Breakfast host Indira Stewart accused Judith Collins of breaking lockdown rules by travelling to Wellington instead of staying in Auckland and demeaned Collins’ role in opposition by claiming teachers, supermarket workers and other New Zealanders have to suck up their working conditions under lockdown, so why shouldn’t Collins?
The BFD Transcript of TV1 Breakfast Programme Wednesday 1 September
Collins:
Well, 120 MPs on a zoom, aah… the… you will notice there are very few MPS allowed in the debating chamber yesterday – those are the rules that Trevor Mallard the Speaker set up, not us.
The other thing is actually if the Prime Minister was so worried about it as she said, well why doesn’t she just suspend parliament for another day or two until we got to level three?
We have had no zoom meeting practice for 120 MPs in parliament and if this was suddenly put to us as an idea from Trevor Mallard, without any practice, any experience of it, or quite how it would run.
So, we think well, if they’re so keen on that, then starting putting the work into it rather than just springing it upon us over the last couple of weeks without any practice at all.
Stewart:
Miss Collins, what would you say to New Zealanders who’ve had to do that themselves in their large organisations, corporations, business meetings, work meetings, schools, classrooms…everyday everyone last year having to learn zoom at the drop of a hat and you are saying you that you and your party couldn’t take up that school or make an effort to take that up?
Collins:
Oh Indira, that is totally unfair! Absolutely unfair!
We are doing a zoom…
Stewart:
(Interrupts) How is that unfair because all New Zealanders are having to do that too?
Collins:
We are an essential business in parliament.
You will notice the Prime Minister has been coming into parliament every day, she’s been doing press conferences with the media here – this is simply a political attack that’s going on against us because we want to be able to ask questions and scrutinise the government.
We’ve seen the sort of level of some of the questions that have been used in the press conferences, things like “And how are you feeling today?”
Well, how about asking about the vaccinations?
And the other thing too, Indira, is that when you are going to have these sorts of things, parliament is not a “nice to have” it is absolutely essential for a democracy.
That is why it’s acknowledged in the Health Order, that is why MPs are able to travel for parliament.
It’s because “it’s not just a nice to have”. Just like the media have – that’s why you are in the studio this morning.
It’s because it is actually important for people to get the information, the questions – and never more so than now when we are in yet another lockdown and we have such a largely unvaccinated population…
Stewart:
(Interrupts) You are right in the sense…I just want to go back to…
Collins:
…we are asking questions about vaccination – those are the questions.
Stewart:
…what we are saying…we will go to vaccinations, which is an important question we want to ask.
There are many industries that are “nice to have”.
And in fact, so many of our reporters in the newsroom are having to stay home and do work. So many of our managers are having to stay home and work from online and if you talk about essential…I’ve heard you say there are essential workers like supermarkets, people in our borderline defence who are out there working every day and they have to do it, so do you.
But actually, I know a couple of supermarket workers personally who I’ve spoken to, who have said to me many times before, if they could do their work, their job, from home or online, like anybody else, to protect themselves and their families they would do it at the job of a hat. But they cannot do that because their jobs just cannot operate in that way.
And so, in order to…to use that as a defence makes no sense in the fact that you could have done that virtually.
Collins:
Ask the Prime Minister, Indira, why is she here every day working?
Why isn’t she doing it from home? Why isn’t she using zoom?
Why did she, Chris Hipkins, her minister for Covid Response, and Grant Robertson, her Finance Minister, all fly from Auckland to Wellington after they knew that Covid was in the community and before they knew the full extent of it? Why was that? And the answer is because they know they’d be able to do it…it’s an important job and so is the opposition.
It is an important job and we have to ask those questions because you are more interested in talking about me, Indira, than you are talking about the vaccines.
The one issue that we raised yesterday over and over again and will continue to do it because that’s why we are in parliament.
Stewart:
(Indecipherable)…minimising safety and risk in our community because essentially that’s what the decision to travel comes down to…
Collins:
I am a double vaccinated person.
Stewart:
…and I want to take it back to scrutiny because I agree with you. I think a strong opposition being able to question the government is healthy for everybody and it’s what New Zealanders all want.
But don’t you think you would have had an accept… a more effective aah debate and democratic debate if that meeting yesterday was done virtually?
There was barely anybody in the room and you would have more access to more ministers and more people would have been able to show up so you could interrogate them effectively.
How democratic was that yesterday when there were just…
Collins:
Sorry Indira! Are you going to ask me the question, or are you going to answer it as well? Let’s just stick to this:
Trevor Mallard set the rules as to who could be in parliament. He set the rules as to how many people are there: he said only three MPs for the National Party could be there. Ask him about it because we’ve run parliament before under level three and we’ve been able to do it.
If the Prime Minister was worried about it, she could suspend parliament like she did last week. She chose not to.
This has become now, simply about attacking the opposition for asking the questions. If the Prime Minister was worried, tell me this: why is the parliamentary creche open?
Tell me that? And the answer is simply…simply – don’t attack me for asking the questions that you and the rest of the media should be asking the Prime Minister. I will continue to do that. I have to do that.
Stewart:
I think they’re I think they’re fair questions to ask. (Indecipherable) Vaccinations…let’s talk about vaccinations.
Collins:
Well, I’m…you are talking over the top of me.
Let’s get onto vaccinations. That’s what I’m here for, that’s what I ask questions for, that’s what all the opposition members ask questions about because that’s important.
Stewart:
I understand that, Miss Collins. So, I understand that you are vaccinated. How many of the MPs that went down…travelled down to Wellington from the National Party are fully vaccinated?
Collins:
All of those from Auckland are fully vaccinated and the only MP who isn’t vaccinated is from Canterbury – there is no Covid in Canterbury, hasn’t been for over 300 days.
So, everyone in our party, every MP, is either fully vaccinated, half vaccinated or they are booked in for vaccination. We only have a few MPs here because we want to make sure that we don’t have MPs travelling unnecessarily.
But we happen to think that me doing my job here as leader of the opposition is an important job and particularly when we’re not getting the answers from the Prime Minister about the lack of vaccinations in this country.
We are now…yesterday she was skiting in parliament saying we’d gone up one notch in the whole ranking! We’d gone from 120 to 119 – that’s her measure of success.
So, if you think that I’m going to sit back and let that happen and not stand up for New Zealanders – well you’re wrong because I will continue to do it, I will ask the questions, I will stand up for every New Zealander’s right to get the vax because we are certainly not going to get it when you get media asking questions like “And how are you feeling today Prime Minister?”
How about ask the questions for the people of New Zealand?
Stewart:
Miss Collins, you have consistently over the past year and a half called on essential workers to be regularly tested so that they can do their work safely in the community.
Did you get a Covid test before you went down to Wellington?
Collins:
You know very well Indira that I did not do that because I did not want to take it from anyone who needed it.
I have not been in contact with Covid. I have been…actually at home, not going out except for two bouts of exercise and in those cases, Indira, I am a very, very good Covid trace user and…
Stewart:
(Indecipherable)
Collins:
It’s all about me today, isn’t it?
Stewart:
What about your MPs that went to Wellington, did they take a Covid test, did any of them take a Covid test before they went to Wellington?
Collins:
To Wellington from where? I am the only one who’s travelled from Auckland.
Is that…what, you expect…
Stewart:
You just said you had an MP from Christchurch going to Wellington…
Collins:
Well, there’s no Covid there, is there?
Stewart:
Okay, so they didn’t take a test.
I just want to ask you one last question: you have the portfolio for Pacific People…
Collins:
Oh, come on…this is ridiculous!
Stewart:
…yes or no question. It was just a yes or no question. You have the Pacific People’s portfolio and this is an important one these cases are part of this cluster.
What have you done for the Pacific community? Have you been in touch with them since this community outbreak?
Collins:
Well, you know fully well that I’m deeply involved in the Pacific community and what I’m hearing is that they want to get vaccinated – just like every other New Zealander.
So, every day I’m going to be asking about vaccinations because that’s the only way through…
Stewart:
(Interrupts) Have you been directly in touch with them was the question? Because…
Collins:
My husband is Pacifica, I talk to him every day but also Indira, I have contacts in the Pacific community who I contact and I have been contacting.
But when you say the Pacific community, that is such a broad brush, isn’t it?
I haven’t been out to see every Pacific community…
Stewart:
I never said the Pacific community, I said this cluster…I said the community at the heart of this cluster Miss Collins…
Collins:
…Pacific community, Indira, I have been talking to them and they believe, like me, that this country is being let down by a government that’s not vaccinated the people when they should have been vaccinated. And, they’ve refused to bring in the saliva testing or the rapid antigen test thing that people need to have as well.
But, we’ve got now people saying that we’ve got Covid in the community, the government’s plan is that we’d be one notch up – tomorrow we’ll probably be 118 in the world.
We have been let down after all the promises on vaccination – that’s why I have to be here!
I’d rather be with my family like everyone else. But I’ve got a job to do Indira, and particularly if the media don’t want to do that job – and I’d love to hear you ask the Prime Minister about vaccinations, and just ask those questions Indira…
Stewart: Thanks very much for your time Miss Collins, we appreciate your time on this show
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