Kate Hawkesby: Yesterday's press conference was disingenuous and plain cruel

You knew when the PM started selling the idea that we should be so grateful not to be going into level 4, that the mind games were on, and she was going to make Level 3 sound like a picnic. 
And picnics as it turns out, is all we got. Two more weeks of them. 
I could not have called this more wrong. Yesterday, I optimistically said they’d definitely free up some restrictions. I thought a zoo or a museum or the odd library may get thrown a bone. 
How wrong I was. Two more weeks at Level 3 for Auckland, and the announcement that a slew of announcements will be dripfed over the coming week. If we thought we were living week by week on dripfed news by the Government, it just got worse. It’s now day by day. We are being dictated our terms, and our lives, in 24-hour cycles. 
Here in Auckland, we’ve been locked down for 63 days now. Ten weeks. We are 89 percent vaccinated single dose, 71 percent double dose. The bulk of us, bar Destiny Church and the odd North Shore party goer, are abiding the rules. 
This is infuriating. It smacks of a PM who is so disconnected from her own electorate; she hasn’t been in Auckland for months, her platitudes from the cosy level 2 Beehive in Wellington thanking Aucklanders are falling on deaf and increasingly annoyed ears. 
The PM’s giggling at questions with the Wellington-centric press gallery who sound equally out of touch with Auckland, is increasingly nauseating. It alienates every single person she’s asking to do the hard graft. 
The response seriously lacks an Auckland connection yet Aucklanders are the ones bearing the brunt of this nightmare. Apart from the glib ‘hey thanks Auckland’ the Government shows no sign whatsoever of understanding what this is truly like. 
I can tell you as an Aucklander sitting watching this unfold, into week 10 of home schooling and watching businesses fall over all around us, it’s not remotely funny. None of it’s amusing. If ever the PM needed to check her tone, it’s now. The once Queen of Communication – as declared by the Left – is whirling and sinking in a communication mudpool. 
Also, there's a disingenuousness now around these announcements about announcements. 
It's just plain cruel. Do they know and just won't tell us because they're drunk on power? Or are they making it up as they go along and don't have a clue yet? 
The lack of urgency is galling. If they know what's happening for schools, vaccine passports, Māori, business support, and a target, then they should've shared it as of yesterday.  
And if the target is over 90 percent, they're chasing pipe dreams nowhere else in the world has, at our expense. 
It’s become a farce. If you voted for this omnishambles, I hope you’re happy.

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