van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise on behalf of the ACT Party tonight in opposition to these COVID-19 orders and that's not because we're opposed to the liberalisation of some of the rules and restrictions that this Government has put in place through this COVID-19 pandemic; it's because we don't think it goes far enough.In many cases we actually need to just take the chance and say Let's move on." Let's move on from all the rules and restrictions that this Government has imposed on New Zealanders' lives and just acknowledge that it is time to finally move on. We should actually allow for these COVID-19 orders to lapse and get on with our lives. COVID is all around us; in many cases the restrictions that we still have on peoples' lives do from nothing to little to actually stop the spread of COVID-19 in our communities.I wanted to touch on firstly one of these orders here that's been brought to the House tonight and that is the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Amendment Order (No 5) 2022. In this order the Government is reducing the number of people that will be forced to have a vaccine because of the type of work that they do in our communities. I've had many many people over the last few months emailing in people that I've met on the street people that I know personally who have said that they feel as though the mandatory requirements that this Government has imposed for vaccination has impinged on their rights and freedoms and doesn't actually stop COVID-19 in the community.In this order it's saying that the vaccine order requires specified workers to have been vaccinated against COVID-19 and to have received a booster dose in order to be able to carry out certain work. This is amending it so that almost all of these workers no longer have the mandate. But it still sets out that there are specified people that do have to have the vaccine. These are people in our health and disabilities sector.I suggest that when people are going to the supermarket when they're going out to the petrol station when they're meeting and greeting people at work when they're going to school; there are so many places where somebody could get COVID—so many places. Every single interaction and in most cases when I've talked to people and said "How did you get COVID?" nobody has any clue; nobody knows. But we are still restricting some people from being able to go to work because they don't want to have a vaccine. I think that's wrong.We have always said as the ACT Party it should be up to these businesses and the entities to set their own rules and regulations for their own business practices whether or not people should have a vaccine in their facilities; I think that's the right thing to do. But by saying to these particular people this particular class of workers "You still have to have a vaccine mandate" I think that is impinging on their rights and freedoms and we do need to move on. Even though this removes a lot of restriction the ACT Party just simply goes further and says "Let's get over it and let's move on."When it comes to the second one which is the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Maritime Border and Other Matters) Amendment Order (No 2) 2022 this really goes to the heart of why the ACT Party is completely opposed to all of these orders going further into the future: because it's saying to people "Hey now we've finally opened the border. We're finally allowing cruise ships back"—thank goodness they're allowed back for all of those tourist operators who really have been struggling through COVID. Thank goodness the borders are open so we can have tourists come back through our borders on cruise ships. But they're saying "Oh by the way now they're allowed back let's put another COVID order on top of them and say that they have restrictions and requirements for people who might want to travel here." And one of these requirements is requiring a compulsory COVID-19 test on arrival of a Category 1 ship.Does anyone really believe that that's going to stop anything? We have COVID thousands of cases in the community and we're once again putting another rule and restriction that's not going to do anything to stop COVID in our community. And really another part of it was about the self-isolation provisions so that when a person is travelling on a cruise ship and they test positive for COVID-19 only that person and their cabin mates will be subject to self-isolation rather than anyone on board the ship. Well thank goodness for that! Can you imagine everyone on board the ship having to self-isolate? How ridiculous would that be! So yes that is a good measure: that it's only the people who happen to have COVID. But the restrictions for self-isolation are the strictest in the world.We really do need to move on from these very restrictive COVID-19 isolation rules. There is no other jurisdiction that requires a seven-day mandatory isolation for cases and their contacts in the house. While the Minister is away getting more advice on whether or not they should change the self-isolation rules we have been raising for months and months through our "Move on" and COVID papers that we really should have more of a Singapore-style test that says "72 hours and you're out." I think that is much better. If you can have 72 hours and get a negative test then we should be allowing people back out into the community rather than imposing such strict requirements on people in self-isolation; it's so inflexible and it has a huge effect on our economy and it's going to have an effect on people in tourism too.The Minister really should be asking the question "Are these rules worth it?" Are they self-defeating? Will they actually reduce COVID spreading in the community? Or does it just mean that a lot of people won't test—or they won't test properly—to get around the rules? Unfortunately we're still in August 2022 and the Government is still seeking advice about whether or not self-isolation is fit for purpose. The Minister really should get their act into gear and realise we should move closer towards the Singapore model stop creating more and more orders that are a bit redundant in our current climate and allow New Zealanders to move on and get on with their lives.Businesses are hurting with these self-isolation rules. I was talking to an early childhood educator who said that at any given time they have so many of their staff that are needing to isolate that they're having to tell kids that they can't come in to the early childhood education (ECE); telling parents who need their kids to be dropped somewhere so that they can go to work "You can't drop your kid off at our clinic or place today because we don't have enough staff to keep this to be a safe ECE for the day." This has an ongoing flow-on effect and we really do need to limit the restrictions that we're putting on peoples' lives because it really does have an effect on our livelihood and the economy.So the ACT Party cannot support these COVID orders. Even though some of them are better than what we've seen in the past we don't believe that they go far enough. We should simply allow for the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act to lapse and get on with our lives."