Clark DavidHon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): I'll take the opportunity to address a few of the issues that have been raised so far. Michael Woodhouse the member raised the issue of elimination—whatever that means". I think it is important that we are clear what we mean when we say "elimination". It doesn't mean zero cases; it means zero tolerance for cases. It's a technical term used by the World Health Organization to mean essentially stamping out the virus and knowing where the cases arise from through good contact tracing and the like. That doesn't mean that we won't get any cases but it means essentially that we have the situation under control.When I also respond to Mr Woodhouse's question about the historic one-off costs and the $432 million deficit last year I would point out because he's invited comment on that—unspecified—that the majority of deficits last year those one-off costs were in fact legacies of the previous Government. In particular the Holidays Act back-pay issue is one that this Government has inherited and we are determined to sort out. Yes it is the bigger part of the budgets as well as an IT project gone wrong that we inherited from the previous Government but those things are things that we do accept we have inherited and we will sort out. Those are things we are committed to doing. The Minister also referred to the pattern of deficits since 2013 which I think is a matter for the record.The member Shane Reti raised the issues around supply chain and were we ready. I think it's important in the context of measles to acknowledge that as with any response there will be details people can pick out and be dissatisfied with but the overriding result is that we have managed to eliminate measles and that is the result of combined New Zealanders' activities but particularly those public health units—many of the same people involved in the response now that has been so successful.During 2019 a significant effort was made to increase our overall immunisation coverage with 370000 MMR vaccines distributed compared with 150000 the previous year. Our vaccination rates actually went up quite significantly in response to the measles and I want to thank those public health staff who have stepped up. We know that young adults here have much lower immunity rates to measles because many were not immunised as children and later this year there is going to be an MMR immunisation campaign to target the approximately 300000 young adults aged between 15 and 29 who are not fully protected against the measles.So there has been some learning—again some challenges we've inherited as a Government but I'm proud of the health system response but I'm also proud of New Zealanders who have come forward for the vaccinations who have made sure that we are getting those immunisations out there.In terms of the personal protective equipment (PPE) issue also raised by Mr Reti it is important to note that the Government has set up a national distribution chain in a matter of a few weeks ago to reflect the challenges faced by private enterprise in securing PPE. The PPE situation historically of course as Mr Reti has described was a distributed one. We are the first Government to centralise that distribution process as best I'm aware in New Zealand. That has meant that now those private providers that would normally have been expected to compile their own health and safety plans that would normally be expected to supply their own PPE are now supplied by the Government with PPE. I've requested a rapid stocktake and expect some initial results this week so that we can get a really clear picture of where that might not be happening what complaints they've received how much PPE they've distributed and so on because I want to know the answers to those questions. It's a new system and we want to make sure that it is working properly.In terms of were we prepared again raised in question time was the question around being able to do contact tracing and track results. Again we have moved to set up a system that is connected across the country. As a Government we are the first Government that has put in place a service that is a national service. That will ensure that we have good detailed data on our contact tracing. We've done what no Government has done before putting $70 million into public health and contact tracing. We've seen the National Close Contact Service established with a staff of more than 200 and a new national IT solution set up and we're also adding surge response of 300 full-time equivalents to our public health units. That represents a huge scaling up."