Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (National): The thing with this bill is—SPEAKER: You're allowed to take the mask off to speak if you wish.NICOLA WILLIS: Thank you. I will take up that opportunity. The thing with this bill is that it is a public health bill which corrects a number of measures that were put in place a year ago when we first started responding to COVID-19. The question I think we all have to ask ourselves is: why is it now within the heightened alert levels that the Government's finally getting around to doing the tidying up that presumably it could have done some months ago? Because a number of these measures relate to measures in the earlier bill that have been found to be inadequate that have been found in practice to require tightening or they are additional measures which the Government believes are needed to strengthen its response to COVID-19. And here we are several weeks into a lockdown and the Government is only now tidying things up.National's view is that actually a good Government that is genuinely dedicated to maximising its COVID-19 response would have come up with these sorts of proposals not in the heat of lockdown but would have done it in an orderly fashion at an earlier date. The problem with the approach that the Government has taken here in which it's only now introducing these measures is that it does mean that people will scrutinise and be sceptical about the rights that are being stepped on because you do have to say to yourself we do have to say Well how long is it that the Government expects to have to use Draconian powers for?"We are all I believe in this House very hopeful that it is quite within New Zealand's capabilities to vaccinate more of our population. In fact here on this side of the House we think that actually that opportunity should have been made available to more New Zealanders many months ago. As the Prime Minister and the Minister for COVID-19 Response have told us when vaccination comes we won't have the need for these restricted freedoms any more; we won't have the need for Draconian measures anymore. That need will phase out if only we get our vaccination high enough. So in many ways this is a pessimistic bill we are debating because what it says is actually we need to have even more measures for the future we need to tidy up what we've done in the past because who knows how long the Government might need to resort to this sort of thing for. I am disappointed that we are not in a position where in fact this Parliament can be debating measures that show more freedom for New Zealanders rather than less.Section 3 of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act concerns the repeal. Currently the Act is repealed in May 2021 if not repealed sooner and clause 4 of the bill extends that sunset provision to 13 May 2023. And there's something interesting in that isn't it? Because what it tells you is when we first used these sorts of measures in 2020 when we first as a Parliament debated putting in place these sorts of things Parliament's view and the Minister for COVID-19 Response's view at the time when he introduced the legislation was that that Act should only be in force until 2021—so quite a short period of time. But now here we are 18 months later and the Minister takes a more pessimistic view about how long this legislation may be needed for: out to 13 May 2023 a much longer period of time.I may be wrong to read between the lines and read into that repeal a pessimism from the Government but I would invite speakers opposite to explain to me why we need legislation of this sort in place until 13 May 2023. Because surely by then New Zealand will have vaccinated enough New Zealanders and will have ensured that we have enough public health measures in place we have strong enough ICU capacity we have enough trained health professionals we have good enough contact tracing we have world-class testing. And so we won't need the sorts of Draconian provisions relating to mandatory isolation mandatory quarantine and lockdowns that this bill provides for. I think that that is something very important for members to consider in the debating of this legislation.I want also to highlight the issue that my colleague Chris Bishop talked about in relation to managed isolation and quarantine being able to get people's contact details in order to invoice them. I would say that this is a classic case of where the practical hasn't necessarily been thought of because actually that should have been in place some time ago. Why are we only now getting to that? The bill of course also increases the offences and infringement offences for people who intentionally fail to comply with COVID-19 orders which I think is just a reminder to all of us how serious the measures are in here: that we are in fact ensuring that people who don't comply with State restrictions are liable for significant fines. It also creates offences relating to the exercise of enforcement powers so that offences relating to the exercise of enforcement powers—in section 27 of the principal Act "A person commits an offence if the person obstructs or intentionally threatens assaults or hinders an enforcement officer". Again I look at that and I think to myself "Well shouldn't that have been the case already? Why are we only now working this out?"So in short National is very concerned that this bill speaks to a pessimism on the Government benches about the ability of the Government to manage COVID-19 in a way that means that we don't need significant restrictions and Draconian public health measures into the future that they envisage a future till 2023 in which the sorts of lockdowns and restrictions that New Zealanders have been experiencing will be perpetuated. We put to this House that actually this sort of legislation is very serious. It should be as time-limited as possible; actually it should be put in place thoughtfully in a timely fashion not just in the middle of a lockdown. We also are of the view that it would be very good if the members opposite could put as much energy into actually getting vaccinations up and to ensuring that we are making sure we had the best testing regime the best contact tracing in the world. We've had many months to do that but actually in the months ahead we should be more focused on that than on Draconian measures. Thank you Mr Speaker."