Mooney JosephJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I rise to speak to this inquiry that the Regulations Review Committee has made into the secondary legislation for COVID-19. This was a huge event for New Zealand and for many New Zealanders and had a really big impact in different ways on people. It's been really important for this committee to undertake this inquiry and to have a look at the process that was undertaken. I'm going to go through some of the report but I'll first just briefly outline what it is. So the report was taking a big picture look at the secondary legislation that was made to deal with COVID-19 and asked: was it consistent with principles for good legislative design were there grounds for the Regulations Review Committee to draw the secondary legislation to the special attention of the House of Representatives under Standing Order 327 how well did the secondary legislation follow the principles that the Regulations Review Committee established in 2016 for emergency legislation and do those principles need to be updated?So the Regulations Review Committee—just to explain it—scrutinise all secondary legislation and the powers in bills to make that secondary legislation. It's part of the committee's job to check that those with delegated powers to make legislation use them in the way Parliament has intended. This function is constitutionally significant. It assists Parliament to retain control over the content of laws made under delegated powers. During periods of emergency such as with COVID-19 secondary legislation is used to manage extraordinary circumstances and may adversely affect the rights and freedoms that we usually enjoy. So it's important that there are safeguards to ensure those rights are kept in balance with the other work that emergency laws need to do. It does not examine the policy behind secondary legislation but it instead looks at whether that secondary legislation was made in accordance with the empowering provisions and consistently with constitutional principles. So if I turn to particular concerns that were raised which was on page 28 of the report it says identified concerns were: unauthorised sub-delegation of the power to make secondary legislation; unauthorised retrospectivity; legislation that was drafted as guidance rather than rules; instrument titles that did not identify the instrument's COVID19 purpose; whether Henry VIII" provisions in empowering legislation were necessary; the quality of drafting of section 70 of the Health Act orders and inadequacies in publication of historical instruments; lack of certainty and clarity in secondary legislation including in relation to the Protection Framework Order; measures being implemented in secondary legislation that would be more suitable for parliamentary enactment such as the Protection Framework Order; latent/inactive provisions in the Protection Framework Order; the stated purpose of secondary legislation not matching its actual purpose; the need for clarity in identifying whether people are affected by secondary legislation; secondary legislation containing potentially unjustified limits on human rights; vagueness in the framing of infringement offences—for an infringement offence to be appropriate the offence must be one that involves actions or omissions that can be assessed as a straightforward question of fact—open-ended time frames for legislation that has a significant effect on personal rights and liberties; overly complicated definitions and requirements; impossibility of compliance with requirements. So quite a list there. I'll turn to some of the comments made by some submissions in relation to the Protection Framework Order. Associate Professor Dean Knight of Victoria University of Wellington submitted that the pandemic had sometimes necessitated swift and expedited decisions through delegation of flexible emergency powers. However he submitted that the vaccinations regime did not justify this approach.The Human Rights Commission submitted that the Protection Framework Order was not easily understood without reference to detailed guidance published by the Government. Moreover significant aspects of its content were inaccessible under this guidance.Caitlin Rutherford Gretchen Keer-Keer and Professor Geddis submitted that measures forcing businesses to close and rules permitting people to go places only if vaccinated were more appropriate for primary legislation not secondary legislation. They thought that the accountability mechanisms for secondary legislation do not make up for the lack of open debate and scrutiny through the parliamentary law-making process. This undermines the legitimacy and transparency of the law as New Zealand had been living under the pandemic response for more than two years. After that time they submitted there was arguably less need for the legal response to COVID-19 to be quickly decided and imposed by the executive branch.Dr Knight submitted that Parliament failed to feel the heat for legislative design key policy settings and rights implications nor was the design of the framework given the necessary time to breathe or evolve in light of feedback and concerns. This was because the key policy settings and details were not available to inform democratic debates about the virtue or otherwise of the regime."