2. Question No. 2—Prime MinisterHon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime MinisterQuestion No. 2—Prime Minister2. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all of her Government's statements and actions?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes including our announcement yesterday that Auckland will move to level 3 from 11.59 p.m. tonight. This decision was based on advice from the Director-General of Health and was made because level 3 is an extension of the strict social distancing protocols that will help keep New Zealanders safe and of course it continues to ask Aucklanders to stay in their bubbles and reduce interaction with others as much as possible. By moving Auckland in this way we're ensuring that we protect against the spread and Auckland will be in level 3 for at least two weeks because the director-general was clear that given the long hard tail of Delta we will need time here. But this move gives Aucklanders greater certainty as we continue our work to combat COVID-19.Hon Judith Collins: Is the Government still committed to eliminating COVID-19 from the community?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As the member will have heard me say yesterday we continue to take a zero tolerance approach to COVID-19 and that means stamping out as we've said consistently all the way since the very beginning cases whenever we see them arise. That has not changed and we continued to commit to that yesterday.Hon Judith Collins: How many more times is she prepared to put Auckland or other parts of New Zealand into a level 4 lockdown in order to continue with her strategy?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I've said time and time again lockdowns have been used because we haven't had other tools available including for instance as has been noted by almost every country that has used lockdowns—and they've been a strategy around the world until we had the ability to treat COVID or indeed vaccinate against COVID. We now have vaccinations available and we are working incredibly hard to ensure that everyone who is eligible is vaccinated. Fantastic to see how close Auckland is to reaching 80 percent of eligible Aucklanders having received their first dose. We have the capability to within another two weeks beyond that reach 90 percent but it is incumbent upon all of us to work with all of our communities to ensure that people who may have concerns have those concerns addressed and are vaccinated because it is the best way to remove the need to use those harshest public health restrictions. Hon Chris Hipkins: Has the Prime Minister seen suggestions that the New Zealand Government should have set a vaccination target of around 70 percent and is she satisfied that based on first doses we've already well and truly exceeded that?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes I actually have seen various members of the National Party—the member asking the questions I think has suggested something like 70 percent. I've seen Chris Bishop suggest something closer to 80; Dr Reti more around the 90 percent mark. The point that I would make—Chris Bishop: Different thresholds for different things.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The point that I would make—Chris Bishop: Don't even understand the policy.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —we need as many people as possible to be vaccinated. You will have heard Dr Bloomfield say 90-plus—Chris Bishop: This is hopeless.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —and the reason that you'll—SPEAKER: Order!Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —hear us talking about such high rates is the higher you go the fewer ongoing restrictions that are required on a day-to-day basis to ensure people's safety.Chris Bishop: That's the whole point!Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: And perhaps Mr Bishop—perhaps that's something we all agree on.Hon Judith Collins: So if vaccinations are critical to preventing level 4 lockdowns then why were only 20 percent of eligible New Zealanders fully vaccinated against COVID at the start of the Delta outbreak?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Vaccinations are critical for us not having to use them in the future but you can see that even countries who have had months of availability of vaccination they have in some cases had low uptake. My hope for New Zealand is we won't be one of those countries. We're in shooting distance of passing for instance the United States' vaccination levels in the coming days I believe. So that's a demonstration that despite having had a country that for a long period of time has had availability it all comes down to your ability to work alongside your communities and ensure good take-up rates. That is something surely this House can work collaboratively on.Hon Judith Collins: Then again why were only 20 percent of eligible New Zealanders fully vaccinated at the start of this latest Delta outbreak?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I note the member is referring to fully vaccinated" rates. The member well knows that we at that time were using all of the supply available to us but we did not have enough supply from Pfizer to enable a greater rate of vaccine at that time. That is no longer the case. We long signalled from the beginning of the year that the arrival of our largest orders of doses would be in the latter half of 2021. That is—Chris Bishop: Exactly. The Government chose that.SPEAKER: Order! Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Mr Speaker if I may—SPEAKER: I'll ask the Prime Minister to resume her seat.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That is totally incorrect.SPEAKER: I just want to make it clear to Mr Bishop. He may not be aware that his leader's mike is open and his very loud interjections very frequent interjections his interjections that are sometimes repetitive and therefore on all bases out of order are interfering with people's ability to hear the answers including mine. I rely on the microphone systems within here to do it and when the Prime Minister's being drowned out by him because he is using his leader's microphone then it means that people outside the building have trouble hearing as well.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Point of order. Putting aside any difference of view I might have on the degree to which Mr Bishop's interventions were rare and reasonable if there is a problem with the sound system that is a problem the House has not Mr Bishop. What we're hearing is that those interjections—rare and reasonable—are being moderated because of a failure in the sound system. I think that's something that needs to be looked at.SPEAKER: No. I just want to make it absolutely clear: from when I was first an MP here and in fact earlier on when there were overhead microphones hanging down some of them were turned on and off in order for a particular individual to get the call. That's what the staff do. The Leader of the Opposition's microphone is not turned off in between her primary question and her supplementary or other supplementary questions. We can do that if the member wants; if that is the member's request we can move to a system whereby his leader's microphone is turned off and then turned on again. But that has not been the practice in the House and what has occurred is that members who sit around people who are asking questions have always given some respect to the person who is asking the question by not using their microphone. Had the Prime Minister finished?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Yes.Hon Judith Collins: What advice has she had on the economic cost of five weeks of level 4 lockdown on Auckland?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Perhaps I can assist with the microphone issue by no longer continuing to answer Mr Bishop's questions rather than the Leader of the Opposition's questions. I have in my mind—SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister will resume her seat. I'm sorry it's not appropriate for the Prime Minister—or any other member—to comment on the rulings that I have made. Continue.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Thank you Mr Speaker. My recollection of the last advice we received from Treasury was that for the extension that we last had in Auckland that amounted to a $700 million cost. There is no question that there is of course a cost to the economy and indeed people's lives through restrictions. However we have to of course factor in the cost of widespread uncontrolled outbreaks and the impact that that has on people's lives and livelihoods also.Hon Judith Collins: So is that per week? Or is that over the five-week stretch where people have been locked down in a level 4 lockdown?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I just said that was for the one-week extension. I'm sure the member can extrapolate across the five weeks keeping in mind we have had different parts of the country at different alert levels and therefore the draw-down on for instance the wage subsidy and the resurgence payment varies. If the member would like me to bring the precise figures for each of those weeks I can do that; happy to do so if she pops that one on notice.Hon Judith Collins: So why did she wait until a Delta outbreak to buy additional vaccines from other countries?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I completely reject the assertion in that member's question as I do the statement made by the member behind her who in the course of asking her questions—and the member may wish to take issue with the fact that he has done this over the top of her—gave the assertion that in some way we have delayed the delivery of vaccines to New Zealand. I find that an outrageous claim. At every step we have sought to access the Pfizer vaccine as quickly as we were able; in fact entering into arrangements with Pfizer before the completion of clinical trials. The fact of the matter is though most countries have not received their vaccines at a time that is convenient to them but rather at the time they've been available from manufacturers. As they have arrived we have distributed. To answer the member's question on the outbreak: as soon as we had that outbreak there was a huge surge in demand and rather than curtailing that demand to meet the supply that we had we met it and pulled out all the stops to then try and supplement that supply through other countries who may have had availability to support that. We were able to do so and I stand by that work.Hon Chris Hipkins: Can the Prime Minister confirm that the market for vaccines—much like every other market—relies on there being a willing buyer and a willing seller and it is only in recent weeks that there have been other countries willing to sell?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That is absolutely right. Of course other countries have sought to purchase vaccines to cover their entire populations and in some cases have found that with the reasonably short shelf life of this vaccine most countries have about four months to have them distributed across their population and have not been able to use their supply necessarily across their whole population. That's where you've only in recent times seen those kinds of arrangements and that is really captured by the fact that New Zealand was the first country to use the EU template agreement for the purchase and supply of vaccines within the EU because we had not had that template arrangement available to other countries prior to that point.Hon Judith Collins: Would a willing buyer of vaccines be expected to raise an order for those vaccines before 29 January this year given that other countries did so well earlier?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again the member completely—completely—misrepresents the process for purchasing vaccines. As I said we began discussions with Pfizer in July of 2020. In August we had a purchasing payment. In September Pfizer presented to our research panel and we made our first logistics call with the Ministry of Health. We signed an advanced purchase agreement in October of 2020 before Pfizer even completed their phase 3 trial. Again so many times in this House we've tried to correct the member. I cannot help the member if she does not understand the process for the purchasing of pharmaceuticals in this country.Hon Chris Hipkins: Has the Prime Minister seen predictions that the inventory management system for the vaccine wouldn't be ready that the booking system would fail that bookings were going to have to be cancelled because we were going to run out of vaccines that we hadn't purchased enough syringes for vaccines that we couldn't extract seven doses out of a vial of vaccines and that we didn't have enough vaccinators ready to deliver the vaccine—and did any of these predictions prove to be true?SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister can answer one of those nine questions.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I have seen those claims; they have proven not to be true. At this point in our process I wonder if it would be more helpful rather than the member misrepresenting the process of purchasing Pfizer vaccines if the member actually got on board and continued to encourage—as I've seen signs the National Party have—people to be vaccinated."