Ngarewa-Packer DebbieDEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) (remote): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou katoa. Te Paati Māori initially supported the Government's health response in COVID but continued to not support the Government's ongoing policies due to a host of reasons but mainly a lack of transparency with the testing regimes and the traffic light framework and you know well our views on the way that you handled a mandate. Māori are the most regulated peoples that we know. Tikanga Māori and rāhui could have been done in this sense. Your mandates have been cruel and quite frankly are very confusing.With currently the highest COVID reproduction rate in the world it has never been more important that we prioritise looking after w'ānau and indeed our communities. We need to understand that phase 3 policies point to the failure of the Government to properly prepare for the Omicron outbreak and heavily invest in healthcare and community services. Despite warnings the Government has not invested in things like ICU testing and contact tracing capacity. We are supporting the call of Whānau Ora for an inquiry into the Ministry of Health's handling of the roll-out of rapid antigen testing and indeed the whole testing regime which has been an absolute shambles.In February 2021 Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said Of all the different testing models antigen testing seems to be the least reliable." and that he was not contemplating using rapid antigen tests (RATs) in Aotearoa. This statement was made while RATs were being deployed in the United Kingdom throughout the United States and Canada and some Australian states. Our Māori experts knew that RATs would be a useful screening tool as a first line of defence. Six months after—September 2021—still Bloomfield had denounced RATs although with 100000 RATs being purchased and later deployed at Middlemore to take the weight off overwhelmed services indeed in the middle of Delta. That same month saliva testing was made available for Whānau Ora in partnership with Rako Science. The cost of saliva tests is lower than nasal swabbing. In the middle of regional spread Taranaki iwi also got into a similar partnership as did Tupoho iwi in W'anganui.Fast forward to a year later 23 February 2022 we now have the call that RATs are no longer just a screening tool but in fact he has determined against all good science that they would now be deployed as a diagnostic tool across the whole of Aotearoa. We then learnt that a shipment of RATs had just arrived in Aotearoa which would double the country's capacity. Why were the RATs not ordered earlier? Why are they not readily available in communities like mine? All I have to say is thank goodness for iwi for Māori providers who at their own cost took up saliva testing in areas that DHBs are not readily popping up and testing in.Why did the Ministry of Health (MoH) not support progressively building our testing capacity including through partnering with iwi and Whānau Ora who instead have had to establish saliva testing capacities and capabilities at their own cost? How many iwi are subsidising the poor performing MoH by providing their own testing crew which this MP has been part of? There are some and these are questions that demand to be answered indeed in an independent inquiry. What has been clear time and time again ever since our first COVID case two years ago is that we as tangata w'enua cannot and must not rely on Government and the State to protect our w'akapapa and keep our people and our communities safe and well in home isolation. Manaaki packs testing—where would this nation be without Māori hauora Whānau Ora and iwi providers?At every stage during this response our calls have been ignored as have many Māori health experts. Resources have been delayed power has been centralised rather than shared. In Te Paati Māori's COVID policy release in November last year we anticipated the risks of the Omicron wave and called on the Government to invest heavily in testing and contact tracing capacity and we recommended a targeted Māori home isolation strategy. Crucially we called for the establishment of an independent Māori pandemic response group with statutory powers to develop and lead the Māori COVID-19 health response. We never supported the traffic light system. It fails to protect tangata w'enua and vulnerable communities and it didn't receive support from our people whether it was iwi leaders Whānau Ora or grassroots. Government should have increased testing capacity in the regions and issued home isolation packs to all w'ānau with essential supplies.Now at 20000 cases today we have the same leader the same person within Ministry of Health apologising—apologising for testing mishaps and delays. It's not good enough. Too much of the response to this Omicron outbreak has been left to chance and to super-bureaucrats. Our people deserve better.E te w'ānau we saw us as Taranaki put down Te Kahu o Te Raukura. That's our way of saying to you "Enough is enough". You have outstayed your welcome. The mana w'enua have asked you to return. I wear with me today our raukura of honour peace and goodwill. Your mamae has been heard. It is time now whānau mā [family] hoki ki ō kāinga [go back to your people]. Go back to your people where we will love and look after you. Go back and leave the mana w'enua to return the mauri to their w'enua.On that note e te w'ānau it's good to see you all well here on this first virtual forum and I hope that we listen to the people inside and outside. It is time for us to work at unity and healing. E te w'ānau you do not belong standing next to racists and white supremacists. Hoki ki ō kāinga. Kia ora. Tēnā koutou tēnā tātou katoa.[Go back to your homes. Thank you greetings one and all.]"