9 Sep 2021

Iwi leader urges Covid-19 QR code scanning at Northland border checkpoint

From Checkpoint, 5:40 pm on 9 September 2021

Police are trusting motorists moving between the alert level split to not stop in level 4 Auckland, and will not be timing how long it takes them to drive through the region.

Checkpoints in place at the Northland and Waikato borders monitor anyone moving through Auckland, and people must prove their travel is essential.

Police and Te Tai Tokerau Border Patrol checking for essential travel on State Highway 1 between Whangārei, Kaikohe and Kerikeri.

Photo: RNZ / Samantha Olley

Up until midday Wednesday nearly 43,000 vehicles had been stopped at Auckland's border checkpoints. Of those, 380 did not get through.

But Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Whatua chief operating officer Antony Thompson said the iwi had concerns about the way those movements were being monitored, including a lack of QR codes at the Te Hana checkpoint.

"We've got the scan technology, we just need to make sure that it's being used - we're not seeing it on this checkpoint.

"Before today the registration at one checkpoint to the next was done by paper, but it could be done so much better by scanning QR codes."

He said people needed to make sure they have enough gas in their car, and if they had an emergency, that they knew the right people to call so they do not stop and risk interacting with people living in Auckland.

"Who's to stop anyone coming from Waikato to Tai Tokerau, stopping halfway and picking up a couple of passengers at a gas station and then carrying on through? That's why I think it's important to have the scan codes."

Superintendent Shanan Gray said so far they had been pleased with motorists' behaviour around the borders, and they trusted motorists to not stop in Auckland while moving through.

He said they would not be checking the time each vehicle took to pass through.

"It's quite a logistical operation to try and record times and manage the entry and exit of people over ... a couple of hundred kilometres as they move through the southern borders and into the northern borders.

"But again we put it into the hands of the people who are travelling through to do the right thing and play by the rules."

At the moment, the only way out of Northland for a non-essential trip is by air.

Today Air New Zealand announced it was introducing a temporary daily service between Kerikeri and Wellington to keep Te Tai Tokerau connected to the rest of Aotearoa.

Air New Zealand spokesperson Leanne Geraghty said the flight would give every traveller who wants to come and go from Northland an option to do so.

"If they're not eligible to travel and transit through Auckland on the Whangārei service, they do have the option of not doing that and still being able to move around the country on the direct service out of Kerikeri.

"There are no requirements in terms of showing a reason for flying, if you are going directly from an alert level 2 origin to an alert level 2 destination," she said.

The service will run from September 13 to 21.

While the service may be welcome for some travellers, Antony Thompson is not convinced.

"I'm a bit dubious myself - we're still in a national pandemic and I think we should treat it as that.

"Yes, there are a lot of businesses in Tai Tokerau that are struggling - a lot of tourism operators will be struggling as well - but if we don't go hard and go fast now, as the Prime Minister said, this could be a longer drawn out lockdown that we don't want," he said.