ACT and Te Pāti Māori say the protest outside Parliament are the "concentrated form" and "manifestation" of frustration in New Zealand.
The protest is in its seventeenth day.
ACT leader David Seymour and Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer shared their thoughts on the protest with Breakfast on Thursday.
Seymour, who was condemned for meeting with protesters by the prime minister and National leader Christopher Luxon, said the meeting had been "engage on certain terms".
He thought Parliament shouldn't engage with protesters while Wellingtonians were affected by the protesters' occupation around Parliament.
"You can't talk about restrictions when you're hemming in people trying to go about their lives," he said of protesters.
"You can't talk about civil liberties when some people around the fringe of the protest are threatening others. So there has to be some conditions. Clear the streets, then we can talk," he said.
"The next thing is, I think the protest is really just the concentrated form of frustrations people have up and down New Zealand.
"Ultimately politicians, and that means the Government but also Opposition, we need to solve those underlying frustrations with a Covid response that doesn’t make sense anymore, that is too expensive, and isn’t working," he criticised.
Ngarewa-Packer said the protest "is the Government's problem".
"This is a consequence, I agree, of a manifestation of uncertainty, of huge frustration, and no direction," she said.
"So what the Government needs to do and what it should have done, not just for the people that are protesting in Wellington, for the rest of Aotearoa, is tell us what’s next.
"What we need to know now is when does this end? When are you looking to do this? How are you going to provide this?"
"The hurt and the trauma is coming out now," Ngarewa-Packer reflected.
Their comments are along the same vein to those of Luxon.
Luxon said last week the protest was "symptomatic of immense frustration" in the country and in a speech on Monday said an "increasingly divided society" existed.
"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," Luxon said.
He said it was driven by Covid and vaccine mandates, but also, "the frustrations shared by many Kiwis are also driven by a Government that seems to be stalling".
National's leader defended his comments on Wednesday after the prime minister said he'd come "dangerously close to sympathy" for protest groups.
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