Sir John Key has criticised the Government's Covid-19 response in an opinion piece on Sunday, describing New Zealand as “a smug hermit kingdom”, which Chris Hipkins dismissed as an insult.
In the NZ Herald, the former Prime Minister wrote the Government and public health officials "rapidly" needed their thinking to change and adapt to the fact the virus and its variants were with the world indefinitely.
He said New Zealand's aim should no longer be to "exist in a smug hermit kingdom" and it should get back to allowing Kiwis to travel overseas freely, allow stranded Kiwis to come home without the "lottery" of MIQ, and open up the borders.
"We are literally leaving hundreds and thousands of New Zealanders stateless - they cannot come home."
Sir John said there are "lots of credible ways of getting the country going again and learning to live with the virus", adding "fear is not going to work".
He said the "only way to make [young people] vaccinate is to take away liberties" such as baring access to nightclubs and flights.
"I’m sure that you’ll find they’ll be less worried about whether their arm is going to be magnetised and get to the truth of the situation is if you are vaccinated, then the probability of you dealing with coronavirus in such a way that you’re relatively safe is extremely high.
"It’s about time really that the Government started saying to New Zealanders, 'Look, coronavirus is like pneumonia … It can kill you, but this is the way to protect you and ... force people’s hands to become vaccinated."
His five ideas were as follows:
"This is by no means a complete list of what's possible," he wrote.
"It's simply a few ways to encourage vaccination and to allow New Zealand to rejoin the world that is opening up without us."
The former Prime Minister said it will help them get to "the truth of the situation".
On Q+A on Sunday, presenter Jack Tame asked Hipkins for his thoughts.
He remarked that it was a "great piece of politics" but said many of the things Key was arguing for the Government was already doing.
It was looking at greater movement at the border — an October pilot on returning Kiwis isolating at home — and how it was facilitated.
The Government was also already moving past Level 3 and 4 as a default response for community cases, Hipkins said.
But he was strong on Key describing New Zealand as operating as a "smug hermit kingdom".
"I really don’t agree with him describing New Zealand as a smug hermit kingdom. I think that’s an insult to New Zealanders who have actually achieved some of the highest rates of freedom in the world by going hard and going early when we’ve needed to."
SHARE ME