Tuiono TeanauTEANAU TUIONO (Green) (remote): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's my pleasure to also take a call on the Medicines Amendment Bill (No 2) as well. And the Greens—we will be supporting this piece of legislation.I have been listening with interest with the contributions from members from around the House and I would echo the sentiment around trusting the Health Committee—it's well known that it's got many health professionals on that select committee. I've only been able to sub on there a couple of times. But I also appreciate that with this truncated process and the questions that members have been posing tonight they will be able to get to the crux of some of those questions—and possibly some of those questions they may already have the answers to. I look at this from the public perspective as well as that when you have those answers when we kick them around amongst trusted health professionals and amongst science and ask those really specific scientific questions that gives reassurance to the public. It's that reassurance and that communication which is also a really vital cog in our response to COVID-19. So I look forward to following the select committee's process in that regard.The purpose of this bill is to allow a second COVID-19 booster to be rolled out from mid-June for people who are high risk from COVID-19. The majority of people will become eligible in July for the second booster but some will be eligible in mid-June as the booster programmes started in late November. Therefore there has been a push for this to go through urgency—and I totally get that because of the quickly evolving nature of the COVID pandemic and the need to actually do that. But also—as I was saying previously—it's good to actually get that detail so that the public has that information and it kind of alleviates some of the anxiety out there.This bill also provides for a long-term solution for the provision of the third booster dose in a three-month dose interval and also provides for any future doses of COVID-19 vaccines to be administered if scientific evidence demonstrates this is recommended—and I know that will be tested at the select committee. The bill meets these objectives by creating a new provision that enables the Director-General of Health to authorise by notice the administration of a consented COVID-19 vaccine otherwise done in accordance with the approved data sheet for that vaccine. The director-general must be satisfied that doing so is an appropriate measure to manage the risks associated with the COVID-19 outbreak or spread in having regard to the likely therapeutic value of the proposed administration of the COVID-19 vaccine and the risk—if there's any—that any proposed administration of the vaccine may injuriously affect the health of any person.One of the things I think we learnt—and I hope that we all learnt—is that we need to have equitable access to vaccination. And the Green Party wants everyone to feel safe and supported to get vaccinated in a way that is accessible to them—that's really important. We are being particularly focused on ensuring that the vaccine provided is fully accessible and promoted to Māori communities recognising current uptake is below that for non-Māori—you measure that right across and we can see those numbers.But what we did learn I think—and I hope that we all learnt that—was that this includes partnering with community providers and Māori collectives. And I would add Pasifika collectives as well to ensure vaccination is fully available throughout Aotearoa. Because what we see is when we walk with our communities and—we look at it from a scientific perspective but we've also got to look at it from the community's perspective as well. Trying to translate what that means scientifically for them on the ground is also really really important. And we saw the huge uptakes with Pasifika communities in South Auckland and of course around the country as well and our Māori health providers as well—that they have the ability to actually make those connections. So it's important that we support community providers in determining their own approach to vaccine incentives. Actually that's a lesson that should apply to all of our communities as well because they're the best placed people to understand what incentivises and what incentives are appropriate for building trust.So on that clear communication wins the day. That needs to be factored into everything that we do with the COVID-19 response. We will be supporting this bill. Thank you.