Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Speaker and can I begin by wishing colleagues a happy St Patrick's Day. As members can see I have spared no expense on business attire today to acknowledge our Irish roots and I see Louisa Wall has also covered herself in a beautiful emerald green. I saw Rino Tirikatene wearing a bright green tie. Clearly Tirikatene is part of Irish whakapapa; in fact Ngāi Tahu has plenty of Irish ancestry as well. I was fascinated by Jo Luxton's comments in relation to COVID saying how lucky we have been—how lucky we have been. Not how well the Government has done but her emphasis was on how lucky we had been. I think that I would agree with that. We have in many respects had the luck of the Irish with the number of outbreaks that we have seen—particularly in the last six months—that have not led to a more widespread outbreak. There is a strong element of luck. I would also—and perhaps she was referring to this—refer to I guess the natural advantages that New Zealand has had in respect of when the COVID outbreak occurred. It was the winter in the Northern Hemisphere. The countries that were hit the hardest had very densely and heavily populated countries often in dwellings where three or four generations were living in the same houses. We don't have the sort of mass transit that became the vector for the spread of COVID in places like New York and the north of Italy and in London. So we have had natural advantages we've had luck and actually we've had a Government that by and large has done a very good job. But so too must the Opposition in keeping the Government's feet to the flames on a number of issues and we are marking this as some kind of anniversary—the first anniversary of when Budget measures were brought to the House on 17 March 2020. Well the matter started much earlier than that when I was raising this issue with the media on 26 January and the Government was still on holiday. It was I think because of the attention that was drawn to it by the Opposition that at least in part the Government was forced to respond and the Opposition will continue to do that in two major areas. The first is in the vaccine. Now I see the Minister for COVID19 Response will recall his comments last year in that capacity that We are at the front of the queue for vaccines." But two short months later the message had changed to "Oh well there are countries that need it more than we do." and that "We'll just have to wait our turn." Well I might remind the Minister and the Prime Minister and his and her colleagues that they are Ministers for one country and one country only and their first and primary responsibility is to keep—Hon Chris Hipkins: It's not true—that's actually not true.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —Kiwis safe. Oh if you take it over well and the Realm countries—Hon Chris Hipkins: That's right so don't forget about them. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: True. Touché—a technicality that I'd thank the member for reminding me. But it is not Sweden and it is not Italy and it's not the Middle East. The Ministers are Ministers with a responsibility to keep this country safe and what disappointed me about the announcement on the vaccines last week—apparently we have a plan now. I've gone and had a look at the plan and I'm none the wiser about when I'm going to get the vaccine at all. But if I go on the Australian website and key in similar attributes with any geographical location I will know the date the week I'm going to get the vaccine if I was the same person in Australia.Hon Chris Hipkins: That's right—targeted 4 million by now; they've done 200000. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The Minister can rabbit on all he likes but it was a rushed attempt to try and portray a plan that does not exist and why is that so important? Because by his own admission the trans-Tasman bubble the Pacific bubble will be safest to open when there is a widespread vaccine in New Zealand. So we will continue to keep the Government's feet to the flames on those two crucial issues. The petition that the Opposition has launched only yesterday had 22000 signatures by this morning and that number is growing. The country wants the Government to act the country is imploring the Government to act and we support those calls. The debate having concluded the motion lapsed."