Hipkins ChrisDEBATE ON PRIME MINISTER'S STATEMENTDebate resumed from 9 February.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): As we enter the third year of the global pandemic I do want to take a moment to put some significant numbers in front of the House: 5764503—that's the number of people on record as of today who have died around the world from COVID-19. Four hundred million people have been infected by the virus. And for those who think that the pandemic is over or that it's coming to an end here's some other numbers that should be sobering: 23765—that's the number of people who died from COVID-19 on Saturday. The average number of people who are dying every day at the moment around the world stands at over 10000 a day. We might feel like we're over the global pandemic but the global pandemic is not yet over.Simon Court: Well it is in Australia.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: More people are dying of COVID-19 in Australia than were on the parliamentary forecourt. Each week more people die in Australia of COVID-19 than have been standing on the parliamentary forecourt this week and the ACT Party thinks that it's over in Australia. The seven-day average of people dying in Australia is 57 people per day—dying in Australia. And they think it's over in Australia! Well it's not for those 57 people a day and the people who care about them. In New South Wales today 1795 people are in hospital; 121 people are in the intensive care unit. Across Australia 3801 people are in a hospital and 721 people are in Australia. The pandemic is not over.Our Government will continue with a carefully balanced plan for dealing with COVID-19. We want to keep New Zealand moving forward whilst also protecting people as much as we are able to. We are entering into a new phase of our COVID-19 response one where the response will be a more devolved response but people will be needing to take more individual responsibility for keeping themselves safe from COVID-19. Businesses will be making more decisions at a local level about how they continue to operate as we see an increase in the number of cases.The best thing that New Zealanders can do in this environment to adapt with these changing circumstances and to keep themselves and their families as safe as possible is to get themselves boosted. Accept the offer of booster vaccinations—most New Zealanders can get them now. I encourage all parents with children between the ages of five and 11 to take up the ability to get their children vaccinated. We can protect each other if we stay home when we are sick. Please don't soldier on. It is one of those things about the Kiwi culture that when we get sick—we get a cold; we get the flu—we have a culture of soldiering on and working through it. Please don't. Go home and stay at home until you are feeling better. Wear a mask and stop the spread of COVID-19. The public health measures that we have in place are designed to give the virus nowhere to go and the fact that we continue to have the lowest case rate in the OECD the lowest number of deaths in the OECD shows that the public health measures that we have in place are working.In our economy our position as a Government has been from the beginning of this pandemic that the best public health response is also the best economic response. Let's look at the evidence of that. Despite the fact that there has been significant economic disruption as a result of COVID-19 we have the lowest unemployment rate on record. We have done well at keeping New Zealanders in work. Our GDP growth if we look at the annual rate to September before we had the Delta outbreak was 4.9 percent. The annualised rate of growth in New Zealand before the Delta outbreak was 4.9 percent. It's interesting to note that the highest it ever reached under the last National Government was 4.1 percent. So despite a global pandemic we have kept the economy moving and we have kept the economy growing. You have to go back to the early 2000s to see a rate of economic growth that is higher than that. I note the new Leader of the Opposition was saying that the best thing that we can do for the economy is to have a growing economy. Well the facts on record will show if you want the economy to grow you're more likely to get higher economic growth under a Labour Government than under a National Government and the statistics over time prove that out time and time again. So if Kiwis are looking for a growing economy they're more likely to get it under a Labour Government than under a National one.For those New Zealanders at home though who are watching the new Leader of the Opposition and thinking Gosh I've heard some of this before." they're right because it wasn't that long ago that we had the National Party promising to tackle the cost of living to close the wage gap with Australia to tackle the underclass—remember the talks about that?—and to lift productivity and be aspirational for New Zealand. Well how did all of that turn out in the nine years that followed when they were in Government? What did we see? Well their biggest answer it appears to the rising cost of living was to increase GST and increase the cost of everything. We had a flag referendum in a housing crisis!And let's talk about the housing crisis for a moment because it's important to think about the historic trends that have contributed to the housing situation that we have at the moment. It took New Zealand just over half the time to grow from a population of 4 million to a population of 5 million as it did to grow from a population of 3 million to a population of 4 million. And the majority of that growth happened during the tenure of the last Government the last National Government. Did they build the houses to cope with that? Did they build the infrastructure to cope with that? No they didn't. What we saw was this optimistic complacency under the Key Government where things were going to get better as long as the Government did nothing about them and it was proven to be a failed strategy. So instead we saw a running down of our health and our education systems and we saw the emergence of a housing crisis.We can do better and New Zealanders know that we can do better. The Government is committed to a recovery for all New Zealanders one that helps us to rebuild our essential public services like our health system; like our education system; like Oranga Tamariki who deal with the most vulnerable children; like the Ministry of Social Development making sure that they have the people that they need to do their jobs effectively; and what are we hearing from members on the other side? That they would go back and cut all of those things. When they talk about more bureaucrats in the Ministry of Education which they were doing just as recently as this morning they are fundamentally wrong. The biggest increase in staff employed by the Ministry of Education are front-line teachers. They are teachers who work with children. These are the people whom the members opposite—and the leader of the ACT Party in particular who I saw on Breakfast TV this morning—are calling bureaucrats and officers. They're not. The teachers employed by the Ministry of Education are working with the kids who need the support the most. They are the ones that are on the front lines doing the work to deal with the children in our education system who need that extra support in order to be able to achieve. And they are the people that the National and ACT Opposition are proposing to cut from their jobs. So I want to end today with some words of thanks and I start first and foremost with our health workers knowing how much they have done to serve New Zealand so honourably over the last two years and knowing that there are still some big challenges ahead for those who work in our health system. We thank them for what they've done and we thank them in advance for what they are going to do. I want to thank our teachers and our education workforce for keeping young people learning in some of the most challenging circumstances our education system has experienced in generations. And I want to acknowledge all of those who have sat in their living rooms whilst they have been isolating at home and have supported children to continue their learning. I say thank you to them. I thank in particular our border and our managed isolation and quarantine workforce who for the last two years have selflessly put themselves on the front line of our COVID-19 response who often found themselves the subject of a lot of unnecessary abuse. They have done that with great dedication and we thank them. I want to join with the Minister of Police in thanking our police officers for the work that they have done during COVID and the work that they are continuing to do to keep the entire New Zealand community safe. I want to finish with my last words of thanks to the 1 million in our team of 6 million New Zealanders who aren't actually currently in the country and recognise that the border restrictions that have been in place out of necessity have had very real consequences for a lot of Kiwis and for a lot of Kiwi families and we look forward to being able to welcome them home very soon. The border restrictions have contributed to us having the lowest COVID-19 death rate and case rate in the OECD—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: —and we acknowledge those who have sacrificed for that."