Dear John,
When I last wrote to you on 30 January there were 103 Omicron cases that day and it had just started to spread through the community. Today there were nearly 2000 new case and every day now brings a new record number of new daily cases. Omicron is milder than delta and the original strain of COVID but it is incredibly infectious, so it’s going to spread fast. Here in the Hutt we’ve just ticked over 100 cases.
New Zealand is now going to do what ever other country has had to do - live with COVID. It’s clearly going to be a bumpy few months, and unfortunately we’ve seen a very haphazard response from government. The big issue is the lack of access to rapid testing, which you probably know I’ve been banging on about for a while (my first press release on this subject was a year ago!). I’m getting lots of reports about testing stations being overwhelmed, with people waiting 4-6 hours for nasal tests (if they can be bothered lining up at all), and very long times for results. Please drop me a message if you’d like to share your story. This was always inevitable with Omicron, but the government hasn’t got a enough rapid tests so that people can get one instead of a nasal PCR test. Unfortunately they only started ordering in early January and now we’re running short. It’s all immensely frustrating because exactly the same thing happened in Australia, and we should have learned from their experience. We didn’t.
Omicron’s spread is going to cause major disruption to schools and businesses, with cases and their close contacts having to isolate. One simple thing the government could do is allow asymptomatic close contacts to return to work each day with a daily rapid test. The government is allowing this for “critical” workers but the distinction is ridiculous – why aren’t all businesses able to access the scheme? For that matter, why can’t schools access the scheme? A number of schools have contacted Erica Stanford and I complaining they want access to rapid testing so they don’t have to close – but they’re not allowed.
To make matters worse, in the last couple of weeks the government has been confiscating rapid tests from private businesses that ordered them late last year/early this year. When I was contacted by some of these businesses, I couldn’t believe it – particularly when the government then denied it, despite all the evidence. So having incompetently not ordered enough to begin with, the government then went around and nicked tests from the private sector!
With omicron here and spreading, our border is finally changing too. MIQ has caused immense human misery, and the end to it can’t come soon enough. People may disagree, but I think one of the most unfortunate effects of the pandemic has been the growing insularity of New Zealanders. I’ve been surprised by the number of people basically totally unsympathetic to Kiwis stuck offshore who can’t return to their own country; something I suspect everyone has always taken for granted. With omicron here we need to re-engage with the world. The government’s slow plan is a start; but we need to move quickly to reduce down isolation periods and then get rid of them altogether; so we can get tourism back up and running.
The other issue omicron presents is the future of the Traffic Light Framework, mandates and vaccine passes. Under delta using vaccine passes and mandates made sense, because the vaccine was effective at preventing transmission of COVID. But the latest evidence is that while vaccination is very important individually at reducing the chance you’ll end up in hospital (so please get boosted!), it has less effect on transmission under omicron. For example of the 1500 odd new cases yesterday, 1250 of them were vaccinated. That raises questions about the future of passes and mandates. I spoke about this in Parliament last year and again on Wednesday. Mandates do have to end at some point - the question is how and when, and that's something the PM just won't engage on. She needs to.
The protest/occupation at Parliament in the last 10 days has brought the issues of mandates into stark relief. A couple of comments. First, I’ve been a bit surprised by the calls for MPs to go and meet with the protestors, carte blanche. When they turned up at Parliament they wrote “hang’em high” in chalk, there have been photos of nooses, talk of revolutions, abuse of schoolkids for wearing masks, and blatant illegality such as blocking Wellington streets. I've had a number of local businesses in the area contact me who are losing customers who are rightly incredibly annoyed about what's happening. I strongly support the right to protest but this quickly went well beyond that. It’s also hard to “meet protestors” when it’s unclear what the actual demands are or even who the leaders are – there’s a whole range of views there.
Yesterday Christopher Luxon said that National is willing to engage with protesters’ representatives should they become peaceful and law abiding, clear Wellington’s streets, and stop their abusive behaviour. Let's see what the response is. I think that's a pretty reasonable request.
One thing I hope we can all agree is that Trevor Mallard's behaviour towards the protestors was childish, embarrassing, and counterproductive. National has lodged a motion of no confidence in him, which is on the Parliamentary order paper. Sadly, the government will almost certainly continue to support him.
At the risk of going on too long, the cost of living is really starting to bite. Inflation was up 5.9% last year, the highest rate in 30 years, and you can see it everywhere, whether it’s petrol or food prices. One big area is rents – and I couldn’t believe this when I read the stats, but it’s true – the average rent in the Hutt is up $200 per week in the last four years. Yep, that’s right - $50 per week, per year, for four years. Quite extraordinary and it’s really having an effect on Hutt families. Our Hutt housing crisis is getting worse, not better – the average house is now over $1 million, the social housing waiting list is still at record levels, and kids grow up in Hutt motels.
Parliament is in recess next week so you’ll see me out and about in the Hutt. As always if you’d like to talk to me about anything, drop me an email or contact my offices to set up an appointment.
Have a great weekend.
Chris
P.S The saga with Transmission Gully drags on and on. No leadership from government. We just want the road open!
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Why can't we have rapid tests properly available in New Zealand?
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I did love this photo from the Waitangi Day pub crawl in London - New Zealanders wearing MIQueue shirts.
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Doing my monthly clean-up of my section of Waiwhetu Stream.
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Great new coffee cart in the Hutt. On the Grind, 297 High St by Value Motors. Dee will make you a great brew. Friendly service and she even put on some drum ‘n bass for me!
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Extraordinary scenes at Parliament
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Labour came to power promising to fix the housing crisis in the Hutt. The promised 300 KiwiBuild homes have never arrived. Instead, the following has happened:
- The average house in the Hutt is now over a million dollars – $1,035,592
- Median rents up from $375 to $575 per week since October 2017
- An increase from 198 clients on the Social Housing Register in September 2017 to 588 clients in September 2021
- $25.6 million has been spent since December 2017 in Lower Hutt alone on emergency housing
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Launching National's Plan for Omicron with Christopher Luxon in Queenstown.
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Trevor Mallard's actions towards the protestors were childish, embarrassing and counterproductive.
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