Tuiono TeanauTEANAU TUIONO (Green) (Remote): Thank you Mr Speaker. I just wanted to pick up what the last speaker Chris Bishop said about rights because I agree. But let's talk about workers' rights. Let's talk about the right for workers—for when they go to work—that they feel safe that there are processes in place that make sure that they are protected from COVID that they are protected from other winter illnesses as well. And let's think about that not just purely from an economic perspective as well because we have had a lot of noise people banging on the business drums saying We need to open up." and all this kind of stuff. And I get it you know we all need a buck to keep the lights on. But there are other voices that we need to keep in mind; the voices of our immunocompromised whānau our disabled whānau those communities whose booster rates are not up—that are not near the 90 percent mark as well—and making sure that we keep that on our minds as well. But I also want to thank the Regulations Review Committee for the work that they've been doing. It is an important mechanism for them to actually go through the detail and to look at and to get into the weeds of these regulations and for that to make sense for them—and I do want to thank them for doing that. They seem to get on well and I don't know if they do that just for the pantomime of Parliament but I do appreciate the thorough work that they do as well. But here's the thing: that when you're getting into the weeds and picking the pūhā and making sure you're getting all that nourishing kai it's important to step back and actually take a look at the garden—the whole garden. And that's a metaphor—it's Greens speak if you like—about asking "Where is the plan?"—Where is the plan? I appreciate the detail that the Regulations Review Committee went through and the various orders and motions that were brought up as well but in order for those things to make sense you've actually got to be able to hang it on top of a framework and I think that we have lost sight of that. I think this Parliament is starting to move away from that. And yes the number of orders are drying up and that would be a good thing if the current COVID rules and regulations were keeping the community safe but here's the thing: the pandemic is not over—it isn't over. Aotearoa currently has one of the highest case rates and death rates in the world; although it's likely other places have much higher rates than reported. Our vaccination rates have stagnated with only half of five- to 11-year-olds having received a single dose of the vaccine and only 25 percent have received a second dose. I did hear the numbers about the district health boards and so on and so forth however booster levels for adult Māori and Pasifika populations are barely above 50 percent as well. We're in the middle of winter. There's a number of us that can't be in Parliament because of having to home isolate and all that—winter and flu and all that kind of stuff—and we face a possible second COVID-19 peak over winter at the same time as open borders and bringing in new viruses into our communities. And yes people can—are—getting reinfected with COVID. We need to make sure that these indoor spaces are safe for everyone. It's important that the Government should be subsidising organisations that upgrade their ventilation and air filtration systems as well. I think about this around our schools and I'm mindful of this as a parent—I'm sure this is true for many of us. Many of us at Parliament are parents or we're grandparents or we're aunties or uncles or we've got relatives who are teachers or at the very least we're at a school where we were taught by a teacher as well—and experts and also school communities have been calling out for a comprehensive plan. We need an expert plan to support children's access to education and to protect children school staff and their families from COVID-19 and other respiratory infections.I wanted to note a bunch of quotes that came across my newsfeed from RNZ quotes from teachers. Some teachers are feeling angry and unsafe because of the risk of catching COVID-19 in their classrooms. So let's talk about rights. Let's talk about workers' rights. And here's a quote—and I've got a couple of them—it's from a relief teacher who worked across several schools and said her risk of catching COVID-19 varied from school to school. And this is what she said: "It feels like you're playing Russian roulette with your health because you don't know what you're going to be encountering. Schools are not universally endorsing mask wearing so I've been in some schools where only a handful of staff and students are wearing masks" she said. "I've been to a school where they've got a pool on which staff member is going to be infected next." Here's another quote: "There's definitely a group of us at my school who are looking at resigning because we don't feel safe going to work. There is a real split between staff and those who feel unsafe in assemblies … where there are not many masks are definitely disadvantaged." Another said COVID-19 had made work much harder. This is another quote from the same article on RNZ; I encourage you to check it out: "Long days lots of relief teachers meetings being repeatedly bumped kids missing heaps of school trying to plan when we don't know what the heck will happen next and on top of all of this I'm bloody freezing from the state-of-the-art ventilation system"—i.e. open windows and doors. We need this plan. It's a plan that should be an expert-led plan from the Government—an action plan for schools which will require mask use in schools in line with red settings free N95s for students and teachers urgent steps to improve vaccine uptake against COVID-19 and the flu and other winter illnesses and a very strong focus on indoor air quality ventilation monitoring and filtration. And we also have to make sure that we support those that are supporting us—those are our teachers—by making sure that they have guaranteed sick leave so if they max out their sick leave the schools actually themselves have enough discretionary leave in their back pocket to make sure that they can isolate and look after their families if they have to. So we will not be supporting these motions. I appreciate the work that the Regulations Review Committee has been doing but this needs to be put up on a stronger framework that is simple and easy for people to understand but actually puts the focus back on our tamariki our immunocompromised whānau our disabled whānau and those communities that need to have a stronger uptake in the vaccines. Thank you Mr Speaker."