Thousands have piled into the comment section of ACT leader David Seymour's Daily Mail opinion piece, in which he blames "lockdown loving lefties" for turning New Zealand into a "Hermit Kingdom".
Seymour, MP for Epsom, wrote that he felt compelled to speak out after a local business association in his electorate sent him a photograph of a usually busy commuter route in Newmarket "completely devoid of life".
"That snapshot spoke a thousand words: as we surpass the two-year anniversary of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, something close to normality has finally resumed for many across the globe," Seymour wrote for the Daily Mail.
"But here in our far-flung corner of the Southern Hemisphere, isolated behind our still-sealed border, we endlessly push around a hamster wheel of ever more wearying rules and restrictions."
The ACT leader questioned Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's decision to impose the 'red' traffic light setting across the entire country after a family in the Nelson region tested positive with Omicron and officials couldn't link the infection to the border.
The 'red' setting is not a lockdown. Gatherings are restricted to 100 people, masks must be worn inside public places except when eating and drinking, and in the first phase COVID-19 contacts must isolate themselves for 14 days, while households contacts must be isolated for a further 10.
"Nine new cases in a country where 93 percent of the [eligible] population is now double vaccinated - but nine cases too many for our Left-wing Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, committed as she apparently is to a policy of 'Zero COVID' at any cost," Seymour wrote.
"To coin the phrase of one of her predecessors, Sir John Key, her policies are turning us into a 'hermit kingdom'."
Seymour's Daily Mail article came just a week after New Zealand-born columnist Dan Wootton wrote a scathing piece for the publication, describing the Government's response as "deluded and doomed to failure".
It prompted backlash from Kiwis and even House Speaker Trevor Mallard, who got into a spat with Wootton on Twitter about the issues raised. Mallard's comments were reported on by the Daily Mail.
In his article, Seymour raised many of the common criticisms made against the Government's COVID-19 response, including the "vast amount of irresponsible government borrowing", being too slow to roll out rapid antigen tests, and Kiwis unable to return home due to the border closure.
"You might think all this should give our government something to focus on. Instead, our evening television bulletins are still dominated by public health doomsters making their gloomy forecasts," Seymour wrote.
"You can hardly blame disgruntled Kiwis for moaning that Lefties love nothing more than the excuse to impose a lockdown."
But the numbers don't lie. Statistics show New Zealand has had about 10 COVID-19 deaths per million people, compared to 2295 in the UK and 127 in Australia.
Ardern, while acknowledging that Omicron is "mild to moderate", says the latest restrictions are important because the new variant is highly transmissible and could overwhelm the health system.
"What we've seen overseas is that yes, Omicron is a more mild to moderate illness for most people, and particularly that the booster will make a difference to ensuring we don't have that pressure on our system," she said on Thursday.
Associate Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall, an infectious diseases physician, shared similar sentiment earlier this week.
"I think the really important thing about Omicron is that it is indeed milder but it is far more transmissible, and so even if a small proportion of people need care in hospital, it may end up being a very large number of people at one time who need that resource. The pressure on the healthcare resource and the community as a whole can be quite large with it."
The reaction to Seymour's piece has been huge, with thousands having their say in the Daily Mail's comment section.
"And we thought we had it bad here in the UK," one person wrote.
"Imagine if the left-wing socialist Labour were in power in the UK! It's bad enough as it is!" another said.
Others weren't so kind, making reference to Seymour's drop in popularity in TVNZ's Thursday night poll.
"Jacinda has gone down in the polls but David Seymour has gone down even more. He is on the road to oblivion."
There were also hundreds of comments left on Seymour's Twitter post linking to the Daily Mail article.
"If NZ had followed your recommendations, we would now have over 10,000 deaths at the rate achieved by the UK and USA. You OK with that?" one person asked.
"So you're now going to the international media to spread disinformation about the state of New Zealand, David? Maybe it's time for you to actually study what freedom, rights, and justice are about instead of continuing to show how little you know," said another.
Others agreed with Seymour.
"Absolutely. Their actions are creating divisions that will last for a long time. Real kindness would be in tolerance, in accepting that others can have a different world view!"
