Some of this is because of labour market constraints, but a lot of it is because we're forcing otherwise healthy people to stay at home, and of course, there are still many businesses that cannot operate from home including manufacturers, producers, retail and hospitality – and businesses are shelling out millions for it.
In the past six months, the Government has paid out $390.5 million for the Leave Support Scheme – the scheme that pays for anyone who has to be at home because they have, or someone in their household has Covid-19. That is not an insignificant amount. That $390.5m is also not considering the contributions that employers make to top up the $600 per person per week payout.
Don't get me wrong – if you're sick, you absolutely should stay at home and interact with as minimal people as possible. Whether it's Covid-19, the flu or you've eaten something dodgy. But if you're not sick, there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to go to work, no reason why you can't make that assessment for yourself and no reason why it should be paid for by the taxpayer.
If you're a household contact, asymptomatic and consistently return a negative test, you should not be condemned to a week of isolation. Across the ditch, in Australia, you don't have to isolate if you're a household contact. Nor do you if you're in the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany or Japan. In some cases, it's recommended but it's not required.
The scheme is fundamentally flawed, and it's not being complied with.
Right from day one, we've heard of those who have opted for a don't ask, don't tell approach.
You think a sole trader is going to isolate if their flatmate has Covid-19 and they're healthy? That's a week, at least, of earnings that have evaporated. It's impossible to monitor and employers, frankly, don't have the time to compliance check. Why keep a policy if it's not working? Why don't we trust New Zealanders to make decisions for themselves and do the right thing – just like they did in the first lockdown?
Brushing aside the fiscal implications and contribution household contact self-isolation makes to staff shortages, the ripples across both the business and wider community are far-reaching.
With a downturn in customers wandering around the city centre of Christchurch, there has been a very noticeable downturn in economic activity. There just aren't as many people around. In the first five months of this year, compared to last year, there has been a loss of $18.4m in retail earnings. No wonder there is more and more talk of a recession around the corner The mental health crisis that New Zealand is facing is not being helped – and I think it's often forgotten that, for many, the chit-chat in the staff room, the social connections at the end of the week, all provide valuable social interactions that some might not get if they are not able to connect in the workplace.
Humans are not designed to sit in one place and we're not designed to interact with each other through Zoom and email for an extended period. It's not just the workplace either.
What about our youngsters who are missing out on their education because they're stuck at home, or their school is forced to partially close because there simply aren't enough teaching staff available. It's not fair and on balance, the consequences may well far outweigh the benefits both in the short and longer term.
For nearly two years we were told to stay at home, encouraged to bake banana bread and given a pat on the back for doing our bit to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Few would argue that the first lockdown wasn't the right course of action, but the abrupt stop to normality was only ever meant to be temporary.
Some might have scoffed at the references to New Zealand as a "hermit kingdom" by various commentators from both within our walls and outside of them, but the idea of working from home in your jim-jams has been romanticised to the point it is impacting mental health, impacting productivity, impacting our economy and impacting the perception of New Zealand being isolated and not open for business.
It is worrisome that government departments, to this day, are advertising for roles that guarantee employees the ability to work from home – some actively encouraging it. Nine-to-five does not necessarily work for everyone but what message does it send when the Government, which happens to be one of our region's largest employers, decides it's perfectly acceptable.
New Zealand has some very real problems that need to be addressed – be it productivity, mental health, finding staff to keep the doors open, complete the next big export order, or bracing for a potential economic downturn - but in order to move forward, we need to shake the hermit mentality and stop policies which are not in line with the rest of the world.
