Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

I don’t know why we keep getting our hopes up for these announcements, they’re always such a letdown. I mean I guess we knew Auckland was starting in Red, and not just Auckland but a total of ten other districts around the country as well. That’s a lot of Red.The rest of the North Island starts with Orange, the whole of the South Island Orange. No one’s in Green, because guess what?They’re taking a “cautious approach”. Of course they are. The problem with this whole thing is the lack of definitive criteria for it. That does two things, one, gives the government all the power with little or no accountability, and two, leaves people in the dark.Can festivals go ahead or not? Can people make holiday travel and accommodation plans around that or not? A review of the traffic lights comes on December 13th. Is that enough time for festival organisers to cancel or postpone their events which start a couple of days after Christmas? Is just over ten days enough time for contractors to get the yay or nay? For festival-g