We’re free! Delight as Covid cuffs snap off
Ardern cops some flak over timing of her level 1 announcement
Auckland businesses are rejoicing that their city is restriction-free this weekend after the City of Sails was moved into alert level 1 yesterday.
The decision, announced by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, meant level 2 restrictions ended at midday. That meant spectators could gather in larger groups to see the afternoon’s America’s Cup race.
But Ardern drew fire from some businesses over the delay between Cabinet making the decision and its announcement. And she was also forced to defend her fiance´, Clarke Gayford, who took to Twitter yesterday commenting on the process.
Ardern thanked Aucklanders for their sacrifices while the city was at level 3 then 2, but also warned to “work hard to maintain the position we have all worked so hard for”.
Auckland Mayor Phil Goff said to temper celebrations with awareness of the virus’ rampant nature.
He reiterated his calls for Aucklanders — with a particular focus on South Aucklanders — to get the vaccine as soon as possible.
Restaurant Association chief executive Marisa Bidois said the return to level 1 would allow “our Auckland-based businesses to recoup some revenue after prolonged periods of restricted trading”.
But she was upset Cabinet made the decision on Thursday night when it was not announced until just before midday yesterday. Ardern defended that, saying Cabinet had made a “preliminary decision” on Thursday night. It meant ministers decided that if yesterday’s data wasn’t bad news, Auckland would move out of level 2.
There were no new community cases yesterday and all the relevant testing information for the close contacts of the last community Covid-19 case has come back negative.
Because of this, Ardern moved Auckland into level 1. But, this time it was done in a way that was “a little unusual”. Instead of a movement occurring at midnight, Auckland moved to level 1 at midday — 25 minutes after the announcement was made.
“We’re not waiting until midnight, because we’ve got those morning results.”
Because Cabinet had met and made the in-principle decision the night before, the executive orders to move Auckland down to level 1 had already been drafted.
Meanwhile, she was forced to defend Gayford’s social-media activity.
Former Wellington chef Martin Bosley said on Twitter: “Feeling really sorry for all Auckland Hospo having to wait until 11.30am today to find out about moving levels. It’s utterly ludicrous.”
This prompted a response from Gayford: “Martin an inprinciple [sic] decision was decided but its all pending on final test results today.”
Ardern pushed back on any suggestion Gayford had been forewarned of the alert level decision.
“He has not known the decision,” she said, adding that this information was in “the public domain”.
Various ministers, including Grant Robertson, Chris Hipkins and Stuart Nash had been asked about the delay between the decision being made and it being announced. But none specifically said Cabinet was considering making an “in-principle” decision.
“Cabinet is meeting tonight and the reason for that was to simply facilitate an announcement on Friday,” Robertson said Thursday. “When we make these decisions there are sometimes further pieces of work that are required — we didn’t want there to be any delay on Friday so we are having the meeting this evening.”
Senior minister David Parker did tell the AM Show, that an “inprincipal decision” had been made, however those comments came after Gayford’s tweet — which went live at 7.02am.