COVID Response Minister Chris Hipkins live COVID Response Minister Chris Hipkins live as cases accelerate in Auckland and the regions prepare for their turn. A Taranaki midwife prepares to deliver the final babies of her career following the vaccine mandate. And Paul Goldsmith delivers National's Delta education plan, and ` spoiler alert ` he thinks more Auckland kids should be back in school. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2021 Tena tatou katoa. I'm Simon Shepherd, and welcome to Newshub Nation. Ko nga pitopito korero i te whare paremata ` in political news this week ` the health system is bracing for a Delta surge next year, with 5000 cases a week in the northern regions alone under a worst-case scenario. Andrew Little says most cases will isolate at home, with daily check-ups over the phone. There are 664 active cases in the community, including 28 in hospital. A second wastewater test from Te Awamutu returned a positive result on Friday, and Cabinet will meet on Monday to assess alert levels. And it's V-Day across the motu, with vaccine centres open now and late into the evening with the aim of boosting the vaccination rate by more than 100,000. We'll bring you all the developments live from midday on Three. All right, so, welcome to Super Saturday. Let's cross to the heart of the outbreak ` Auckland. That's where our reporter Anna Bracewell-Worrall is, at the pop-up vaccination drive-through at Otara Car Park. Morena, e hoa. - (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS) - Oh, morena, Simon. Yeah, I'm at Otara Town Centre. This is normally the location of the famous Otara Flea Market, but today it is an epic pop-up drive-through vaccination clinic. And if you turn up today to get vaccinated, there's heaps on offer. First off the ranks ` free coffee. - (MILK FROTHER HISSES) This is definitely turning people out. But there's also something really cool happening inside this building here. There are 30 different community groups here today who have turned up with the really important job of calling their members and convincing them to come out and get vaccinated this morning. This effort... - (APPLAUSE, CHEERING) - ...becomes only more and more important as the vaccination effort rolls on and more and more vaccine-hesitant people have to be convinced to turn up and get vaccinated. I was told that this morning, one guy turned up with his mum in the car; he said, 'You know, I may be covered in tattoos, but I'm actually really scared of needles, 'and so that's why I brought my mum along today.' And that's why this kind of community effort becomes increasingly important ` getting those community groups involved and making people feel comfortable with having to get vaccinated. - Yeah. Anna, I mean` - There's heaps of other stuff on offer as well ` free kiddy entertainment packs; I saw some free Pinot being handed out; there are kai packs, there's a Mr Whippy over there, there's some lady dressed up as corned beef over there... - (CHUCKLES) - You know, they're really making an effort to make it a really fun day. - OK. - So come out and get vaccinated. - It looks like there's heaps and heaps of things on, lots on offer. But why is there such a big push of vaccination, especially in South Auckland? - Well, vaccination rates here in South Auckland are` they're pretty low. They're trailing behind, especially some of those wealthier inner-city suburbs. 44% of Otara is fully vaccinated; 67% have had one dose. And as COVID spreads throughout Auckland, it becomes, you know, increasingly crucial to reach all these communities and make sure that they are as vaccinated as possible. It is our best defence against COVID-19. - There seems to be a real urgency right now, you know, the real push, so where is that urgency coming from, Anna? - Yeah, there is increased urgency. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, COVID has spread faster than anticipated. You know, she said yesterday that there are now 100 unlinked cases in the community, so you cannot assume anymore that your suburb is safe from COVID-19. It could be anywhere. You never know. But as you can see, the effort today ` this is the waiting area. There are loads of people. This has only just opened. There are already loads of people here that have come through and got vaccinated, but they're hoping to reach hundreds and hundreds of people. - Anna Bracewell-Worrall at the Otara pop-up vaccination centre. Thanks for your time this morning. Tena koe. Well, of course, not everyone wants to get vaccinated, so when the government announced a 'no jab, no job' policy for teachers and healthcare workers, some decided they would quit rather than get the vaccine ` like Taranaki midwife Angela Worthington, who in the middle of a midwife shortage is leaving the profession she loves in November and walking away from a caseload of 55 pregnant mothers. I asked Angela and her former work partner Sorcha Wolnik how they reacted to this week's vaccine mandate announcement. - Uh, probably not sleeping for the first 48 hours. Um, (CHUCKLES) when you're a midwife, you value your sleep. Um, I know when I've been speaking with colleagues this week, you know, not many of us have been able to eat much this week. There's` The weight of this is huge. - So, why have you chosen not to get the vaccine? - I think the reasons I've chosen not to get the vaccine, like any health information, is private. We all have different reasons. - OK, so what is the reason for opposing a mandatory vaccine for midwives? - We have for decades now talked to women about 'your body, your choice'. The messages that have come through loud and clear are now not been applied to us as a workforce. - And so from an ethical standpoint, as a midwife, and as the midwifery profession, it's really important that we` you know, we uphold that for ourselves and for any other health worker or` you know, in any other industry that's falling under this mandate. - Are you so determined that you are willing to walk away from your profession? - Completely. You know, I am the main income earner in our family. I have four children. I feel so strongly about the fact that our choice of body freedom, our body autonomy, is being taken that, yeah, I'm willing to walk. And it's not just me. And now we estimate there's around 290 families from those midwives in our community who have said that they will walk. That will be placing extra pressure on the DHB. It's not just the community midwives, as well ` it's the core staff. There are a number of core staff who will walk, and that service at the moment is really being taped together and spread very thin, and, you know, I actually don't know how the DHB will function with that loss. - What is the reaction from your clients whose babies you were going to deliver in November? - You know, without a doubt, the majority of responses are, 'This is not what we want. We would choose you unvaccinated 'over any` you know, any other way forward.' The support from the women is overwhelming, and overwhelmingly sad and distressing for all of us. A lot of the sentiment yesterday was, 'I don't understand why we can't just sign waivers.' - If someone says, 'I only want you,' and you're not available, what can those women do? - There are no other midwives. - And are you saying that some women will wish to birth by themselves rather than get whoever they're given at hospital? - Yup. That will happen. - Is that illegal? - It is illegal. But, you know, what does that say about a developed nation when women would choose to do something like that, which is illegal, over being able to access care, and the care they deserve? - Do you feel for your clients? Because you are possibly adding to their stress. - There's been nothing but tears and heartache and authentic, honest conversation with our clients, who we go above and beyond for. - Mm-hm. - But this is not a profession that we do for money or` certainly not for hours. We do this job because we deeply care for the women we look after, for the families we look after. - We're going to interview the COVID Response Minister. What would either of you say to him? - You know, we are the foot soldiers. We are the ones that are... catching the babies that are the future generations of New Zealand. If we are under mandatory obligation to be vaccinated, then what does it mean when the MPs aren't? - I would` (CHUCKLES) I would strongly ask Chris and Government to reconsider this mandate. Erm, it's... it's always difficult to roll back something that has been announced. - So, what will it be like to deliver your final baby? - We are really hoping that it's not going to come to that. You know, these families are incredibly special to us. They are families where we have not just caught one of their babies, but three and four of their babies, and it would be absolutely devastating ` erm, not only for the families ` for us not to be a part of their journey anymore. - Angela Worthington and Sorcha Wolnik from Taranaki, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, at just over 76% eligible having had their first jab. And Taranaki DHB has confirmed that 10 of its 63 midwives have said they won't be getting vaccinated. That's more than 15% of its midwives at a time when the region is already short of midwives. OK, looks like we've got Tova on the screen there with the COVID Response Minister, Chris Hipkins, at a Super Saturday event at the ReMakery in Lower Hutt. Tena koe, Tova. - Morena, Simon. And morena, Minister ` thank you very much for joining us this morning. So, I, like you, would like everyone to go out there and get vaccinated, but we've just heard from two women who won't. One of those midwives has a workload of 55 Taranaki families. What do you say to those 55 pregnant women who are now losing their midwife? - Introducing the required vaccination requirements for our health workforce and for our education workforce is not something the government has done lightly, but we have to recognise that those working in the health sector, those working in education, are dealing with very vulnerable people, many of whom can't be vaccinated, and so we need to make sure that we're providing as much protection as possible. So, yes, vaccination is an individual choice ` it is your body ` but ultimately, your decisions and your choices have an impact on other people, and so the requirements to be vaccinated to do certain jobs recognises that. - But do you need to be considering more exemptions to the vaccine mandate, particularly in those workforces where there are severe shortages, like midwifery? - We're seeing really high uptake amongst our health workers and amongst our education workers. We will, of course, be following those numbers very, very closely, but at this point, I'm not seeing evidence to suggest that this is going to be` that there are going to be a widespread number of people not taking up the opportunity to be vaccinated across those workforces. - Even if it's not widespread, in a workforce where you've got bugger-all people anyway, that's going to make an impact. - Oh, look, like I said, we will follow it closely, but ultimately, we have to consider the public health risk here. So, you know, if you if you think about education, for example, there may be one or two schools where they've only got one or two teachers, and if one of those teachers says, 'No, I'm not going to be vaccinated,' that could have a significant impact for that community. But we've also got to recognise that the children in those schools can't be vaccinated and are therefore some of the most vulnerable people in the community. So we'll be following it very closely. We'll be working very closely with those health providers, those education providers who might be affected by this. - Because schools are wigging out too. There's still` In the latest school bulletin from the Education Secretary, still no guidance on what to do with unjabbed teachers. How do you fire them? Do you fire them? What are they supposed to do? - So, we're in the process of working through that with the teacher unions at the moment, because obviously there are employment implications here, and we've got to` - So you mandated before you knew... - Well, we now have to` - ...how to enforce? - We now have to agree the processes for working through them ` what is effectively an employment process we now have to work through to provide clarity on what that process will be. - And given that you don't know how many teachers there are going to be who won't get vaccinated, how can you give an assurance that there will be enough redeployment opportunities? Are some teachers are going to lose their jobs? That's the reality? - There'll be some redeployment opportunities, but depending on the number who say no, they don't want to be vaccinated, there may not be roles for everybody. - On testing delays ` are you concerned about delays getting test results back to positive COVID cases, given that is key to getting on top of the Delta outbreak? - About 75% of results are back within 24 hours. Now, we want to see` Which is below what we would expect. The labs, and particularly the labs in Auckland, are under enormous pressure, so they're seeing really high testing numbers. That's a good problem to have, in one respect, in that we're seeing people getting tested, and that is really good, but it is putting those labs under pressure. So we're looking at ` can we distribute more of the swabs around the country so that they can be processed? Obviously, that adds a little bit of a delay in the sense that by the time you transport them to other labs around the country to share that workload, it adds a bit of time. But we do want to see those results processed as quickly as possible. - Because each delay represents further risk of transmission, right? - That's correct. - Every minute longer that a test takes to get back to a COVID case represents further risk of transmission. - Yeah, and that's one of the challenges with what we're seeing in Auckland now. So, if they're being tested because they're a person who's at risk ` like they were a close contact ` we would be asking them to isolate while they wait for their results. But we are seeing now` An increasing proportion of the cases we're seeing in Auckland are people who have just been tested because they went in and got a test rather than because we had asked them to get a test. And so those are the people who are more at risk in the delays of getting the results through. Now` And so that changes, if you like, the prioritisation, because we have of course been prioritising those who are being tested because they're a close contact. But as we see a greater proportion in the community, that adds a real pressure to our labs to process results as quick as they can. - And it's all very well to say, 'Isolate while you're waiting for that result,' but you're isolating and you may come into contact with other people in your households. In dense housing situations, you could end up transmitting it quite a lot ` and we'll come back to that in a second. But 4% of all of those test results are coming back longer than 48 hours. So that's about 70 cases in this outbreak with an unacceptable delay. Is that good enough? - No. We certainly need to do better, and we have performance metrics for the labs for exactly this reason. And the example that you have just pointed out illustrates why it's important to get those results back as quickly as possible. So, for example, you know, up to about 10% of our current cases are living in households with more than 20 people in them, so any delay in getting results back potentially adds more and more cases to the pile. - Yeah. So those delays simply aren't good enough. And I'm also struggling to trust the Ministry of Health, because it told us that the longest time to get a positive COVID test result back to a case was 79 hours, but our colleague waited 96 hours. So how should we`? Why should we be trusting what the Ministry of Health is saying when it's patently false? - Oh, it's quite possible` I'd` Without knowing the circumstances of your colleague, that's the longest time for a positive test result. It is possible that there will be some negative test results that may have taken longer than that. And yes, it is` - This is apples and apples. This is talking about positive cases. - It is a reflection of the pressure that the labs are under, and we do need to speed those results up. I certainly wouldn't quibble with that. - OK. And that same colleague, Mark Longley, one of our managing editors, he waited five days at home for his result. In that time ` he told me just recently ` his wife and his two young kids also got sick. His kids are about the same age as yours. How would you feel if you waited such a long time for a test result that through no fault of your own but faults in the system your kids got sick with Delta? - Oh, there's no question that we need to get our labs processing the results faster. But as we` - I'm asking how you would feel, Minister. - Oh, look, I would be very disappointed. - Because through no fault of his own, his two young kids got sick. - I'd be very disappointed. But here's the thing ` we are going to have to look at how many tests we are doing. This is an international phenomena ` as you get into a different phase of an outbreak, where you end up with more positive cases, we actually do need to look at making sure we're testing the right people rather than just blanket, you know, everybody getting a test, because we need to make sure that we're getting those people who are most at risk tested and the test results back as fast as we can. - I can tell you that 'disappointed' doesn't even cut it in terms of how Mark's feeling. His wife and his toddler have been able to isolate at home. So we're seeing that at home isolation for cases already being rolled out. How do you explain that to New Zealanders overseas who are double-jabbed, COVID negative; they want to come home, they've got to spend 14 days, spend thousands of dollars for the privilege, and that's only if they can get a spot. How do you reconcile that? - Oh, it does change the dynamic. Our border settings are designed for a time when we didn't have cases in the community, and now we do have more cases in the community, we have a need to isolate more people who are positive cases in the community in our MIQ facilities. That does change things up at the border, and those are processes that Government is working through at the moment. - Because there was literally one border case yesterday versus 65 in the community. So when will you recognise that it's actually now riskier in Auckland than it is at the border? - Oh, I think you'll see some changes there in the coming weeks. Now, there's a Cabinet process to go through where we make a deci` where we make those decisions, and I don't want to get ahead of those, but we are absolutely looking at our border settings now in light of the fact that we've got more cases in the community. - OK. This is going to be good news for people, because MIQ's starting to look like a bit of a joke ` the discrepancies are growing by the day ` but you're saying that home isolation for returning Kiwis is on the cards in a matter of weeks. Because you've always said next year, right? - Look, I don't want to get ahead of the options that we're talking about and, necessarily, go straight to the home isolation end. There are a variety of other scenarios as well. - More than isolation and MIQs? - Potentially` Look, I don't want to get ahead of all of the things that might be on the table. - You need to give people certainty. And we've seen that you can operate quickly ` you did it with the home isolation for cases ` so just give people a bit more certainty. - And we will be doing that, But there is a Cabinet process that we've got to go through. Cabinet meets again next week, and we will be aiming to give people certainty as quickly as we can. - OK. If you can` I'll just go back to that point ` that if you could turn around the self-isolation for positive cases, why can't you turn around self-isolation for Kiwis who want to come home by Christmas? Will they be able to do that by Christmas? - Well, look, one of the realities here is that we didn't have a choice in that self-isolation piece. We have to find a way to` to` - There are tens of thousands of New Zealanders offshore who don't have a choice. - We do have to find a way to safely deal with people who have tested positive in the community and minimise the risk as much as we can. We are seeing now quite a big spike in those cases. - More than half of the cases that were announced on Thursday were Maori. Did you put Maori at risk by going down alert levels too soon? - No` No, not at all. And one of the things that I think we all need to recognise around alert levels is that alert levels work where there's a really high degree of voluntary compliance, and we were already seeing at the end of that Level 4 period that more and more people were not sticking with that. Now, even if` - I haven't seen any proof of that. - Well` - The numbers didn't reflect it. - Well, no, the case numbers do. So, the case numbers were showing us that outside of the family home, the highest increase in cases on a daily basis were people getting together for social gatherings, and that was even at Alert Level 4. So` - The cases really shot up in Level 3. As soon as people started having picnics, that's when we started seeing them balloon. It wasn't in Level 4. - And it was social gatherings, and the social gatherings ` the nature of the social gatherings that we were seeing cases arising from were still the social gatherings that aren't allowed even at Alert Level 3. So, the` the alert levels` I think it's nice to say, hypothetically, if we went back to Alert Level 4, would we see fewer cases? Potentially, but only if everybody went back to following the rules. And we're seeing that, increasingly, the tolerance for those levels of restrictions has really waned within the community. - I feel like that's a bit of a reverse-engineered argument against Level 4. Because actually, it was working better than what. What modelling do you have for Maori fatalities, based on current case projections? - We have modelling that suggests that hospitalisations are certainly going to go up from this point onwards. The rates of vaccination amongst Maori is the big unknown question here. So we've got to go` We've got to get many more Maori vaccinated faster. I think it's still around 200,000 Maori that we need to get into the vaccination programme. The faster we do that, then the poten` you know, that really turns down the dial in terms of the level of risk here. - I'm talking specifically about Maori fatality modelling based on the current case projections. So, we've got that general modelling that we saw from Shaun Hendy, but inequity means Maori are four times more likely to die from COVID. So what numbers are you looking at when it comes to Maori fatalities when you make those big decisions like alert levels? - Oh, we look at those very closely. I don't have` - But what are the numbers? - Well, I don't have all the numbers memorised, and we're going through` - That is deeply concerning, because this is a cohort which would be disproportionately at risk from COVID-19. - Well, in all of those models, you've got typically three or four different scenarios, normally, where there` you know, depending on a whole variety of factors, which includes` - Give me one. Choose` - Well, I don't` I haven't memorised them. But that includes, you know, levels of vaccination. Levels of vaccination make an enormous difference. If we can get to that 90-plus per cent for Maori` So if you take the most at-risk Maori cohort, which are our 65-pluses, the vaccination rates there are well over 90% for first doses, and they're` I think they're sitting at about 83% for second. But` - I'm not talking about vaccination rates. I'm talking about` - Well, no, but that is absolutely related to the number of people who could die if they get COVID-19. The higher those vaccination rates go` And this is why we're doing today, why we're here for Super Saturday ` the higher we get those rates, the fewer people will die. - You've also always argued that you didn't want to set a vaccination target because there could be some groups, like Maori, who aren't at those targets. So you don't have the numbers, but let me give you a couple ` Shaun Hendy sent me through some last night ` 3500 Maori deaths over a couple of years at 80% vaccination. Are you willing to wear that? - No. I think every death from COVID-19 is potentially preventable, because through vaccination, through isolation, through good contact tracing, we can turn the volume right down. Will some people` Will we still` Will we see more fatalities in our hospitals? Tragically, yes, we will. At some point that was inevitable. We want to get` The higher the rate of our vaccination, though, then the fewer of those people there will be. - I mean, it's for this very reason that there's a real push not to open up further until Maori are 90% vaccinated ` and, actually, to move Auckland back up to Level 4 until Maori are 90% vaccinated. Why aren't you doing that? - Well, if you` Again, if we take the Level 4` what we were seeing amongst the community that was most affected through this outbreak that we have been dealing with, the Level 4 restrictions were not stopping their movement. They were moving around anyway. We were still seeing those case numbers going up anyway. - What about further loosening restrictions, then? - So to some extent, we were saying to the people who were following the rules, you know, 'You're going to be further restricted,' despite the fact that that wasn't the thing that was making the difference. OK, but I'm talking about a 90% Maori va` even 95%, actually, according Te Pati Maori ` why not commit to that until you start opening up further? - We want to get the rates as high as possible. We haven't set a particular threshold. There are a variety of factors that we take into account when we consider those thresholds, including what are our hospitalisation rates, what are our vaccination rates? It's not just vaccination. And by setting a hard-and-fast vaccination rate, it actually means that at that point, you lock yourself into doing something that if you got to that point and found that, actually, there are still some additional risks they haven't been identified, you've already locked into a course of action. So we don't want to lock ourselves into a course of action which we then can't reverse if the risk changes. - Do you regret not including all Maori in those earlier vaccine priority groups? Not just kaumatua and kuia, but all Maori, in those early priority groups. Do you regret that? - Ultimately, our goal here was to turn down the risk as much as possible, which means vaccinating the people first who are most at risk of contracting COVID-19, those who are working` No, the most at risk of contracting COVID 19, who are those working at the border, working in those environments where they could get it and then those most at risk, which disproportionately was our elderly community. - What is your` Minister, what is your biggest regret with the COVID response? What is one thing that you would have done differently? - Oh, there are a variety of things, if you could turn back the clock, of course. You know, let's take vaccinations ` this time a year ago, we didn't know who the best vaccine candidates were going to be. If we knew that Pfizer was going to be the` you know, the best vaccine out of the market, we would have focused all our energies on getting it the best possible arrangement with Pfizer that we could. But at that time, we were buying a range of different vaccines because we didn't know which one was going to come off. In terms of that border worker testing, I would have liked to have seen faster progress on that, and I've been` I was pretty open at the time that that was going far slower than I wanted it to do. I think` And now, sitting here now, any time you look back on something, you can say, 'If I had all the information I've got now back when we were making those decisions, 'I'd make different decisions.' - Thank you very much for your time this morning, COVID Response Minister Chris Hipkins. Back to you, Simon. - Tena koe, Tova, there with COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins. If you've got a news tip, please get in touch. We are on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or you can email us at nation@tv3.co.nz. E whai ake nei, we dissect the week's political news with our panel. But first, Paul Goldsmith shares the National Party's controversial Delta policy for schools. In the hot seat this week, National's education spokesperson Paul Goldsmith. He thinks he'd make a better education minister than Chris Hipkins and that despite rising case numbers, most students should already be back at school. Finn Hogan started by asking him what his first act would be if he was Minister. - Well, we've got to get the kids back to school as quickly as we can. Now, we're facing a ticking time bomb in terms of education in this country, the second year where students have been disrupted, and we need to get them back to school as quickly as we can. - OK, Paul, but what's your plan? - The education people and the health people were saying that we could go back on the 18th of October. Now we don't know. - So should they be open now? - I think if a school can demonstrate that the teachers are vaccinated, and we've got rules in place, we can have testing, people can wear masks... we should be looking for opportunities to get the schools back as quickly as we can. - On a case-by-case basis? You'd reopen schools now? - Yes. - How about teachers? Do you support mandatory vaccination? - Yes, we have. I mean, nobody's thrilled about it. Of course, you want people to have a choice, ordinarily. - Yeah. - We're in lockdown. We don't have a lot of our liberties at the moment; we can't get around. And so on balance, we need to ensure that we can get everything we have in place to get kids back to school. - But some teachers will resign rather than getting the jab, so how would you address the shortage? - Yeah, that is an issue that we need to get some clarity from the Minister on. - The latest thing that came out, on Friday, basically told schools that they need to get some legal advice, and they're on their own. That's not good enough. They should have had a very clear plan in place and clear advice to schools. - What about students? Should it be no jab, no school? - No, I don't think so. But we should be doing everything we can to encourage students to get vaccinated. - Masking is strongly advised by Government, but it's not mandated for students. Is that the right move? - Oh look, I think we should encourage students to wear masks. I can understand pimply teenagers not being enthusiastic about having a mask on all day, so you've got to have some practicality there. - Experts have predicted an outbreak of up to 100,000 students if we don't vaccinate primary school kids. Aren't masks our only defence? - Yep, people will come up with all sorts of figures. I'm not in a position where we're we just write off the rest of the year, close the schools, and just hope for the best. I think we need to be doing everything we can, hustling to get the schools back. - Truancy ` we've got 60,000 students chronically absent from class. How would you get them back? - Oh, that's the big issue in our education system right now. Only three out of five kids are attending regularly, and there's a lot of kids who are not attending at all. It's been made worse during the lockdown. - Right, but that's the problem. But what's your solution to it? - Well, the starting point is you learn from the schools that are doing a good job. There are some schools, like Manurewa Intermediate, for example, where they have a zero-tolerance approach to not turning up. They have a flashing sign out the front, #NoExcuses. Get your kids to school. Learn from them. Secondly, you've got to have a little bit of accountability from schools as well. - Is there anything that's less punitive? Can you encourage students to come back? - Well, I don't think encouraging kids and having a no-excuses approach is punitive. It's pretty basic. You know, one of the most important things you can do as a citizen in this country is make sure your kids are at school. - International education was a billion-dollar business before COVID. When would you let international students back? - Well, it surprises me that the government has been able to come up with a scheme to bring people in from the Pacific to pick apples and fruit but they haven't been prepared to engage with the industry that is` quite often, has a whole lot of accommodation available. I wanted to come up with plans to self-isolate students in order to keep that industry going. - So, you'd look at specific exemptions and specific visas for international students? - It should be part of the discussion, yes. - Only a fifth of students are performing at or above expectations in science, and it's similarly dire in math. What would you do to address that shortfall? - First, you've got to have the kids at school, and that's fundamental. Secondly, you've got to have a good, clear curriculum that is preparing our Kiwi kids to be fit for global expectations and to do well. Thirdly, you've got to have teachers that really understand the subject. - So, a lot of that is coming from the Royal Society report on math in schools, right? - Oh, no, it's our National Party approach to education. A Royal Society report on maths reflected many of those issues in terms of the need to have a good quality curriculum, well-resourced and -trained teachers. - But in that same report, they say we should stop grouping students by ability, or streaming, but streaming's something you support. Why? - Uh, yeah, they've made the point, absolutely, that, you know, for 5-year-olds and 6-year-olds and 7-year-olds, you shouldn't be rushing to typecast students. You should be looking for the opportunity for all students to do maths. And I agree with that. They did say at the senior levels, there may be some argument for streaming because people learn at different paces. - Aren't you concerned that streaming just entrenches existing inequality with students, though? - There's long arguments about streaming versus not streaming, and schools have different approaches. There are schools around here that do streaming, and some don't. I don't think we need to have hard and fast rules in that respect. - Quick-fire to finish. Paul, did you ever wag a day of school? - No. - Never? - No, I don't think so. - You don't think so? - It's a long time ago. I can't remember. - Did you have a favourite subject? - No, I don't think I did. - How long will you be stuck with the education portfolio before you start gunning for finance again? - I'm very focused on doing the best I can for Kiwi kids to do well out of the education system. - Paul Goldsmith talking to Finn Hogan there. Up next ` Efeso Collins and Parmjeet Parmar with their analysis of the week in politics. Plus ` he's about to go to the most important climate conference in history, but will he be able to hold his head up high? James Shaw after the break. First dose right now, for five minutes, we're going to welcome Auckland Councillor Efeso Collins and former National MP Parmjeet Parmar. Tena korua. Parmjeet, welcome to the show for the first time. Let's talk... Let's talk the grim prediction of cases ` a peak of 5300 north of the Bombay Hills. Has New Zealand fallen from a world-leading COVID response to something that is second-rate, Efeso? - I think that if the elimination strategy was part of an overall package that was core to equity, then I think we've fallen down the ladder when it comes to being world-leading. To be world leading, we had to focus` we must focus on equity. And we've had people on your show and many other platforms, people like Rawiri Jansen, Collin Tukuitonga, Api Talemaitoga for these areas, the areas that have the lowest levels of vaccination, to ensure that we do take an elimination approach, and I'm disappointed that we left Level 4, and I think today marks a desperate attempt ` a fun attempt but a desperate attempt to get vaccination rates up. so I'm disappointed that we went out of Level 4, cos if we're part of the whanau of 5 million, we've got to make sure everybody is vaccinated. - Parmjeet Parmar, would you describe Super Saturday as a desperate attempt? - It's a good attempt. And actually, this should have happened long time ago, actually before Delta entered New Zealand, because when we saw Delta variant causing all the devastation all around the world, and we knew that Delta is going to enter New Zealand, and to imagine that Delta was not going to enter New Zealand, in my view, was both stupid and naive. So what Government has failed to do is create an urgency amongst New Zealanders to get vaccinated, and that's where they have failed, really failed. I go past a vaccination centre every day when going to work, and this vaccination centre before Delta hit New Zealand hardly had any people there. But when Delta hit, there were long queues of cars. But that momentum has faded again. And so I think Super Saturday is a good initiative, but we need more initiatives like this. - OK, so in the meantime, I mean, the urgency is to get the vaccination rates up, and it's sort of an attempt to hold off, and they want to hold off Delta until we get those vaccination rates up. So that means certain kinds of things, like mandates for teachers, mandates for midwives. First of all, are they the right calls? - Look, mandates were expected. I think what the issue has been is the time in which many of the people in the communities that haven't been vaccinated need. We've had to get through the hesitancy and the reluctance of many of these communities, and a lot of people, similar to the story that you played earlier, that hesitancy has led to, 'No, we don't want mandates,' but that's because our comms has been poor, and we haven't journeyed with people around why it's important to get vaccinated. I think we expected the mandates. They are important. I support them at this stage with how far they've gone, but we haven't journeyed with the nation. I think that's been our failure. - Parmjeet, some epidemiologists actually want broader mandates. They want to go to supermarket workers, police, hairdressers. I mean, do you support that? Is that a good idea? - People who are dealing with other people should be getting vaccinated, and I think Government should provide that certainty. At the moment, Government can pick and choose who they want to employ in terms of people being vaccinated or not vaccinated. And Government should be, actually, providing those kind of tools to other employers, too. - Mm. - It's really important ` especially in the health sector, I know it's important, when people are presenting themselves to a GP or in hospital, they are already sick, so their system is down, so they don't want to be exposed to somebody who is COVID-positive. But there are other businesses like that, those who would like to have that kind of assurance and certainty from Government to be able to have this ability, to see how they will deal with people, those who don't want to get vaccinated. - OK. - And I think going back to` It was this point about messaging, and as I said before, that urgency needs to be created. There are a lot of people, those who are relying on other people getting vaccinated, they think that these anti-vaxxers, as other people are getting vaccinated, they are becoming safer and safer. But what I would say is that actually their risk of getting COVID is becoming higher and higher because we have seen so many unlinked cases, and these unlinked cases are coming from people, those who don't have symptoms. So with vaccination, there'll be more people, those who will not have symptoms but can carry this virus and can spread it in the community. So the risk of people, those who are deciding not to get vaccinated, their risk of catching this virus is going to be higher... - Yeah. - ...not lower. - OK, all right, so we've got the vaccination push on. Just quickly, Efeso ` self-isolation for mild cases in the community, that's basically coming right now. Is that the right way to treat this increase in Delta cases? - Yeah, look, I'm on the fence with this one. I think it's important that we get the processing right, but I'm not sure that's the way to go. I think there's a real push... It seems to me there's an increasing frustration in the nation about how things are being handled. I think, for me, the ultimate issue is equity. How are we going to support those communities that we can't reach? - OK. I'm going to cut it off there for the moment. This is a double dose of our panel today in light of Super Saturday, so we're going to come back to you later in the programme. For the moment, though, thank you so much to Parmjeet Parmar and Efeso Collins. E whai akei nei, we'll have more time with our panel later in the programme, as I said. But first, big changes to our daily lives coming right up. Climate Change Minister James Shaw has all the details. Newshub Nation can reveal a new climate change promise will be made by the government in Glasgow at next month's summit COP26, but it comes after a week of criticism for its draft emissions plan. Conor Whitten spoke to James Shaw, the Climate Change Minister, and began by asking how daily life in New Zealand is about to change. - As you're driving around in your electric car, you'll notice that there are other electric cars on the roads, lots more of those. You'll see a lot more houses will have solar panels on the roofs. They'll be kept warm by insulation. You'll notice that some people will have retrofitted their windows to be double-glazed. So in that sense, you know, the houses will kind of look the same, and the roads will look the same, and so on. But there will be some differences in how we how we power our homes and how we get around. - But a lot of that falls to everyday Kiwis. I mean, there are changes to the way we drive ` we're driving less often, we're buying electric vehicles; there are congestion charges; we're even asked not to throw out food waste anymore. These are big, big lifestyle changes. They're happening quickly, and a lot of them are much easier for the wealthy, so how do you make sure the poor don't pay the price? - Look, that's really important. And one of the things that we've directed all of the government agencies who are coming up with these policy solutions to do is to think about the distributional impacts of each individual policy. One of the proposals was for a sort of cash bonus for people who are handing in their old cars. Not only will they receive that bonus to hand in that vehicle, that will actually also lower their household running costs because they won't be spending as much on maintenance on that vehicle or as much on fuel. - Here's the problem, though. Even if we do all of that, your own plan admits that we fall short of our targets. Why release a plan that isn't finished? - Well, it's not a plan. It is a consultation document that will inform the plan. So we've been really clear that this is only one of a number of inputs. The government by itself isn't going to be able to do this, right? Most of the pollution occurs in our industrial sector, so we've got to work with them on proposals for how they can reduce their greenhouse gas. - OK, well, let's talk about that, because some of the feedback is coming in already, and critics say there's a gaping hole in this plan, and that's agriculture. It's our biggest emitter, it's a huge part of the economy. Doesn't the conversation have to start there? - No, it doesn't. It has to start with agriculture, with electricity generation, with transport, with industrial heat, with waste... - Yeah, and all of those things are in this discussion document... - They are. - ...but our biggest emitter is not. - Well, like I said before, this is not the only input into the final plan. We have the He Waka Eke Noa work programme, which is a partnership between the government and the agricultural sector. They are intending to go up to consultation over the summer with their proposals for how to price and reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. - You're off to Glasgow very shortly for COP26. In many ways, it's the most important climate conference in history, and countries are showing up. Will you announce a bigger commitment there? - Yes, we will. - What does that look like? - So, at the moment we have a target, which is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by a third, 30% below the level they were at in 2005. And earlier this year, the Climate Change Commission said that that target was not adequate for a 1.5-degree world. And so they have instructed us to come up with something a bit stronger. - How much stronger? - Cabinet hasn't made a decision on that yet, but you know, we will, obviously, be doing that before I go to COP26. - Because the UK has a target that's almost twice as large as ours, I think, 68% reduction by 2030. Are going to come close to that? - No, we won't. The UK, of course, has actually reduced their greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 by about 40% to 45%, somewhere in that zone. Ours have gone in the other direction ` ours has gone up by 26% since 1990. So we are starting from a different place, and that is because of the failure of public policy over the course of the last 30 years to reduce New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions from the point that we said that we should be bringing them down. - Given how critical that is, why are we doing things like pushing the emissions reduction plan six months further down the road? This is urgent. - It is urgent, and I didn't want to push it six months further down the road. But ultimately we had a Delta outbreak that meant that we had to adjust our plans, and that's just a function of the world that we live in at the moment. - It may also be a function of politics, and I want to talk about that. You're the Climate Change Minister, but you're outside Cabinet. These decisions are ultimately made by Labour ministers. Are you happy with your Labour colleagues? Are they bold enough? - I think that the Government is trying to deal with a lot right now. You know, there is a pandemic on, and that is consuming an enormous amount of the public sector's attention, and quite rightly so, as we're trying to keep people safe and recover from the impact of the virus. The thing that I have been saying all along ` and actually, I don't think that you could put a rice paper between me and any Labour minister on that ` is that we are aware that the climate crisis hasn't gone away just because there is a pandemic on. - And reading between the lines here, Minister, you'd like to do more. - Of course I would. And I have said this many, many times in the past. If you look back over the 30 years that we have known about the climate crisis and the effects of the climate crisis, our greenhouse gas emissions and our policy response has gone in precisely the wrong direction. - But you're here now. - Mm. - Your entire career in many ways has led up to this moment. You're the Climate Change Minister, you're the Green Climate Change Minister. And this week, Russel Norman, the former Green leader, described the plan as a sell-out. - Mm. - Don't you need to do more? - Yes. And I have said that. - So why aren't you? - I have said that many, many times. What that does, it just underlines the importance of the plan that we're putting out next year. You got to remember, governments in New Zealand have set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the past, but we have never, as a country, had a plan for how to hit those targets. This is the first time that we are going to have a legally binding plan that touches every part of the public sector... - The plan that doesn't do enough? - ...every part of Government. (STAMMERS) When we publish it next year, what you will see is that it is a plan that hits those targets for the next five, 10 and 15 years. - At the start of 2020, I think climate change was becoming real and obvious to everyone. New Zealand was in drought, Australia was burning. And then along comes COVID, and attention shifts. How much do you worry that the global pandemic has stalled what we need to do on climate change? - I think the pandemic has had two effects. So, it has definitely had a stalling effect in some areas. It's also changed the way that governments think about how they can respond to a crisis. - The problem is, though, the world's failed in dealing with COVID. We've faced a global catastrophe, and we've failed to contain it. We've failed to work together, and millions of people have died. So if we couldn't come together for that immediate present danger, how confident are you we can do it with climate change? - Well, because not every country has failed with COVID. And I think, you know, New Zealand and a handful of other countries have shown what you can do when you are led by the science, and you respond according to what the science suggests that you should do. And I think exactly the same lesson applies to climate change. There's about 15 to 20 countries around the world who have actually reduced their greenhouse gases over the last 20 years. That's nowhere near enough. But it does show that you can continue to grow and develop your economy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the same time. Now, unfortunately, New Zealand has not been one of those countries, but I think that we are now in a point of transition towards becoming one of those countries over the course of the next five, 10 and 15 years. - A glass half full. Climate Change Minister James Shaw, kia ora. Thanks very much for your time. - Thank you. - Kaua e haere tawhiti. We're back after the break. Auckland Councillor Efeso Collins and former National MP and biological scientist Parmjeet Parmar. Thanks again for your time this morning. Look, we've got double-jabbed, COVID-negative Kiwis having to pay thousands of dollars to get into a rare MIQ spot, and yet we've got self-isolation for COVID-positive cases in the community. Parmjeet, is this going to put pressure on the government to open up the borders to returning Kiwis? - Actually, this shows that the Government is already giving up by letting positive people self-isolate at home. For people, those who are overseas, we have to be mindful that all the effort, all the sacrifice that has been made by our people here to curb COVID, that is not taken away by importing COVID, so even if people are double-jabbed, they can carry this virus. So we have to put a strict criteria around to will allow people to pick home isolation as a criteria, just like for a visitor's application, there is a criteria ` where will people stay, how will that be funded, if they have enough money to support their stay while they will be here. - Mm. - So that criteria should be put in place for people, and this choice should be provided to people that if they want to be in home isolation that they can pick that, and also they should allow that they can be monitored while they self-isolating at home. - Self isolation, though... - At the moment, there is no system. - Efeso, self-isolation could be a problem, though, for certain communities who have a lot of people in their households. Isn't that a fact? - It is. And that's something that we experienced right throughout the outbreak is that you've got half families where you've got COVID, someone's contracted the disease, and people aren't sure where to go. Are there enough facilities in other families' houses? So all of that movement's going to create issues. So, yeah, there needs to be real guarantees in place so that people can self-isolate with those protections in place. - OK, so, we were talking about equity before. Efeso, I'll just stay with you on this. Chris Hipkins said at the beginning that they were looking at the most vulnerable ` the border workers, the elderly ` and sort of dismissed the idea of increasing some of the targeting of vaccination for Maori and Pasifika at a younger age rate. They didn't do that. Was that a mistake? - Yeah, I think it was. Look, if we're going to have equity as our core, we need to understand that the eligible population` (CLEARS THROAT) excuse me ` the eligible population, if we want 90%, that's still going` not going to be high rates for Maori and Pacific, because we've got younger age structures, and we're not looking` we can't vaccinate under-12-year-olds at the moment. So leaving Level 4, leaving elimination, is essentially saying, 'Are we OK?' We have to ask ourselves, 'Are we OK with greater death rates for Maori and Pacific?' They are the communities that are going to be affected most, so I'm... I'm frustrated by the way in which we've traversed this, because it's our communities, the people that I go to church with and shop with, that are going to be worst-affected. - Mm. Parmjeet, should the government put a target on vaccination rates ` like, say, they've done New South Wales and Victoria ` to try and encourage everybody to get that, so they've got the carrot of opening up? - Oh, definitely, the government should be setting a target, but what I mean by setting a target is that we shouldn't be just relying on the concept of herd immunity that we have seen overseas, because herd immunity doesn't carry the same meaning here in New Zealand for us. Because to start with, we have such low cases of COVID, and so we are hugely relying on vaccinations, so that target has to be really seriously high target for us here in New Zealand. The other thing is Government needs to be a bit more creative, like short, robust idea is great. So that is about accessibility, that is about convenience. We need more such ideas. There could be, like, vaccination points, just like we have checkpoints for blood testing where people could be checked if they have had their first dose, and if there has been enough time gap, they could be given the second dose, because people, those who have had their first dose will be very willing to get their second dose. And if there is someone who is mildly hesitant, they can see somebody who is there next to them, they are ready to vaccinate them, they might get vaccinated as well. - OK, well, we're going to leave it there. Efeso Collins and Parmjeet Parmar, thank you so much for your time this Super Saturday. - Kia ora. - And that's all from us for now, and nga mihi. Thank you for watching. Hei kona mai, and we will see you again next weekend. Captions by Maeve Kelly and Stephanie Phan. 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 New Zealand on Air Platinum Fund.