Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is "terrified of letting go of COVID politics" as that means she'll have to focus on other issues like cost-of-living, ACT's David Seymour says.
New Zealand's COVID-19 settings will be relaxed over the coming two weeks. From Friday night, outdoor gathering limits and QR code scanning will be ditched, while indoor gathering limits will be doubled from a maximum of 100 people to 200. A little over a week later, on April 4, vaccine passes will be scrapped and mandates will be narrowed.
But Seymour told AM on Thursday that the Government isn't going fast or far enough.
"It's not enough for people who are so fatigued, are ready to move on from rules that don't make sense, but find themselves with a Prime Minister who is just terrified of letting go of COVID politics," Seymour said. "We're not making decisions based on public health and whether those restrictions actually stop the spread of COVID."
He pointed to comments by Health Minister Andrew Little who said removing the restrictions would not lead to a rise in hospitalisations.
"[It] seems the only reason for the continued restrictions is the Government is unwilling to admit, some of the things that made us do haven't been working so they're saving face.
"I think they just don't want to get back to the cost-of-living and the problems with housing, problems with crime and poverty that they're going to have to face up to, but not while we still have COVID politics dominating the scene."
At her press conference on Wednesday, Ardern acknowledged that while New Zealand's COVID response had been largely successful in saving lives, it has "also been bloody hard", thanking Kiwis for their "enormous sacrifices" over the last two years.
"There have never been easy options," she said. "Everyone has had to give up something to make this work, and some more than others. Not everyone has agreed with the choices and trade-offs that have been made, and sometimes that’s had a knock-on effect."
Ardern explained that the Government was waiting until April 4 to enact the changes to vaccine passes and mandates as that is when New Zealand should be coming down the other side of the Omicron peak. Cases in Auckland have peaked and modelling suggests the rest of New Zealand should start to observe declines in two weeks.
Meanwhile, the Government has attempted to address issues like skyrocketing cost-of-living, even if the Prime Minister wouldn't initially call it a "crisis". It slashed 25 cents of fuel excise tax last week and halved public transport costs. A number of initiatives also come into effect from April and May that should assist low- and middle-income families, although those have been in the pipeline for months.
Labour was seen as benefiting from Ardern's widely praised crisis management during the first year of the pandemic, but that support has started to subside. As cost-of-living issues have risen, Ardern's party has seen a dip in the polls. One television poll earlier this month placed National ahead of Ardern's party for the first time since the pandemic began.
Following her speech on Wednesday, Seymour said Ardern's lengthy preamble to the announcements showed she can't let go of control.
Some of the COVID measures that will remain, such as indoor gathering limits, will have little impact and continue to hurt business, Seymour said on Thursday.
"We want to fight COVID but that doesn't mean we should do ineffective things just to make it look better. Hospitality has been decimated. Changing the crowd size limit to 200 makes little difference to most venues, stopping people moving between tables just absolutely kills the buzz that most hospitality businesses actually depend on.
"It's not a question of where we're going, eventually we will get our way of life back, move on to be normal again, however, the way the Government is dragging it out seems to be driven more and more by politics than public health."
Indoor gathering limits will only apply at the red level. This is when there is a high number of cases and hospitalisation admissions, such as there is currently. On Wednesday, 20,087 new cases were recorded and 960 people were in hospital.
Ardern on Wednesday said data shows the transmission rate is "relatively low" in hospitality, but close contact remains a "higher risk" indoors.
"You do increase the likelihood of cases for each increase in numbers that you have," the Prime Minister said. "But the analysis we have from our public health team is that 200 represents an increase that will not mean a material impact on our health system or our hospitalisations, but we do know for those hospitality operators, it will have a material impact."
Other than wearing masks indoors, Seymour said all COVID measures should be gone. ACT released a cost-benefit analysis of each setting last month, suggesting that QR code scanning no longer had benefits and vaccine passes were irrelevant due to the high level of vaccination.
"We're being asked to continue following the rules for reasons of political theatre rather than public health and the damage that is doing to people's livelihoods, to businesses up and down the country while places like Sydney across the ditch are on fire getting on with life as normal," he said on Thursday.
It's "not only offensive and insulting", but also "hugely damaging", the party leader said, expecting a recession is likely on the card due to the "needless restrictions".
The adjusted traffic light system and mandates across some high-risk professions will be retained to keep vulnerable people safe and in case of a new variant in the future, Ardern said.
"With our cases coming down it’s time to take our next steps with confidence in the collective immunity and protections we have built up," she said. "These new settings support greater economic activity and get everyone closer to feeling a bit more normal, while also continuing to manage COVID-19 and provide protection and care for those who need it most."
Although ACT believes the changes don't go far enough, the Green Party has taken a different stance, saying the Government instead needs to do more to keep at-risk communities safe.
“This pandemic is not over," COVID spokesperson Teanau Tuiono said.
"We have seen overseas what happens if protections are removed too soon. It is also far too premature to drop vaccine mandates for education, especially in early childhood education where under-5s cannot be vaccinated.
"The Government should be trying to stay ahead of the virus and doing everything we can to avoid a second peak. If we don’t, it will be Māori and Pasifika whānau, immunocompromised people, disabled people, our under-5s, and whānau on the lowest incomes who will be most affected."
The party wants a school-based vaccination programme, more work done alongside Māori and Pasifika leadership to achieve vaccine equity and free N95 or equivalent masks for everyone.
