New Zealand: Political Developments and Data in 2021: From COVID Emergency to Policy Reform

After the successful adoption of a COVID‐19 elimination strategy in 2020, in 2021 the New Zealand government introduced strategies to limit and mitigate the spread of the virus, as the elimination strategy looked increasingly unsustainable. It rolled out vaccines, imposed vaccine mandates and grappled with the complexities of the largely closed border. Despite the continuing pandemic demands, the Labour government, now with an outright majority after the General Election in late 2020, attempted to make progress on elements of its reform agenda in health, housing, water, transport and some social areas. Opposition to these reforms, which had a centralizing thrust and expanded in limited ways the scope of Māori participation in governance and decision‐making, was swift. By the end of the year, emerging debates about vaccine mandates and public weariness with lockdowns contributed to growing discontent with the government's COVID‐19 policies.