Recent rules around travel bans, booking spaces in managed isolation, and border worker vaccinations have been approved by MPs.
The Minister for Covid-19 Response Chris Hipkins Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox
Under the Covid-19 Public Health Response Act 2020 the Minister for Covid-19 Response, Chris Hipkins, can make orders like creating travel bubbles, and travel bans, and mandating testing or vaccinations for people in certain jobs.
Those orders are often made quickly in response to issues arising from the Covid-19 pandemic meaning scrutiny of those rules takes place after they’ve been made.
Hipkins said the law gives him wide ranging powers and that scrutiny is still important.
"It is quite a significant power and it is one that, when Parliament put it in place, Parliament decided that it should also be subject to regular scrutiny," he said.
"So any orders that I issue under that Act have to be scrutinised by the Parliament and then, ultimately, confirmed by a motion in the House as they are being now. Before they are confirmed, they go through a Regulations Review Committee appraisal."
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The Regulations Review select committee has two National MPs, three Labour MPs, and one MP each from the ACT Party and the Green Party and is chaired by National MP Chris Penk.
Hipkins said the Regulations Review Committee looks at whether orders were made in accordance with the Act, any unusual use of powers and if all the correct processes have been followed. The Committee's reports on the orders are sent to the House for the rest of the MPs to consider and debate when approving them which is what they did this week.
Seven orders were up for confirmation including one that allows quarantine-free travel from Australia, the Cook Islands, and Niue (a date for a Niue travel-bubble has yet to be announced).
There was also an order banning travel from certain countries which Hipkins said was originally for people travelling from India but later changed to include more countries.
"The COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order (No 2) of 2021—so this is an order amending an order that amended an order—this particular amendment introduced the prohibition on people travelling from India, people who had been in India within the last 14 days," Hipkins told the House.
"This was the first of the restrictions that we put in place and then it was subsequently succeeded by the second order that we're confirming, which is the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border) Order (No 2) Amendment Order (No 3), which introduced the new categories of very high-risk countries, made clear what the criteria for determining them would be—those countries presently are Brazil, India, Pakistan, and Papua New Guinea."
National MP Chris Bishop is the party's spokesperson for Covid-19 response. Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox
People travelling from within 14 days of being in those countries are also prohibited from entering New Zealand unless they are a New Zealand citizen.
This order was supported by parties across the House but some of the MPs pointed out areas that deserved closer inspection.
"I'm really pleased that the Regulations Review Committee investigated whether or not the suspension of travel was wider than necessary because of the open ended time frame that applies to the restriction," said National MP Chris Bishop.
The National Party will continue to support a ban on travel from high-risk destinations but also with regular review said Bishop.
"It's a pretty big thing for the New Zealand Government to say that New Zealanders cannot come to New Zealand. We consider that it needs to be regularly reviewed. The Government has said that they will do that, but we want to make sure that actually happens."
ACT Party Leader David Seymour said his party broadly supports the orders except for one which bans importing, making or selling point of care test kits for Covid-19 unless that kit has Government approval.
Point-of-care-tests are conducted near a patient and can take place at a pharmacy or at home with common examples including home pregnancy tests, or blood glucose monitoring. Medsafe banned point-of-care-test kits for Covid-19 in April citing concerns about testing quality and the potential for misinterpreted results.
Medsafe said some test kits could be approved in the future but Seymour said the current ban is a missed opportunity.
"It's another theme of this Government's response that it has been, again, very fixated on who delivers the service: Ministry of Health good, everybody else bad, out in the cold. That has held us back as a country. It's made our response to COVID-19 less nimble and less efficient," he said.
"You know, why shouldn't people be able to avail themselves of information? Why shouldn't New Zealanders be able to innovate in response to a crisis? That's how New Zealanders have traditionally faced adversity, by innovating and using better technology, and the Government's going out of its way to ban technologies being imported into New Zealand by citizens of this country. I think that's a real, real shame."
If orders aren't approved then the rule expires but all MPs voted in favour of the motion agreeing to confirm all seven orders.
The full debate can be read or watched on Parliament's website here.
More information on Covid-19 epidemic notices and orders can be found here.
