While welcoming the news Auckland will move out of level 3 midnight Sunday, the regional border remains a shambles, according to the Employers Manufacturers Association.
Employers Manufacturers Association chief executive Brett O'Riley says the domestic border exemptions need sorting.
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"The frustration from businesses that we pick up ... has just been palpable and the Ministry of Health has really let us down badly in the way the border has been managed.
"We are slowly getting some clarity but we have had businesses that have not been able to move people or goods across the border and frankly, for reasons that are not good enough. And when there are thousands of exemptions sitting with the Ministry of Health waiting for approval, it's just not good enough."
He said the exemption process had been streamlined but "a long last".
"We're well into alert level 3 and for businesses to be hobbled in this was is just not good enough. And the responses have been slow. Yes we have finally got progress but we have had to take these issues to politicians to get things moving. And that's not good enough, business needs to be consulted much more in the future if we are going to go into alert level 3 again and we can't be making these things up on the fly."
Photo: AFP
He wanted border restrictions to be clarified and prepared ahead of any other alert level changes or pandemics in the future.
"Let's make sure we learn the lessons from what's happened in Auckland... and make sure no other region has to go through something so shambolic in order to comply with a public health order."
He claimed this lockdown had been worse for businesses than the last.
"There just wasn't enough thought that went into how that border worked, no consultation with business in advance of that border being established and the ambiguity has been profound."
Over the weekend, two major changes to travel in Auckland during the Covid-19 alert level 3 lockdown came into effect.
As of 11.59pm on Saturday, people can now transit through Auckland without stopping in order to travel for work.
In addition, patients who need to travel into Auckland for hospital appointments do not need a travel exemption.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) said the changes were intended to "make movement across the boundary more workable for businesses and service providers".
In addition, by Friday afternoon there was a broad class exemption for travel across the border for the horticulture industry.
On Friday, the Ministry of Health was working through more than 7800 applications for exemptions.
As of Thursday it had granted more than 1000 exemptions and declined 100.
Announcing this afternoon that alert level restrictions would remain for a further four days - ending on Sunday night - and masks would become mandatory on public transport, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also spoke about management of the regional border.
Ardern said people needed to check the list of exemptions for travel through Auckland before applying for one, so they do not clog the process for others.
She said some people whose reasons for exemption were already on the list were requesting them, but did not need to.