The ODT reports:

Southern GPs say they want greater clarity around a probable increased level of testing for the Covid-19 coronavirus, and qualifying criteria for patients.

GPs contacted by the Otago Daily Times yesterday said changing governmental criteria defining who could be tested had led to troubling confusion including test material being refused. This was because up to 50% of swabs were being rejected by laboratories for failing to meet the latest guidelines.

New testing criteria were released late on Wednesday, meaning those with symptoms but no connection to overseas travel or another coronavirus case could be tested.

Dunedin North Medical Centre GP Dr Daniel Pettigrew said although he understood shifting test criteria, changes led to a waste of resources.

“We’ve probably had about 50% of our swabs declined by the lab, because they didn’t fit governmental case-definition criteria at that time.

“The problem seems to be a disconnect between the information provided at public briefings, and whatever’s filtering down to the labs.

“Having taken the swab, it seems pointless not to test it if the capacity is there.”

It is simply nuts that the Government keeps saying we are only testing at 50% of our capacity and that we want to test, test, test yet 50% the Southern DHB lab is refusing to test 50% of swabs.

Imagine how disheartening this is for GPs at the front line. They have made a clinical assessment that a patient should be tested for Covid-19, they have taken a swab, but the government owned laboratory refuses to test their patients despite having capacity to do so.

This is why the Minister of Health should be in Wellington. He should be angry. He should be threatening to fire people unless this is sorted.

Rick Neville writes at Stuff:

Like many people, I felt sick when I heard the news Bauer NZ is shutting down its publishing operations in this country.

Surely it’s just for the lockdown, I hoped when first told. But no, it’s for good.

Bauer, a German publisher which bought the business some years ago from Australasian publisher ACP, has put out serious titles including NZ Listener, Metro and North & South, and longtime family favourites Woman’s Day and Women’s Weekly. They also own Property Press, the biggest real estate publisher in New Zealand.

Then my sorrow turned to anger. Anger that the Government had not included magazines along with newspapers as an essential service. And anger because of the hypocrisy in the Government’s backflip to save the RNZ Concert Programme yet see a far more valuable contributor to New Zealand’s social, cultural and political fabric go to the wall.

Rick Neville is the editorial director of the Newspaper Publishers Association and an industry veteran.

He is right to be angry that the Government banned magazines from continuing, with a daft distinction that newspapers were essential but not magazines.

Magazines should have been included with other publications as an essential service. Subscribers receive them in the post and most other copies are bought through supermarkets, no different from the wide array of other goods freely available on supermarket shelves.

The staff are working from home, printing and distribution is highly automated, and so there is virtually no public health risk. 

Vast overkill from the Government.

The Government has said the wage subsidy was offered to Bauer but rejected, and the Prime Minister has intimated Covid-19 was the excuse the company was looking for to close.

The only explanation I can think of is that such is the fall-off in advertising and circulation revenue caused by the lockdown, the wage subsidy would have met only a small proportion of the shortfall.

The Government’s line is spin.First of all the income for the magazines would be zero because the Government had banned them.

The wage subsidy would cover a small proportion of staff wages which in itself is only a small proportion of total costs of producing magazines.

Stuff reports:

Mayor Andy Foster on Thursday said the plan could create a $70 million financial hole for the city, much of which would be covered by borrowing.

He said the council was proposing to defer fourth-quarter rates bills, currently due in June, for six months for commercial ratepayers, as well as residential ratepayers affected by the outbreak.

This gives the illusion of helping ratepayers, but doesn’t.

Families and businesses are suffering from a massive drop in income. For many it will not be temporary. The Council needs to freeze rates, not stick it up by 8% yet say oh you can pay it a few months down the track.

Ratepayers need a rates freeze, not a deferral.

Originally, it appeared a rates freeze was off the table. However following the workshop,12 of 15 councillors signed a letter to council chief executive Barbara McKerrow, requesting a zero rates and user charge proposal be put forward.

Good to see some signs of life from Councillors.

Every Council should be demanding that staff produce a zero rates increase option for them to consider.

I don’t think people realise how much of a fiasco covid-19 testing is. You get some idea in this article:

Healthcare workers say coronavirus tests are being withheld because of limited supply, despite the prime minister’s insistence clinicians have both the resources and permission to test.

A new coronavirus testing criteria was released late on Wednesday, permitting the testing of patients with Covid-19 symptoms but no connection to overseas travel or another coronavirus case. 

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who announced the expansion of the criteria the day prior, again said there was ample testing capacity at a Wednesday press conference — it just hadn’t been used by clinicians.

But a Wellington GP, who spoke to Stuff on the condition of anonymity, said there were not enough testing swabs for the number of patients presenting Covid-19 symptoms. His clinic had ordered 30, but received five as the laboratory was trying to preserve supplies.  

There have been numerous stories now about people who have Covid-19 yet were rejected for testing at an earlier stage. This is manifestly a failure if someone who has Covid-19 isn’t allowed to be tested for it.

The problem is that the Government is not co-ordinating between the different parts of the health system when it comes to testing. There are three main actors. They are:

1. Doctors/GPs
2. Testing Centres
3. Labs

Now you would think that if a Doctor or GP decides a patient should be tested, then they would be tested. That would be the sane outcome. Trust the GPs. This already happens with other tests – a GP has authority to order a test.

Some GPs have the ability to take a sample themselves, others refer them to a testing centre. The first problem is that a testing centre won’t test someone just because a GP has referred them. They will apply their own discretion.

But the bigger problem is that laboratories themselves are also applying their own decision making to testing. So you have the bizarre situation where GPs or testing centres have decided a patient should be tested, have taken a sample and sent it to the lab. But the lab them decides not to test it!!!!

To make the situation worse, there is no data on this. The Government has not even been releasing daily data on tests done, but generally only releasing average data for the last seven days which hides the most recent data.

There are only 8 – 10 testing labs in NZ. The Government should be releasing daily data for each individual lab showing how many tests were submitted that day and how many were actually tested. Then GPs and the public could see how many tests are being refused at each lab.

But most of all the Government should be instructing the labs to accept all tests that have been authorised by a doctor, unless they have reached their capacity. As the number of tests has been less than half the stated capacity this shouldn’t be an issue.

The WHO and even the PM now are saying test, test, test. But the health bureaucracy is preventing this. Maybe the Minister of Health could focus on sorting this out.

It’s fair to say Lizzie is generally a fan of the Government, so good to see her calling them out over their spin on Bauer closing.

Also the Government has been lying over the issue as Rebekah White points out:

Now if Bauer were seeking essential services status that shows they might have given it a go at carrying on if they were given it.

The decisions on which media were essential was made by the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, which reports to Ardern not Faafoi. So it is indeed disingenuous for Faafoi to say Bauer never asked for help.

Also Newshub reported:

Some of New Zealand’s most loved magazines, including The Listener, Next, Metro and Women’s Day have become the latest casualty of COVID-19 with news publisher Bauer Media folded, effective immediately.

But Newshub can reveal the Government turned down a last ditch Hail Mary request by Bauer Media to throw the business a lifeline. …

“Bauer contacted the [Finance Minister] and told them they weren’t interested in subsidies,” Ardern said.

“They didn’t enter a conversation about becoming an essential service, they didn’t seek to continue to operate during lockdown, and they didn’t want to use the Government support to keep their doors open.”

But Newshub can reveal Bauer asked the Government to bail it out – to buy its magazines and to save jobs as a last minute lifeline, for bottom-dollar.

So the Government implied Bauer had not sought any assistance at all, when in fact they had specifically asked Robertson to bail it out or buy the magazines.

Now as it happens I don’t think the Government should have bailed them out. I think they should have reversed the ban on them publishing. But the key point is the Government wasn’t telling the truth when they said Bauer never sought assistance.

Newsroom reports:

The Epidemic Response Committee, chaired by Opposition leader Simon Bridges, was set up to provide scrutiny of the Government’s actions and hold agencies to account for the way in which they exercise their far-reaching powers.

It is one of the few avenues for democratic oversight in Aotearoa at present and is accordingly extremely important. 

Today, the committee examined how the police are interpreting and applying the emergency powers they have been given.

Professor John Hopkins of the University of Canterbury, a specialist in disaster law, is providing expert advice to the committee and set the scene by outlining the laws that give the police and other agencies the emergency powers they are using.

Hopkins highlighted a key concern of lawyers who are observing how events are unfolding during the lockdown: the wide discretion of police officers on the ground. …

Bush said police were receiving advice from Crown Law as to how to interpret the law. That is to be expected and it is correct that the police are asking for legal advice from Crown Law. But that legal advice should also be publicly released. Bush did not commit to that this morning but said he would seek advice from Crown Law on whether the advice should be made public.

There are no signs that the Police are going to release it, or their internal guidelines.

The special committee has been given the powers of the Privileges Committee. If the Crown Law advice and the guidelines are not provided by 5 pm Friday, the committee should use its powers under Standing Orders to demand they be produced.

The most concerning part of the committee session was when ACT MP David Seymour asked Bush what the legal basis was for the commissioner’s statement that people could not leave their suburbs.

Our suburb has no dairy, no supermarket and no pharmacy so if the Commissioner is correct, we’re stuffed.

Seymour rightly said Bush’s remarks were heavy-handed and also lacking in specificity. As such, they were not what the public needed from the police at this time. 

What Kiwis require is clear and specific information about what we can and cannot do. And we also need to be very clear that this information is based on specific laws.

It was accordingly extremely disappointing that Bush replied to Seymour by thanking him for his advice and saying “I’ll certainly give it due consideration.” Those watching were left with the clear impression that Bush would give Seymour’s views no consideration at all.

In fact, Seymour was doing exactly what the country wants and needs from the committee at this time: seeking to hold the police to account. 

Again the Police has a very clear job – to enforce the law. There are numerous reports of them going beyond this. One person was told by the Police they are not allowed to be swimming at the beach – despite them living by the beach. Unless Cabinet has passed a regulation or law saying you can’t go in the water, then the Police should be restricted to ensuring people are not congregating etc.

Yes the future is great. All we need to do is the following:

• Ban all businesses from operating
• Ban people from travelling
• Close all the schools
• Shrink the economy by 30%
• Put 200,000 to 300,000 onto the unemployment benefit

And we can reduce traffic pollution. Yay.

Stuff reports:

Health Minister David Clark drove to a Dunedin park two kilometres from his home to ride a mountain bike trail, as New Zealand marked a week in lockdown. 

Clark, who earlier on Thursday told Stuff the coronavirus response was his “singular focus”, said he didn’t “want to give anyone the perception” that he was taking the lockdown lightly, after his van was photographed at Logan Park — a 2.3km distance from his home.

Kiwis have been ordered to stay at home for a four-week lockdown — a severe measure hoped to break the community transmission of Covid-19 — but there has been considerable confusion about the type of exercise permitted. 

Huge hypocrisy from the Minister of Health of all people.

The Government at varying times has said don’t drive anywhere but to the supermarket. You can leave you home to exercise, but you should walk there, not drive etc.

The Police have also said you shouldn’t do activities that have any element of risk, as that could stretch the health system and require people to assist you. They even seem to be banning swimming. But mountain biking cost ACC $19 million last year with almost 6,000 claims.

So us plebs aren’t even sure if we can drive to the beach, and if so can we go into the water. But the Minister of Health drives to a mountain bike park, so he can ride some trails.

“I know single parents with grumpy kids and no job who are sticking, under huge stress, to the police rules to only do essential travel. I was horrified to see the minister’s car parked at at the normally busy local mountain bike trail carpark,” the source said. 

“There were no other cars there and I wondered what ‘essential business’ was being done. Are ministers and their families above the law?”

There were no other cars there because people thought they’d be arrested or cautioned if they were there.

So a huge case of hypocrisy from not just a Cabinet Minister, but the Minister of Health himself.

Just remember everyone do what the Minister says, not what the Minister does.

UPDATE: What is especially terrible about this is the message it sends all the front line health workers. They’re out there dealing with the impacts of the pandemic, and their Minister is out there breaking (at least) the spirit of the Level 4 lockdown.

The other interesting thing is that he is in Dunedin. How is the Minister of Health not in Wellington helping manage this crisis? Could you imagine Tony Ryall being at home in Whakatane during the country’s biggest health crisis? In fact during the swine flu epidemic, Ryall was doing twice daily briefings on it.

Clark is probably the only Health Minister in the world who is not in the capital city but is back home on a Thursday afternoon.

I won’t even bother to analyse whether Clark should be sacked for this, because we know that the only way to get sacked in this Government is to assault your press secretary!

UPDATE2: A Nelson ED Doctor and keen mountain biker had actually called for mountain biking trails to close during the pandemic. He states:

You may hurt yourself, despite riding within your ability. As a mediocre mountainbiker with three sets of broken ribs, two broken hands, a concussion, and untold cuts and bruises in the last 10 years in Nelson, I am only too aware of this.

I always thought I was riding “within my ability”, we all do. If you hurt yourself, you break your social bubble, and expose yourself and others to danger.

Even coming to the Medical and Injury Centre or Emergency Department puts you and others at risk, and a rescue or ambulance is worse. 

We may not have the hospital capacity to treat you and we want to reserve all our capacity for fighting this illness

So here is a front line health professional saying don;t mountain bike at the moment, and the Minister of Health is off driving to mountain biking parks because he has nothing else to do.

UPDATE3:

The Police and Ministry of Health supported closing down mountain biking trails in Nelson and Tasman. Stuff reported:

On Friday afternoon, the Nelson City Council and Tasman District Council announced they were closing down their mountain bike trails, effective immediately, due to the Covid-19 outbreak. 

Both councils consulted with relevant authorities, including the Ministry of Health and police, before reaching the decision and said there was broad support for closure. 

And more damning for Clark:

Cycling New Zealand president Jacques Landry said they were sticking as close as possible to Ministry of Health guidelines to inform cyclists how, when, and where they should ride, if at all. …

The guidelines put forward on Friday encouraged people to ride short and local to reduce pressure on emergency services, and not to drive out to a riding location. 

And if we go to the Cycling NZ website, they say:

Ride from home.  Don’t drive and then ride.

So the Minister of Health was not following the advice of the national cycling body, which would have been done after consulting with his own Ministry of Health.

It will be fascinating to see what excuse Ardern comes up with not to sack him.

The Herald reports:

People who arrive at the border will receive a call from welfare to make sure they’re okay, Bush said.

But now, those people will be texted by the Police asking if they consent to be monitored via their cell phone.

This was being worked through with the Privacy Commissioner, Bush said.

Bush said in the last 24 hours, the Police have been in contact with 4000 people in relation to the monitoring.

On 1 April I do an April Fool’s post announcing the Government will be tracking people via their cellphones to ensure they are where they are meant to be.

On 2 April the Police announce they have started to do that.

Somewhat scary when satire becomes reality!

The Spectator reports:

Over the past few days, we’ve seen Derbyshire Police send up a drone to film people who were walking alone in the Peak District, Warrington Police announce that they’d sent a summons to ‘multiple people from the same household going to the shops for non-essential items’, the Met in Raynes Park declare that they have been telling off people who were sitting down outside, and Denton Police telling their followers (in a now-deleted tweet) that ‘exercise is limited to around an hour per day’. There are also the small shopowners who have been told either by the police or local authority officials that they shouldn’t be selling Easter eggs as they are ‘non-essential items’. 

The UK Police seem to specialise in going over the top.

A former UK Supreme Court Justice notes:

I mean, the tradition of policing in this country is that policemen are citizens in uniform. They are not members of a disciplined hierarchy operating just at the government’s command. Yet in some parts of the country, the police have been trying to stop people from doing things like travelling to take exercise in the open country, which are not contrary to the regulations, simply because ministers have said that they would prefer us not to. The police have no power to enforce ministers’ preferences, but only legal regulations – which don’t go anything like as far as the government’s guidance. I have to say that the behaviour of the Derbyshire police in trying to shame people into using their undoubted right to take exercise in the country and wrecking beauty spots in the Fells so that people don’t want to go there, is frankly disgraceful.This is what a police state is like. It’s a state in which the government can issue orders or express preferences with no legal authority and the police will enforce ministers’ wishes.

This is critical. The role of the Police is to enforce the law, not the requests of Ministers. This is why it is important to have clear definitions of what people are allowed to do and not do during the lockdown.

And Andrew Geddis has an excellent piece on the confusion in NZ where different parts of the Govt say different things on what you can or can’t do.

Labour has some very useful MPs they could have appointed to the Covid-19 committee.

They could have appointed Liz Craig. Liz Craig isn’t only a doctor, but a public health physician. You would have thought a no brainer for the select committee. In fact she is a former director of the New Zealand Child and Youth Epidemiology Service of Otago Uni.

They could have appointed Greg O’Connor who was a police officer for almost 40 years and spent 12 years as head of the police association. Would be a great choice considering the huge role police have in this.

They could have appointed Paul Eagle who was Deputy Mayor of Wellington during a major earthquake.

They could have appointed Deborah Russell who is a tax expert, which would be very useful for the economic response.

They could have appointed Louisa Wall who has worked in the health sector (including Manager of Maori Health Research at the Health Research Council) and is the current Chair of the Health Select Committee.

Instead Labour put up three MPs, who are all current or former Whips. A big part of being a Whip is expertise in standing orders, enforcing party lines and closing down debates.

I know the three Labour MPs chosen (McAnulty, Dyson and Wood) and this is nothing against them. But why would you for example choose a bookie over an epidemiologist?

The only possible reason is you don’t want MPs with expert knowledge actually scrutinising Ministers and officials. You want MPs to run interference for the Government.

Otherwise your committee would be Liz Craig, Greg O’Connor and Louisa Wall.

Stuff reports:

Bauer Media Group has announced its intention to close its publishing business in New Zealand due to the severe economic impact of Covid-19.

The closure brings to an end many decades of publishing in New Zealand and affects all staff.

Bauer Media NZ publishes entertainment, lifestyle and current affairs titles including the NZ Listener, Woman’s Day, New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, North and South and Next, along with a digital network.

All New Zealand Bauer staff have been advised on Thursday morning that the business is no longer viable and that it intends to close. …

“Magazine publishing in New Zealand is currently suspended as part of the New Zealand Government’s decision to move to the Covid-19 level four restrictions.

This is a direct result of the Government deciding not to allow all media to keep operating, but only those they deemed essential. As I argued, all media is essential – especially in times of a national emergency.

The NZ Listener, Metro, and North and South have been massive contributors to journalism in New Zealand. They exposed wrongs, they held Governments to account and they were beloved by many readers.

If the Government had not banned them from continuing, they might have been able to survive. But when you’re banned, your revenue is zero.

Avery sad day for journalism in New Zealand to have so many great magazines now consigned to the scrap heap of history because the Government decided they weren’t essential and banned them from operating during the lockdown.

HDPA writes:

The social and economic cost to this country is higher than any of us can possibly imagine on day four. Which is why the Government needs to keep this lockdown as short as it possibly can.

To do that, it must stop the arrival of coronavirus into this country from overseas. As many as 50 infected people are arriving here each day. That’s according to Dr David Skegg, who reckons we’re trying to empty a bath with a jug while the tap’s still running. The tap is the flow of infected arrivals from overseas.

Every day that arrivals keep bringing it in is potentially another delay in lifting the lockdown. It’s heartening that the Government is now quarantining arrivals who are sick or who have no satisfactory plans to self-isolate. But that’s simply not enough.

Not everyone carrying the virus on arrival looks sick on arrival. We’re hearing stories of people only feeling sick 11 days after arriving in New Zealand. Not everyone promising to self-isolate will self-isolate. How many stories have we heard of tourists taking scenic helicopter flights and posting letters when they should be in isolation?

Over the Tasman, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has ordered a compulsory 14-day quarantine for absolutely everyone arriving there. We need to do this too.

I agree. A test and a quarantine period for every new arrival.

Despite the national health and financial emergency, most councils are still planning to hike rates this year – some up to nine or ten percent. For today’s Taxpayer Talk Louis Houlbrooke interviews Hutt City Councillor Chris Milne & Christchurch City Councillor Sam MacDonald on their response to the Taxpayers’ Union campaign calling for a nationwide rates freeze and ways councils can save money.

You can support the campaign calling for a naitonwide rates freeze at www.ratesfreeze.nz. The dashboard referred to in the podcast is available at www.taxpayers.org.nz/rates_dashboard

You can subscribe to Taxpayer Talk via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and all good podcast apps.

Yesterday the PM said:

Test, test, test –  that’s the message from Prime Minister Ardern as the Government continues its effort to eradicate Covid-19. 

The Government has broadened guidelines around Covid-19 testing, which will allow for more people to be tested and to see how far the disease has spread in New Zealand. 

There had been complaints that some people presenting symptoms had not been tested because they had no connection to overseas travel.  

“I would keep encouraging that we test, test, test,” Ardern said.

It has been obvious for weeks the guidelines for testing were too tight. There have been multiple stories of people who were refused tests who later turned out to have Covid-19.

So why didn’t we test test test from the beginning? Well on 15 March the PM said:

Also on the show, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said testing at the border would not be effective. 

“Tests can produce false negatives, my concern would be putting all that resource into testing when it may not be accurate, then it might create a false sense of security that people who need to self isolate wouldn’t.

The PM is an excellent communicator, but I do wish media would take some time to look at the substance, and that in fact the substantive message keeps changing.

Stuff reports:

Ministers are rushing to prevent the country’s construction sector hollowing out under coronavirus lockdown. 

However, they’ve also admitted the state’s role in construction will massively expand in a way unheard of in several generations. That could include turning Crown Infrastructure Partners into a new Ministry of Works-style government department.

Oh God, could you imagine it.

It would be like the Kiwibuild of the construction sector. Claim you’ll build 100,000 affordable homes and deliver 361.

Steven Joyce writes:

There are roughly three health scenarios at the end of four weeks. Things are much better, much worse, or inconclusive. If it’s getting worse we won’t be going anywhere. Much better is the dream scenario, but the most likely seems the inconclusive one. In that eventuality we can’t just roll the lockdown on as is – it will be too costly. We need to somehow get some economic blood flowing, and that will require some inventive thinking.

For example, will it be possible to partially reverse the shutdown, while maintaining social distancing to acceptable limits? We could start by widening the definition of essential businesses (adding butchers, fruit stores,  hairdressers, and hardware stores say); give all exporters the ability to operate like the food companies; and open up online commerce at least for retailers. We are now one of the most wired countries in the world, so lets take advantage of that. By then families will be needing to buy things like winter clothes for the kids.

Even those limited moves would get some money back flowing. Once we have full confidence in our testing and contact tracing system we could go further.

This seems the right path to me. Allow more businesses to operate but require everyone to have social distancing in them.

We should start planning now what a safe border looks like in a Covid 19 world. What about testing everyone that arrives in New Zealand as standard practice, and placing those that fail the test into quarantine? It is a big logistical challenge but surely we are up for it.

It’s incredible that even today we’re still not testing all arrivals.

There will be masses of job losses due to COVID-19. Before today it would have been unfair to blame that on the Government.

But from today, the Government is to blame for at least some of them. Because they have refused to suspend the increase in the minimum wage that came into force today.

Look of course you can increase the minimum wage with modest impacts when the economy is booming. If businesses are expanding, then all good.

But we are in the opposite of that. The vast majority of businesses have had a huge collapse in income, ranging from 30% to 100%. Entire sectors of the economy have closed down.

The increase in the minimum wage means that those employers with staff on the minimum wage will beyond doubt lay off more of them. And worse, it means that when firms finally can start hiring again, it will be more expensive to expand.

And it isn’t as if our current minimum wage was low. It was in fact one of the highest in the OECD relative to the median or average wage.

In 2018 it was 61% of the median wage. Here’s some others:

1. New Zealand 61%
2. UK 54%
3. Australia 54%
4. Canada 51%
5. Ireland 48%
6. US 33%

So this move will see large numbers of workers go from an income of around $750 a week to the unemployment benefit of $245 a week. And they will probably remain unemployed for years not months.

The Government announced this morning that as there was so much confusion about how far from home people could travel to exercise, it has passed an Order-in-Council to provide certainty.

The following are the maximum distances you can now travel from your home, without being deemed in breach of the Level 4 restrictions.

• In cities: 500 metres
• In towns: 750 metres
• In rural areas: 1 km

Exceptions still apply for travel to supermarkets and pharmacies.

To ensure high levels of compliance, so that COVID-19 is contained, the Government has authorised the Police to track people’s locations through their cellphones. This is already occurring in a number of other countries such as Israel.

MBIE hopes to have an alert system rolled over within 48 hours so that anyone who is further away from their home than the permitted distance receives a warning that they may be in breach of the law.

Two issues I have been campaigning on have been changing the law forcing supermarkets to close over Easter and the fact the Government was onl allowing daily media to operate.

The PM has just announced decisions on both issues, and they’re both partial victories. Good to see the Government willing to amend decisions that are wrong.

Supermarkets are now allowed to open on Easter Sunday (but not Good Friday) this year. They will use Good Friday to restock. A reasonable compromise.

And the definition of essential media is expanded to allow non daily newspapers that reach hard to contact communities, which will allow many community newspapers to stay open, and ethnic newspapers etc.

No back down on the idiotic minimum wage increase coming into force tomorrow, but they had already ruled that out a week ago.