- Today on Newshub Nation ` Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson with the latest on the Delta outbreak. Opposition Leader Judith Collins joins us live. And Kiwi Al Jazeera reporter Charlotte Bellis in Kabul. Tena tatou katoa. I'm Simon Sheppard. Welcome to Newshub Nation this lockdown. Ko nga pitopito korero i te whare paremata, in political news this week, the official cash rate remains at 0.25 after an expected raise was postponed due to the re-emergence of COVID in the community. The Royal New Zealand Air Force has deployed a Hercules C-130 to evacuate Kiwis, their interpreters, and others who assisted our troops in Afghanistan. The deployment could last for up to a month. And Sir Michael Cullen, former Labour deputy Prime Minister, has died aged 76. He was the architect of KiwiSaver and the Super Fund and a respected senior force in the Helen Clark-era Labour government. Clarke has said she received the news with profound sadness. Now, how did the country fare overnight? Well, we'll be going live to Grant Robertson for the latest in a minute, but here is how we stand right now. On Friday, there were 11 new cases in the community, making it a total of 31 in this Delta cluster. The whole of the country is now in Level 4 until midnight Tuesday, with a decision made by cabinet on Monday. And locations of interest have ballooned beyond 200, including seven in Wellington, one of which was a flight from Auckland to the capital. As you can see, we'll shortly go live to parliament with the latest on the pandemic with the deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson. He is standing by. But first, let's take a look at how this most unusual week played out. - COVID-19 is finally back in the community. - Level 4 will be for an initial period of three days, except for Auckland and the Coromandel Peninsula. - Panic spread right around the Super City. - Looks like everyone's going into panic mode, aren't they? - Prepare for a lengthier lockdown. - And those people are going to lose their jobs. - And Aucklanders already bracing for more of this. - We could be looking at three to four weeks, just because of the size of the outbreak. - The lockdown may need to last longer. - A very small handful of anti-lockdown protesters who are feeling the full force of the law. - There are 11 new cases of COVID-19 in the community. - And Cabinet has agreed to keep all of New Zealand at Level 4 until 11.59pm on Tuesday August 24. - And the Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson joins me now. Morena. Thank you for your time, Minister. I just wonder whether you can give us an update on cases this morning, please. - Oh, Simon, I don't actually have that update. We'll give that at 1pm today. Obviously, as the Prime Minister said yesterday, we're in that part of an outbreak where the number of cases will keep growing. So we will see more cases in part, actually, because we've had such an extraordinary response on testing. - Sure. - One thing I do know is that yesterday we saw more than 40,000 tests taken around the country, and that will give us a really good insight into where we are. - I do know` - Yes, there will be more cases. - There will be more cases. I do know that the Minister of Health gives an update about 9am. So are you personally aware of more cases? - I'm not, and I haven't seen an update this morning, but clearly, as the Prime Minister said yesterday, we're at that point in this outbreak where there will be more cases. They will grow. The number of locations of interest and people involved indicates that we're doing a good job around contact tracing, but we just have to accept that things get worse before they get better. - All right. So given that, and given that Ashley Bloomfield's advice to extend Level 4 and the, sort of, massive hint dropped by the Prime Minister about hot spots, can you just give Aucklanders some certainty and say, 'Come on. You need to prepare for at least another week at Level 4?' Are we just mollycoddling us? - No. What we're doing here is giving ourselves the time to look at all the data that emerges over the weekend, and quite clearly people in the Auckland area are going to be aware of the increased number of locations of interest and the fact that, you know, putting a ring around the outbreak at the moment is tough. What we wanted to do was make sure that we made all those decisions on Monday together with all of the evidence, and then we'll give people the outcome of that then. - But we all know it's going to be long. I mean, the Auckland Chamber of Commerce says, you know, waiting till Monday is the wrong decision. Business needs certainty. And modelling experts are saying, you know, it's going to be weeks before this outbreak is under control. Reality is likely Level 4 lockdown could last maybe a month. Isn't that right? - Look, what we want people to do is stick to the rules of Level 4. Be aware that we're dealing with an ever-changing variant in Delta that is difficult to manage. And we will continue to keep communicating everything that we know, making sure that we give people that advice as soon as we get it. - OK. - Cabinet took its decision yesterday. The whole country's in Level 4, and we'll come back on Monday with the next bit of information. - So talking about communicating as soon as you know, cases are popping up in Wellington. So that is a game changer. And it was a game changer for your announcement yesterday. Do you know why it took so long to release locations of interest for Wellington? The first one was released 6pm Friday night, but you know, media were reporting cases earlier in the morning. - Yes, so the media gets the luxury of just reporting what they hear and not needing to necessarily check or confirm that. We have a different job. Our job is to make sure that we get accurate information out to the people of New Zealand. There is a process to go through here. The first thing that people need to know is that when someone does get a positive test result, immediately health officials are working with them and their family and their close contacts to get them to isolate. So the people who know` who need to know do know. Just let me finish this bit, Simon. - OK. - And then after that, the process then is worked on to say, 'Well, where have you been? What places have you been?' It takes some time to confirm that, to get the timings right, the details right. And then there is a process to contact the owners of businesses. Now, I've been interviewed before where we've been criticised for announcing a location of interest before the owner of that business knows. There's a bit of a balance to be struck there. If it's too difficult to find someone, then eventually, yes, those locations of interest might get published before that person knows. So we've got to go through all of that process. - I appreciate that. But there's also another case here, which was a flight from Wellington to Auckland, and those details weren't` Sorry, from Auckland to Wellington, and that wasn't released until about 9 o'clock last night. Now, that's critical news, isn't it, for the people on that flight? - Well, it's important information for people on that flight. But bear in mind, Simon, we're all in Level 4. So the thing that everybody should be doing is staying at home and staying in their bubble. - But we know that there were essential workers on that flight, don't we? We know that there were essential workers on that flight, and they were out and about doing business in Wellington yesterday. And so that's a risk in the community. - Well, you might know that, Simon. I don't necessarily know that. What we do know is that everybody is under Level 4 rules and conditions, and we do get the information up as soon as we possibly can. Now, we've been working closely with the Ministry of Health to make sure the processes are there to get it out there as soon as possible. You noted yourself, Simon, we're over 200 locations of interest now. - Yeah. - That's a huge load of work to make sure we get accurate details. And this is a really important point too, that people need to look very closely at the time that the location of interest is one that we want them to get tested for. If you were there the day before or four hours before, you don't need to be tested. So getting that detail right really does matter. - Sure. So you're talking about contact tracing. So the numbers that have been released by the Ministry of Health don't include all the big places like, you know, Avondale College, Church of Christ. There's now Auckland University, two new schools, corporate events. Do you have any idea how big or how many contacts we're talking here? And` - Well, given` - And the second point to that is that it looks` if not being added up on the locations of interest or the total numbers of contacts, it looks like our tracing capacity is getting overwhelmed. - Oh, no. I mean, our contact tracing is excellent, and we're already doing a really good job. But it's` You know, obviously in these situations, we fan out from close contacts first because they are the people most likely to have become infected themselves. And we want to get on to them quickly, and then we fan out from there to those who are more casual contacts, who've just been in the same venue. Getting that denominator, the number of people is an exercise that takes a few days. We're only three or four days into this. Quite clearly, when you look at those large corporate events, when you look at the schools, we're obviously into the thousands of people here. That will take some time to get exact numbers from schools, for example, to tell us exactly how many students were there on the day or days when the infected people were there. You can imagine that takes a bit of time, but we start with the close contacts, and then we move our way out from there. - Are we hitting the gold standard that we talked about last time we were in lockdown? The gold standard is 80% of close contacts identified and isolated within 48 hours. Does that not apply now with Delta? - Well, no. As I say, we start with the close contacts. And bear in mind, when you're talking about those big corporate events or the schools and so on, there is a lot of people there who are casual contacts. We're working very hard to meet those standards for close contacts. And as you say` - Are we hitting those standards? That's the question, isn't it? Are we hitting those standards? - Well, within a couple of days, I can't actually give you those percentages right away. But I know that our contact tracers are working 24-7 to make sure we get on top of this outbreak. - All right. Has the gold standard changed with Delta? Delta moves a lot quicker than what we were used to. So does the gold standard or the benchmark need to be higher? - It does, and it makes the job more difficult. It does make the job more difficult, Simon. I'm certainly not contesting that. But we continue to work to the highest standards possible. And I actually think when you think about New Zealand relative to other countries in the world, the fact that we can be having conversations about a particular flight or a particular event is actually a good sign for us because it means that we do have the ability to be able to get hold of all of these people. But it will take time. - All right. Let's move on to how it got into the country. So how close are we to finding out how Delta got out of MIQ? - Yeah, the source investigation work sits alongside the contact tracing work. I think the view of our advisors is we're in the high 90 per cents for the fact that it does appear to be this particular traveller. And now we do all of the work reassessing, again, the transfers that that person had, looking again at what they did when they were in MIQ. As far as we're aware, the person didn't leave their room because they're not allowed to until they get a negative test, and in this case the person got a positive test and was transferred to Jet Park. - OK, so if they didn't leave their room, are you ruling out that there was an exercise area, which has sometimes been under scrutiny at the Crown Plaza? - We can certainly rule that out. The person didn't go to the exercise area. - OK. Once again, MIQ facilities are in the middle of Auckland CBD, and this is where it's come from. It's another MIQ failure. Why do we still have MIQ facilities in the CBD of our biggest city? - Well, the Ministry of Health works very, very closely with MBIE to make sure that our MIQ facilities are safe, and they have all of the health protocols and rules in place to make sure that the way those MIQ facilities are organised works. We've had over 160,000 people through our MIQ, Simon, and we have a very small number where things haven't gone the way that we wanted them to. We are investigating this thoroughly, and if changes need to be made, they'll be made, just as they have in the past. We have now redone almost all of the ventilation systems inside our managed isolation facilities as a result of what we've learnt about in facility transmission. But one of the considerations or one of the bits of advice to the government was purpose-built MIQs. Will you go back and look at that? I mean, if we've got Delta seeping out in the biggest city, should we just take the MIQ away from the CBD? - Well, of course, we obviously can't magic up purpose-built MIQs, but Minister Hipkins has said publicly that we continue to look at how we can provide the best possible isolation facilities. That includes, yes, looking at whether or not there might be a possibility in the future of purpose-built. It also looks at whether or not there are other facilities that we can change so that they can become MIQs, and it involves using the current facilities we've got in the best way possible. So that work's underway. But I just repeat again, Simon, over 160,000 people through our MIQs. A very small number of situations where things haven't gone the way we would have wanted, and we learn the lessons from that. - The way things you want to go or the way you would like things to go. Let's talk about testing. We've got some stories about seven-hour waits for testing. Some families having to do that again. Is the government mortified about how this has panned out? - No, and as I said to you before, getting 40,000 or more tests in a day processed is an extraordinary effort. We are testing tens of thousands of people here. Unfortunately, that does mean for some people that they have had to have a reasonably long wait. We're adding testing capacity every single day. Pop-up sites all around Auckland and all around the rest of New Zealand. But, Simon, the workforce that's involved in that is the same workforce that's involved in our vaccination programme and our wider health system. So we bring that workforce online as and when we need it. We clearly need it now. And I am just asking people to continue to be patient. Look carefully at the locations of interest for the time and the date to make sure that you do need to go, and make sure that if you're not in that category and you're feeling fine, you don't have symptoms, then don't go and get a test. - And you have made that plea already. But these people surely have looked at locations of interest and done that, and then they've gone back again and again. I just wonder whether this shows that, you know, given the foreshadowing of Delta with what happened in New South Wales, that you weren't really planned. I mean, you've had to take vaccinators away to do the testing. The testing has been overwhelmed. Were you really prepared for Delta? - I think we were, and I think the health system has done a remarkable job in the face of a pandemic, while we're also attempting to do our first-ever nationwide mass vaccination programme. We have stepped up and ramped up the amount of testing that's gone in. But, obviously, with those very large number of locations of interest, it's going to be at record levels. We're just asking people to be patient. You can, in some cases, book through your GP to get a test. We encourage people who are in a position to do that as well. - Are you`? - We are testing at record levels, Simon. - Yes, and you've made that point, and we acknowledge that. But I just wondered whether you're considering using saliva testing or other kinds of kits to help lighten the load. - Well, obviously, saliva testing is now part of the package that we use, particularly around our MIQs, but the truth is that the PCR test, the one that we've been using, is the most accurate and the most reliable. And right now, in the middle of a situation like this, we need to use that to make sure we get the information that we need. - Is there any concern from the government that with 120 staff stood down at North Shore Hospital, that's on top of those affected at that Auckland Hospital, that Auckland hospitals are going to be able to provide, you know, the necessary health services and help out with the COVID? - I'm absolutely confident they'll be able to provide the necessary health services, but clearly this is a health workforce that's under some pressure as a result of the fact that one or two hospitals have had situations where some staff have had to stand down. I know that all of the DHBs in the northern region are working together to make sure that staff are in the places that they need to be. But it does put pressure on that workforce. So that's probably a good moment, Simon, to acknowledge just how hard our health sector workforce are working through this and the fact that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to them, the people who process our tests overnight, and do that contact tracing. - And on that, there are reports of nurses who live with close contacts who have been called in to work despite the rules, like the Section 70, saying they have to isolate. I mean, you may not know about that, but` - Well, we wouldn't` - Yeah. But that does suggest the system is under immense strain. - Well, I certainly` I don't know about that, and you know, I think we'd better be careful with that sort of information. I'm sure that the DHBs are working hard to make sure that people who need to isolate do isolate. But overall, as I say, I don't deny this is a workforce that is under pressure at the moment. We are continuing to do everything we can to support them, including making sure that we share resources across different DHBs and make sure that we balance our vaccination programme with those who need to be doing testing. - Let's finally talk about the economy. So one week in Level 4 across the country, you say about $1.5 billion. How many weeks can we survive? - Well, we can survive for a significant amount of time, Simon, because as we've shown in the first round of COVID-19, the New Zealand economy is incredibly resilient. I would put that as a worst-case scenario, the $1.5 billion. We'll see where it actually ends up landing. But regardless, the New Zealand economy has shown its ability to come back from this. And obviously the reason we put in place supports, like the Wage Subsidy Scheme and the Resurgent Support Payment, is to make sure we support businesses through this. - Do you`? - We've done it before, and I'm very confident we can do it again. - Do you have enough left in that $50 billion COVID fund? Because you've been using it for other programmes, like, you know, lunches in schools and cameras on fishing boat. - Yeah, well, obviously, those decisions were made some time ago, but, yes, we do. We have allocated money for business support, for example, not all of which has been spent, and we can allocate and use that now. And we have the resources to be able to do this. The New Zealand economy, Simon, has performed significantly better than had been expected. Resources are available to us if we need them. But we have carefully managed this, and we can, and we do have the money that we need to support New Zealanders to get through this. - All right. Finally, Minister, I just want to talk about Sir Michael Cullen. I mean, the country lost him this week. He's a revered finance minister, a great friend of yours. How much of an impression did he make on your life? - Oh, enormous. All the way from being a child or a teenager down in St Kilda, in Dunedin, where he was the MP there, and I saw him at work in his local community and in my school, and then all the way through now to doing the job that he used to do. I think Michael's legacy for New Zealand is huge. You just take any one of KiwiSaver or Working for Families or the Super Fund. Each of them on their own is a massive achievement. And to be the architect of that, to give New Zealanders security in their retirement, it's an incredible contribution. And at a personal level, yeah, he was a source of great advice and support for me, and I'm going to miss him a lot. - Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson, thank you very much for your time this morning. - Thanks, Simon. - If you've got a news tip, please get in touch. We're on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Our Twitter panel this morning is Ed Amon and Mark Thomas. They're using #nationnz. Or you can email us at... E whai ake nei, we dissect this week's political news with our panel. But next, the leader of the opposition joins us live from Auckland. She's trying to run an effective opposition in lockdown and get the tone right. It's a delicate balance that Simon Bridges struggled with at times. National Party leader Judith Collins joins me now. Welcome. Thanks for your time. So the entire country stays in lockdown for at least another three days. Is that the right call? - Well, I think it has to be the right call. We have a very low vaccination rate, as we know, and we don't yet have the certainty available as to quite how this virus has come back in other than through an MIQ facility. So it's obviously a border failure, and with such low vaccination rates, I don't think there's any alternative for at least the next few days. - OK, well, let's talk about vaccination rates in just a moment. But Ashley Bloomfield has already said to the government, 'We need lockdown beyond Tuesday,' but they're not deciding that yet. Should they have given us more certainty? Business certainly seems to think so. - Well, I think, certainly, just certainty is really helpful for people, not only people in business and small businesses, but also for people who are just trying to go about their lives. That lack of certainty, waiting for 1 o'clock announcement every day, this actually adds to the anxiety. It doesn't actually help people that much. So as much certainty as possible. - Do you think they should`? So you're saying that they should have given us a longer time and gone with Ashley Bloomfield's advice? - Well, I think what we're going to see in Auckland is that we are going to have certainly more than Tuesday for the lockdown. So if that's what they're thinking, then they need to let people know, because the more certainty people have, then the better it is for them. They can plan their lives better. If the government is very confident that they don't have to do that, then they should say so. - OK, you` National Party has been critical of the testing regime, and we have seen big delays, people being turned around and having to go back. But the testing in Auckland was up 50% on the previous record. Do you think the National Party's criticism is fair on this? Grant Robertson says they're doing the best they can. - Well, of course. Of course it's fair because we should have the rapid antigen testing available so that people could actually buy kits for themselves from the pharmacist or even online, as has happened overseas. That's not optimal. But for people in a situation like this where we have people waiting for up to 11 hours to get tested and then turned away, it's pretty clear that we do need to have something in addition. That would also be much more useful for those people who are simply worried but don't have the symptoms or haven't actually been in close contact of someone who does have COVID. It's the sort of thing that the Simpson-Roche report recommended in August, I think it was, last year, and the government seems to have not actually followed that up. That would make it significantly better for people. - One of our crucial issues here is the vaccination rate, and the government is saying it's, you know, rolling out, and it was prepared for this. But we have seen some clinics closed, and people turning up on doorsteps. What do you what do you say to that? - Look, the government has had one job this year. The Prime Minister announced in mid-January that this was the year of the vaccine, that she anticipated everyone would be vaccinated and that we would have booster shots next year to make sure that we kept up with it. It would become, as she said, in her own words, something like the winter flu response. And what they've done is that they've failed massively. We've been asking them about the issues around the border workers, the essential services, to find out, as we did yesterday, that around 40% of our frontline police officers aren't even vaccinated. We've got nurses in hospitals not vaccinated. This is simply unacceptable. So the government does need to really move this along. And one of the things they could do, there's an idea on` is to get more young people vaccinated. And partly that's around looking at what it is that people are going to respond to. Sometimes it's about saying this is what can happen when you're vaccinated. You can actually go places. You can have` You can have` You can even travel overseas. Those are the sorts of things that should happen. - We're talking about $1.5 billion going out of the economy every week in Level 4. Grant Robertson just, sort of, defended using the COVID fund for school lunches and cameras in boats. Was that justified? He says that we're all in good shape. - No, well, quite clearly, the government, for a start, hasn't set any targets for vaccination. So I think people need to know that when we're talking about` - But you can't really set a target, can you? I mean, unless it's 100%. You can't really set a target. - Well, they've got all the options around, and we've got all the advisers to do it. So I don't know why they haven't. They say, you know, a large amount. What's that? So we're looking at the money side of it. - Sorry, before we go into the money, what is your target, then? If you say they should be setting a target, what would you say? - We believe that the government should be setting a target because they have` - Yeah, what would your target be? - Well, we are not the ones in government, Simon. Those are the questions you could ask the government. What is their target? And all they've said so far is a big amount. Well, whatever that means. So give people something to work to, because, by the way, Kiwis love giving behind something like a target. We love trying to get to be there. So give us a target, and we'll work to it. - All right. Look, from the from the Opposition's point of view, in the last few months, you spent quite a bit of time talking about He Puapua, the name Aotearoa, and other issues. Do you think you've spent enough time on the COVID response and that would make you more popular as an Opposition? - We've been talking about the COVID response almost daily. Just have a look at what we're doing in parliament and elsewhere, but obviously when we don't get proper answers around what is the target for vaccinations from the government, that's in government, that is talking about these things, then we do actually also raise the issues that people raised with us. So, for instance, you're talking about what's happened to the COVID fund. $710 million spent on a Three Waters programme, of talking to councils and giving them money so that they can be consulted with. That's come out of the COVID fund. So, yeah, we're talking about things like Three Waters as well. It's really important. Why? Because it's crucial for our infrastructure. - We're talking about COVID, right? We're talking about COVID right now. I'm going to have to leave it there. National Party leader Judith Collins, thank you so much for your time this morning. - Thank you, Simon. Appreciate it. - Up next, the news and politics of the week with our socially distanced political panel. Plus, an interview with New Zealand reporter Charlotte Bellis in Kabul. former National staffer Brigitte Morten from Franks Ogilvie Law, and Dr Lara Greaves who lectures in New Zealand politics at Auckland University. Morena to you both. Brigitte, I'm going to start with you. So the whole country locked down for a full week. Is that the right call? - Oh, I think, you know, it is the right call, I think everyone's behind that. We don't know most of our locations of interest yet. We don't know what's the sort of case spread has been yet. I think very few people would object to a lockdown of this length at this stage. - Yeah, I mean, you're based in Wellington, and yesterday we've found three cases. How did that news go down with you? - Well, I think it was really frustrating, and I think a lot of people share my frustration that the Director General of Health was able to tell us that they knew the locations of interest. But, you know, at like 6pm last night, I still couldn't find them through the app, where those locations of interest were. There's no doubt that there would have been some people that would have been at those locations, and maybe gone out to do their supermarket shop or, you know, other things, and they could have gone and exposed more people. So I do think the problems around that contact tracing and not releasing that information in a timely manner is frustrating and difficult to manage. - OK, I'll just bring Dr Lara Greaves in now. Good morning to you. Thanks for your time. - Morena. - Yeah. Your view, in terms of the Level 4 for a full week, longer? - Yeah, I can see the points around the certainty. It was it's quite clear, or it seems to be quite clear based on what the experts are saying, that it is going to be extended over time. I think that ultimately, though, they told us. They told us that this would be the strategy. They told us this would be what was going to happen. So I think that there's been a little bit of certainty there. I definitely think there are some issues around the communications, around the testing, around vaccination, around contact tracing. So it'll be interesting to see if Judith Collins can really hammer those home. - Yeah. OK, so let's talk about the contact tracing there. So the numbers of the contacts have been released, like 2000, but they just don't include all the big places ` Avondale College, Church of Christ, Auckland University. There's, you know, big corporate events. Are you concerned or do you get the sense that our contact tracing ability might be, you know, creaking at the edges on this one? - Yeah, I would say so. Look, we had the Ayesha Verral reports early on, and since she's actually been in cabinet, right? So we haven't necessarily seen those independent reviews on the contact tracing. We haven't seen how they've built capacity, how they've built this up and what they've done. I think there does` There is a legitimate concern there that they haven't shown us how they've made the process better, how they've learnt in the past. I think it was interesting to see Grant Robertson talk about how they've learnt in the past around comms with businesses specifically, and about how, if you remember, in a previous outbreak, someone found out that they were a location of interest, their business, based on the website. So I think they've shown that they've learnt some lessons. But on the kind of really crucial things like contact tracing, it's not really clear that they have learnt. And I think that they need to get that. That's going to be a really` I've already seen David Seymour hammer that point. That's going to be a really important point for them to be able to address in future. - You know, Brigitte Morten, do you think that`? I mean, Grant Robertson was saying they're doing the best they can, but in a Delta environment is the best they can good enough? - Well, I mean, frankly, they don't seem to have learnt lessons, and I think Lara's absolutely right. Things like our ICU bed capacity is the same as it was last year. They haven't, you know, put additional investment into that space. The fact that some of our vaccination centres have had to close, either temporarily or even, you know, being suspended for longer because testing needs to step up is quite massive. And people have not been communicated about that. And the fact that, you know, they're still having this sort of political fight about whether or not to bring parliament back, to have the Epidemic Response Committee, which clearly worked really well. I mean, these things could almost be happening as part of this sort of plan that they roll out at this stage. They've been saying for months that Delta will come here and we need to be prepared, and telling private businesses they have to be prepared. Where is that at the government level? - Yeah, Dr Lara Greaves, on that point, I mean, we have been fortunate, haven't we, to have Delta do what it did in New South Wales. Surely you can take learnings from that and preparations, and yet we're stealing vaccinators to do the testing and that... And now we've got our health, you know, health system under stress because, you know, you've got nurses being stood down because of because of, you know, close contacts, those kinds of things. Is there a perception there, or could there be a perception that the government hasn't really been ready? - I think there's been decades and decades of underinvestment in our health system, right? So we have that limited ICU capacity. We have a limited number of health professionals. And it's really showing at this point, and I think it really does speak to why we do need to invest properly in public services, in the ministries and infrastructure. Actually, potentially all of this comes down to the Ministry of Health and MBIE and all of those different ministries being at capacity of what they have to deal with. So they aren't those extra staff around to be able to do that forward planning. There aren't people able to plan those policies and have that 6-month, 6-year lens and view, that there's just not the capacity there, and I think that that's particularly concerning. And it isn't really clear necessarily` So given the ministries and the structure of the public service ` it isn't clear how National would actually, if they were currently in government, do it any differently. So it's like I don't know what their plan would be necessarily to somehow magically give the Ministry of Health more resources. - OK, just quickly on that, Brigitte, I mean, is Judith Collins fair in her criticism of the testing and the vaccination and, you know, setting targets for vaccination rates and things like that. I mean, it's very easy to sit on the sidelines and snipe like that. - Well, I don't think she actually is sniping. I think one of the things you can see is quite a different in tone between her and, you know, former opposition leader Simon Bridges around this lockdown. She's been supportive, but she's also been really constructive. And she's amplifying those questions that people are asking. These are the things that people are concerned about, and that's her role as leader of the opposition. - All right. I just wanna move on to the passing of Sir Michael Cullen this week. I mean, he was a former Finance Minister, a dominant force in the Helen Clark-era. Lara Greaves, was he a very powerful influence on Labour, and how will we remember him? - Yeah, definitely. I think he will be remembered as sort of a great figure in New Zealand politics. Of course, everyone has their sort of weak points, but of course, there are several sort of strong policies that he's brought in that have changed many people's lives. And I think no matter what, in politics, when someone who has been a pivotal figure, a large figure in New Zealand politics, we do need to take time to acknowledge their service, acknowledge all of the sort of sacrifices that he made as well. And I definitely would promo his book at this point. It was a wonderful read, his autobiography. But yeah, definitely we always have to kind of mihi to him and his whanau, and all the sort of hard work and time that he put into public service. - And Brigitte Morten, how will you remember Sir Michael Cullen? - Well, I think it's absolutely` He's got some of those legacy projects. Often you talk about politicians going in, you know, to get that public service, and they want something that they can underwrite, and things like KiwiSaver, you know, that is something that is affecting hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders and their ability to buy homes and their ability to set them up for retirement. So I think, you know, it's not just how he was as a person, which was quite constructive, but also that he actually did things that actually had a long lasting effect on people's lives. - All right, we're going to leave it there. Thank you so much to our panel, Brigitte Morten and Dr Lara Greaves. OK, e whai ake nei, Rocket Lab's Peter Beck poised to list on the same stock exchange as Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Tesla. Plus Kiwi Al Jazeera journalist Charlotte Bellis on life in Kabul under Taliban rule. Hoki mai ano. Welcome back. The world has been transfixed by scenes of Afghans fleeing the Taliban's sweep to power. - The Taliban has swept into Kabul and seized power. - The international community invested billions of dollars in these forces. Tragically, they have not been able to defend the country. - He was surprised how easy it had been to take back the Afghan capital. - TRANSLATOR: When I came into the city, I cried with joy. People welcomed us. - Afghans who fear for their lives see the road to Kabul airport as their only path to possible salvation. - We are handing over a nation to a terrorist group. - People are struggling to get to Kabul airport. We need to be prepared for how hard this mission will be and how difficult it will be to evacuate those who we are seeking to help. - Kiwi Al Jazeera journalist Charlotte Bellis is there. She's been travelling to Kabul since 2017. We spoke earlier, and I began by asking her to describe the Taliban's rapid seizure of power. - I went to work on Sunday morning, and there were Afghan police and soldiers at the checkpoints. And when I came home from work, there were Taliban on the checkpoint. That` On Sunday was the real kind of day of action where Ghani fled, and the Taliban came in. And that day was quite nerve-wracking, because we didn't know if World War Three was gonna break out, if security forces were gonna fight back. Thankfully, on a kind of bloodshed note, they put down their arms and just walked off the job, and the Taliban waltzed into town and took up their old positions and carried on like nothing ever happened. - So thank goodness that there was no resistance for the sake of bloodshed, as you say. But for the people of Afghanistan in Kabul, desperate scenes at the airport. I mean, we've seen a young man falling to his death as an aeroplane took off. Is it still that chaotic a week on? - Yeah. In fact, I think it's probably even worse. I mean, on Monday, it was` They completely overwhelmed the airport, and the Taliban were completely caught off guard, and there were thousands of people on the tarmac, like you said, people clinging on to American C-17s to try to fix the situation, because the Taliban are in control of the perimeter of the airport, and then the Americans are inside. And now there's thousands of US troops in there, and neither side really wants to see it kick off and escalate. So the Taliban are trying to push people back. The problem is, and I said this to them yesterday, you've got a problem with crowd control. Shooting into the air and beating people and whipping them is not going to play well. You can't do that. So they've actually shut the airport road now and they've put checkpoints either side. I mean, they've still got dudes with rags around their heads with machine guns and rocket launchers trying to check visas, which is obviously terrifying people, especially if you think most of these people were like interpreters who worked with the US Army and people who are leaving because they're terrified in the first place. It's just a mess. You said that you said to the Taliban that, you know, 'Hey, guys, this is no way to crowd control with shots in the air and whips.' How do you get the idea to do accost them like that, and what's their reaction? - So I've had this kind of sense of security. I talk to them every day. Yesterday, I spoke with them and I actually said to them yesterday, as far as establishing how our relationship is going to work with not just myself, but Afghan media, you have to appreciate, like, we will be critical. You're in the government now, and you're going to have to deal with it. I will always be fair, and I will give you a chance to respond, but we're not gonna hold back. And along those lines, I mean, you are one of three women at that press conference that we saw, and you were pressing them publicly about, you know, their rights of women in the new regime. Did you believe what they said to you? - They're saying all the right things. Sure. The problem is trust. And that goes to, you know, even my own colleagues are terrified, and trying to get on the next evacuation flight out, my Afghan colleagues, and I put that to the Taliban, and they say, 'Why, though? They should stick around. They're assets.' And I say, 'Well, in the '90s, you beat them.' You know, they've got these horrific memories. You haven't acted that well in the last 20 years. There's been a lot of killing. How are they meant to just trust you now? - Do you suspect that it's a charm offensive? - It depends who you talk to. I think like in any organisation, there's people who are moderate and trustworthy and authentic, like in any government, any politician, and then there's also people who you can't trust and will just be politicians and say what you want to hear. - On the other side of the coin, there's the Americans who've been there over two decades and spent a trillion dollars. How upset, how disappointed, how betrayed do the Afghans feel about the Americans pulling out? - I think it's I think it's mainly shock that they left. They just didn't think that they would ever leave. There was a lot of dependence on the US, and now there's a lot of panic. - And of course, those who did work with the Americans, with the Australians, and with the New Zealanders, I mean, they're feeling left behind if they if they can't get out. I mean, Afghans who helped New Zealand armed forces are fearing for their lives, and our government's been criticised for not moving fast enough. Should New Zealand has seen this coming? - (SIGHS) I don't think anyone could see this coming. I mean, even the Taliban are like, 'We're shocked. 'We had` Like, we can't believe that we've taken the country in 10 days.' No one could have. American intelligence, their forecast was, like, two years before Kabul fell. It's unfortunate, to put it mildly, for, say, interpreters who worked with us in Bamiyan, that they've been left in this no man's land. - You talked about the relationships that you've built with the Taliban and your decision to stay there. But I mean, how do you see this unfolding, and how long are you going to give it? - I think they'll have to drag me out of here. I'm not leaving any time soon. It's` The security situation is tense. It's just` It can turn on a dime. The problem is rogue fighters, basically, is that 'shoot first, ask questions later'. And if you annoy or agitate one of them, it's a little late to go to the leadership afterwards and say you weren't meant to do that. Charlotte Bellis in Kabul. E whai ake nei, that perennial question, how to turn New Zealand into a tech powerhouse? We ask the Kiwi whose space company, Rocket Lab, is about to be worth billions. Hoki mai ano, welcome back. Huge news today for Kiwi space company Rocket Lab. A special vote has decided it will list on the same stock exchange as tech giants like Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Tesla. I asked Peter Beck, who founded the company 15 years ago, whether that's always been the plan. - We were always clear from day one that we were trying to do something big here, and we were going to build a billion-dollar company, and we were gonna try and democratise access to space, and do these other things. So this was always the plan. In 22 seconds, we are home free to space! - How hard was it to get people in New Zealand to believe and fund that idea? - So when someone turns up and says they're going to build, you know, a company in space, that's kind of unbelievable to start with. And then you add that we're going to build a very big company in space and try and take on the larger companies in the world, but in a sector, not surprisingly, that was met with initially, you know, quite a lot of scepticism. But there was only one way to do that, and that was to go to the likes of Silicon Valley and create like, a New Zealand-American company. - But New Zealanders like to think small, really, because we are a small country. Are you saying that we are held back by that small thinking? - Yeah, I think I think absolutely. We need to we need to think much bigger. I mean, why aren't there more Rocket Labs and Xeros. They should be everywhere. Certainly, it can be done. And I think, you know, ultimately, if we look at New Zealand as an economy and where we want to go, if you look at the largest and most valuable companies in the world, they're all tech companies. New Zealand is good at tech. So if we really want, like, high productivity, high wages and really lift ourselves in the OECD, tech is our ticket. So we really need to spend some resource on that. - What is the one key thing that, say, our government could do to create that vision of New Zealand as a tech economy? - I don't I don't think there's like one magic lever a government can pull. I think, you know, in New Zealand, our bigger issue is more culturally than anything else. - Right. So what do you mean by that? - So one of the things that we've kind of suffered here is that, you know, 'Oh, Rocket Lab's now a US company, and, you know, isn't it a shame?' No, it's not a shame. It should be celebrated. We're a global company now. Nobody should ever be afraid of leaving New Zealand and going outside New Zealand to grow their business. - Right, because, as you said, you know, people say, 'Oh, we had a great idea and then it got bought up offshore, got taken offshore.' And generally that's a bad thing, isn't it? - No, it's great! That means it's successful on a global scale. That's awesome. That actually means` That is a definition of success. Like, if it only ever stays in New Zealand, then you've capped the opportunity at a 5 million population. - But outside of you, is there really anybody else? - Well, yeah. I mean, we are actively trying to grow the industry as quickly and as much as we can. I mean, if you look at New Zealand space industry now, it's a $1.7 billion industry employing something like 12,000 people. So the space industry is really, really growing. And if you look at the space industry as a whole, you know, today it's a US$360 billion industry. By 2030, it's predicted to be a US$1.4 trillion billion industry. So if you if you want to kind of latch on to the industries that are going through massive change and massive growth, space is it. - How hard is it to get the workforce? - This is one of the biggest problems for Rocket Lab. I mean, we have apprenticeship programmes here in composites and in rocket component assembly. We've done` We visited over 150 schools. We've got another 50 schools to go this year. And when we go to these schools, we don't just talk about the rocket. We talk about, you know, education into STEM and science, and actually we teach entrepreneurism. You don't have to go down the road and get a job. You can go and follow your dreams and have a crack, which is something that is not that well publicised in New Zealand. - In our laws, in the laws that govern your industry, you can't carry nuclear capabilities to support defence or security operations, but you can carry, you know, defence research. What` Is the political environment enabling or restrictive when it comes to that kind of? - I mean, we don't want to carry any nuclear garbage anyway. So, no, it's not it's not at all restrictive for us. And I think this is where New Zealand has done a really fantastic job. Each payload goes through a whole series of government agencies and ultimately it's signed off by a minister. I don't know of any other country that requires, you know, a CubeSat the size of a Rubik's Cube to be signed off by a minister. - And why do you think that sometimes isn't understood? - There's a lot of misperception here, and the space industry is a very intermixed industry with defence. That's just the reality. But anybody who has ever ordered a pizza or ordered an Uber has used, you know, the United States military's GPS network, which is owned and operated and run by the US Defence Forces that we all benefit from here as a civil society. - We're talking about latching on to a massive trillion-dollar industry. Are we going to do, put a lot of junk into space? What do you say to people like that? - I do worry that there's a number of competitors that are just racing to try and get to orbit with zero consideration about how they actually do that sustainably, and we've always felt like we can't stand on a platform and say, 'Hey, we want to launch all of this stuff to orbit,' without having a good explanation for how we can do it sustainably and that as we go to low earth orbit to start with, so that the orbital lifetimes are very short. But we also de-orbit everything. Others don't do that. They just leave that giant lump of stuff in orbit. - And the other political issue for you, and ecological environmental issue is a carbon footprint. So, I mean, I guess from an outsider's point of view, if you're going to send something up into space, it takes a lot of carbon. So how do you make a rocket carbon neutral? - Well, you probably burnt more carbon` Your carbon footprint, getting here and having this interview was probably greater than a rocket launch. I mean, the reality is, well, certainly the carbon footprint of a plane flying from Auckland to Wellington is more than any of our launches. In fact, the biggest carbon footprint that we have during a launch is the diesel standby generators. - So what do you make of the billionaire's blasting off into orbit to create space tourism? - Well, I think that's fantastic, actually, because if you actually look at that space tourism model, you know, it's not taxpayers dollars that are spending billions of dollars developing these technologies and ultimately, you know, humans as a space` Humans are going to need to become a space-faring civilisation. The Earth is not` It doesn't last forever. So, you know, at some point we're going to have to do something about that. - You've had this, you know, out-of-this-world vision, you know, this vision to build a massive company. And New Zealand has seen this before with other companies like LanzaTech. They've gone offshore. Xero's listed in Australia. - And hugely successful companies. - And hugely successful companies. - Global, hugely successful companies. Go, New Zealand. - Yeah, OK, go, New Zealand, but when Rocket Lab lists on the Nasdaq in America, is it inevitable that Rocket Lab is going to leave New Zealand? - No, I mean, look at the infrastructure that we've built here. Look at the launch sites we've built here. I mean, look, we absolutely take advantage of all the wonderful new things New Zealand has to offer. We're taking advantage of all the wonderful things the US has to offer. And we need to stop thinking about when a company gets so big and so successful that they have to leave New Zealand that this is a giant tragedy. It's just wrong. - Can you see, say, in 2030, New Zealand being a tech economy rather than a commodity economy? - Look, I think` To me personally, I think that's fundamental. I think if we really want all the things that we want in a society, and we want to move our way back up the OECD, because let's be honest, you know, from a science perspective, we have just plunged down. Like, it's really, really scary when you see what's going on. If you want to choose, like, the hardest thing to be successful in, like, go after space. That is, like, literally the hardest thing you can choose to be successful in. There's only been one other company in the history of humanity that is ever` you know, one other private company that has ever put a satellite in orbit, and that's Elon Musk's SpaceX and Rocket Lab. That's it. So if you can choose the hardest thing and be successful, then if you choose less hard things, then we can be wildly successful. - Peter Beck, thank you very much. - A pleasure. - Peter Beck, there. Well, there's been an outpouring of grief and tributes this week following the death of former deputy prime minister Sir Michael Cullen. We spoke to him last year after his diagnosis as part of his support for the End of Life Choice Bill. Let's take a look. - Saw something a little bit strange on your liver, so we want to do another scan. And they said, 'Well, your liver's, you know, riddled with cancer. We don't know what sort it is.' Then they took a biopsy, and when it came back, they said, 'Small cell lung cancer, the same as Helen Kelly had, with the second risen in the liver.' And the oncologist said to me, 'Well, if you don't have any treatment, 'you've got six to 12 weeks to live,' which was sort of a bit of a shock. I mean, it's inoperable. They can't cut bits out. There's too much, too much all over the place. And it's incurable. I mean, they can't actually get rid of it all. But I had four rounds of chemotherapy. The last scan that was taken showed, basically, couldn't see anything on the lung and a few of spots in the liver. What we do know is that the cancer will come back. What we don't know is how long that will take. Prognosis is I'm going to die a lot earlier than I was expecting to, but you just really don't have any idea. So you just get on with enjoying what you can. - How confronting or how shocking was it, I mean, when you say you're going in for a heart check-up, and you come out with incurable cancer? - Well, there's no point in getting angry. I said, 'I'm a bit teed off. 'I mean, I gave up smoking over 32 years ago. Now you tell me I've got lung cancer.' And they said at the time, 'Within five years, you'll have a lovely pink lungs 'as good as good as new kind of thing.' - You seem remarkably well at the moment. - Mm. - If you're so well at the moment, what are your reasons for supporting assisted dying? - I know that I'm going to at some point, probably not in the very distant future ` if I'm lucky, a year, maybe a bit more ` that's, you know` that's a good outcome, where I'm going to go into this decline stage that everybody with small cell lung cancer goes into sooner or later. I'm going to reach the point where I'm going to be able to do very little for myself, that I'm going to become more and more reliant on various forms of painkillers and so on. And those sorts of things. - Pretty heavy. Yeah. - Pretty heavy. And you basically end up in a state where... you're not really that much in contact with the people you want to be in contact with. My wife, my two children` two stepchildren, seven plus one on-the-way grandchildren. You want to be able to, you know, properly interact, not just sort lie there while they say, 'I love you, Granddad,' or something like that. It would just burst me into tears, so I don't want to be doing that. There's a lot of people saying, 'Well, won't pressure come on?' I think the most pressure comes on from within for most people getting to that sort of stage. You don't want people putting pressure on the person who's dying. But I think a lot of people want to have the choice. The bill is far from perfect, I think. My main worry is that people will vote against it because it doesn't go far enough. - Right. It doesn't go far enough` - In particular, it's got to be something which is definitely a terminal illness, which can be quite hard to determine. - Do you believe that there are enough checks and balances? Are you happy with the checks and balances that are in it? - I think the checks and balances are important at this stage. I mean, we are... We're in the stage of 'let's see how this works. Let's see how it goes.' What`? Will there be problems emerging? But if anything, I think with the amendments that came through in the committee stage, the act is almost tighter than I think the majority of people seem to support. - If you choose to do this, you don't have to consult family. - No. - It's a personal decision only. - Yes. - Is that right? - I think that's right. But I think people` the vast majority of people would. I'm quite interested in my own wife's reaction to my diagnosis and treatment. From everything she said in the past, I thought she would be kind of, 'OK. Well, it's good we've got enough time to sort of say goodbye,' but it's quite clear now that she wants the longest possible time to say goodbye. - It's going to be hard for the public to vote on this because most of us are not confronted, like you are, with mortality. That's just been forced upon you. - Yes, I think` - So you have an insight that the public doesn't have. - I think a lot of people have thought about it, though, because it's an issue that's been in the public arena for many, many years now. I think... If my mother had had... a choice, she would have chosen to have taken that pill a few years earlier than she died because the last three or four years were exceptionally unpleasant. - If the referendum passes, and you meet all the criteria,... - Yep. - ...would you consider assisted dying? - Yes, I would. I would discuss it with Anne particularly first, and then... other members of the family. Um... But, yes, I would. - Sir Michael Cullen there. That's all from us for now. Thank you for watching. Kia haumaru. Kia pai to ra. Stay safe and have a good day. And we'll leave you with one more quote from the late Sir Michael Cullen. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2021 This programme was made with the assistance of the NZ On Air Platinum Fund.