Frustration in Auckland has been rising and the cabinet would have been aware it risked losing the crowd

One of the many quotes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte that he probably never said, was that he preferred his generals lucky, rather than able. When it’s a matter of life and death, “give me lucky generals,” he’s reputed to have pleaded.

It’s a view that New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern echoed this week when she announced that Auckland – home to about a third of all New Zealanders – was moving out of the strict level 4 lockdown to level 3. Replace “generals” with “policy” and you get a pretty accurate sense of cabinet’s big call this week. In a country that has essentially tattooed “go hard, go early” on to one collective arm and “stay home, stay safe” on to the other, the decision to let about 300,000 people go back to their places of work when Auckland’s still getting 15-30 cases a day in the community is a turning point in the government’s approach to this pandemic. Both in public health terms and politically. A year ago, public opinion wouldn’t have worn such faith in “lucky generals”. But that was a year ago.