O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): I'd like to wish mālō e lelei to our colleague Anahila Kanongata'a-Suisuiki the personal face of the lockdown. Last year she lost her mother during level 4 this year she lost her father during level 4 and families throughout New Zealand will all have stories like that and an inability to grieve in this case. I'm not one to stand here and deny the Opposition their job to oppose but it does bemuse me that they get up and talk about how difficult it is for people sitting at home and then spend the rest of their speeches ensuring that they undermine all the efforts to reassure them and to make sure this country remains the best-responding country to COVID and I think what we really need and require to do for people at home is to give some reassurance that the systems do work. I'd just like to turn our attention to what happened last week in West Auckland. Many speakers here commentators and the media have looked at the actions particularly of my ex-colleagues the police officers who were on the ground there who within 60 seconds stopped that incident. I have nothing but sympathy for those six people who were badly injured in the meantime but just consider how bad that incident could have been but for the fact that the system worked. Now to take nothing away from my ex-colleagues on the ground there but really to look for the confidence in this country that the whole system worked—that we had those officers on the ground at that time when that individual chose to grab a knife and go on the offensive. Now a lot of things had to work for that to happen. For a start we had to identify this individual. In 2016—and this goes cross-Government—this individual arrived in New Zealand and he was identified. That meant the system worked. I compare that with the other terrorist in New Zealand who arrived here having been weaponised overseas having been radicalised overseas and it was the failure of those agencies to identify that. By the time he was here he was intent on what he did. Compare that with here—we identified this individual he then came into the system and we have now become aware of the fact that he went into prison. He came out and every part of the State—every action the State could take—was used. He leveraged the very system—the very freedoms that he was seeking to destroy—and that was actually how he ended up needing all the resources of the State to be focused where they were at that particular time.So we can take confidence that the system did actually work and that's a confidence that New Zealanders can take. OK focus will go on the legal system. Maybe things could have been done but I think it's important we actually look at the history and I'll acknowledge the Leader of the Opposition the Hon Judith Collins who at that stage was the Minister of Justice and I have some sympathy for her because we've got to remember at the time—I'll put some names in here: Ahmed Zaoui. Remember the outcry when we tried to do something about that individual and the agencies were put under complete focus? Remember Operation Eight? Again without going into details this was a system where the law clearly showed that preparation wasn't close enough for the Terrorism Suppression Act to be used. However it wasn't fixed because right through the system we didn't really have the context—no Government had the context—to be able to do the fix that we'll now do. So if I can give some comfort to those six people who were injured—and it will be no small comfort for them and their families. However we now have the context to ensure that we do put in a fix for this and the system will do it. For the same way I'd like to come back to the COVID system. We do have the best system in the world. How often have we heard ill-informed commentators talking about what's happening in the UK what's happening in Singapore? There were 41000 cases in the UK yesterday and 1200 cases in Singapore last week and growing. These are the countries that we're being pointed towards. So in the time left to me I'll say for anyone listening at home and for those in the Opposition who are going to take the opportunity to undermine the system to just sit back and think we are lucky to be in a country where it is no accident firstly that we had such a very good result last week in West Auckland. We're having a very good result in our COVID response—the best in the world. Have confidence in our systems. It gives me great confidence to stand here and ask people to take confidence that we are doing this right.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.