Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. The Green Party has largely supported the Government's response to COVID-19 and I just want to again acknowledge how incredibly successful it has been—and all of the different public servants who've been working so hard particularly in recent weeks people working in regional public health who've had to do all the contact tracing which has been incredibly difficult given the surge in cases and some of the complications around the cases. So I know this response has taken a huge effort not just the Ministers and the Government officials that we see but also hundreds if not thousands of people behind the scenes working the front-line workers.It's interesting the debate in recent weeks where there are some prominent media commentators who've been arguing that we cannot continue like this that somehow New Zealand's out of step with the rest of the world where when we look at the other countries they're talking about you know It's opening up". That just means living at a kind of level 2 that has much greater restrictions than the vast majority of New Zealand has had for over the past year. We've had far more freedom because of the approach that we've taken to eliminate COVID-19 in the community.That's why the Green Party continues to support that approach that the Government has outlined and then even when we have a high percentage of people over the age of 12 vaccinated that leaves a substantial portion of our citizens still unable to be vaccinated and still at risk of the virus. Personally I think that we need to at every step of the way be considering how this affects the most vulnerable in our society because ultimately that affects our entire society and that affects all of us. Just like early on last year it was argued that somehow this lockdown was going to be bad for the economy. What it showed was taking a swift approach taking an elimination approach actually was better for people's ability to trade once we were able to eliminate COVID-19 in the community. So this bill amends the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020 which was passed in May 2020. The amendments largely make sense and we are supportive of them. We are only supporting this bill to select committee because we have one significant concern which I will come to. I realise that it's not just a concern in this bill; it's a concern with infringement fees generally and how they affect people quite differently based on people's financial means. But I would like to just note that the delegation of roading enforcement powers to Māori and Pasifika wardens and iwi nominees is a positive step very consistent with our previous Green Party support for iwi checkpoints. But the increase in infringement fees raises a concern whether it's to do with COVID-19 infringements or traffic infringements or other types of infringements. I completely understand the desire to have an infringement regime to not always have to pursue everything through the courts-based system but unfortunately financial inequality income inequality wealth inequality are quite significant in Aotearoa New Zealand as much as we would like it not to be the case and there are a whole number of policies that we could pursue to have a more equal society which would be better for all of us. But the state that we're in right now is that for some people a $100 infringement fine is catastrophic for them. And then there's other people for whom a $10000 fine would be nothing at all—you know people who have tens of millions in wealth who really for them they could take a calculated risk and think "Oh if I have to pay an infringement fee it's worth it because I really want to go to Wānaka to go skiing." or whatever it is. There are people of enormous financial means in this country and for them an infringement fee of hundreds of dollars means nothing at all. So this was something that actually I found quite challenging when I was associate transport Minister because I totally understood the desire to increase penalties for things like driving while using a cellphone which pretty much one out of three drivers is doing at any point especially at peak-hour traffic in the middle of the city which is incredibly dangerous and potentially life-threatening to people outside the vehicle. But on the other hand it's simply not fair and can exacerbate inequality to simply put up infringement fines. There are other jurisdictions that take an approach to infringement fees that it's a percentage of your income or they use a proportional approach that makes it more fair so that it genuinely is an appropriate deterrent for people no matter what their income or level of wealth. I think that is something that we really should be pursuing. I don't think there's any branch of Government that has got the capacity to take this on; that's a different problem. I note that when we often hear criticism of the Government's COVID-19 response or their response on housing and other things Opposition parties like National and ACT blame Government inability or lack of capacity which is absolutely due to philosophical political choices made by National Governments—and sometimes in conjunction with ACT—to underfund and undermine the Public Service because they don't believe in Government. In the case of a global pandemic it absolutely proves the need for a really well-resourced public health system. Even today when people were talking about ICU capacity yeah we absolutely need additional ICU capacity—SPEAKER: Order! Order! I—Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: —and that could be part of this bill.SPEAKER: It's not and I think I was a little bit liberal earlier with Mr Bishop in letting people discuss things which were not in the bill and maybe should have been. In the second reading you can do that; you can do it in passing. But it's been a while since the member's been focused on the specifics of this bill rather than general issues related to it or matters to do with COVID that are not in the bill.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Well most of what I've been talking about Mr Speaker was in fact the proposal to—SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume her seat. When I've ruled you don't tell me why I'm wrong. All right? You just get on with debating.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: We have significant concerns about the infringement fees. And if other parties in this House would like to see increased ICU capacity they would probably have to support increased taxation which would help pay for a public health system that would actually respond to having more COVID in the community."