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Heather du Plessis-Allan: The Tamakis did nothing wrong leaving Auckland pre-lockdown

Author
Heather du Plessis-Allan,
Publish Date
Wed, 3 Mar 2021, 4:01PM

Heather du Plessis-Allan: The Tamakis did nothing wrong leaving Auckland pre-lockdown

Author
Heather du Plessis-Allan,
Publish Date
Wed, 3 Mar 2021, 4:01PM

I’m kind of loathe to do this, but I’m going to defend Brian and Hannah Tamaki over the pile on they’re being subjected to because they escaped the lockdown in Auckland.

I don’t like what they stand for very much - in particular, I object to the way that they and their church take huge tithes from poor communities and then live lavish lifestyles themselves.

But just because they’re guilty of that, does not make them guilty of breaking the rules in leaving Auckland.

They didn’t break any rules. Anyone is legally able to leave Auckland before it goes into lockdown as long as they leave before the curfew starts

Now that may not be in the spirit of things, but it sure is to the letter of the law. They left Saturday night, the curfew came in Sunday morning 6am, so they’re ok.

And they’re not alone. There were 9200 more cars than normal heading out of Auckland between 9pm Saturday and 6am Sunday. This happens every lockdown.

Now you might think that’s a risk in terms of spreading Covid, but clearly isn’t’ that much of a risk otherwise the government would’ve changed the rules by now to stop movement immediately. They know this happens every time, but they haven’t changed the rules.

And how is the Tamakis leaving town any different from the health ministry allowing 650 university students to fly to Dunedin in the last lockdown two weeks ago? 

It is rich of Chris Hipkins to say the Tamakis were ‘completely irresponsible’ when his own cabinet colleague kept on behaving like it was Covid normal even after the lockdown announcement on Saturday night?

You can’t be cool with willie Jackson staying at the boxing because it was still level one but then have a crack at the Tamakis for moving around the country because it was still level one.  

It’s easy to pile on people who are unpopular. First it’s the South Auckland community, now it’s Tamakis.

But let’s be fair: if they’ve done something wrong, call them out, if they haven’t, leave them alone. And the Tamakis haven’t broken any rules. 

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