The South Island of New Zealand has had zero cases of the Covid-19 Delta variant but the government has prolonged the misery for everyone, taking three weeks to return the island to Alert Level 2. However, this isn’t the Alert Level 2 New Zealanders had become familiar with prior to the Delta variant lockdown.
While masks are now not required while people are eating and drinking in bars and cafes, a severe cut in the maximum number of customers inside a premises ensures that being open is dangerously uneconomic. Previous Level 2 restrictions allowed up to 100 people to be inside a venue but that maximum has now been cut to 50. If the venue has an outdoor area, then they can have up to 100 customers, but extra toilets must also be available in the outside area.
It isn’t just the restrictions causing pain for businesses but also the increased uncertainty created by a government without a plan changing the rules at short notice, and the complex processes for getting financial assistance. The wage subsidy is available for businesses impacted by Alert Level 3 and 4 who expect a drop in revenue of greater than 40%. Those businesses now in Alert Level 2 can apply for the Covid 19 Resurgence Support Payment if they have already experienced a decrease in revenue of more than 30% over the previous 7 days. Opening at Alert Level 2 is a gamble which must be lost before assistance can be applied for.
The owner of Brew Union in Palmerston North, Murray Cleghorn, says his bar was losing money while open under the previous Alert Level 2, so if the new tougher restrictions remain in place for long then he cannot see a future for his bar. He says that as most countries begin to resign themselves to Covid 19 being endemic, New Zealand will have to do the same because frequent, sudden and short-notice changes in trading rules make running a business close to untenable.
Auckland will continue to remain in Alert Level 4 until at least Tuesday 14 September. However, when Auckland eventually returns to Level 2 and no other part of New Zealand is in Level 3 or higher, the wage subsidy scheme ends. That has led to a group of 30 hospitality venue owners in Auckland stating that they will not open until the city has returned to Level 1. Headquarters owner and Auckland Mayoral candidate Leo Molloy advocates that businesses refuse to pay GST during Alert Level 2, something he did himself during a previous lockdown.
Businesses doing it tough face public vilification from the likes of journalists and highly-paid public servants whose salaries continue to be paid regardless of lockdown alert levels. Stuff.co.nz has the most notorious of these so-called journalists, one who stalked a small group of people meeting at a boat club shortly after the entire country was sent into Level 4. Not only did Stuff attempt to publicly expose the people whom they labelled ‘alt-right’ without providing any evidence but they also called the police to come and arrest the group.
University of Canterbury law professor Annick Masselot ensured she attained her 15 minutes of fame with a rant about customers eating at Bakermans in Christchurch. Masselot described the busy cafe as being “like a rave party for over 70s,” adding “what I saw at the coffee shop truly horrified me. Jacinda would be weeping.”
We can only hope.
Stuff is clearly on a mission to increase its readership by inciting Covid anxiety and outrage, and, while the team of five million is an Orwellian myth, there are enough New Zealanders who thrive on following and helping enforce lockdown restrictions to make this a profitable strategy. Masks are not compulsory for people eating at a cafe or restaurant but that doesn’t prevent Jacinda Ardern’s fanclub from going to the media, as state-funded media organisations aren’t fussy about facts.
Stuff has been sending journalists to businesses on snooping missions. When visiting the Bohemian Bakery in Canterbury, Stuff reported that ‘observers’ had told them only one in seven customers were scanning in. One in seven? I don’t necessarily doubt the accuracy of that statistic but only the most miserable attention-starved cretins would bother measuring it and providing it to a reporter.
New Zealand’s geography has afforded it an isolation from the worst impacts of the virus but this isolation is not sustainable. Even Australia, which initially succeeded in eliminating the virus and keeping it out of the community, is now pondering a future in which the virus is managed rather than eliminated. Even lockdown hardballers such as Victoria Premier Dan Andrews are finally talking about aiming for a threshold of vaccinated Australians rather than elimination of the virus. Eventually, New Zealand will have to do the same.