Simon Bridges has defended his stance on wanting to bring the alert level down sooner, after being "obliterated" on a Facebook post.
Mr Bridges posted criticism of the Government's decision to extend Alert Level 4 another five days on his personal Facebook page - that has 49,000 followers - yesterday.
In the post, he claimed the "Government hasn’t done enough and isn’t ready by its own standards and rhetoric", saying it should have been ready to bring the country down to Alert Level 3 at the end of the four-week period in Alert Level 4.
The post has so far received 23,000 comments, with many of them being uncomplimentary to the National Party leader.
"I did not Vote Labour but what I am proud of is the way Jacinda has lead us through this unprecedented time," one person wrote in a comment which has had over 6000 reactions.
"Thank goodness Simon your not leading us through this because I’d put my hand on my heart and believe we would be in a worse situation," the comment continued.
"I’m a proud National voter but I think you’re wrong. Amazing leadership shown by Ardern. I much prefer a bit longer in level 4 to reduce the risk of going backwards later on," another wrote.
Mr Bridges was asked about the reaction to his post at Parliament today, with one journalist saying he had been "obliterated" online for his stance.
"There will be a bunch of different views, I know there's views online, but what's also true is they are more than matched by over 50,000 people who contacted me in relation to our quarantine petition, wanting us to fight for that and we had a lot of success on that," Mr Bridges said.
He went on to say hundreds of people - including small business owners - have been contacting him every day wanting National to "ask the questions and stand up for them."
Mr Bridges said many of them say they feel like "sacrificial lambs" as the lockdown impacts their livelihoods.
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