Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this legislation to its first reading. We believe the Medicines Amendment Bill (No 2) should be examined by a select committee and I want to go through some of the reasoning in why that is but first I just note the previous member Teanau Tuiono said he had great faith in the Health Committee to scrutinise legislation on behalf of the people of New Zealand scrutinise the Government's response on behalf of the people of New Zealand. This is the committee dominated by Labour members that has repeatedly refused to get officials before it in order to examine New Zealand's COVID-19 response. This is the committee that has actually gained infamy for the behaviour of a previous chair in not allowing Opposition members to ask questions on behalf of the public. And bear in mind that the Health Committee was performing that task in the absence of a COVID-19 epidemic response committee which the Government has repeatedly refused to have re-formed despite or perhaps because of the success that it had in scrutinising the Government's COVID response back in 2020. I think that has to be said when you hear someone say that they've got great faith in the Health Committee because it's actually been a sore spot for our democracy and for New Zealanders wanting representation to be effective throughout the COVID-19 saga. What this bill will do is give the Director-General of Health the ability to approve COVID-19 - related vaccinations to be applied without a GP prescription without going through the normal Medsafe process. I want to unpack a few of the concerns that people may well have about that. The first concern that I think people might have—and I haven't heard the Minister of Health or any Government representative or the regulatory impact statement—prepared hurriedly I suspect by the Treasury or the Ministry of Health—explain why it is that the people who manufacture the Comirnaty vaccine being Pfizer have not been prepared to make an application for it to be used in New Zealand. We're told that there are 834000 people vulnerable for a variety of reasons who would use it. Now I would have thought that the prospect of selling 834000 doses at what is it—we may never know but let's make it $30 a pop—would have actually motivated Pfizer to submit the data and have it approved. But it seems for some reason that hasn't been given to us by the Government advancing this bill that Pfizer are not approaching countries with a rationale for a fourth dose to be allowed under their regulatory systems. I think that's a question that the Government is going to have to provide answers to. Why is it that the Government is keener to get these doses approved than the manufacturer? That is a wrinkle that I don't think has been properly explained. A second question that people will ask is: could this somehow lead to a fourth dose not just being available but mandatory? Unfortunately I think people that ask that question actually have a reason to be sceptical of the Government. This is a Government where the Prime Minister promised that people would suffer no penalty whatsoever if they didn't want to have the original doses of the Pfizer vaccine. Now I think that was a really foolish promise for the Prime Minister to make because actually all choices in life have consequences. That is cause and effect thinking. It would be naïve to think that you could make a choice and it wouldn't at the very least lead to the judgment of your peers and friends or perhaps other people saying that they were setting conditions for their private property that included a requirement to be vaccinated and perhaps that property owner might be your employer. So it was never a promise that the Prime Minister was in a position to keep but she made it I would say foolishly and perhaps the worst thing about that is that she eroded people's trust in the institutions of New Zealand. This Government came in promising wellbeing Budgets off the back of a Living Standards Framework and the promise was that we'd think about more than just one thing. We wouldn't just think about GDP; we'd think about social and human and environmental capitals and the wellbeings of New Zealanders in every aspect. Then COVID came along and it was back to focusing on just one thing and when it comes to our social capital I think it's been eroded by the distrust fomented by some of the Government's behaviour around the COVID-19 epidemic response. So I think people will ask Well you know we trusted you last time; you changed. Is this somehow a precursor to a fourth dose not only being available but required?" I actually don't think those fears are well founded. I think it's clear that this legislation does not do anything of the sort. But the Government has got itself in a sticky position where it needs to provide that reassurance.I think the other thing the third thing that they're going to have to do other than reassuring people that it's OK to be approving something the manufacturer doesn't seem that interested in approving and that's not going to become required is they're going to have to be transparent and open about the benefits so that people can make an individual choice under this framework which I'm sure will inevitably lead to a fourth dose being permitted in New Zealand. There's no doubt that the evolution of the COVID-19 virus—or perhaps more properly viruses—from one variant to the next has changed the underlying epidemiology and therefore what is desirable policy. Omicron being the latest and currently the dominant variant clearly has greater immune escape properties for people who have had natural infections and for people who have been immunised against COVID-19. It is also far less virulent and milder. In the UK its infection fatality rate is now comparable to the flu. There was a time when people who made that comparison with earlier variants of COVID—they didn't know what they were talking about and you couldn't be taken seriously. But that infection fatality rate is now comparable to the flu at least in studies of the UK population. Now the question is to what extent is vaccination a factor or necessary. That's a decision that people need to weigh up. I personally probably will get a fourth dose. I don't see why I wouldn't give myself extra reassurance against having a nasty bout of COVID and a lot of people I know have been having that. But the Government is going to have to be as it's promised open and transparent about informing people.Finally I think the Government is going to have to explain why at various points in the roll-out of the vaccine it has been highly convenient for the Prime Minister to stand up and say "We are going to make the vaccine available but we're waiting for Medsafe approval." The ACT Party's made the point that this is nuts. How many times in New Zealand's history has Medsafe rejected the approval of a pharmaceutical and the rest of the world who've probably been using it for 20 years because sadly that's the way it is have said "Oh my god! New Zealand said it's not safe. We'll stop."? It just doesn't happen. The question has to be asked why it is that New Zealand insists on doing its own product regulation—and I'd add to that we might have a bit less shortage of Gib board if we didn't insist on that. I was going to joke maybe we should start inspecting cars—because you know BMW are quite good at making cars but maybe New Zealand's Government should have someone inspecting that—but I don't want to joke because the Green Party might hear and make it a policy. But we actually have to ask ourselves why we have such a rigmarole and whether we shouldn't adopt ACT's policy of saying that if a pharmaceutical is approved by Australia the UK the EU or the US then maybe New Zealanders should be able to access it as well. We could save a lot of time and a lot of money along the way. Nevertheless we still have that restriction in place and because we don't think it's a particularly good restriction we're happy to support at least for now a bill that will allow people to bypass nonsensical restrictions but we will be listening very carefully to the answers to those three questions I posed. Thank you Madam Speaker."