At every stage during this response, our calls have been ignored, as have many Māori health experts. Resources have been delayed, power has been centralised rather than shared. In Te Paati Māori's COVID policy release in November last year, we anticipated the risks of the Omicron wave and called on the Government to invest heavily in testing and contact tracing capacity, and we recommended a targeted Māori home isolation strategy. Crucially, we called for the establishment of an independent Māori pandemic response group with statutory powers to develop and lead the Māori COVID-19 health response. We never supported the traffic light system. It fails to protect tangata w'enua and vulnerable communities, and it didn't receive support from our people, whether it was iwi leaders, Whānau Ora, or grassroots. Government should have increased testing capacity in the regions and issued home isolation packs, to all w'ānau, with essential supplies.