Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to take a call on this bill the COVID-19 Response (Courts Safety) Legislation Bill and I've got to say it is with some—I won't say pride and I won't say I told you so" although I'm dearly tempted to do so but I'm a humble guy but it is interesting to be here because I remember at the tail end of last year right coming towards the end of the year standing in the House very close to where I'm standing now and we were going through the very expedited process on the COVID-19 Protection Framework legislation. I remember myself and my good colleague here Chris Penk the venerable chair of the Regulations Review Committee and shadow Attorney-General and a much more qualified lawyer may I say than I am—I remember saying "Are you sure you've got this right when it comes to the courts?" And we were assured by the Attorney-General at the time who actually to be fair to him did engage in the debate. Unlike other Ministers sometimes in the committee stage he did engage in the debate. He said "Look nothing to see here. Don't worry about it. We've got it sorted." Well actually it turns out they didn't. It turns out that we've had to quickly come down here in March 2022 and we're going to pass through this COVID-19 Response (Courts Safety) Legislation Bill. I missed the select committee instruction but how long is it going to the committee for Mr Penk?Chris Penk: End of the month.CHRIS BISHOP: Oh end of the month. OK righty-o. So here we are on 10 March. So it comes back on 30 March is it?Chris Penk: Yes that's right. CHRIS BISHOP: Yeah OK. So 20 days—righty-o. So it's a very very quick process. It's certainly not the four months that normally bills would go through. Look we support taking sensible measures obviously to make our court system operate in a safe way. But I suppose my starting point is to say this was eminently predictable. In fact it was predicted by some people notably us and the origin of the problems go back to the speed with which the traffic light framework was developed. I'm not making a particularly political point. It's just the truth. It was done very very quickly. It was done in a rush it was done in haste because the Government had to work out how we were transitioning from an elimination framework into what could be described as a suppression framework where it became very clear as August September October and November wore on that Delta was not going away and it was going to be here and we had to cope with it. So the Government's answer after putting its head in the sand for most of 2021 was to say "OK we'll dream up this thing called the COVID-19 Protection Framework." colloquially known as the traffic light framework. But the problem is that the work wasn't done. It just wasn't done. There was not enough work done quickly enough to develop it. So that's why we end up with situations like the Prime Minister saying "Well we're not using vaccine passes in New Zealand. We've got no intention of using vaccine passes." Everyone went "OK. Cool."—banked that and then three weeks later the vaccine pass is introduced and we're told by the Government and told by the Prime Minister that it's an explicit public policy of the Government to set up a differential treatment between people who are vaccinated and unvaccinated. In fact the Prime Minister proudly said so on TV in an interview. A month previously she had said "We're not going to use vaccine passes in New Zealand because we don't have any need to."Now look we supported the introduction of vaccine passes. In fact we called for it before the Government did because back then they were a pathway to freedom for vaccinated New Zealanders under Delta particularly vaccinated Aucklanders who of course were stuck in that awful 100-day - plus lockdown. But the critical point is that Government policy was all over the show when it comes to this and we went from a position where we weren't going to have vaccine passes and we were just all under pure elimination to very quickly having to pivot away from that. But in the meantime the Government hadn't done the work on the replacement framework and so they had to move with haste. Because they had to move with haste we ended up with a traffic light framework that basically—it's not even in legislation. I mean that's the thing and there are some serious issues regarding that; it's all delegated to the Minister. Dr Duncan Webb: Have you read the bill?CHRIS BISHOP: And so we were—yeah I'm explaining the background to why this bill's so needed Dr Webb and why we will support it but why this should have been done in December Dr Webb. The Government just simply didn't do the work until the situation was forced upon them last year. And so of course we support the intention of the bill and of course we support the objective to make our court system and our tribunal system safe; I'm just simply making the point in response to Dr Webb that the haste with which the traffic light framework was developed is why this bill is needed.The traffic light framework is not actually in legislation—to return to the point I was making. What we've done as a Parliament is delegated enormous powers to Ministers. Actually Mr Penk's select committee the Regulations Review Committee is doing an enquiry into some of these related matters. It's a critical issue and we heard from the Human Rights Commission yesterday and Jonathan Orpin-Dowell and Paul Rishworth QC in relation to it. I actually do worry a little bit about the powers that we have delegated to Ministers in relation to the traffic light framework bill. I know a lot of other people worry about it as well because generally in this Parliament when we are dealing with rights rights as a matter of principle should not be altered by fiat they should not be altered by ministerial decree and that is what this bill does.Dr Duncan Webb: No it doesn't.CHRIS BISHOP: It does do that—it does. It does do that. Of course it does Dr Webb and it's what the traffic light framework bill does as well because it subsumes to delegated decision makers decisions around fundamental rights.Dr Duncan Webb: Oh!CHRIS BISHOP: It does do that. We're in the middle of a pandemic and there are differential treatments for vaccinated and unvaccinated and there's some impact on rapid antigen tests and things like that. So of course it does and of course I'm just simply making the point that we need to be careful around that and I'll look forward to the inquiry of my good colleague and others. It was a pleasure to join the committee yesterday for some of that consideration. The second point I want to make is in relation to the time limit. So the explanatory note of the bill notes that the bill or the bill when it becomes an Act will be in force for the time that the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020 is in duration for. Now that is much vexed piece of legislation. It expires currently on 30 June—I think I'm right in saying—this year 2022 unless Parliament extends it. The Minister for COVID-19 Response did a good thing which is he basically made that Act to be self-exploding—for want of a better phrase—unless Parliament says that it can continue and there has to be regular re-authorisations now. And clearly in the current Parliament that is in some ways a matter of course because the Labour Government has an absolute majority. But as a matter of principle that is the right thing to do because that Act in and of itself imposes extraordinary restrictions and regulations and gives the Government extraordinary powers.Chris Penk: They could cross the floor. CHRIS BISHOP: Well my colleague Chris Penk says colleagues could cross the floor; it's unlikely given the iron-clad discipline that the Government operates under. The Act expires but some of the rights or some of the powers and some of the clauses will continue for a two-year period after the Act expires. I'd just put it to the House—and we're going to get into this in select committee—that it may be that we want to alter the bill so that the expiry date is actually earlier than the public health COVID Act. I'd put it to the House that my suspicion is that the Government is not going to give up the powers in the COVID Act too easily. I think what they will do is extend the COVID Act for quite some time and I would say to the House that the powers in this Act the court safety Act should expire before the other COVID Act powers expire. The reason I say that is that Governments are very good at attaining power; they're not good at giving it up and the lesson from history is that Parliament should be jealous about the powers that the people have and we should be careful about giving Governments too many powers because they don't like giving them up. The Government has accrued for itself extraordinary powers through this pandemic and the sooner we can return to some form of normality and erode and get rid of those powers the better. So I think colleagues who look at this on the Justice Committee may well want to look at bringing forward the time line for the expiry of this particular Act. Thank you very much."