Northland has one of the lowest per capita rates of positive coronavirus tests. Photo / NZME
Northland has one of the lowest per capita rates of positive coronavirus tests. Photo / NZME
FROM PARLIAMENT
We are living through tumultuous times that will stand in history alongside other epidemics such as the great plague and Spanish flu and we too will come through this.
During this time many sectors of society such as health workers have been stood up and other sectors such as businesshave been stood down. We applaud and thank all essential workers for what they are doing and clearly will need to continue doing for some time yet.
I have been sitting on the televised Emergency Pandemic Select Committee which is constructively raising the bar around the response. There is a fine balance between the health response, economic response and civil liberties, and we have been fortunate to have many experts give advice in front of the committee.
MPs across the country have been deluged with constituent work. Some of my caucus colleagues say it is the most constituent work they have ever seen in 20 years and I am in the office from early morning to late at night.
I think it is an absolute privilege to be an electorate MP right now and to have tools that reach directly to government and to provide pastoral care to those who put you there and for whom you serve.
The Whangārei office has worked to bring local people home from overseas and off cruise ships. We have done travel authorisations, helping family members who have threatened self-harm and older people who are isolated, alone and in trouble.
We have been able to unblock immediate cash flow problems for local businesses with wage subsidies that have stalled, including firms employing as many as 100 people each at Waipu and Ruakaka.
We were very pleased this week to successfully make the case for Portland Cement to be classified as an essential industry. The folks at Portland tell me this has an impact on 800 local jobs.
There are still some areas we need to tidy up. The upset family of a volunteer firefighter wrote to me saying that many new fire permits had been issued during lockdown and asked how that could possibly be an essential activity that then also put firefighters at risk, especially as Northland was just exiting a drought.
I wrote to the minister and they are right. The prohibited fire ban for the Far North and Whangārei was lifted on March 18 and since then a fire permit has been required, however, from that date more than 200 fire permits have been issued, a total of 347 for the whole month of March.
I have spoken with ex Federated Farmers leadership and they cannot think of a reason why this many fires during lockdown could possibly be essential and certainly not ones that might put essential services at risk. Put another way, we can't fish but we can light fires! I think fires should return to prohibited with rare exceptions as they were prior to March 18.
With enthusiasm for progress we also need caution. Northland has one of the lowest per capita rates of positive coronavirus tests. This is a huge benefit to us but we need to be sure the figures are accurate.
I join health experts and iwi in calling for as extensive a testing as we possibly can, particularly as one health leader said to me, in the "corners" of our region. It is encouraging that nationwide we still have 30 per cent testing capacity and I am now cautiously optimistic for our region.
