The Prime Minister sent a message on Monday to protesters who have been occupying Parliament’s lawns for two weeks, while rejecting any notion that she would engage with them “on the day that protesters have thrown human waste at police”.
"Everyone is over Covid, no one wants to live with rules or restrictions,” Jacinda Ardern said in a speech outlining the easing mandates and restrictions in the future on Monday afternoon.
“But had we not all been willing to work together to protect one another, then we all would have been worse off as individuals, including losing people we love.”
She said this had not happened in New Zealand for the most part, which was a fact worth celebrating and not protesting over.
As for whether she would meet representatives from the protest, the Prime Minister said she didn’t have plans to at this time.
“On the day that protesters have thrown human waste at police as they have sought to simply bring law and order to Wellington … the suggestion we would then engage, with that kind of behaviour, I just reject.”
Ardern said her speech on Monday around the future of restrictions and mandates was "absolutely not" in response to the protest.
“We all want to go back to the way life was. And we will, I suspect sooner than you think.
“But when that happens, it will be because easing restrictions won’t compromise the lives of thousands of people [and] not because you demanded it.
“Now is not the time to dismantle our hard work and preparation, to remove our armour just as the battle begins,” Ardern said.
Ardern said it was time for those occupying Parliament to leave.
New Zealand recorded 2365 new community Covid-19 cases on Monday, and two further deaths of people with the virus.
Ardern said cases looked to be doubling every three to four days, and that many Kiwis would soon know people who have caught Covid-19.
“There was a time when that was a scary prospect. But it doesn’t have to be now.”
That was because the country was highly vaccinated, which meant Covid-19 would be a mild to moderate illness for most people, Ardern said.
“Even though for some people Covid will still be more severe, we’re using public health measures like masks, gathering limits and vaccine passes to slow down the spread to ensure there is a hospital bed for everyone who needs it.”
She said vaccine passes were necessary for the meantime, but that they were temporary.
She would not give a date for when they would be phased out, but that it would happen when “we are well beyond the peak” of the Omicron outbreak and that the pressure on the health system was manageable.
“Vaccine passes were a way of ensuring that within the relatively free system of the traffic tights, that people who were in high-risk places had some layer of protection.
“But, once we come through a wave and peak of Omicron, that equation changes because many unvaccinated people will at that point have been exposed to the virus.
“Put simply, the reason we will be able to move away from vaccine passes and many mandates is because more people will have had Covid.”
Earlier on Monday, National leader Christopher Luxon delivered a speech criticising the Government’s Covid-19 response.
He said there was an “increasingly divided society”.
"What we are seeing outside Parliament, and the reaction to it, is the culmination of underlying issues that have been rumbling along in our communities for some time.
"It’s driven by Covid and vaccine mandates, yes, but the frustrations shared by many Kiwis are also driven by a Government that seems to be stalling,” the Botany MP said.
“They want to know when gathering limits will be lifted and when events can run again. They don’t need the exact dates. But, they want to know the Government’s got their back and is being proactive, not letting Covid set the agenda by just waiting and seeing.”
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