Super Saturday: David Seymour lambasts Government after 'fun but desperate' COVID-19 vaccination drive

Ardern and Seymour.
Jacinda Ardern and David Seymour. Photo credit: Newshub.

ACT Party leader David Seymour believes Super Saturday was a "fun but desperate" event despite the initiative seeing more than 2.5 percent of New Zealanders being vaccinated against COVID-19.

Through an array of strategies, gimmicks and encouragement from politicians and celebrities, 124,669 shots were administered by late in the day.

But of those, only 39,000 were first doses.

Seymour believes the focus of Super Saturday was on hype rather than delivery.

"The second doses were going to get done anyway," he told Newshub. "It's the first doses that matter and Super Saturday was the 21st best day for first doses. That's not significant at all."

Seymour is urging the Government to tell New Zealanders what's next.

"The Government asked for political differences to be put aside yesterday, now it's time for a frank assessment.

"Jacinda Ardern and her Government will likely go into self-congratulation mode now because of a day of feel-good fun. Instead of doing a little dance, they should look to the future."

Super Saturday was a record for total COVID-19 vaccination doses given, beating the previous record of 90,000 - the number officials were hoping to beat.

"We set a target for ourselves, Aotearoa, you've done it, but let's keep going," Prime Minister Ardern said on Saturday. "Let's go for 150. Let's go big or go home."

But Seymour said it's now time for Ardern to "say when" lockdown restrictions will be lifted in Auckland.

"What businesses, school students, and people awaiting vital surgery need is certainty."

ACT is calling for the Government to set a 'Freedom Day' when a certain vaccination threshold is met - like the one in Australia's Sydney. On Monday, after a lockdown lasted over 100 days, pubs, cafes and retail stores reopened in the city to fully vaccinated people after full immunisation levels in New South Wales' adult population crossed 70 percent.

"By December 1, everyone will have had the chance to have had both shots and gained full immunity," Seymour said in a statement.

"At some point, we have to stop waiting for the stragglers, procrastinators, and crazies who believe anything they read online. Once everyone has had the opportunity to be vaccinated, it's time to get on with life.

"ACT has said the date should be December 1. If it's not then, Ardern should say when."

Ardern was asked on Monday if there was a vaccination percentage target in Auckland where restrictions could ease further.

"In the many other conversations I've had with other countries who have used targets, they've all said to me, 'Don't use targets,' and one of the reasons is because they've found that when they've reached those places, they haven't necessarily been in the right place to remove [restrictions]," she told The AM Show.

"Or, who knows? There may be circumstances in which we could move earlier," she said.

There have been 1895 cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand's Delta outbreak, with another 40 infections reported on Saturday.