3. Question No. 3—Prime MinisterRAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) to the Prime MinisterQuestion No. 3—Prime Minister3. RAWIRI WAITITI (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government's statements and actions?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes. I stand by this Government's commitment to working with and particularly engaging with Māori as we have done throughout our COVID response. Since the beginning of COVID Ministers have regularly met with key Māori stakeholders. We've provided direct funding packages to support Māori providers and Whānau Ora. We've worked hard to push up vaccination rates and accelerate those rates for Māori—and our hauora providers have done an incredible job—and of course key Government agencies like police the Ministry of Social Development and Te Arawhiti continue to work closely with Māori groups as we continue to respond to the impacts of COVID-19.Rawiri Waititi: Why did she reject the advice of the Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield who advised the Government to prioritise Māori over the age of 50 early in the vaccine roll-out and that he had a strong preference of not moving into the traffic light system until Māori had reached 90 percent?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course with the latter half of the question you can see with the decisions that we made yesterday we continue to push for those high vaccination rates and in fact we said we want high rates before we move in at orange. We have kept those parts of the country where we've seen slightly lower rates in red for a bit longer. From the projections we've seen though we are anticipating that even those regions will be in the mid- to high 80 percent mark double vaccinated by the time they move into orange. Rawiri Waititi: Does she agree with the director-general denying the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency access to individual Māori vaccine data? Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: On the issue of vaccination data of course there have been data-sharing arrangements with iwi leaders the National Hauora Coalition and of course for Whānau Ora they've had access for its enrolled population since the end of September. Of course as the member is aware what Whānau Ora were then seeking to access was additional individual data and as the member is aware the Director-General of Health has been working through the court's ruling. The Government's expectation is simply that we do everything we can to accelerate Māori vaccination whatever that looks like.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: If she didn't reject the Director-General of Health's position on Whānau Ora access to Māori data why did she reject his earlier advice on prioritising Māori over the age of 50 early in the vaccine roll-out?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Well of course we have continued to highlight that those who were most vulnerable to COVID-19 when we had limited supply of vaccine we know were older members of our population were those with comorbidities and were those who may care for those who are in either of those groups. That is why they were first in the roll-out it's why we also had a lower age bracket for all of Counties Manukau and it's why we also put specific vaccine supply to hauora providers to take a whānau-based approach. In fact I visited a hauora provider in the member's area that reported to me at that time that they were doing just that—they were going into areas and vaccinating whole whānau—and that was the approach we enabled right from the beginning.