2. Question No. 2—Prime MinisterHon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader—National) to the Prime MinisterQuestion No. 2—Prime Minister2. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader—National) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all of her Government's statements and actions?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes particularly the progress being made on the Government's reconnecting New Zealand framework for reopening borders and moving to an individualised risk-based model for quarantine-free travel. In August we announced a phased approach to reopening the borders with the aim of establishing new testing and vaccine checking systems in the first quarter of 2022. This week Cabinet confirmed that from 4 October Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) workers from Vanuatu can begin arriving into New Zealand and from 12 October quarantine-free travel for RSE workers from Samoa and Tonga will begin. This will provide much-needed certainty for our growers as they gear up for summer and autumn harvesting. This week expressions of interest will open for the business self-isolation pilot. The pilot will test the systems and identify areas where further work is required to scale up the approach as we look forward to 2022.Hon Judith Collins: Will Kiwis overseas be able to come home for Christmas under her Government's border plan?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes as they are already able to do. We have released in recent weeks enough rooms for an additional 5000 individuals from over 100 different countries and this evening there is another release of well over 3000 rooms across the October November and December period. Unfortunately at the time this year when we had rooms available—which if I recall correctly was around the middle of the year particularly around June; there were rooms available and vacant—that was not the time when there was high demand. I understand people wish to come home for summer and Christmas and I encourage those who wish to do so to jump online tonight and to seek some of those more than 3000 vouchers available.Hon Judith Collins: Of the 30000 New Zealanders seeking to come home for Christmas how many of them will be able to do so without having to go through the managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) lottery?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That is not how I would frame the MIQ booking system but we had roughly 12000 individuals who up into that period will be able to access New Zealand in the lead-up to summer. But it is clear that that seems to be where people are generally aiming because in the last release the rooms that were the last to go that took a couple of hours before they were booked were the most immediate ones so the ones that were available in September were the last ones to go and the ones that were available around December and January were amongst the first. So it is clear that there's really high demand and the highest demand regions are Australia first and UK second. So it gives you a bit of a sense of where people's needs are. But when it comes to the self-isolation pilot we'll be running that through October through to December. The work has been done so that then in 2022 once we have more vaccinated New Zealanders we'll be in a position to use that more broadly and we're also investigating the possibility of shortened isolation periods as well.Hon Chris Hipkins: Has the Prime Minister seen suggestions that we should both not be picking and choosing who can come back into the country whilst also imposing a greater degree of prioritisation on those who have access to managed isolation spaces?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes I have. I believe the member may be referring to a former member of this House but to be clear I cannot necessarily attribute that to the strategy of the National Party or not so I'll leave that as a suggestion where it lies albeit a contradictory one.Hon Judith Collins: What is the criteria for her to announce a change to level 2 for Auckland next week?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The same criteria that we've used all the way through: taking a very close look at whether or not we have good containment whether or not we have unlinked cases that suggest we have a wider outbreak that still may not yet have been manifest and our ability to safely move through the alert levels. One thing I would draw a distinction between: we are not in the same position as Australia who for instance are easing restrictions based on vaccines. We do still have an outbreak here in Auckland that means there is not widespread undetected community transmission and that has enabled us to ease restrictions but we'll continue to focus on doing so safely.Hon Judith Collins: When will she release the most recent health advice that has informed the Cabinet decisions about alert levels during the most recent outbreak?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We actually verbally give a read out on that advice on the day that it's provided. Dr Bloomfield is always asked what advice he provides and he provides it. And so for the last decision—despite I do recall the member trying to assert that we took a different decision to the advice that was provided around the alert level change; that was not correct—it is very rare for us to do anything markedly different than the advice that we receive from Health. But otherwise my recollection is that as part of all our proactive releases the written advice gets released but again as I say on the day we often give that verbal report of what we've been advised by the director-general.Hon Judith Collins: Why is the rest of the country outside Auckland still in level 2?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Because there is an outbreak of Delta in Auckland.Hon Judith Collins: Does she have a plan to keep Delta in Auckland away from say Invercargill that doesn't involve the South Island being in level 2?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes and hopefully it involves that member being regularly tested.Hon Judith Collins: Being what?SPEAKER: I am not going to ask the Prime Minister to repeat it.Hon Judith Collins: Does she think that the South Island finds that comment from her particularly funny while they're stuck in level 2 and they haven't seen COVID-19 for almost a year?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That was plainly a reference to those who have been in Auckland who may be able to travel as an essential worker being regularly tested because that is part of our regime now—that those who may have the ability to move around other parts of the country to reduce the risk to those other parts of the country to have a seven-day testing cycle. So that is one of the measures we have in place but as we've seen with unfortunately a case that we did have of someone who was a legitimate freight worker where we had a case where that individual was found to have travelled into the Bay of Plenty not every system will capture everything which is why we continue to have the rest of the country in a cautious state to ensure that if we do have the emergence of a case rather than having to put that area be it Invercargill or anywhere else into a higher alert level we give ourselves a better chance to be able to contact trace that without heightened restrictions. So I think most understand why we're doing that and if you ask Would you rather be in level 2 and be cautious or run the risk of a case and going into a lockdown?" I suspect many would opt for that cautious approach.David Seymour: How frequently was waste water being tested in the Tauranga region under this cautious state? Was it daily was it weekly was it—SPEAKER: Order! The member has asked his question.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: So we had a positive on Thursday 23 September. Prior to that we had a not detected on Tuesday the 21st."