Maybe we should cut the Wānaka lockdown breach couple some slack

Wednesday, 15 September 2021

William Willis has apologised for flouting lockdown rules.

OPINION: So William Willis has fallen off his high horse, but the rest of us have climbed on it, with social media types issuing death threats, as we shake our heads in disbelief, clenching our frustrated fists.

On the off chance you missed it, Karaka horse breeder Willis and his lawyer friend Hannah Rawnsley used ratlike cunning and legal prowess to breach the level 4 wall, escape Auckland and fly to a holiday home in Wānaka.

And now, their lives are in career-crippling tatters. Rawnsley is only 26, just a few years into a law career. Ah, the folly of youth.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern comments on the Auckland couple who flouted Covid-19 lockdown rules and flew to Wanaka from Auckland.

But she and Willis are not seen as both perpetrators and victims in what has blown into the crime of the century. No, they have been unsaddled on social media, kicked on the ground, and threatened with death.

* Covid-19: Serious health worries for Northland after rule-breakers flee Auckland

* Queenstown mayor wants Wānaka lockdown breach couple to face prosecution

William Willis at the Norwood Cup in 2017.

* Covid-19: Law Society to investigate rule flouting by lawyer who fled to Wānaka

* Wānaka lockdown breach couple named, apologise for 'irresponsible and inexcusable' actions

Here is the question, ladies and gentlemen of the jury of five million - what is the appropriate public reaction to this particular misdemeanour? Death threats are worse than breaching Covid regulations, you could argue.

Who among us can truly say we reached 26 without putting a foot wrong, asked the columnist, who then refused to reveal several personal dumb arse pre-26 moves.

Sadly for Willis and Rawnsley they’ve bungled - nay, possibly mangled their lines - at the worst possible time. When New Zealand is so over Covid-19 and its life ruining restrictions, and its business bashing belligerence, they have swum against the stressed-out national mood, and been drowned.

Even worse for the terrible two, they pushed just about every self-righteous anger button going in these nervous months and years. Here are just some: Aucklanders. Rich. Lawyer. Holiday home. Wānaka. Equestrian. Legal action.

Privilege, everywhere you read.

When all the words used to describe you place you in the upper echelons of society, with almost all beneath you, then you behave as if that’s the case, anger is going to boil over; boil over being a mild term for what’s happened.

Inside the Covid pressure cooker, emotions are prone to run wild. We are all so over it, emotional management is flying out the window.

Bad decisions are being made, so let’s allow Willis and Rawnsley to play that card at the very least. How else to explain seemingly smart people taking dreadful options?

They bungled the trip, then took legal action, rather than apologise. A PR bungle, as well. If they wanted to ensure they generated maximum anger, then good work. Brilliant, in fact.

For all that, we should feel for them. Willis and Rawnsley will be in some form of personal hell right now, with a nation hating on them. It will be an awfulness few experience, and no one is cut out to handle.

“We initially sought name suppression after receiving death threats, and we had genuine fear for our safety,” they said.

They are one step away from the lynch mob. Social media reaction to the Wānaka wander crime – no one has died, no one even got ill – is akin to the modern version of a witch hunt.

Is that the kind of ‘Be Kind, Stay Safe’ nation Kiwis want to be part of? Are ignoring suppression laws and making death threats OK, if you wish to expose an alleged law-breaker? Is that not also disregarding the law, in fact?

Yes, Willis and Rawnsley were silly and privileged. Yes, they did wrong. But on the scale of wrong, how wrong? And if they were wrong to break a law, does that open the floodgates for their critics to ignore others?

Were Willis and Rawnsley worse than – say – a Hamilton man arrested under Covid regulations, found to be in possession of methamphetamine, point bags, cash and drug paraphernalia?

But Meth Man got very little outrage; maybe the social media lynch mob couldn’t find him, but let’s suspect that was not the whole reason.

Up until this week, Willis and Rawnsley might have counted themselves among the more fortunate members of society.

And that good fortune – that privilege if you will – has now rendered them among the most unfortunate.

Instead of hate, maybe we should all thank them for ripping open the level of anger, stress and frustration that is bubbling within each of us over Covid restrictions.

Breach regulations, after this? No one’s going to want to go there. Well they will want to go there (Wānaka), But they won’t.