Business leaders are expressing frustration at government officials' refusal to discuss solutions to some of the most stringent restrictions in the world. Former Air NZ chief executive Rob Fyfe is right there at the heart of it, talking with the Prime Minister and her front bench as they try to remove those blockages – and for him, it's personal.
The Government's business advisor on Covid-19 is pushing for first education, then incentives – then a hard-line approach to those last "freeloaders" who refuse to be vaccinated.
In a live subscriber-only interview with Newsroom Pro managing editor Jonathan Milne, Rob Fyfe gives the example of a medical company that requires unvaccinated staff to wear full PPE and N95 face masks when they come into the office, and to undergo daily nasal swab tests, to protect others.
"I think they're now at 98 percent vaccinated," he says. "There needs to be consequences, for those who make a personal choice to not get vaccinated. It's around PPE and testing, or it's around excluding them from the workplace."
Fyfe argues that domestic use of vaccine passports should be part of enforcing those consequences, denying those who choose not to be vaccinated from visiting restaurants and events where they might imperil others – especially those who are too young or vulnerable to protect themselves. "Those unvaccinated people become a real risk to our freedoms in society."
If New Zealand can solve its MIQ bottleneck by January or February 2022, he says, then most businesses will be able to bounce back – and the changing risk profile will mean New Zealanders will be at greater risk in the community than in crossing the border.
But first, there are initiatives like the 150-person home isolation pilot to help resolve that MIQ bottleneck. This is personal for Fyfe – he has to travel to Montreal next month for Air Canada board meetings, and he hasn't managed to secure an MIQ space to return home. He doesn't know if he'll be back in six weeks, or six months.
He says communications between government and business have not worked well, in part because there are key leaders and teams within the public sector who are blockages through whom everything must come. He takes some responsibility for the failings in the communications – he acknowledges he might be one of those bottlenecks.
”I’m not achieving at the pace I’d usually achieve, and I’m not having the influence I’d like to have, and I see that as a personal failing and that just motivates me to try harder.”
Watch full-length interview here with a Newsroom Pro subscription.
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