Jacinda Ardern loves to big-note herself as the princess of compassion, handing out free hugs and pony rides, while drawing snarky comparisons with her supposedly flint-hearted counterpart across the Tasman. It turns out, though, that when it comes to actually doing things, as opposed to mugging for photo ops, Ardern’s “compassion” doesn’t come free.
New Zealand’s government is standing firm on its request for a fee from Kiwis, Australians and their family members looking to leave Wuhan as the coronavirus outbreak continues.
Meanwhile, mean ol’ Scott Morrison proved a lot more generous when the chips are down.
The Australian government axed a mooted $1000 fee from those seeking refuge from the Chinese city, ahead of their uplift on Monday.
Jacinda Ardern defended her government’s choice to charge its citizens […]”I think that’s just a recognition that these are families and individuals who would otherwise be paying privately to be returned back,” she said.
Well, yes, they would, but that kind of misses the point of what an emergency airlift is about, don’t you think? People who, say, take a holiday to a volcanic island would also “otherwise be paying privately” to go home, too. That doesn’t mean you’d refuse to rescue them if disaster strikes, except at a price.
If you’re retrieving people from ground zero of a global pandemic outbreak, it would also seem rather sensible not to dump them straight back into the largest population centre in the country.
While Australians on board the Qantas flight are bound for remote Christmas Island, where they’ll be quarantined for a fortnight, the New Zealand flight is headed to Auckland.
Once on home soil, they’ll be taken to Whangaparaoa, a stunning coastal navy training facility just 30 minutes north from the country’s biggest city.
theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/nz-keeping-wuhan-flight-fee-for-kiwis/
Of course, the media can’t quite bring themselves to criticise their fairy princess for being a skin-flint. Naturally, they have to try and paint incompetence as a virtue.
It might not be quite time to barricade the baches along the Hibiscus Coast in preparation for the zombie apocalypse, but the local Pak’n’Save might want to stock up for a rush on face masks and hand sanitiser.
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