Parker DavidCOVID-19 PUBLIC HEALTH RESPONSE ACT 2020Finance and Expenditure Committee—InquiryHon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General): I seek leave to move a motion without notice instructing the Finance and Expenditure Committee to inquire into the operation of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.Hon DAVID PARKER: I move That the Finance and Expenditure Committee inquire into the operation of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020 and report to the House no later than 27 July 2020.Madam Speaker that's the motion. May I now speak to it?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Certainly.Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you Madam Speaker. Members are aware that we passed a bill two days ago I think it was on Wednesday in advance of the move into level 2 to create a new legal framework for level 2. We in the Government view thought it was necessary to do that under all stages under urgency in order to have it in place by 11.59 p.m. that night in order to have a proper legal basis for the move into level 2. We also had a debate in this House—despite the powers under that bill being narrower than the powers that were in place as we debated the bill under the Health Act—as to whether the powers that are given in respect of what are now section 11 notices under that Act compared with the section 70 notices under the Health Act raised important issues of civil liberties. Members of this House expressed discomfort with doing that through urgency and would have preferred a select committee process and we explained at the time that we didn't think we could delay that for a select committee process.After the bill passed some suggestions were made actually—including by legal academics through social media—saying: well why don't we actually have a look at it again at select committee now? So that's what this motion enables.We've proposed that it be the Finance and Expenditure Committee (FEC) for a number of reasons—(1) the decision-making power also now includes economic aspects as well as health matters. But I think as all members know the FEC has a representation of senior members. It's actually a large committee and if we give up one of our spots—which we intend to do—to the Green Party every party in Parliament will be represented on the committee. There are already a number of lawyers on it which is appropriate given the civil liberties issues that arise and of course parties can choose to sub other members on if they feel that they need additional expertise different to their normal membership of the committee. It will be up to that committee as to how they decide to run their process. We're not controlling that through this motion.The final point I will make is that in respect of the report back date the date of 27 July 2020 is chosen because that's a couple of weeks before the first 90-day roll over comes up. The bill requires this Parliament to refresh the powers in that bill every 90 days and it would be helpful to have the report of the committee back to the House before Parliament considers the roll over of that should it be necessary by that time. I envisage that the world won't have COVID under control by then so there's a more than remote possibility that the Government will want to renew it at that date but it would be useful for that debate for the House to have the report of the committee by that time.