Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call as to why it is necessary to extend the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020.Could I point out the irony of the comments from Dr Shane Reti. Dr Shane Reti is a very competent doctor and physician who has practised at leading teaching institutions internationally and really does know his onions about these issues. When he criticises the testing regime of the Government the Government does listen. He just said that we need to do more testing pursuant to rules that Government set at the very time when his leader is forcing him to vote against a bill that is the legislative framework that sets out those testing regimes. Those testing regimes are found in orders that are passed under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act and if that Act drops away you can't do it Dr Reti. I think Dr Reti knows that but this is part of the Luxon let-it-rip campaign where they're—Hon Member: Ha ha!Hon DAVID PARKER: Well there must have been a decision taken by the leader. I cannot believe that in the first two weeks of a new leader the new leader is not responsible for this change of position by the National Party whereby they are saying that the Act—until now we have had relative agreement across the House that we need the powers that sit in the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act.Can I deal with what I thought was quite an unnecessarily cynical and at times personal attacks from the leader from the ACT Party. The ACT Party of course has got absolutely no credibility on these issues because they again voted against the original Act. They've always opposed the legislative framework that has underlined the exceptional performance of New Zealand which has relied upon the rule of law which has flowed from the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act.Now I can understand him maintaining the consistent position he has that he opposes the Act but for him to misrepresent—for him to misrepresent—in this very important debate what he knows is incorrect because he heard the answers from the Prime Minister and from Minister Hipkins earlier in the week—SPEAKER: No no no. Order! Order! Order! I hesitate to interrupt the Minister but he has accused a member of deliberately misrepresenting something in this House and that is something that he cannot do.Hon DAVID PARKER: I take back that it was deliberate but for him to be so incompetent as to misrepresent—Hon David Bennett: He can't debate it—can't debate it.Hon DAVID PARKER: —what has been explained in the House; when he attributed—Hon David Bennett: How's he get away with debating that?SPEAKER: Order! Order! Sorry. David Bennett I have ruled on a matter. The member is relatively ignorant of the rules of the House. He should not attempt to correct me as while another member is speaking. He knows if he has a point of view he takes a point of order but he also knows that if he takes a point of order he will be ridiculed.Hon DAVID PARKER: The point that the ACT leader David Seymour made in his contribution was to attribute to the Director-General of Health a statement that the border around Auckland should go and that it wasn't necessary. He knows that that is a misrepresentation of what the director-general said because—SPEAKER: Order! Order! Order! Well yeah. I am going to ask the Attorney-General to take some more care with his wording. Just to make absolutely clear: people can and do make mistakes in this House and misrepresent things; the difference is if they knowingly do it or deliberately do it then that's a breach of privilege and you cannot accuse someone of a breach of privilege by way of a speech.Hon DAVID PARKER: I accept that thank you. He should know that that is a misrepresentation of what the director-general said because he was in Parliament when that was explained by both the Prime Minister and the Minister the Hon Chris Hipkins because that statement was for the release of that border in mid-December which is what is happening.There's also been repeated accusations that somehow the Government's imposing a higher level of restriction post the release of that border by transitioning different parts of New Zealand not at green. Again that misrepresents the advice of the director-general because it attributes to the later advice the earlier advice and the director-general changed his advice in the meantime.Can I also point out that Chris Bishop says that we should be again letting it rip doing away with managed isolation and quarantine. Pursuant to that he said that from his point of view there's only 27 active cases in managed isolation and quarantine at moment that have come across the border. The point that the Government has made repeatedly is that those 27 cases released into the community would seed cases into the community. They would seed cases into the community in areas where we are not having to deal with outbreaks at the moment.In respect of this idea that somehow we could repeal this Act or not allow it to continue and properly manage pandemic is just incorrect because the underlying health legislation—as most people I think in New Zealand understand and accept—is not suitable for dealing with the COVID outbreak. The Health Act powers that would then default are much less granular and in some ways they are not subject to the same checks and protections that arise under the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act.I'm going to list the protections that are in this Act that would not be in the underlying law. One it makes Ministers rather than the director-general responsible for the main orders under it. That ministerial responsibility is very important; it requires the Minister to be satisfied that each and every order that the Minister makes is justified under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It limits the powers in the Act to the COVID pandemic. The Act self-repeals every 90 days so that we can have a debate like this in the House. Orders made under it are revoked unless Parliament within 60 days generally—generally it happens a lot faster than that but up to 60 days generally. Unless the orders are endorsed by Parliament they are revoked. The Act puts the orders under it within the purview of the Regulations Review Committee chaired by an Opposition member and if I could compliment the work that Chris Penk has done in that role and the work that the committee has done. Those reports on each order come to the House and the drafting of subsequent orders and the terms of them have been improved as a consequence.The bill expressly preserves the role of the court to judge orders against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and requires orders to minimise intrusions into civil liberties. When we passed the Act we even went to the trouble of replacing me as Attorney-General for the purposes of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and it got a clean New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report because it was proportionate to the crisis that we are facing.We do not shy away from the rights of citizens to challenge these orders through the courts. We've expressly preserved their right to do that and we engage in those court cases. By and large the actions of the executive have been upheld by the courts. There have been some areas where there have been criticisms and those criticisms have been responded to.In respect of the generalised assertion from the ACT leader that the lockdown in the first nine days was illegal again that's not really a proper way of describing what happened. During the first nine days of the lockdown the statements by the Prime Minister and Mike Bush at the time encouraging people to stay home in their bubble were not backed by an order under the Health Act; this was before the COVID response Act. The court found that during that first-nine day period those instructions became increasingly directive and therefore they were critical that by the end of the nine-day period they thought that a formal order should have been made earlier. They said it was completely justified to do what had been done but they found that in respect of that early period until a second order was made on the Health Act which expressly was even more directive than the instructions that the Prime Minister and Mike Bush were encouraging people. They said during that period it crossed the line from encouraging people as we went into that transition into a strict lockdown. They said we should have made an order earlier and we accept that.Without this Act in place we can't have provisions at the border as we have. We can't have the self-isolation mandates imposed. Some of these things can't be done under the Health Act because it's predicated on a form of quarantine that doesn't fit the COVID outbreak. This is absolutely necessary to carry this Act forward. I endorse the motion to the House.Motion agreed to.SPEAKER: I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill and the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Bill.