Hipkins Chris; Rurawhe AdrianCOVID-19 ORDERSApprovalHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I move That this House approve the following orders made under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020: COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Amendment Order 2022 (SL 2022/53) COVID-19 Public Health Response (Protection Framework) Amendment Order (No 4) 2022 (SL 2022/62) COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Amendment Order (No 2) 2022 (SL 2022/63) and COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Amendment Order (No 2) 2022 (SL 2022/75).Once more I am asking the House to approve orders that have been made under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act. There's fewer of them this time—and actually these ones are more up to date than some of the others that we've been confirming previously. We're getting to the point now where the orders that we are confirming by motion and in the House are the ones that have been progressively removing restrictions relating to COVID-19 and so many of these ones still remain in force.So if I go through the four very briefly: the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Protection Framework) Amendment Order (No 4) made the changes to the face covering requirements that apply at the red setting and that included removing the requirements around face masks for outdoor gatherings—allowing people to gather outdoors without having to wear a mask—and the vaccination requirements for students enrolled at registered schools when participating in extracurricular activities. Those changes were designed to ensure that vaccine mandates and vaccine passes weren't preventing children from fully participating in school life.The COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Amendment Order (No 2) 2022 reduced the isolation period for COVID-19 cases from 10 days to seven days. It also extended the period in which someone is not required to isolate again after they've had COVID-19 up to three months so it extended it from one month to three months. So if you've had COVID-19 in the last three months and a member of your household gets it you don't have to self-isolate again.The COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Amendment Order (No 2) 2022 removed the requirements for unvaccinated travellers to enter managed isolation and quarantine facilities for travellers from specific countries to be considered at low risk of transmitting COVID-19 on arrival in New Zealand. I should clarify that: that last one removes the requirements for New Zealand citizens.The Regulations Review Committee examined all three of the orders that I've just mentioned and didn't raise any concerns about them. They did express concerns about the fourth and that is the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Self-isolation Requirements and Permitted Work) Amendment Order 2022. That's the order that authorised the Director-General of Health to exempt COVID-19 cases from self-isolation requirements whilst undertaking specific work or travelling to undertake specific work and it authorised the imposition of any conditions on that exemption. This was basically the ability for people in a limited number of circumstances who may have COVID-19 to go back to work where the risk of them not being at work was greater than the risk posed by them going to work when they had COVID-19. It's a very limited provision and actually I don't think it has been used—certainly it hasn't been used extensively—if in fact it has been used at all.But the main concern of the committee was that that one may have actually gone too far; it may have contradicted the intention of the Act which was to limit the spread of COVID-19. I thank the committee for being very conscientious but I would note that the reason for the exemption was slightly different. So I am satisfied that there isn't an inconsistency with the principal order and I did write to the committee explaining the reasons why I thought that. The amendment did sit alongside the permitted work scheme. It was drafted with enough breadth that the obligations and duties of the permitted work scheme wouldn't automatically apply to workers and their employers. I noted that the director-general can impose conditions for managing risk when exercising the exemption power. So once again I do want to thank however the Regulations Review Committee for the very conscientious and thorough way they have gone through scrutinising and considering these.The COVID 19 Public Health Response Act has underpinned our response to COVID-19. It has allowed the Government to respond quickly as COVID-19 has continued to evolve and it's allowed New Zealand to emerge with a strong economy and record low levels of unemployment and also it should be pointed out one of the lowest mortality rates in the world downed to COVID-19. Having said that our use of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act is narrowing and I do think that we are now in that phase where we'll be looking very closely at orders that have been made under the Act to ensure that where there is a need for any of the provisions in them to be preserved on an ongoing basis they are transferred to appropriate legislative vehicles so that the House is in a position soon to either allow the Act to lapse or in fact to repeal the Act.So we're working through that process at the moment. We're not quite at the point where we can do that with complete confidence because of course we don't know what's around the corner. We don't know whether future variants are going to have to throw up a new set of challenges that we may need to respond to. But we certainly know that many of the tools that we have been using previously are now sitting in abeyance and are not ones that we are likely to be using again any time soon.So our use of the Act is winding back quite significantly. Many of the dilemmas and challenges posed by COVID-19 are ones that we can address through more regular legislative vehicles and that is something that as a Minister I am committed to wherever possible we can do that—because I think the extraordinary powers in the Act whilst justified at the time they were passed the further away we get from the emergency crisis that we faced at the time then the less justified that is and the more we need to look to use more regular parliamentary processes including all of the scrutiny that goes with those. And certainly I am committed to getting back to that point as soon as we're able to do that.DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.