Verrall Ayesha; Kuriger BarbaraSecond ReadingHon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I move That the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Extension of Act and Reduction of Powers) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.I want to acknowledge the last member to address the House Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. There has certainly been a number of lessons that the Government has learnt about the appropriate engagement with Māori health providers and with iwi throughout the course of the COVID-19 response. It is our job to make sure that those lessons are imbedded in our response going forward. And it was just last week in this House that I spoke on the Haumaru report and the progress we have made in making sure that we can continue not only to adapt our services to make them more responsive to Māori as we have done in the area of immunisations and antivirals but also to make sure that we are creating more opportunities for Māori to lead elements of the pandemic response themselves.However it would be remiss of me not to note the large amount of advice we received from iwi and Māori health experts about their concern about removing of powers altogether and that the fundamentals of the response which this bill keeps in place such as the ability to isolate cases contacts and use mask mandates are important in order to be able to ensure that Māori communities who as the member has said do not continue to face disproportionate impacts from COVID-19. We need this Act in order to protect Māori and other communities who bear the brunt of worse health outcomes due to COVID-19.I also want to respond to some of the comments about the summer ahead raised by my colleague Mr Tuiono from the Green Party. I think the Act as I've mentioned continues the ability for case isolation which is an absolutely fundamental plank of communicable disease control to remain. I'll just note that some Australian states have removed case isolation and while experiencing the same change in variants that we have have had a higher increase in case numbers—I think that's what is occurring in Queensland right now. In addition we have actually been here before. We have had higher case numbers earlier in this year in winter in combination with a flu outbreak and earlier in summer. We managed that through having greater requirements on contacts at the beginning of the year and also in the middle of the year in the July surge of Omicron we had wider mask mandates. Those powers remain in the bill should they be necessary and as always exercised in a way that is proportionate to the public health risk to the demand on our health services and in a way that is consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It is as always a balance.So through the pandemic the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act has served us well. It has been a flexible piece of legislation that allowed us to change in response to the situation as the pandemic evolved. Our response has continued to change and the bill we are considering today is an important step in that. It significantly narrows the powers because the extraordinary powers that were granted by this Parliament in the early stage—or by the last Parliament I should say—of the pandemic are no longer necessary. We will be utilising instead our most effective tools in stopping transmission of the virus: isolation and mask use and also if necessary requirements on travellers. These tools will help us practically manage the ongoing impact of COVID-19. Of course there are non-legislative tools that we use as well including continuing to support a vaccination programme and the widespread availability of antivirals for those that can benefit from them.As we move to take out the most restrictive measures in the Act I'd like to acknowledge the impact lockdowns and managed isolation and quarantine have had on New Zealand. There is no doubt that going hard and early with the response to COVID-19 was the right thing to do. We still have one of the lowest death rates in the world; you can see that in our economy and our low excess-mortality rates. The freedoms that we enjoyed in 2020 and 2021 were much greater than those experienced elsewhere in the world. But it does not mean that the response was without cost. New Zealanders have worked incredibly hard to get through this pandemic. As a result of those efforts we are continuing to move forward and change the way we do things. I commend this bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Barbara Kuriger): The question is that the motion be agreed to.