Locking the borders worked, when locking the borders was all there was to do.

But the fatal mistake that is now costing us millions was after we locked the borders; we rested on our laurels, developed a sense of smugness, and fell asleep.

There was no plan. By the time we woke up to that fact, we had to scramble, and the scrambling is now costing us reputation and economic damage.

The Sail GP, as of yesterday, is gone. We miss out. It's not coming here because they can't get MIQ spots. The fact we still have MIQ spots is because we failed abysmally at vaccination.

The Super Cars are cancelled for the second year in a row. The ASB Classic is cancelled for a second year in a row. Lord of the Rings is going because you can arrive in Britain and start work instead of spending two weeks doing nothing, if in fact you can get the spots at all.

The All Blacks might get home, they might not. If they don't play here, more millions gone. The Warriors are stuck, and so it goes.

Scott Morrison yesterday was spot on. Once you're vaccinated, zero Covid hurts your economy. We are zero Covid and we aren't vaccinated. We are hamstringing ourselves with the Government's ineptitude.

The UMR poll out yesterday confirms the Reid Research poll a couple of weeks back. Labour support is plummeting, National and ACT are up, and Winston Peters is up. All of it is anti-Government movement.

People see this mess for what it is.

Locking down gave respite. But that’s where it stopped. There are enough of us that see the world moving on. We see the alternatives and we see the contrast in attitude. For a country that requires the world to make a living, it's an astonishing thing that we have let that part of the equation slide so badly.

Zero Covid means international tourism isn't coming back for years and attracting events is now clearly off the table.

Yes, we have no Covid. But we also have no income outside of exporting food. The stuff we've stopped hasn’t been made up for, so we are filling it with debt. And as the world moves on, we are watching business cancel and go elsewhere.

We are digging our own economic grave.