Harawira Hone: Law Reform (Epidemic Preparedness) Bill — In Committee 
Harawira Hone: Law Reform (Epidemic Preparedness) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:636;Page:6990] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Chairperson. Kia ora tatou i te Whare. I was listening on the radio today to some people talk about the whole pandemic issue. They were harking back to the flu epidemic of 1918. A guy was saying that Australia did better than us in terms of the fact that fewer people suffered there than here. The reason for that was that the Australian authorities knew about the epidemic early they told their people about it early and they set up blockades early. Because people knew early they understood what was going on and reacted positively. 
I mention that because I know that what Judy Turner was just talking about will absolutely be the case in this country. People will panic and they will not listen. For some strange reason we have the belief that as long as all the officials know then it is OK. But it will not be the officials—the ambulance drivers the police officers the Fire Service officers or the health department officials—who panic; it will be everybody else. It will be not just Maori; it will be Pakeha and everybody else. Panic will happen because there is no comprehensive communications strategy to alert the nation to what may happen. 
I take the point that we do not want to get into scaring everybody and panicking them too early but there is no reason why we cannot be intelligently feeding them information about what may happen. Saatchi and Saatchi could be paid a decent sum of money to do a campaign that runs for a whole year if necessary so that by the time that year is over the whole nation understands what it should do if a pandemic comes. But if a pandemic hits tomorrow there will be rampant panic right throughout the country. In the far north for example where I live nobody knows what is going on. I have just got off the phone after talking to a friend of mine who works for the police. She said that the council has had training the police have had training and the Fire Service has had training. That is fine but when I asked her whether ordinary people knew what to do she hesitated then said “Well no.” And that is the concern. 
This Parliament needs to take control of the situation and ensure that a proper communications strategy is put in place. There is no point in having all the doctors scientists and everybody else understanding what the problem is. It is not even worth knowing about the waves of a flu epidemic. What we need to know is that the people understand what will happen. Judy raised exactly the point that in times of crisis people naturally want to bond together. There is no public education as to how to bond together without people all getting together. There is no strategy out there to convince people to stay close to their phones. There is no strategy to teach people to use their computers to talk to one another when a pandemic goes down so that they can remain in touch and feel comfortably in touch with their loved ones. 
I know for example that if a pandemic hit now I would be on the first plane north if I could be; if not I would get a cab or a rental car or I would steal a car—I would do whatever it took to get home. If somebody was to stop me on the road I would just go around that person—I would not listen. There is no strategy to convince me that my family is all right. There is no communications plan that suggests to me that I should stay in Wellington because my family will be all right. 
Of course because people do not know what is going on—and they do not—and because they do not know what is going to happen they will break the rules. I know that this issue concerns Maori particularly because when the first person dies for whom a tangi will not be allowed there will be chaos. Relations will come in from all over the place to try to get that body. There will be chaos; there will be panic and violence. And I suggest that all that is required is a simple injection of funding to ensure that there is a decent communications strategy. Thank you Mr Chairperson.