Police say a large number of vehicles were turned around at checkpoints set up in Northland on Wednesday, and that thousands of breaches of Level 4 lockdown rules have been reported online.
Police Commissioner Andrew Coster gave an update on compliance levels with the nationwide lockdown to date with New Zealand nearing two weeks under Alert Level 4 conditions and said police remain pleased with the overall response so far.
"The vast majority of New Zealanders are doing the right thing by diligently following the restrictions," Coster said.
"It’s important we keep this up and Police will continue to be out and about engaging with our communities, conducting reassurance patrols and, where necessary, taking enforcement action."
With that said, Coster pointed out Northland has seen plenty of enforcement recently with police checkpoints set up to question those attempting to enter the region from Auckland where the Covid-19 Delta variant outbreak is still a serious concern.
It comes after former MP Hone Harawira slammed the police for their checkpoints on Wednesday, saying establishing such borders eight days after the lockdown came into effect were "pointless".
Police should have done a border check on day one of lockdown, Harawira said.
Coster said on Thursday the checkpoints had turned back "a large number of vehicles" since being established on Wednesday morning.
"Police are committed to staffing checkpoints across the country to ensure people’s travel is for essential purposes only and we will continue our proactive approach to enforcement and to reassure iwi and communities that they can have confidence in the work we are doing," Coster said.
He added police were also made aware of a person who chose to commence a tramp through the Kahurangi National Park at the start of Alert Level 4 restrictions.
"The person made contact with police upon exiting the park and was instructed to return to their address in Wellington and was issued with a formal warning for failing to comply with a Covid-19 order," Coster said.
Infringements by the numbers
Senior Sergeant Dan William said a man was reported surfing in Shipwreck Bay, where they found two others surfing as well.
Coster said since Alert Level 4 came into place, 69 people have been charged with a total of 75 offences nationwide as at 5pm on Wednesday.
"These arrests are primarily the result of protest activity in the first few days of Alert Level 4 and other intentional behaviour in breach of the restrictions," Coster said.
Of the 75 charges filed:
47 are for failing to comply with a Covid-19 Order
16 for failure to comply with a direction, prohibition or restriction
10 for Health Act Breaches, and two for assaulting, threatening, hindering or obstructing an enforcement officer.
In the same time period, 190 formal warnings have been issued. Of these, 73 were formal warnings were for failing to comply with a Covid-19 Order, 67 for failure to comply with a direction, prohibition or restriction and 50 for Health Act breaches.
Since the lockdown's introduction, Police have also issued 909 infringements for Covid-19 related breaches with the majority - 827 - being for a person failing to remain at their home or residence.
Police have also received a total of 9259 online breach notifications. Of these, 5608 were about a gathering, 2783 were about a business, and 868 were about a person.
In addition to the online breach notifications, a total of 6108 Covid-19 related calls were made to the 105-phone line.
The majority - 4330 - of calls were requests for information, and 1778 were to report perceived Covid-19 breaches.
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