COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins is accusing David Seymour of a "dog-whistle to anti-vaxxers" after the ACT leader said it may be time to move on from Government vaccine mandates.
Earlier on Sunday Seymour said vaccination rates are making "little difference" to infection rates under Omicron.
And while he said the COVID jab is still the "best bet" for staying out of hospital, he questioned if the benefits of vaccine rules are still worth the costs to individuals and society.
"If there is little difference in the rates of infection and spread of Omicron between vaccinated and unvaccinated people, then what is the point of segregating them?" Seymour asked.
"It is time to weigh up the costs that vaccine requirements are placing on individuals, on workplaces, and on social cohesion, and ask whether policies that force vaccination in various settings are still worth it.
"The case is becoming stronger by the day that they are not as Omicron spreads between vaccinated and unvaccinated in a way it did not do with earlier variants, and policies designed to prevent unvaccinated transmission are no longer worth it. It's time to move on."
But Hipkins says since Omicron was detected in the community, double-vaccinated cases are 10 times less likely to require hospitalisation than unvaccinated cases. He adds that Seymour's argument looks like "a dog-whistle to anti-vaxxers".
"It's hard to know what ACT is aiming to achieve here," Hipkins says in a statement.
"Seymour has flip-flopped on mandates. In October 2021, he was one of the strongest advocates for them and was urging the Government to bring them in.
"The Government has always been of the view that mandates are a temporary measure to keep people safe, but moving into an Omicron surge, as we are, is not the time to end them."
Seymour has subsequently responded to Hipkins, accusing him of "playing politics".
"I agree vaccination rates affect your chance of going to hospital and said so in my release," he told Newshub.
"Hipkins appears to be deliberately confusing hospitalisation and infections.
"As for appealing to anti-vaxxers, I'm strongly pro-vaccination - this is about mandates. Hipkins needs to defend his policy instead of playing politics."
On Sunday New Zealand saw another major spike in COVID cases with the Ministry of Health reporting 2522 new infections. There are also 100 people in hospital, although none in ICU or HDU.
