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Parker defends urgent

Attorney-general David Parker has defended the Government’s hastily passed Covid-19 traffic light law, saying it would have been impossible to avoid a 24-hour urgent lawmaking spree.

‘‘We should not let the choices of a few hold back New Zealand’s progress towards a safer and freer future,’’ he said, in a speech to

Victoria University’s Centre for Public Law yesterday.

The Government last week passed legislation that would seriously curb the freedoms of unvaccinated people in an urgent lawmaking session to ensure the Covid-19 Response (Vaccinations) Legislation Bill was in place for today when the new ‘‘traffic light system’’ comes into force.

The urgent passing of the law, which also legislates for vaccine mandates, was condemned as poor lawmaking by Opposition MPS, legal experts and the Human Rights Commission.

Law professors have also questioned the Government’s broad drafting of the law.

‘‘It’s easy for a lot of people outside of Auckland to forget the pressure of 100 days under lockdown, and every extra day on lockdown ... further frayed the social consensus that we’ve relied upon to overcome the virus so far,’’ Parker said, speaking to reporters afterward.

He said there had been a ‘‘remarkably quick transition’’ from when the Delta variant emerged in New Zealand in August, to bringing the traffic light system into force today.

And there had been ‘‘under the hood’’ – consultation with sectors, policy work, software creation – that needed to occur before the draft legislation could be produced.

‘‘If we could have done it a week earlier, we would have ... there’s been no delay in any stage of the process here.’’

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2021-12-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-12-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281543704206561

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