"The psychological pressures of the long level 4 lockdown are growing, and the financial pressures on businesses and jobs. Families are separated, there's people who don't have income coming in... there are lot of people who are just on the edge at the moment.
"I always listen to the epidemiologists... but they're looking at it through one lens... there are other implications of staying at level 4. With nearly 80 percent of Aucklanders ... with at least one vaccination... with alert level 3 still being very restrictive, and capable of constraining spread, it's time to move back."
Goff said Aucklanders were finding this lockdown much harder that the level 4 lockdown last year.
"The problem is there's a degree of uncertainty about when the job will be finished, and I don't think anybody thinks that you can stay indefinitely at level 4. Level 3 still has still got the constraints in place that can prevent the spread of the disease.
"Yes there is a degree of risk, but there's also a risk in the real pressure on people and losing the social licence and mandate to continue to get people to complying with lockdown - Aucklanders by and large have done really well so far, but there'll be a limit to their endurance of that."
Level 3 would allow the construction industry to restart, people could widen their bubble slightly, and retail and hospitality could operate with contactless click and collect-type operations.
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