May 2022

The government announcement to move NZ into the Orange setting before the Easter break came as a huge relief for many local businesses and residents. The ability to go about our daily lives with reduced restrictions means that those of us who choose to, can start to enjoy some of the activities that have been restricted during the pandemic, either by personal choice or Government guidelines.

This may not be the case for everyone, as some people remain apprehensive about leaving the relative safety of their own homes for different reasons. I would ask you to be mindful of this and to check in with family, friends, and neighbours to make sure that they are all right.

The move to Orange has been described as the start of the rebuild for Auckland, as many of the businesses who managed to stay afloat start their journey towards sustainable economic recovery. It is imperative that we all continue to support our local businesses as we start to re-establish thriving communities, town centres and business districts, from which we can all benefit.

Despite this positive move forwards, we still face many challenges as we try to cope with rising costs across the board, particularly food prices and interest rates, all of which are fuelling levels of inflation which we have not seen for a long time.

The pandemic will continue to influence our way of life for some time to come. There remains the need for us to be adaptable and flexible at short notice, as collectively we develop our latest version of our new normal.

Source: Networker Magazine