“The Prime Minister’s concession in Parliament today that she will do a Christmas message to the masses on how, when and which New Zealanders are likely to be vaccinated against Covid-19 is an admission she hasn’t actually got a clear plan of what the rollout will look like,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.
“A wealth of information is coming to hand globally every day about how Covid-19 will be mitigated, but because the Prime Minister and her Government have created an information vacuum New Zealand’s rollout largely remains a matter of needless conjecture.
“The UK population knows a vaccine programme is likely to start this month, while the best Jacinda Ardern was able to say on Monday was ‘around the March date.’
“Even that is looking shaky now, with the Prime Minister telling Parliament she would prefer to ‘speak in terms of quarters.’
“New Zealanders deserve to be told much more. We can’t go into 2021 with so many important unanswered questions.
“The Prime Minister was at pains to say today that there is a plan.
“Her pre-Christmas update will have a be much more detailed than saying there’ll be lots of vaccine, it will be free, and we hope to have most of the population jabbed by the third quarter of 2021.
“It’s clear that much of the world is stealing a march on us.
“The public needs to see some urgency and some detail.”
ENDS