The National Party is calling on the Government to scrap the traffic light system, pre-departure testing, and to begin phasing out vaccination mandates once borders are open to Australians in April.
It also wants to immediately drop requirements for vaccine pass checks except at large indoor events, requirements for QR code scanning, and to shorten isolation periods to five days.
Chris Bishop says scanning in makes ‘no sense’ anymore, and vaccine passes should be dropped for all but the most high-risk indoor settings. (Source: 1News)
National's Covid-19 spokesperson Chris Bishop said mandates had caused "a real sense of division in New Zealand".
"Many unvaccinated people have been excluded from society - 13-year-olds who can't play rugby with their mates, people who have lost jobs, and people unable to go out to dinner," he said.
"Vaccine passes and mandates made sense under Delta. They don't under Omicron."
Bishop said that the party would also support immediately removing all mandates for people aged under 18.
He said there was no longer a public health rationale for vaccine passes and that they were now "putting unjustified limits on people's rights".
"It will be logistically impossible to apply the vaccine pass system to Australians anyway, and we'll be a month on from the Omicron peak by then."
The party's leader Christopher Luxon said it would be time to return to normality for Kiwis after the Omicron peak.
"As we come through the peak of Omicron, it's time to phase out restrictions and allow people to get back to normal," he said.
"This is particularly important for businesses, which have often borne the brunt of restrictions like gathering limits, vaccine passes and scanning in."
Bishop said the restrictions from the traffic light system could be reinstated if the risk brought by the virus changes.
"The Government's instinct should be to remove restrictions on normal life as soon as they’re no longer justified, not to hang on to them until there is zero risk," he said.
However, Bishop would not support removing isolation periods entirely for Covid-19 household contacts and said they remained "important to limit spread".
He added that rapid antigen testing and mask wearing indoors would also be "important".
The ACT Party has previously suggested removing self-isolation periods entirely with a test-to-release scheme for household contacts rather than a specified isolation period.
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