Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): This is I think a very good motion that recognises the fact that all Governments take their legitimacy from Parliament—all Governments that is in democratic countries. So what we are going to see here is firstly today the extraordinary availability of funds voted by the Parliament for the Government to deal with this crisis and now as the Parliament is likely to agree to adjourn very shortly for a longer period of time a committee that during that time will be able to scrutinise the activities of the Government in the expenditure of that money and in particular to ensure that there is a focus as I think is the will of the whole House on the wellbeing of New Zealanders who are most adversely affected by this virus and its fallout.These are extraordinary times; no doubt about that. None of us really knows what a chart forward is going to look like. No one can be certain that in four weeks' time we'll be resuming the way we always have so to be able to have this committee sitting regularly is I think a good opportunity to ensure that the sort of circumstance the Leader of the House just mentioned—rapid decisions designed to fix something here but perhaps creating another problem over here—can be discovered early can be sorted out. So while it is also a role for scrutiny alongside that will be the role to listen to what New Zealanders are saying and to hopefully encourage solutions or find solutions to those emerging problems because nothing is going to be as it was before as we go into this next four-week period. It's going to be really odd. It's going to be like four weeks of Anzac Day mornings where everything is all quiet but then at midday everything fires up. This time that midday firing up is going to be about 28 or 29 days away—so a very very difficult sort of circumstance for us to even contemplate let alone deal with.I hope there is good compliance with the requirements to self-isolate across the country but I would say to those who are charged with making sure that people are encouraged to comply with those directions that there is not a trampling on what would be considered normal civil liberties. This is not a time to have a new paradigm of how there is an interaction between authorities of the State and citizens in the State. It is very much an occasion—or a circumstance I should more correctly say—where we would expect to have a high degree of cooperation from the general public. I think it'll be there but we will also therefore need to have as inevitably frustrations start to rise an opportunity for people to feed in those frustrations and hopefully get some answers.I am pleased that the Government has made it clear that Ministers who are called to have discussions—and I want to use that word discussions" with the select committee in the most appropriate way because that's how it really should be conducted. Rather than being totally inquisitorial it should be a discussion about what's happening about what's going on outside about what people are observing etc.; then I think it will be a useful thing. But for the Government to have said Ministers will be available I think is extremely encouraging. I would hope that State officials also recognise their obligation to accept the call that comes from the select committee to appear from time to time—not only them but also perhaps industry leaders and all sorts of people who have other NGO roles as well.These are quite uncharted times. This select committee fills a void that would normally be occupied by question time or perhaps written questions or something else. It will in my opinion be a little stronger than both of those provisions but with a great deal of cooperation that's been talked about by everybody across the House today it should work in the best interests of all New Zealanders."