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.”