Rurawhe Adrian; Salesa Jenny; Bishop ChrisDEPUTY SPEAKER: I declare the House in committee for consideration of the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill.In CommitteePart 1 Amendments to COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): The House is in committee on the COVID-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill. The question is that Part 1 stand part.CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Madam Chair. I welcome this opportunity to get into the detail during the committee stage. We haven't had the opportunity at select committee but it is very important we do what we can in the limited time we have to get to grips with some of the detail here. I've a number of very genuine questions that I want the Minister to just spell out for the committee.The first is—it's kind of a minor one but I think it is of note—the legislative statement that's been presented to the House under Standing Order 272 says that the bill amends the original Act to require vaccination where the Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries has determined that's necessary to facilitate access for specified products. I can't find that in the bill. Maybe it's an old copy of the legislative statement that may have been deleted from the bill but can we just have a bit of clarity around exactly how that works and maybe we can tidy that up for the third reading.The second question is in relation to how the vaccination passport system will work with the mandate system for businesses that are affected by the traffic light framework. So what I mean by that is: the Government has said that businesses that have limits placed on them unless they use vaccine certificates as part of the traffic light framework at orange and green—that use vaccine certificates people who work in those businesses will be required to be vaccinated and that makes some sort of sense. You've got the corollary of: if you can only enter if you're vaccinated you can only work in the business if you're vaccinated. That makes sense. I can't find in the bill the empowering provision that allows the Government to do that. I thought it was new section 11AB which allows the Government to make orders for specified work but if you look at specified work" it's around the public interest in terms of continuity of services essential for public safety national defence or crisis response. So I don't think that is the provision that the Government is relying on when it comes to authorising orders for basically levelling up vaccination mandate requirements alongside vaccination passport requirements. In fact I'm generally interested in what the purpose of new section 11AA and new section 11AB is generally.How exactly—I suppose this is the third question—are those sections different from the existing empowering provisions in the current Act that allow the Government to impose vaccine mandates for specified industries? So just to give a bit of context the Government has already promulgated pursuant to the existing Act vaccine mandates across the health workforce teaching and border workforce. That was the first one they've been well in place they enjoy generally widespread consensus. What I don't understand is given that those mandates have already been put in place pursuant to the existing Act what is the purpose of new section 11AB in clause 7 of the new bill? What is the purpose of it? Why does the Government need to give itself those powers—genuinely interested in exactly what the purpose of that is?A couple of other questions before I hand over because I know my colleagues will have things to say as well. Is it envisaged that the—and I'm referring now to clause 4 and subsection (3)(a) in relation to the vaccination exemption criteria. So the bill proposes the director-general may make a notice for the purposes of any legislation under the Act what the vaccination exemption criteria will be. Now my understanding is that the Government has essentially shifted the criteria to the director-general and he is exercising those exemption criteria already. Is it the Government's intention that that just carries over once the new bill becomes an Act that the director-general will just continue to do that pursuant to the criteria that he has published already? Or is it envisaged that there will be some further clarification on that?There's quite a lot to cover in that contribution for the Minister to respond to so perhaps I'll just leave it there. Thank you."