Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Madam Chair for the opportunity to take a call on the title and commencement clauses of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2). This bill I think would be better named as the COVID-19 Public Health (Extension of Powers by Another 12 Months) Response Amendment Bill" because that is one of the significant things that this piece of legislation does. The COVID-19 Public Health Response Act was brought into place in May of 2020 following our first lockdown with a time constraint of two years and now we are saying under this piece of legislation that it will be extending those emergency powers—significant emergency powers that we've seen under the COVID-19 orders—for another 12 months.This comes as we've had the year of the vaccine—or the vaccine "stroll-out" as some people call it. It's now November and the Government still hasn't completed its vaccine stroll-out.Hon Kris Faafoi: Have you had yours?SIMEON BROWN: I've had two. I've hope you've had your two as well there Mr Faafoi?Hon Kris Faafoi: Waiting for the third.SIMEON BROWN: You're waiting for your third—good man. We're all waiting for our boosters.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! In the meantime I'd appreciate the member keeping the Chairperson out of the debate.SIMEON BROWN: Sorry Madam Chair. Yes we're all waiting for our boosters now and that's another story of slowness and stroll-outs—Hon Member: Which one?SIMEON BROWN: —if that's the Minister comments that he wants to be talking about. But the issue here is an extension of these powers by another 12 months at a point in time when actually the Government should be putting in place much tighter powers with far fewer limitations rather than effectively keeping in place significant powers. And of course we're going to be back here next week talking about another set of regulations and that's not going to be about tightening up what's in the law but about including a whole other set of regulation-making powers and a whole other set of rule-making powers for the Government. If the Government was saying "Well we're going to remove these ones and replace them with a tighter more targeted set of powers" I think most New Zealanders would be OK with that. But what we're saying is that for another 12 months the Government will be able to put in place level 3 and level 4 restrictions nationwide until May of 2023 under this piece of legislation despite the fact that next week they're promising a new protection framework and a traffic light system and all of these other wonderful things that they've promised but that we still have not seen the actual hard letter of the law written down on paper for New Zealanders to be able to look at and scrutinise. So this legislation gives another 12 months of significant powers.The other possible name for this piece of legislation would be the "Public Health Response (We Need to Widen the Mandate of Enforcement Officers) Amendment Bill" because this bill significantly widens who is able to enforce the powers under this piece of legislation. I think most New Zealanders would agree with me when I say that actually if you're going down the road and there's a boundary restriction around alert levels and that if the police are checking to make sure you've got a legitimate reason for travel they'd be quite OK with the police enforcing those powers. But this piece of legislation now widens that and says no no no not just the police will have those powers to enforce the boundary restrictions but also a Māori warden or a Pasifika warden maybe a community patroller or a representative of an iwi—all good well-intentioned people no doubt but now it's no longer just about being stopped on the road by a police checkpoint with people that New Zealanders would respect and understand the role the powers and the authority that they have but widening this to a whole bunch of other people who this legislation doesn't require appropriate training for. It doesn't describe in what detail they need to be under police supervision. Will a police officer actually have to be physically with them as they're undertaking their powers and duties? It doesn't describe whether that person will be able to also issue infringement notices and under what conditions or supervision. This piece of legislation extends powers significantly and that's why those suggested names for this legislation are far more appropriate than the very bland name it currently has which is simply the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2).I'll be encouraging the Minister to put a much more accurate description in the name of this legislation in place because that is exactly what this legislation does—it extends the powers extends the enforcement powers in a way that I think most New Zealanders would be significantly concerned about as we come out of this pandemic over the next 18 months. This bill is about extending powers not making them more limited."