The Government's failure to ensure border staff were tested for COVID-19 was a "stuff up" but it's what it does now that matters, says Phil Goff.
The Auckland Mayor admitted the blunder was problematic in an interview on The AM Show on Tuesday. However he says the following response impressed him.
"The good thing is when they found it they addressed it. There will be stuff ups along the way because there is no perfect blueprint," he told host Duncan Garner.
When Garner quizzed Goff on whether he thought the Government had "dropped the ball" the Mayor laughed.
"Look mate I know what you're trying to get me to say but what I will say is this - we've done better than almost every country in the world. Have we done it perfectly? of course we haven't we're not perfect as human beings," he told Garner.
"When we make a stuff up we acknowledge it, fix it, move on and do better."
His interview follows news that Auckland's COVID-19 alert level 3 lockdown will be extended until midnight on Sunday - and Goff says there's a chance that could be even longer.
"I don't think there's anything guaranteed in life and with the nature of this virus there could be another community cluster - we hope that's not the case but we could find it."
If that does happen, Auckland will have no choice but to lockdown for longer leaving businesses in the lurch - but the alternative could be disastrous.
"If we try and do it prematurely and we do it wrong we just make it harder for those people who are struggling," said Goff.
