Do you think the Government truly gets the plight of small business and the irony we are currently facing in Omicron? 

It started with the alarm in Queenstown as shops and hospitality outlets closed. But as the week has gone on its spread and major centres have ghost-like CBDs, the Bay of Plenty was yesterday's centre of worry as people fear closure, either out of catching covid or being a close contact, or just plain fear. 

Because let's be honest, it's nationwide. Business is in trouble and futures are hanging by a thread. 

Small business with small staff can't just shuffle people around. They simply have to close and those businesses that were already closed through lockdown are either about to close again, or they're getting done over by the lack of customers due to fear.  

Does the Government get that they are the orchestrators of the fear? The Government say” you need to handle it on your own, but at the same time we've made it as hard as possible to get the RAT tests you need and there is no help for wages either“.  

That could not be in greater contrast to the omnipresent "do as your told" campaign they’ve run for the past two years. 

You can't run people's lives like a computer game for years one and two then walk away in year three.  

You can't claim the wage subsidy was a smash hit that saved businesses by the truck load then have nothing when the exact same outcome happens again. 

You can't tell people to organise their own RAT tests when you’ve commandeered all the orders. 

And you can't have business pick up the tab or extend their overdraft or go under because they have to follow your home isolation rules that many would not do themselves if they were left to their own devices. 

This, in many respects, is the worst of all the responses so far. 

Here are the rules - sorry if you go bust but do as you're told and we aren't here to help. What sort of deal is that? 

No, I'm not for spending endless amounts of money we don’t have, but I am for fairness. Stop the school sandwiches or the cameras on the fishing boats or the marae renovations or all the other crap you’ve used the Covid fund for and help the people who drive the economy. 

It's almost like the Government has given up, years one and two wore them out and now it's every man for himself. 

If you start something, you see it through. It's called leadership. 

You notice the Prime Minister is nowhere to be seen, they look work shy. 

They look like they are spent and, as always, it’s the small guy who pays the price.