The announcement has been welcomed by public health experts but questions remain over enforcement.
The hospitality sector said it wanted to be involved in planning.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Cabinet had commissioned advice on the moves after daily scans fell from a high of two million a day at the height of the pandemic in New Zealand to a low of just over 400,000.
She also said less than a fifth of the more than 2600 contacts of the Australian traveller in Wellington had been using the app.
The Government was also considering mandating mask-wearing at Alert Level 2 and above at certain high-risk locations where social distancing was difficult.
Covid had caused significant disruption in New Zealand in the past week and it was time to review our "toolbox", Ms Ardern said.
The changes could be considered reform of the alert level system, but she was not in favour of further alert levels, she said.
Asked why mandated scanning had not already been put in place, Ms Ardern said the hope had been that people would scan. She also cited the difficulty of enforcement.
Asked whether the individual or an establishment would be held responsible, she said it would likely be the establishment but the Government was receiving advice on this, acknowledging the extra burden on the likes of hospitality operators.
Penalties were covered under existing legislation and would likely be fines in the "moderate" range, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said.
The Government would be considering the changes to mask wearing and QR code scanning over the next week, he said.
Epidemiologist Prof Michael Baker and many public health experts have long been calling for such measures.
"This is a very positive development and will improve our chances of getting ahead of the virus," he said last night.
Similar policies had been enacted in Australia and other countries, showing it was possible to get over issues around enforcement, Prof Baker said.
Other questions remained around how scanning would be enforced for those without digital devices, and Apple/Google’s exposure notification (Bluetooth) rules.
Mr Hipkins said the Government would be considering both these.
Hospitality New Zealand chief executive Julie White said the organisation’s main priority was customer safety and it was supportive of measures that would ensure that while allowing businesses to continue operating.
"The details are really in who is responsible for enforcing, and who is responsible — is it the customer, the business owner, the police?
"Those are questions we will be putting to the Government and we hope to able to collaborate over how this can be enacted."
The Government meets today to decide on moving Wellington out of Level 2 and the fate of the transtasman bubble.
- There were 10 Covid-19 cases reported in managed isolation facilities yesterday.
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Long overdue.
We would be arrested and fined if we walked around the streets carrying a rifle in a way that suggested we were ready to fire it at someone, even if it were unloaded and we had no intention of harming anyone.
The situation with community transmission of of Covid 19 is no different. People walking around without a mask and not maintaining social distancing may as well be carrying a rifle.
Cringe knee jerk authoritarianism. We should all be vaccinated by now, that's the real elephant in Arderns room.
Name one country that's got everyone vaccinated , or even close to everyone . Even vaccine producing countries are no where near that get some perspective
The fact that the Govt is having to even consider this is a sad indictment of the Kiwi populace as a whole and how slack they have been in this regard. It's quicker and easier than clocking in at work, or tracking billables etc and has the added bonus of helping prevent mass outbreaks like the ones in Aussie, Taiwan, Fiji, the UK etc.
If this proposal is enough to make you cringe, then your truth is that you need to drink a cup of concrete and harden up.
The fact that the govt is having to even consider this is a sad indictment of the kiwi populace as a whole.