SpeechVANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Kia ora Mr Speaker. In the Prime Minister's statement she talked about what got us through what was and has been a very challenging year. She talked about the countless gestures of kindness comfort and care; the service of our volunteers teachers health workers border workers and our police—and I'll underscore their service today. She talked about our Defence Force the hard graft of our businesses and exporters and she also mentioned the patience of every parent across the country. And as a parent myself I think several of us have been exhaling these last few weeks. It has been a challenging time to parent this last year and I'll always remember one of my sons asking me as we went into the level 3 lockdown last year So we're going into level 3. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?" And I said "Yes it was the right decision." but it was incredibly challenging. While we were in lockdown I spoke to principals to teachers to early childhood educators and to parents in Upper Harbour and there was fatigue there was concern but there was also creativity in how schools responded. There was humour there was collective support and most importantly in so many conversations there was an affirmation of what is the most important thing to families to schools: the health and wellbeing of those children and of our families. There was resounding support for how we had approached the COVID response and now that we do have high vaccination levels and we have a paediatric vaccine we are committed to keeping our schools and early childhood centres open with closures only used as a last resort a measure when there might be a community or a school outbreak or other issues that might make it unsafe for a school to open.For me one of the highlights in what was a challenging year in many ways was seeing a photo of Minister Faafoi in a turban. Sure it was photo-shopped but it didn't matter. The speed at which that image travelled around the ethnic social media circles was unparalleled. It was a bit of a cheeky but warm thankyou from the members of our ethnic communities to the Government and the Minister for their leadership in announcing the 2021 pathway to residence. In a year awash with challenging times that announcement was and is life changing for so many families—for 165000 people. It's been a privilege to hear those stories including many that touch on my electorate as well. I know that that pathway hasn't been available to all and it's not possible to put into words the level of grief that some have felt not just here in New Zealand but across the world as families have been separated due to COVID. But equally as hard have been those conversations with people who have lost family in other countries; people who have lost family because in their country efforts weren't made to slow the spread to enable a high vaccination rate. And because of what we've done now we're ready to reopen and to not only tackle the challenge which Omicron will bring with it but to tackle the other big issues that are coming our way: to establish the emissions budgets for the next 15 years; to roll out our progressive homeownership scheme; to build into our history curriculum stories about New Zealand—New Zealand's stories; and to engage with the world in trade diplomacy and in human rights on the issues that are important to us all because we know that issues that need to be addressed for all need to be owned by all of us. I want to finish just by talking about service which I think has been the underlying principle of how we've responded to the pandemic and by "us" I don't mean just the Government response; I mean the community response. Phil Twyford mentioned earlier the work of our West Auckland health providers who have really pivoted. The Fono team have been extraordinary in how they've responded to this. The same is true of the north-west community centres who provided those locations on the ground. It is that spirit of service that will also see us through into a successful 2022. Kia ora."