Auckland Business Chamber boss says still 'no criteria' for alert level decisions

Monday, 14 September 2020

The current Covid alert levels will remain in place until next week, but level 1 is scheduled to return to the country outside Auckland next Monday.

Auckland Business Chamber chief executive Michael Barnett says he would have liked to have seen the Government drop Auckland down to ‘alert level 2’ and the rest of the country to level 1.

Barnett said an announcement on Monday that Auckland would instead stay at Covid-19 level 2.5 for at least another week was a case of “more pain with no gain”.

Businesses had no certainty or ability to plan, Barnett said.

“We still don’t know the criteria and the rules to give us back our lives and livelihoods,” Barnett said.

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Auckland faces at least another week at ‘level 2.5’.

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“What is it that they are waiting for? No cases for an unknown number of days? Acceleration of testing? What are they going to do in this extra week? Tell us rather than prolonging the agony.”

Auckland Chamber of Commerce chief executive Michael Barnett says it is not clear how decisions over Covid alert levels are being made.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson said the latest data suggested that, following the drop down from ‘level 3’, economic activity in Auckland was bouncing back to that seen during ‘level 1’.

Auckland card spending under level 2.5 had rebounded and heavy traffic in Auckland was now higher than during the same time a year ago, he said.

But Barnett said he didn’t think the bounce in consumer spending was “a panacea for lifting an economy that is still stalled with some sectors and businesses likely to fail”.

Cabinet has agreed “in principle' that the rest of New Zealand should move to alert level 1 in a week.

But New Zealanders “beyond the Bombay Hills” must be bitterly disappointed that they had to remain under restrictions, Barnett said.

“There’s evidence that inter-regional travel by Aucklanders has been safe with no spread of the virus,” he said.

Robertson said a “consistent health response” meant the country would get a head-start on the economic recovery.

”While it is difficult for anyone to make predictions with any certainty at the moment, what we do know is that New Zealand will remain in one of the best economic and fiscal positions in the world coming out of Covid-19.”