Jacinda Ardern not expecting apology from Winston Peters after quarantine breach claims

August 14, 2020

Mr Peters claimed in an interview that the current cluster could be linked to a potential quarantine breach.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she has not asked for an apology from Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters "nor would I expect him to" after he claimed that the current Auckland cluster could potentially be linked to a breach in quarantine.

There are currently 29 active cases of Covid-19 linked to the Auckland community cluster, with one further case likely linked but it remains under investigation. 

In an interview with Australian news channel ABC last night, Mr Peters said he had received a tip-off on the potential breach from a New Zealand journalist he called "usually very reliable".

"It wasn't an official, I found out from somewhere else, but I think there's been a breach inside our quarantine system," he said.

Mr Peters said while "a lot of the conversation and a lot of the narrative is speculation," the country should know "the exact details of what happened".

"I think, when that comes out very shortly, in a matter of maybe less than a day, we'll find out that was the case, but you don't always find out from your officials, you don't always find out from the experts - it's something you sort of find out by contact with other people," he said.

In a press conference announcing the Government's decision to extend the lockdown, Ms Ardern said the current evidence does not reflect a potential breach in the system.

"The evidence is telling us at the moment that none of the genome testing that's been carried out to date - and that is available to us, of those cases we've had in our managed isolation - can currently be linked back to the cases we have," she said.

"That's the evidence that we have and so that is what I will be basing all our decisions and assumptions around."

Ms Ardern said she has not asked Mr Peters for an apology following the interview and "nor would I expect him to".

"He is free to give his own interviews," she said. "You can expect that I'll continue just to reflect back what the evidence is showing - that is what we rely on to determine where the source of this thing is.

"Although we haven't yet found that source, we will continue looking very, very hard, despite the lack of a current link."

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