Hipkins ChrisCOVID-19 PUBLIC HEALTH RESPONSE AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I present to the House a legislative statement on the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill. Legislative statement published under the authority of the House.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I move That the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I hope that this bill will be a relatively non-controversial bill. It is a simple bill that does two things and at the end of my speech introducing this bill I am going to seek leave for a slightly different process to facilitate it through the House following discussion amongst the parties on both sides of the House. The bill basically does two things as I've indicated. The first thing it does is relatively simple: it changes references to the Minister of Health to the Minister responsible for the Act and that's quite simple. At the moment the Minister of Health is the Minister who issues orders and issues exemptions from orders under the Act. That is a power that I have exercised for most of the time that the Act has been in existence first as Minister of Health and secondly more latterly since the new Government was sworn in under section 7 of the Constitution Act 1986 where I have been exercising the powers of Minister of Health. This will tidy that up and make sure that I'm not exercising powers on behalf of another Minister; that I am in fact exercising the powers as the Minister responsible for the Act—a relatively simple technical adjustment that reflects the fact that there is now a Minister for COVID-19 Response which there was not when the legislation was first introduced and that power was vested with the Minister of Health. To be clear the orders that we're talking about are things like the air border order the maritime border order our isolation and quarantine order the orders requiring people to be tested and any orders that are issued relating to alert levels. They will now be issued once this is passed in my name as the Minister for COVID-19 Response rather than in the name of the Minister of Health. Similarly exemptions to those orders will be granted by me as Minister for COVID-19 Response. The second amendment that the bill makes—that again I hope will be relatively non-controversial—is it allows the Government to remove restrictions made under orders with less than 48 hours' notice. At the moment if we escalate up alert levels in order to de-escalate to move back down the alert levels we have to give 48 hours' notice of that. In some instances where we're simply removing restrictions it makes sense to be able to move more quickly. For example if at the moment I was to remove the requirement for people to wear masks on public transport I would have to give 48 hours' notice of that. In reality once we get to the point where we're satisfied that there is no longer a risk that would justify the wearing of masks it should be possible for us to remove that restriction much more quickly than having to provide 48 hours' notice. So this bill would allow us to remove restrictions faster. I think there is good reason to say where we're imposing new restrictions where it is not a genuine emergency then we should give 48 hours' notice of introducing a new requirement but we shouldn't necessarily need to give 48 hours' notice to remove one. So the bill allows us to move more quickly with regard to that. So that's the conclusion of my first reading contribution and I seek leave Mr Speaker—SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to. Chris Hipkins seeking leave.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Thank you Mr Speaker. I seek leave that there be no debate on the second reading of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill and that there be no committee stage on the bill.SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that process? There appears to be none.