Covid youth message criticised as too broad
Too old, too stale, not very Ma¯ ori – and way too long.
The Government’s Covid-19 messaging has been slammed as irrelevant to young people despite the latest Auckland cluster being based around a high school.
It comes as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern ramps up rhetoric about personal responsibility in new cases that launched the latest lockdown. On Monday, Ardern said prosecution was a matter for police not politicians, but Covid-19 success was based on low rates of tolerance for rule breaking in New Zealand. She called for people to make sure family and friends were following the rules.
The Government was working ‘‘in earnest’’ to make sure the message on the rules was getting out across all media, and not just in English. The Government was using the Ministry for Pacific
Peoples, Te Puni Ko¯ kiri and Office of Ethnic Communities (OEC) to get messages out.
Papatoetoe High School was at the centre of last month’s outbreak. Case M, whose week-long activity while infectious triggered the latest lockdown, was only 21. A sibling attended the school, and it has been revealed that the mother had visited the second home in the cluster.
Ma¯ori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said the messaging needed to come from other young people. ‘‘People who they can affiliate and relate to . . . ‘‘
She said a 21-year old had been ‘‘put out there’’ for everyone to find out about. ‘‘Our rangatahi need to be encouraging each other to stay home and to not be whakama¯ [shy] about getting tested.’’
Te Atatu¯ resident Katene DurieDoherty, 26, said he did not think there had been any communication targeted towards younger people. ‘‘It’s very much been a very broad, one-size-fits-all approach.’’
He said the Government needed to deploy the likes of specialised communications staff – ‘‘by rangatahi, for rangatahi’’.
‘‘The thing is we can’t really all go in on a 21-year-old. We don’t really know what the wraparound is around him, the communication that’s been delivered to him. He might just not know.’’
Minister for Diversity, Inclusion and Ethnic Communities Priyanca Radhakrishnan said the Government had translated Covid-19 messages into about 20 languages. Radhakrishnan, also Youth Minister, was confident the ministry was engaging with youth organisations. ‘‘But equally if you’re hearing that perhaps we can do it in ways that are more accessible for young people . . . then that is something that I will pass on to the ministry.’’
Greens MP Teanau Tuiono, who grew up in South Auckland, said the 400,000 people in the city were already ‘‘carrying the can’’ for the rest of the country. ‘‘The MIQ hotels are there, and the workers are all based in South Auckland. It’s the policy failures of the people delivering the message ... we’ve got to get down to the grassroots ... and also I’m mindful there’s a massive language diversity in South Auckland.’’
A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health responded with the following: The ministry works with Cause Collective, Pacific Media Network and Ministry for Pacific Peoples to communicate with Pacific communities.
All information and messaging is translated into 23 languages.
The ministry works with iwi communications professionals and Ma¯ori creative agencies. ‘‘These groups provide insights and guidance on how to best reach Ma¯ ori communities.’’
Ethnic media respond positively to translated content made up of short messaging – they can publish it immediately on news websites, and in the case of Chinese media and community groups, on Weibo social media profiles.