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Winston Peters says the latest “lockdown” outside the Auckland region “should never have happened”.
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Peters again criticized the government’s response to Covid-19 during today’s campaign. Source: 1 NEWS
Peters again criticized the government’s Covid-19 response while on the election campaign in Kaikoura today.
“The reality is that the lockdown should never have occurred outside the Auckland super city region and that is demonstrably obvious now,” he told reporters.
“Members of the government must explain why this has happened in the South Island, the West Coast and Southland when they transport people from Auckland, but do not allow them to be locked up.”
It has been almost a month since a new Covid-19 cluster caused Auckland to go to alert level 3, signifying the closure of schools and public events. The rest of the nation entered alert level 2 and has remained at that level, even as Auckland’s alert level has been downgraded to what the government calls “Level 2.5”.
Peters also said today that he will continue to shake hands with members of the public when his campaign moves to the North Island.
However, he said he would follow physical distancing protocols while in Auckland.
Peters asked the government, with which his party was in coalition, to explain why it did not order the use of masks and the military in the front line of border control “a long time ago”.
He says this led to New Zealanders “having to live with a gap at our border and quarantine centers and having to go to the 3 and 2.5 closure in Auckland as we speak.”
“They need to explain that. I think the people of New Zealand need to know what happened here.”
Peters had a heated debate with host Jack Tame at TVNZ1’s Q&A on Sunday about why he has only publicly voiced his concerns about the Covid-19 response now that elections are looming.
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The NZ First frontman appeared on Q + A while campaigning in Christchurch. Source: Q + A
Peters said he had raised the issues before, in a Cabinet circumstance, “where it did matter.”
“It hardly helps this far from an election to speak publicly about some kind of coalition dispute.
“The reality was that we got to August 6, where we passed 190 laws, we demonstrated that we could cooperate and when the house was raised we entered an electoral period and that is why I can speak freely now.
“I said that before we went into the confinement we needed the army, and I said that we needed masks, and I said that we needed much stricter controls on what was happening in the quarantine areas.”
