Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. There used to be an old joke: when the world ends I want to be in Dargaville. Why? Because they're 20 years behind and I'll live for an extra 20 years before the world ends! Now I say that out of love and affection for the good people of Dargaville. My family arrived there when my great-great-grandfather was digging gum and cutting down kauri trees at the turn of last century and my mum was born in Te Kopuru Hospital. But I just thought of it because it feels a bit like that in New Zealand today—20 years behind the rest of the world which has moved on from COVID-19 and here we are still debating COVID orders. For the people watching at home who may wonder why Parliament is still doing this here's the Coles Notes version. A couple of years ago Parliament passed a law—the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act—and that law got around a little problem. The little problem was that in the context of a pandemic the Government—over there; not the whole Parliament—needed to be able to make laws rapidly to respond to changing events: new vaccines new variants new technologies if our Government was inclined to use them. At the same time we didn't want such sweeping powers over people's lives to be exercised only by the Government. So the deal was that the Government over there could make these orders but only if they were examined by the Regulations Review Committee—of which my colleague Toni Severin is a member—and then debated in this House.So that was the strategy to get rapid lawmaking but also parliamentary scrutiny even if after the fact. Now we've seen a nimble approach to a pandemic with democracy. ACT at least at first supported that initiative because it was far better than what we had had previously when for example the whole country was put under lockdown and we had the then Police Commissioner Mike Bush menacing the public and saying You better get a ride around to our place and maybe we'll be checking where you're going." Back in those days of an illegal lockdown with illegal coercion of New Zealand citizens it seemed like the right thing to do to have a legal basis for COVID restrictions. We find ourselves nearly two years later still debating COVID-19 Public Health Response Act initiatives or orders while the rest of the world has moved on. That's the first point.What are debating today? Well for example we have an order that took New Zealand from the red traffic light to the orange. Now at the same time the traffic light system which used to be a system of crowd size limits vaccination requirements masking requirements and scanning or contact tracing requirements has been blown to smithereens. Contact tracing: don't have to do it anymore. Vaccine mandates: don't have vaccine passes in public settings anymore. Crowd size limits: we don't have those anymore. So what is the difference between green orange and red traffic lights? Well almost nothing except for a limit of a crowd to 200 and having to wear masks in some places such as shops but not other places such as nightclubs. There is no longer any rhyme nor reason because none of the factors that made up the traffic light system remain in place. We shouldn't be debating the traffic light system; we should just dump it. And it would actually be better because the Government says "Well maybe we should keep the traffic light system around so we can bring it back in case there's a flu or something." Well it would be easier if they dropped it intact than gradually dismantled it until the colours were meaningless because if they do bring it back no one will know what it means because of the way they've dismantled it. So we should just dump the traffic light system. It's time to move on from that restriction. I heard somebody on the screen here a Green Party member saying that he knew someone who said it felt like they were playing Russian roulette by teaching at a school where kids might have Omicron. Well that's a reality. We can talk about the stand-down periods but I just make the point that I think we've got an obligation in this House not to spread misinformation. I've just been reading the Financial Times of London. It says the infection mortality rate for Omicron in a highly vaccinated population such as the UK is the same as the flu. Now would we really have said that relief teachers going from school to school were playing Russian roulette with their health during a flu season? Really? And if Omicron is statistically just as dangerous then is it responsible to say that to people in this House adding to the fear that there's already too much of? I think that Green Party member should seriously consider what he was saying and what the statistics mean and what he quotes because we shouldn't be spreading that kind of misinformation.Back to schools—one thing that's not in these orders and should be is actually an end to unworkable isolation periods. I'm at the time of year where as the MP for Epsom I go and visit all the principals of schools in the Epsom electorate—20 square kilometres 30 schools. That's 1.5 schools per square kilometre. That's why we're called the education electorate. Do you know what they're telling me? Well many things which I'd love to get to for some of the members on the other side. One of them is that they're losing a teacher for two weeks. How does that work? Well the teacher's partner or kid gets COVID so they've got to isolate with them in the household and then the teacher gets it and they're sick for a few days and they recover and they're no longer infectious but they have to isolate for seven days. So they lose a teacher for two weeks even though the teacher was only infectious for a few days. That's nuts. The policy should be as simple as "You've got to isolate for three days. Negative test and you're out." It's that simple. That's what they do in Singapore. In the United States it's five days. But instead we have a system where schools frequently lose someone for 14 days because of unworkable isolation. If you think about inflation if you think about too much money chasing after too few goods if you think about supply chain constraints and there not being stuff to buy in the shops so the price goes up because the Reserve Bank is printing money like mad well all of this stuff adds up. Are we really saying New Zealand's so wealthy that people's budgets are stretching so far that we can afford unworkable isolation laws? Because that's what we've got and that's what we're doing. Ironically if you're worried about public health a lot of people who can't afford two weeks off just don't report and then keep spreading it. So it's not even the best public health response. We should get rid of unworkable isolation rules.Do you know another thing we should get rid of? Three weeks ago I was at the Health Committee and there was Chris Hipkins the Minister for COVID-19 Response—there's something we shouldn't have anymore. He accepted that he couldn't tell me how much difference pre-departure testing for people coming to New Zealand was making. But he accepted that it was a negligible difference and it's had its day and we should get rid of it. But here's the question: why are we getting rid of it now? Why haven't we already got rid of it? Why do people continue to be infantilised and forced to do things that make no sense that the cost-benefit analysis doesn't stack up on or that the Government hasn't even done cost-benefit analysis for?I was talking to a constituent. Their daughter was in a foreign city in the US—I guess all US cities are foreign to New Zealand but she was in one of them—and in order to return to New Zealand she had to get a pre-departure test. This is why I say we're 20 years behind the rest of the world. It was very difficult to get one because Americans couldn't believe you had to. And in the end at 1 a.m. she was so scared of missing her flight—and she couldn't afford another one if she missed it—that she spent US$220 getting a sanctioned pre-departure test to come to New Zealand. Now you think about it: we made one of our citizens do that—all that stress all that expense for no reason at all when the COVID Minister admits it's not making a difference to our public health response whether we have pre-departure testing. So why don't we just dump it?There are so many restrictions that are infantilising us because we're forced to follow rules while the rest of the world moves on. The sad thing is that young people in particular if they see the world moving on from us might decide that their time is now and off they go.The ACT Party is not going to vote for these orders. We are sick of the whole deal. We should allow the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act to lapse and let people get on with living their lives taking responsibility and precautions as they see fit. If you look at it that's what most people are starting to do anyway. This Government needs to let go of its COVID-19 response and let New Zealanders get on. It should deal with crime and a cost of living crisis and catching up with the rest of the world."