Jacinda Ardern is being accused of "politicising the COVID-19 response" after criticising Opposition policies during her COVID-19 announcement.
Speaking to New Zealand on Monday to announce Cabinet's decision to shift Auckland down to alert level 1, the Prime Minister used her platform to deliver a speech that echoed recent Labour election campaign ads and praised her Government's COVID-19 response and economic recovery.
In the questions and answers afterwards, Ardern then took a swipe at National and ACT over their border and housing policies.
"Over the past couple of weeks I've travelled the country. Everywhere I go COVID is at the top of people's minds, almost without exception people are proud of our collective achievements in eliminating the virus, grateful for the wage subsidy that has sustained jobs and looking forward to the economic opportunities now available to us at the back of our COVID success," Ardern said.
"We've seen the strength of our economy in recent weeks through jobs, exports, building consents and traffic updates. More than 9000 filled jobs were added across the country in August. Our merchandise exports rose nearly 9 percent of the month, driven by our farmers and growers.
"My message to New Zealanders remains the same as it always has been - we are in a good position because we went hard and we went early. We have a plan to continue responding to COVID-19 and we will apply the same rigour to our economic recovery as we did to our world-leading health response."
She also used the questions and answers afterwards to criticise the Opposition, saying some of their COVID-19 policies put the country at risk.
"I would say we shouldn't put our progress at risk because borders, for instance, remain critical - and some of the proposals I've seen around borders frankly I think would be risky," she said.
She followed this up with her verdict on National's housing policies.
"I think frankly it would take us back to the 1990s," she said.
"And by that I think it would take us back away from delivering housing for first-home buyers, away from increasing public housing numbers. To suggest that as an answer to the housing troubles New Zealand has experienced, that we should sell off state houses - I think is absolutely wrong."
But Ardern's response has come under return fire from the Opposition, with both ACT leader David Seymour and National leader Judith Collins unleashing on the Prime Minister.
"Hey, how's it okay for Miss Ardern to use her 1pm COVID spot to criticise National's housing policy and to misrepresent National's border policy? Hats anyone? Which one today?" Collins tweeted.
And Seymour accused Ardern of being unable to tell the difference between crisis management and political campaigning.
"It's deeply disappointing that Labour leader Jacinda Ardern has continued to politicise the COVID-19 response," Seymour said in a statement.
"Ardern today delivered an important public health announcement to the nation as the Prime Minister and then immediately began campaigning for the Labour Party.
"The Prime Minister should have spent more time preparing our defences so a single outbreak didn't require two months of damaging restrictions instead of lecturing us from the podium."
In a statement to Newshub, Ardern's office said: "The Prime Minister was responding to questions put to her by the media about the Opposition's policies."
