Vegetable growers are still being turned away at the border.
The Ministry of Health has been swamped with 10,000 exemption applications, and will not process them all before the lockdown is due to lift on Sunday night.
Police are also responding to a torrent of complaints about where the checkpoints have been placed. Setting up 13 checkpoints with eight of them in the heart of the North Island's vegetable-growing heartland is said to have been a nightmare, and not just for the farmers having to cross the border to get to work.
"Tyre repair guys, pump maintenance people, seed transplant people, seed supply companies, stockfood companies that aren't being able to get over the border - which have been really difficult for farmers and the vegetable growing sector as well," Brendan Balle told Checkpoint.
Balle runs Balle Brothers, who grow carrots, onions, potatoes that help supply around a third of New Zealand.
Major growers the Balle Brothers have land in the Auckland region and further south across the Covid-19 restrictions border. Photo: Google Maps
He says many of those workers are also essential but it has been hit and miss whether they get through the border checkpoint.
He said all of this could have been avoided if the government listened to their suggestion early on to put the border further north.
"Those suggestions were ignored and completely dismissed, which we found very disappointing. Because we did point out that putting the border restrictions in the middle of a production area as well as the middle of a farming area, this would cause a whole lot of problems, and that's actually what has happened."
The checkpoint at Bombay. Photo: RNZ / Liu Chen
The Ministry of Health has people working overtime to process more than 10,000 exemption applications.
But two weeks in, and days out from Auckland's alert level 3 limits lifting, only 2100 have been approved for the country's food-growing engine room.
Pukekohe Vegetable Growers Association president Kylie Faulkner says the frontline police have been helpful, but even they are struggling to keep up.
"It's cold, it's miserable and keeping up with sometimes hourly changes is very difficult. In a perfect world, we would have liked some better planning to be put in place prior to this, rather than, it feels like a lot of things have had to happen on the run."
Superintendent Shanan Gray says he's proud of the work of his officers, but many of them are having to make case-by-case decisions.
"So we just really need to apply a vigilant and reasonable approach and deal with each case on their merits, so we're really proud of our people who are out there on those checkpoints.
"They've been there coming up two weeks now and we know the weather has been pretty inclement and they've been exercising their judgement and making very sound decisions."
He agrees that it may have been easier to shift the border elsewhere.
"Look it certainly would. If we had moved it further north, it may have impacted on other communities. What we see and what we know as a result of doing this, and probably what we knew beforehand is that we had a huge amount of people who commute from outside of Auckland to come to work.
"Likewise there are other industries that operate further up the motorway that also have people commuting from outside of Auckland."
Faulkner says there's still time to improve things. She says the Bombay checkpoint on Mill Road / Razorback Rd is causing headaches as it also stops local traffic not crossing into the level 2 zone.
Photo: AFP
"So you've got a lot of residents, a lot of movement of vehicles, even horticultural businesses that are working within Bombay in level 3, all have to go through that checkpoint at the roundabout or just before the roundabout to able to go home or go to the farm."
Brendan Balle agrees.
"They shouldn't be getting the people in Bombay trying to get through that border every time they cross, whether they're essential or not. Because even the people who live in Bombay who want to go shopping in Pukekohe, they feel like they can't get across without a good reason."
But Superintendent Gray says there are operational and safety factors involved.
He says moving the checkpoint to the Southern Motorway on-ramp as suggested, to single out those trying to cross the border, would make it impossible to turn vehicles around.
Balle says it's a matter of common sense and there are lessons for next time.
"What the people in Wellington need to be learning from this is what do we do better next time, how can we apply some common sense to what they've been doing, and how do they make it more efficient for people who are legally going about their business."
For these growers, and even locals who need to get to the shops for essential supplies, Sunday night cannot come quickly enough.
