Radhakrishnan PriyancaHon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): Thank you Madam Speaker. We've had a fair bit of whinging from the member who has just resumed her seat Erica Stanford who tries to grasp credit whenever and wherever she can when the reality is that her lot have never run a country during a pandemic. So it is incredibly easy to sit across the House and to pick at and politicise individual experiences when you have never run a country through a pandemic. And then—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Don't bring the Speaker into it.Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: When she has never run a country during a pandemic. However while people might be tempted to think that it's all doom and gloom listening to the rhetoric from that side of the House the reality is that this is the third year wherein we are facing another challenging year confronting a global pandemic that virtually every other country is also grappling with. Within that the priority for this side of the House for this Government has always been to protect the lives and the livelihoods of New Zealanders. It has always been to keep New Zealand as safe as possible from COVID which of course as I said previously is a virus is a pandemic that everyone is facing. There are costs and there are tough decisions. We on this side of the House have had to make those tough decisions that are so easily politicised by that side of the House. That has meant making decisions around border restrictions around managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) spots which by the way—I correct the member who took her seat recently—we have increased over the course of this pandemic as safely as we can. We have had about 200000 people cross the border and use those MIQ facilities and our priority has always been our approach has always been—Erica Stanford: DJs!Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Yes well the economy Miss Stanford. If we don't focus on the economy then the member will pick on that. We've had to balance safety with ensuring that we make decisions that keep New Zealand's economy afloat. And I argue that our approach has worked.We have had the lowest confirmed cases the lowest hospitalisations and the lowest number of deaths in the OECD each of the last two years. In addition we've had unemployment at a record low. We have had a record number of New Zealanders who have moved off a main benefit and into work during the time of this pandemic. So I'd say to that member we've had to make tough decisions we've had to keep New Zealanders as safe as possible—and for that we will always hold our head up high. Our approach was also to slow down and limit the spread of outbreaks. In the short time that I have left there are two points that I want to make: one was the fact that we recognised right from the start that a one-size-fits-all approach would not work in terms of keeping New Zealanders safe. So we've had an inclusive approach to that whether it's our Māori and Pacific health providers whether it's various community groups across the ethnic community landscape who have said continuously to us the needs of their communities and allowed us to then support them to support the vaccination uptake—and so on and so forth—that has now led to the high vaccination rates that we've seen across the board in New Zealand and particularly with the Ministry for Ethnic Communities. I just wanted to highlight the latest data that we have. The national uptake for the Asian group is 106 percent for dose one and 105 for dose two; for the Middle East and Latin American and African groups the national uptake is 99 percent for the first dose and 98 percent for the second. That didn't just happen by accident. We worked with our communities to make sure that they had the support they needed to get communications out in a way that was relevant to their communities and that they had access to vaccination initiatives that were rolled out in a way that was appropriate that was sensitive and respectful of those communities as well.Finally the community organisations that we've seen who have done a magnificent job and without whom we could not have achieved the rates that we have seen also need to be commended. Social service agencies that have seen people across the motu iwi and hapū providers various communities that have worked to provide food in ways that is culturally appropriate as well. We've also then worked with them to get some insights as to how they've worked differently and innovatively so that we could then incorporate that into how we do things even better to support these organisations. Not only are we a Government that governs in a crisis but we take those learnings to build the foundations for a much better future for New Zealanders. Thank you.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Steph Lewis—five minutes.