Rebellions of the ordinary troubled by the haphazard rolling out of traffic lights

Across the motu a quiet rebellion is taking place as the lure two months ago of more freedoms under the traffic light system has been replaced with the reality that we’ve become de facto police officers, forced to monitor who we have into our homes and businesses. And the consequences for not doing so are grave; up to six months in prison and a maximum $12,000 fine.

It would be easy to characterise this rebellion as the work of frothing anti-vaxers and the obstinate hesitant among us, but it’s not quite as simple as that. There are also those who are simply troubled by the traffic light system’s ongoing impositions on Kiwis.

News this week that named those businesses which were not opening under the traffic light system further exacerbated the usand-them-ism that now prevails.

Small business owners, in announcing to customers they were taking the click-and-collect option, spoke about discrimination, inclusivity and values.

However, most businesses seem happy to comply with the new regime, after the Government dropped its 100-page Health Order outlining the labyrinthine rules around the traffic light system less than 48 hours before they were to come into effect, a move that provided more evidence the great government scramble continues.

Those rules extend to who you can have in your home, with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet decreeing it’s not enough to assume everyone is double-jabbed; you are legally obliged to check each attendee’s My Vaccine Pass.

Prepare for the prospect of a fraught Christmas lunch as drunk uncle proudly declares his nonvaxed status and tells you to put it where the sun don’t shine when you try and oust him from the party.

What are the politicians going to do – send in the vaccine police? Hardly. After yet another ghastly year, many will simply take the easy road and quietly chow down on their Christmas lunch.

Or maybe authorities are relying on that most ignoble of qualities, snitching, to police the unvaxed?

Either way, it seems unfeasible to be checking each smartphone as guests arrive at your party.

There was further evidence of us-and-them-ism this week in a notso-quiet rebellion from iwi, who asked that the unvaxed stay away from their rohe when the Auckland borders lift on December 15, to protect those in their communities who are unjabbed.

A Bay of Islands iwi and a coalition representing three iwi from Golden Bay have politely disinvited the unvaxed, while a Far North iwi has closed the campsite at Maitai Bay.

This other-ism has predictably led to an upsurge in black market sales of that ticket to freedom for the unvaxed – the vaccine pass.

Passes were available this week on a social media platform for $10, with payment in Bitcoin currency – a move which highlighted just how easy they are to copy and ensuring the policing of passes is going to be one big hot mess for business.

The Government had advised it was optional to verify vaccine passes, as was checking photo ID, while the Ministry of Health’s national digital services manager, Michael Dreyer, said the opposite.

This lack of clarity will further fuel the uncertainty and fear that’s driving our exhausted nation, only encouraging us to ignore the rules, whatever they are.

Meanwhile, spare a thought for that most shunned category of Kiwis – expats who have been vaccinated overseas. With the traffic light system now in place, they’ve been told they’ll have to wait 14 days before their vaccination status can be processed, which means any prospect of freedom for them is delayed.

Having had to penetrate Fortress New Zealand and the MIQ system to enter their own country, on Wednesday they faced a stern dressing-down from Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins, who blamed them for supplying their details at the last minute and said it was slowing the system down. He did proffer an olive branch by saying they could get a temporary pass. Given the difficulty the vaccinated in Aotearoa have already had in downloading their passes, good luck with that.

The haphazard rolling out of the traffic light system, with various regions only being informed if they were in red or orange at the beginning of the week, coupled with the fact that the Public Health Orders that underpin the system were only published less than two days before the rollout, could be seen as evidence of a Government that has lost control of the narrative, and along with it, the trust of the electorate.

With the newly mutated Omicron variant on the horizon, that only means one thing; that our war is about to enter a new, more perilous phase.