our businesses then we should be opposing this legislation."