“The rest of the world is moving on, taking the highway to normality, while we’re strapped in the back waiting,” ACT’s Leader David Seymour says....
“The rest of the world is moving on, taking the highway to normality, while we’re strapped in the back waiting,” ACT’s Leader David Seymour says.
“Over a painful process, we have arrived at the settings ACT’s Move On paper called for in February - the only remaining restrictions concern masks. The problem is, Jacinda’s drawn this out for political purposes without any cost benefit analysis for the last two months of restrictions.
“When I’ve asked her in Parliament how many cases we’ve saved by decimating hospitality and separating families for as long as we have, she could not answer. When I asked Chris Hipkins yesterday about cost benefit analysis, he could not point to any. We’ve put huge costs on people without knowing what the benefits were.
“The Traffic Light system is redundant. The Government has dismantled their own system to the point it has no reason to exist. It was introduced to control crowd limits, encourage vaccination and for contact tracing.
“None of these elements are in play anymore, it’s just a mirage to make it look like the Government is doing something. Why does it still exist, so it can be brought back? What’s the point of keeping a system around if it’s stripped of all meaning? The only remaining answer is politics. It’s there to maintain a sense of fear and control over peoples’ lives.
The real restriction is now the over the top isolation periods. Seven days is far longer than incubation and infection for omicron. It is counterproductive if people avoid testing for fear of isolation. The big opportunity today was to remove the pseudo lockdown that we’ve experienced because they can’t afford to be locked down.
“The Government says they won’t review the traffic light settings until mid-May now. It is pointless political theatre that means nothing.
“I’m thrilled that the hospitality sector can finally dispense with damaging gathering limits and distancing rules. But by staying in Orange Jacinda is sending the message that Kiwis aren’t safe yet, and we can’t afford to let our CBDs remain ghost towns because people have been paralysed by fear from the podium of truth.
“New Zealanders are fed up. It’s time to move on. The traffic light system should go and we need to be moving on with the rest of the world, or we’ll be left in their dust.”