The Prime Minister must urgently rule out the Director-General of Health’s comments this morning that Level 4 restrictions were being actively considered for Auckland despite the Government saying only days ago there would be no return to Level 4, says National Party Leader Judith Collins.

“How can we have the Covid-19 Response Minister ruling out a return to Level 4 one day and the Director-General of Health saying it is was being actively considered the next? This is descending into farce and the Prime Minister must come clean with New Zealanders.

“Aucklanders are in their ninth week of lockdown with no end in sight and no certainty or reassurance from their missing-in-action Prime Minister, who clearly has no idea how dire the situation is in Auckland. Ambiguous musings about returning to Level 4 from the Director-General of Health create a huge amount of stress and uncertainty for locked-down Aucklanders.

“If the Director-General of Health is going to be wheeled out on a Monday morning to set the scene for the 4pm announcement then he needs to get his lines straight.

“The Prime Minister repeatedly says the Government takes all his official health advice, but in contrast he has said that not all his advice is taken and that, ‘It’s like a marriage. You might disagree behind closed doors, but you don’t do it out in public.’

“I’m calling on the Prime Minister to urgently release, in full, all the public health advice that the Government claims it is basing its decision on so we can have confidence in the decisions they are making on our behalf.”

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