A co-owner of Auckland's Glenfield Mall says she's frustrated her tenants aren't back in business.

Dallas Pendergrast has told the Epidemic Response Select Committee today it's unacceptable businesses can't open, when there are only a "handful" of Covid-19 cases.

She said they had 115 tenants and they'd halved their rents during the lockdown, and they would be doing that again next month but there was uncertainty about how long that could continue.

The Government had totally ignored SMEs, she said.

Pendergrast called Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's public thanks to SMEs "an insult" because the Government had "no idea" about small businesses.

"They don't want a thank you, they want to get back to work.

"In the meantime they want Government help."

Compassion didn't pay the bills, she said.

She and her husband were having to dip into their own savings to cover those costs.

They would also face significant costs to retenant their mall when businesses failed, like Flight Centre which was one of her tenants.

There needed to be clear guidelines for when they could reopen and in the meantime Pendergrast said she'd been lobbying politicians.

Keeping malls closed was prolonging the agony.

"I can't understand why they can't be open at the moment - there's a handful of cases left, they're not a risk."

She said the Covid-19 situation had been "dramatised".

Michael Wood asked in light of the advice from experts about the risks, whether Pendergrast thought it was better to have the short and sharp response to return to normal more quickly or a prolonged half-open approach.

Pendergrast replied: "Michael, the virus is contained in New Zealand, let's be real about this."

She said it was "insane" to keep the restrictions on businesses.