large, supports, but there has been a technical issue about how that was implemented that we are working to resolve.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.
CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to thank the Minister for COVID-19 Response for the fulsome update to the House. The National Party supports these orders and will be voting accordingly. I want to make three points just in response to the comprehensive explanation given by the Minister. The first is that we have read the report of the venerable Regulations Review Committee in relation to—
Hon Chris Hipkins: The all-powerful!
CHRIS BISHOP: —pre-departure testing—all-powerful; "somewhat powerful" is probably a better description! We've read the review and want to thank Chris Penk, who's the chair of the committee, for doing a good job on that and leading the committee through that. I think the Minister’s comments around sorting out the anomalies are something that we would support. I mean, the reality is we’re dealing with tricky issues of when Ministers have powers and when those are delegated to officials rather than Ministers, and, you know, no one pretends that you get these things right all the time, which is why we have the Regulations Review Committee to investigate those finely grained issues of constitutional detail and bring them to the attention of the House—so that’s the first point.
The second point is that I note the Minister’s comments around the review of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act more generally. I think we would welcome that review. And, as to how it’s working, I encourage the Minister to possibly engage with the Health Committee around some of the scope of that review, and the Health Committee may be able to provide assistance there, because, I think, it is important that we have bipartisan—or as much multi-partisan support for that Act as possible.
I think one of the suggestions that has been made is that the Epidemic Response Committee should be re-formed—that has certainly been made by some members of the House. I think, if there’s not going to be an Epidemic Response Committee formed as a somewhat permanent, temporary standing committee for the purposes of this Parliament, it would be good to see the Health Committee of the Parliament using more of the powers that the committee has available to it around briefings from Ministers but also the senior officials at the heart of the COVID response, and also looking at expert testimony from epidemiologists and other public health experts who are either peripherally involved or directly involved in the response. I also note what the Minister spoke about earlier, during the ministerial statement part of the foregone proceedings in the House, around looking at the scope of the various orders that exist now around the laundry worker who is potentially, or possibly, the source of this most recent cluster, and there’s a review under way on that to look forward to, possible amendments to the various public health orders coming on that in due course. We accept the Minister’s point that the public health advice, or at least the risk matrix that was determined at the time, was that they shouldn’t be included in the order, and perhaps they now should be—this is a part of the continuous improvement that we all want to see.
So, with those remarks, we support these orders. I thank the Government for bringing them to the attention of the House so that the House can confirm them.
DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Mr Speaker, I rise at this auspicious occasion in parliamentary history. It’s almost the first time in the history of our Parliament that the ACT Party has more members in the Chamber than the National Party. I just couldn’t help but point that out. I’m not quite sure what’s happening there, but I hope that they haven’t got lost somewhere in the building or complex!
In any case, this is a very serious matter that we should turn to. The history here is that there was a lot of dissension over—oh, here comes another one; we’re back—the
