Kate Hawkesby: Another public holiday is a bridge too far for some small businesses

What a relief and not before time that we’re waving goodbye to the traffic light system. Big raps to the Government for getting their heads around that.

We’ve moved on, and so should they. It was apparent yesterday when Grant Robertson said to Mike Hosking that they’ll ‘still take Covid seriously’ that they were laying the ground work for the naysayers, the panickers, those who’d freak out, that they were ‘still taking it seriously’, even though they were heaving the system out. 

Point of Order: Pitching for poll support becomes puzzling when a populist politician (does that describe Peters?) opposes a public holiday

It sounded like a double dose of news of the sort that is apt to lift a Prime Minister’s popularity in political opinion polls and boost support for her party.

One goodie was a public holiday, the other the relaxing of Covid constraints.

This certainly looked like a vote-winner to the political pundits at Point of Order.

But the populist Winston Peters, leader of New Zealand First, has pounced on what he presumably perceives to be an opportunity to pick up support by expressing opposition to the public holiday.