Hipkins ChrisHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I'd like to begin today with a few shout-outs and the first of course is to the people in Auckland. While the rest of New Zealand woke up this morning to alert level 2 Auckland of course remains at alert level 4. I want to acknowledge that through our response to COVID-19 Aucklanders have done an awful lot of the heavy lifting. Auckland and South Auckland in particular are of course the gateway to New Zealand for most international arrivals and in the good times that is good for Auckland and they do well out of that. But with regard to COVID-19 it has meant that they are at the front line of our COVID-19 response and they've shouldered a disproportionate burden of the restrictions that have been put in place. I particularly want to acknowledge everybody who's stayed at home who has followed all of the rules who has done what we have asked of them and has helped us to stamp out the virus from our community. Nobody wants to see COVID-19 taking off across the country in New Zealand and we are all in debt to the people of Auckland for the sacrifices they are making to ensure that that doesn't happen. So thank you to everyone in Auckland.Thank you in particular to our managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) workers. This is one of the most scrutinised workforces in the country at the current point in time but the recent survey results that I released this morning show that the people who are coming through our managed isolation and quarantine facilities—and bear in mind we're talking about around 170000 people coming into New Zealand through that pathway—have had a very positive experience. They found MIQ to be a very caring place where they are well looked after and they found it overall a positive experience. I acknowledge that that's a real accomplishment for our MIQ workforce because no one particularly likes to be cooped up for two weeks in a hotel room only able to get out and get fresh air when you are particularly given an allotted time to do that and only being able to access a very limited range of services from the outside world. So again my thankyou to all those who have gone through MIQ who have followed the rules and who have behaved towards our MIQ staff with respect. A particular thanks to our MIQ staff for the contribution that they are making. I know that that has not been without cost for them and some of them have found some of that quite difficult—some of the personal reflections upon them they've found quite difficult. So I acknowledge the sacrifices that they have been making and I thank them. I want to thank our vaccination workforce. Our vaccination programme has perhaps been one of the most scrutinised roll-outs of any programme across Government in recent times. I've confidently seen predictions from people that said that the National Immunisation Register was going to be a failure and it has been a great success. I saw confident predictions that the booking system would be a failure and it has been a great success. I saw confident predictions that the inventory management system was going to be a failure and in fact it's worked so well that we have one of the lowest vaccine wastage rates of any country in the world. As recently as a few weeks ago there were confident predictions including by a few members opposite that we would fail to achieve 50000 vaccinations a day which was the target we were aiming for. Not only have we achieved that; we've done well above that. The team who have been working at the front line despite the fact that they have had people hurling abuse at them particularly from the members opposite since before they even started doing the vaccination campaign—we owe them a great degree of thanks. They have exceeded expectations. They have ensured that the vaccine experience is a positive experience for New Zealanders and they deserve a huge amount of acknowledgment. The team that have built the systems around that deserve credit for building that system almost from scratch and having a system that has operated and provided a very positive vaccination experience to the 2.6 million New Zealanders I think it is at last count who have already had at least one dose of the vaccine. Four million doses of the vaccine have been delivered so far. The quantities continue to go out at a much higher rate than we had ever envisaged was going to happen and members opposite said it was never going to be possible. In fact the people who are doing this work have exceeded expectations and they deserve full thanks. So to everybody involved in the vaccination campaign I want to say thank you. They have done sterling work. The criticism that has been levelled at them regularly since before the campaign even started has been wrong. They've proven it to be wrong and they deserve to hold their heads high knowing that they have delivered an exceptionally successful vaccine roll-out to date and I know that they're going to keep doing that.