Reti ShaneDr SHANE RETI (Deputy Leader—National): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to speak to this bill which is an omnibus bill. I will be primarily speaking to the Epidemic Preparedness Act and the changes being proposed to that but I want to start with the legislation that's talking about roadblocks and paint the desperate and sad tragic picture for the southern boundary for the Northland region and the Whangārei electorate.Let me paint what happened here. So on 17 August the Prime Minister at 6 p.m. announced that the boundary the border with Auckland—we'd all go into lockdown and the Auckland-Northland border would be shut. Between 6 p.m. and midnight which is when the legislation came into effect or when the order came into effect thousands of vehicles came into Northland. We were told by people at Green Bay that it was headlight to headlight bumper to bumper. The issue we've got with that is several-fold. First of all they brought the Auckland risk into Northland which has areas of deprivation and poverty least able to deal with infection—that wasn't a good thing. Secondly what it did was it burdened our infrastructure. So we know from some of the pharmacies out at Mangawhai for example that they had 60 percent greater uptake of prescriptions from Aucklanders from out of Northland areas. That takes a lot of work to call back to an Auckland chemist find out what they're taking then deliver it so it certainly burdened our infrastructure. The third point I'd raise before I go into the detail a bit more is that Northland was then required to stay in lockdown level 4 with Auckland despite not having a positive coronavirus case. There was a positive case in Warkworth—that is not Northland. Yet Northland paid the price of another two or three days because—maybe because and we've asked this question—thousands of Aucklanders came into Northland. Rather than making that anecdotal I asked this of the transport Minister actually: how many registered licence plates crossed the toll booth north of Auckland between 6 p.m. and midnight and how many of those registration plates were registered with Aucklanders? The number was actually 4000.Hon Member: How many?Dr SHANE RETI: Four thousand. Now what we needed to do though was take off those people from Auckland who would normally travel to Northland on a Thursday anyway. So I asked for the week as well. That was 1000. So net-net 3000 Auckland vehicles over that six-hour period traversed from Auckland into Northland and brought their risk with them—Hon Simon Bridges: How many?Dr SHANE RETI: Three thousand and each one's got an occupancy of roughly one and a half to two people. That's 5000 people who brought their risk into Northland. Not fair. That should have been managed. There should be no epiphany here. You've had 18 months—not you Madam Speaker but the Government has had 18 months—to figure out that border and yet we still allowed 3000 vehicles to come into Northland. Not a good thing. Now then what happened is we stayed in level 4 as I've said because there was some risk purportedly—and I'm making the case that maybe it's those people who came from Auckland into Northland. The concern I've got there is that the three Northland mayors were told 30 minutes before that 4.00 p.m. announcement that we were staying in level 4. The concern I've got is that the three Labour MPs were told the day before and were extensively engaged" in decisions that included boundaries and checkpoints like this bill is talking about. How can that be? What happened to our local elected mayors? Why did they get 30 minutes and were told and the three Northland MPs were "extensively engaged" 24 hours beforehand? What I'm hearing: it was a slap for what the councils are doing and the position they're taking on three waters. That's what I'm hearing. I'm hearing that because Whangārei District Council has taken a position against this ridiculous asset-grab they had the courtesy of 30 minutes and everyone else had a full day. I'd suggest that can't be right either. Our elected representatives our three mayors told and the three Labour MPs in Northland had 24 hours. So that's something that needs to be attended to. I want to talk to the part of this omnibus bill that's called the Epidemic Preparedness Act. How can this be preparedness? We are so underprepared for where we are landing here at the moment. That seems a misnomer in terms. If we can look at some of the areas where we're underprepared: Middlemore Hospital—really interesting. I wanted to know exactly how many cases at Middlemore Hospital were involved in that very first case where the man went through the emergency department (ED) short-stay adult up to the ward was coughing had three other people in the room—how many total people were involved with that? Minister Little wouldn't give us an answer to that. It turns out between 300 to 400 people were actually involved with that. In ED on the day there were 75 visitors. There were orderlies for radiology there were linen services there were food services there were people across several wards because the air conditioning went across several wards. What I'm really interested in pursuing is if we look at the ED services and radiology they had one style of personal protective equipment (PPE) which included an N95 mask. Our orderlies cleaners and linen services seem to have just had a surgical mask. How can that be? Why are we giving some of our more menial workers if you want to call them that—absolutely critical workers—less PPE than those who serve in other areas? That's what bothers me. I'm bothered about that and I will keep on digging and find out more but there's something not right there that we need to discover that the Minister does not want to be forthcoming. Epidemic Preparedness Act—hardly prepared. In the middle of a pandemic we're figuring out hospital visiting policy. How many visitors can attend each hospital? That's ridiculous. Yeah it was all one region—Auckland Waitematā Counties Manukau. Waitematā and Counties Manukau seemed to figure it out. Why could Auckland City Hospital not figure it out? That needs some thinking. I want to talk about epidemic preparedness. Where was our primary care? Where were our GPs not just across the country but in Auckland? What I can share with you is that—because it's just a written parliamentary question that came back 30 minutes ago—if we look before the outbreak there were 372 GPs who'd said "We want to vaccinate." So at the end of July 372 GPs across the country said "We want to vaccinate." How many were vaccinating at that time? A hundred and ninety-seven—50 percent of GPs who had said over many months "We want to be a part of this preparedness." Only half of them were credentialled. What we know is that the credentialling time is at least six weeks. We know it's an 80-page operating document. You've got to take pictures of your entry and exit for goodness' sake. How can that be? You might say to me "Well it's an infectious airborne virus." Excuse me in 2019 under this Government's watch we had the measles epidemic. That's also an infectious airborne virus—oh by the way with an R0 about four to five times more than what coronavirus had. So we trusted our primary care to manage infectious airborne viruses in 2019 when we needed them but now they've got to do six weeks training they've got to go through operating manuals they've got to have two on-site visits. If we were Government today here's what we do: we would credential all vaccinating GPs and pharmacies today. We trust them. We trusted them during the measles epidemic. We should credential them today. That's the sort of preparedness I'd be expecting in this bill that is clearly missing. I want to talk about the preparedness around ICUs. That's an unbelievable story. I actually recognise that part of our shortage here has been around ICU nurses. I get that. But how can it be that we have had not one new ICU resourced bed this year in all of the Auckland DHBs—not one? Furthermore the Minister only requested a report on the capacity of ICUs in Auckland to manage coronavirus five weeks ago. He's had 18 months since the first coronavirus outbreak. Delta arrived on 1 April. We all knew that ICU was going to be a pinch point if you like. And the first time we get a report on it or the Minister gets a report on it is five weeks ago several weeks into the pandemic or our current outbreak. How can that be preparedness? Why is that not part of the Epidemic Preparedness Act that we're talking about here today? I believe that part of that preparedness—let's remember what we're doing here is several things. First of all we're trying to keep New Zealanders safe and we're trying to protect the health system. That's what this whole COVID response is about. That's why we're doing this here today. I believe they've failed on both parts of that but particularly the second to protect our health system. They've failed to build ICU beds failed to bring in ICU nurses failed to build negative pressure rooms. I can't believe that the Auckland DHBs earlier this year said to the Minister "We've got $6 million left from a building project underspent. We'd kind of like to spend it on negative pressure rooms." and were told no. Then three months later in the middle of a pandemic we're building negative pressure rooms at Auckland and Waitematā. I can't wait to see that letter. If that's a forceful letter from the Auckland CEO begging for negative pressure rooms and the Minister says "No go back through the approval process"—which as we know in this Government's hands is years—that's going to be a letter that will come into public domain and be quite interesting. I make my point that I'm focusing on the Epidemic Preparedness Act which is part of this omnibus bill. That is a misnomer. This Government has not prepared us to protect us or protect the health system and they are accountable for that. We will be supporting this through to select committee because in its wider frame we support the wider intent but there are parts of this that sit very squarely with that Government over there. Thank you."