Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much Mr Speaker and it's a pleasure to speak to these COVID-19 orders and the examination thereof. I wear a couple of different hats so to speak. One is that I am the chair of the Regulations Review Committee. I am grateful to the Minister for his engagement with us throughout. He's been kind enough to acknowledge the committee in his remarks tonight characterising our diligence as not seeing ourselves merely as a rubber stamp and that's true enough but I do also think that because it takes two to tango it's only fair to acknowledge that we've had a really good quality of interaction with the Minister in his response to the points that we've been making. So it has been actually an enjoyable task believe it or not which says something probably quite sad about the members of the committee. But nevertheless we have enjoyed our work and we've been well supported in that work by the legislative counsel as well as the committee staff more generally. So while it's tempting to view these debates at 9.30 at night in this case as being almost a moot point—from the perspective both of the Regulations Review Committee in the sense that we make recommendations and the House will confirm the orders even if we were to recommend otherwise potentially and from a National Party perspective if I were to adopt that hat for the moment in that we're a minority in this Parliament—but nevertheless these are important accountability mechanisms. I guess the other one to acknowledge—and the Minister's alluded to this in his own remarks—is the temporal restriction on the usefulness of the exercise; that is to say a number of the orders have actually already been revoked or are in the process of being revoked or effectively overtaken by events. So here we are discussing and debating but I think it's still worthwhile because as the Regulations Review Committee is a creature of Parliament and Parliament itself now is sitting to consider these motions it's an opportunity for us to provide some accountability for the executive in the person of the Minister for COVID-19 Response in this case. So I don't intend obviously to attempt to cover all the detail. I'd rather take the approach actually as the Minister did of providing a couple of examples by way of illustration of the approach that we took throughout our consideration of these orders—which as he's quite rightly noted actually only cover the span of a couple of months but nevertheless a high volume of secondary legislation in that time for obvious real-world reasons namely the evolution of the pandemic and its response at that time. One of the issues that we looked at for a start—and I take you back to early February which seems so long ago—there was an order providing and I'll use shorthand Protection Framework and Other Matters". Well that's not very descriptive is it? Anyway it's the first one so "start at the very beginning a very good place to start" as they say. Hon Chris Hipkins: You need to sing it.CHRIS PENK: Ha ha! There'll be no Mary Poppins in the House tonight Mr Hipkins. "Definition of a medical-grade face covering"—so that was extending the application of that rule to younger people and from a National Party perspective we had views on the anomalies that we said were created in terms of the way that that played out for example on sports fields—school versus club. But nevertheless the committee had no concerns about the order. The rule we thought was well expressed and was not problematic from the point of view of the appropriateness of the order or the way that it was made—as distinct from the policy.The next one I actually found quite interesting. It was an amendment order to an amendment order. It said it was to come into force at 11.58 p.m. that day and that's kind of a funny time; 11.59 p.m. we're all very familiar with because of course it's ambiguous to say "midnight" on a particular day; it might be the start or the end of the day. And in the military the 24-hour time the last minute of the day is 2359 and the first minute of the following day is 0001 so there's a minute that's 120 seconds because of course you don't want the confusion again of all the zeros. Anyway so this is 11.58 and the specific reason for that was to do with sequencing in relation to other orders coming into effect and the relevant one at 11.59—so this one had to get in ahead. I found that interesting anyway. I've spent now more than a minute discussing that so it would be disproportionate for me to continue.Talking about the language used in relation to premises used for a private function in this particular order—just by way of example a bit of flavour if you will—the amendment was needed to clarify that the order applied to premises whether or not they'd been hired. Logical enough I suppose to apply restrictions regardless of the way that a venue was coming to be used from a public health perspective come to the same thing.The other one in relation to this first tranche which was 2 to 14 February received on 14 February—what could be more romantic than a COVID-19 order on Valentine's Day? But the purpose of the order was quite expansive; it was talking about not only avoiding adverse effects of the outbreak but also ensuring continuity of services. The scope of the purpose of the order was a theme to which we returned in relation to some other orders which were a bit narrower in the way that they stated their particular intentions. Moving ahead now—we're in mid-February if you're following along Mr Speaker on your Order Paper or indeed on your calendar—we had an extension of a deadline date for student workers in the health and disability sector to receive a booster. This is an example of an order that had a liberalising effect as restrictions began to be removed. While the National Party had mixed feelings at times about the regime as a whole nevertheless in these orders we saw a move away from restrictions in a way with which we agreed and approved. I should actually point out before going any further having left it almost to the end that National will be supporting the confirmation of the orders by the House.Similarly the reduction of the period of time in which a person needed to remain in isolation or quarantine down from 10 days to seven days—again a sensible move in the context of what was happening at that time. Minister Hipkins already talked about the need for flexibility in relation to when a person would leave a managed isolated quarantine facility—not wanting to have them arbitrarily detained for longer or by way of unintended consequence given that the intent we accepted in the committee was to allow an orderly departure and not have someone thrown out on to the street at midnight not to put too fine a point on it. So this was an example of an engagement with the Minister by way of letters of course and it happens over a period of time but the response was along the lines that the Minister stood by his interpretation I guess in terms of the way that order could be interpreted. We were satisfied that that point had been noted and understood and as the Minister has already said sometimes these things would flow through to subsequent orders—a lesson having been learnt as opposed to necessarily meaning that the order would be amended on the spot or let alone struck down. A couple of other ones if I may Mr Speaker in my remaining time. The order that was presented in now late-February regarding requirements for close contacts that was talking about—and we did have a few concerns with that one—requiring that close contacts have the ability to stay in touch with the Government. For those who are not able to do that—whether it's a limitation of IT or perhaps mobile phone coverage or internet access—we thought that it wasn't reasonable to state in mandatory terms that a person must stay in contact with the Government agency if they were not physically able to do so. So we made that point and I think again we got a pretty fair hearing from the Minister; and at the point that we'd had that interaction in fact that order was revoked and had been replaced in any case. So that was I suppose at that point a moot point but nevertheless illustrated the kind of serious attention to detail with which the committee was approaching its task.Moving quickly through now my remaining minute we did talk about the purpose of orders quite considerably because with such great powers being given to the executive it was important at least to be able to constrain his powers by saying at least that the detail of the order should match its purpose. And in a particular case regarding self-isolation requirements and permitted work we pointed out that the purpose appeared to be relaxing restrictions so it couldn't fairly be said to fit under a purpose that was merely about preventing an outbreak. Of course an order that imposes any restrictions at all is preventing an outbreak relative to not having the order at all but nevertheless we thought that it would be helpful to have a more expansive purpose and so we got there in the end. Discussions about navigability and accessibility of orders I won't trouble the House with but suffice to say that we obviously had a pretty detailed look at all the detail including even being so precise about what contactless delivery means—whether it's just physical distancing to be maintained or specifying a 2-metre limit which is of course much more quantifiable measurable and enforceable. So anyway Mr Speaker I hope that's given you a good insight into our work in examining the orders and as I've said we do in fact support these orders in the House tonight."