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Empty motorways in Auckland during alert level four. (Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
Empty motorways in Auckland during alert level four. (Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

The BulletinMarch 28, 2022

Two years after lockdown

Contributing writer
Empty motorways in Auckland during alert level four. (Hannah Peters/Getty Images)
Empty motorways in Auckland during alert level four. (Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

Since the country first went into level four, New Zealand and the world has changed in ways both big and small. It’s now Covid World, Justin Giovannetti writes in The Bulletin.

How New Zealand changed since we first locked down.

New Zealanders woke up on March 26, 2020 to a country in lockdown for the first time. Roads were empty, the prime minister asked people to “be kind” and you were. There was an optimism that after one bout of level four, future waves could be avoided. Looking back at The Spinoff’s live updates from that day, you can sense the country’s apprehension and tenacity. We now find ourselves in a much different position. Our third major wave of Covid peaked last week, but over 10,000 omicron cases are still being detected daily. Covid is now with us, likely for a very long time. 1News looked at the two years since that first day of lockdown.

It’s a question of fairness.

I was struck by The Bulletin that came out on March 26, 2020. Alex Braae wrote that the national emergency raised a series of questions of fairness. Two years later, his warnings ring louder than ever. The pandemic would, he wrote, raise issues for employees facing a demand to keep working despite the pandemic. It would put consumers in a difficult spot as supermarket chains raised prices on pretty much everything. It would also cause homeowners and tenants to be direct competition. While he couldn’t have predicted the scope of pandemic restrictions or a future where hundreds of thousands would stay home because they or a family member was sick, each of those warnings came to pass. The Sunday Star-Times wrote yesterday that the cost of living crisis has now reached a point where no hacks are left for low-income households. Even if they cut back on all the expenses they can, the costs of basics alone mean they are falling behind.

Tourists are almost back, but businesses face challenges.

The narrative about reopening isn’t as straightforward as it once seemed. Hayden Donnell reported in Mediawatch that despite looser Covid restrictions, businesses aren’t doing better. After two years of calling for a damn the torpedoes approach to Covid, businesses are getting it. The resulting increase in personal responsibility has revealed an unexpected response. It shouldn’t have. It isn’t government restrictions making people stay home, it’s Covid. That extends beyond New Zealand’s border. While some international tourists will return within the coming months, most are years away, Stuff reports. China remains closed, everyone else is very far away, during a pandemic when flight schedules are still unreliable and catching the virus remains a worry. There’s also a war on.

An orange light is flashing over the rest of the economy.

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The mother of all housing booms is over. Prices fell in 154 suburbs across the country over the past three months, Miriam Bell wrote for Stuff. After growing through lockdowns and new variants of Covid, the housing market has reached a turning point and could drop by as much as 10% this year. Southern farmers are also facing a series of problems, with droughts, staff shortages and omicron outbreaks through the supply chain. It’s a “perfect storm” according to 1News. Meat plants are operating below capacity, some at only half of output.

What the future holds for Aotearoa.

Siouxsie Wiles has written in The Spinoff about what comes next. She remains nervous and disappointed with the government’s decision to bring down restrictions. It’s telling that Wiles now sees Covid through the same lens as HIV. Not the flu. There will be treatments and vaccines to reduce the severity of infections, but many around the world won’t get easy access to them. There will be no return to the pre-Covid world of 2019. Wiles concludes, correctly from my vantage in the press gallery, that the government’s goal now is to keep hospitalisations at a manageable level with the least number of restrictions. That’s very different from the approach of two years ago.

It’s unclear if the government could return the country to that approach again. There’s been commentary in recent days about just how different the prime minister’s recent speeches have been to what they once were. Labour’s most ardent supporters would admit that what was once a masterclass in communication is now clearly not. But why? Writing in Stuff, Janet Wilson has compared the prime minister’s speeches from 2020 and 2022. While Wilson has past connections with National, she’s a PR expert and it’s hard to argue with her conclusions.

Keep going!
A rioter throws a desk on to a fire by the parliamentary playground. (Marty Melville / AFP via Getty Images)
A rioter throws a desk on to a fire by the parliamentary playground. (Marty Melville / AFP via Getty Images)

The BulletinMarch 25, 2022

Investigating the occupation

Contributing writer
A rioter throws a desk on to a fire by the parliamentary playground. (Marty Melville / AFP via Getty Images)
A rioter throws a desk on to a fire by the parliamentary playground. (Marty Melville / AFP via Getty Images)

The opposition has called for an inquiry, but there’s been no move from Labour to review the three week occupation of parliament’s grounds, Justin Giovannetti writes in The Bulletin.

Physical damage to parliament is still being repaired, but what of the deeper damage to democracy.

In the final days of the three week occupation of parliament, prime minister Jacinda Ardern promised that a review of some kind would be held to look into the response. The occupation saw over 100 arrests, 40 police officers injured and mass disruption to the capital. Three weeks after the protest ended in a fiery riot, work is still underway to clean up parliament’s grounds. However, momentum for an inquiry has now stalled and it risks becoming a partisan issue.

Where are the inquiries into the occupation?

Labour members controlling parliament’s justice select committee blocked a request last week by National MPs to hold a hearing into the occupation and riot. RNZ’s Jane Patterson explains the current state of inquiry into the protest. The government said it was waiting on the Independent Police Conduct Authority to confirm whether it’ll look into the protest and what its terms of reference are. The opposition has voiced concerns about leaving an inquiry to the IPCA, which has more experience looking at individual police misconduct than broad situations like the occupation. The police minister confirmed that no discussion has been held at cabinet about a broader review. The IPCA revealed yesterday that it will conduct a year-long investigation tightly focused on police actions, The Dominion Post reports.

The opposition wants parliament to have a role in a wider review.

Speaking with Stuff, National leader Christopher Luxon said a larger inquiry of the occupation is needed. He worries that an IPCA review would look too narrowly at the protest and not at larger issues that need to be examined. It’s about much more than the interactions between police and protesters. There’s the role of the speaker in terms of blasting music and turning on parliament’s sprinklers; misinformation and the lack of warning from the intelligence agencies, as well as the wider impact on Wellingtonians. The prime minister has said she expects parliament will eventually look at its own operations and whether the grounds should remain open to the public in the future. There’s been no indication on when that might happen.

Why did Labour block an inquiry by parliament?

Labour’s justice committee chair, Ginny Andersen, last week obstructed an opposition request to call the police commissioner to front over the occupation. Contacted by Newsroom to explain the decision, Andersen said the prime minister had spoken about the situation and she had nothing to add. Committee chairs are independent from the prime minister’s office and can hold significant power in parliament. As Newsroom’s Jo Moir writes, it’s noteworthy that Andersen didn’t think she had to explain herself to the public. Labour has a majority on all of parliament’s select committees. In the aftermath of the occupation, there are a number of significant ways parliament could respond. The Conversation makes the case for why a new law is required to protect the heart of the country’s democracy.