An increase in Covid-19 cases means a pause of the NZ/Australian travel bubble. Chris Hipkins on the AM show demonstrated how little thought went into the government’s preparation for handling an entirely predictable event. When asked if New Zealanders in Melbourne should come home now, Hipkins outright lied.
Hipkins: “Be prepared for the fact that if we do end up putting a pause in place you could find yourself stuck there for a while longer. Victoria have dealt with some Covid-19 cases previously with short, sharp lockdowns and so on, they’ve dealt with those well without finding themselves in the position that NSW currently do, but at this point, you know, it’s Covid-19, it’s very unpredictable. So, if you are anxious about potentially being stuck there then come home now.”
Victoria has NOT dealt with “short, sharp” lockdowns well. Melbourne resident and Sky News Australia host Rita Panahi vehemently disagrees.
“Before the entire state was plunged into a draconian lockdown … more than 45,000 Victorians were tested for COVID in a 24-hour period and just four were positive,” she said.
“And yet Victoria is under a crippling destructive lockdown. We are asked to blindly support the same team that has repeatedly botched multiple elements of the state’s COVID-19 response, plunging Victoria into four lockdowns.”
Ms Panahi said the Victorian Government “claims to follow evidence-based health advice” but is “reluctant” to share the data that supports its “draconian measures”.
“We’ve been lied to again and again by politicians.”
“If you still uncritically trust this lot then you deserve to be ruled by arrogant incompetent ingrates.”
Rita Panahi, Sky News Australia
I’m sure it’s no consolation to Melbournians that we are no better off here regarding the lack of scientific data around Covid-19 decisions. The February review conducted by Sir Brian Roche found a lack of coherency among central agencies, conflicting messaging that could undermine public confidence and a government that had failed to learn the lessons of past reviews.
Garner: “You could stay there and just ride it and know that, with the guys in Sydney got a plane put on and they got MIQ for free, so you might as well just risk it in a Melbourne because, I mean, you will treat the people in Melbourne the same as the Sydney, the kiwis in Sydney.”
The government set a precedent in NSW it is unwilling to follow.
Hipkins: “Well the reality though is we only have a limited amount of space there, the people in NSW, some of them will be waiting potentially several months before they have the opportunity to come back to NZ, Victoria is still only a small number of cases. You know, I wouldn’t speculate that things would get anywhere near the situation they’re dealing with in NSW at the moment. We just don’t have any information on how well contained… or enough information, I should say, on how well contained the risk is there in Victoria. And we will get more information over the course of the next 24 hours or so. We will keep that under constant review.”
Everyone, including Hipkins, knows further outbreaks are more likely than not.
Garner: “But will you treat kiwis in Melbourne the same as those in NSW, therefore planes get put on – rescue planes or repatriation flights get planned and out on MIQ spots come with a ticket that you bring them back on, the plane ticket, is that under consideration?”
Hipkins: “Well what I would say there is that the capacity we’ve got to do that is pretty maxed out with NSW at the moment and you know if anything happened in any other Australian state our ability to provide extra support there would be quite limited at this point.”
Garner: “You can see the double standard here can’t you? If you are a kiwi in Sydney that’s gone there you’ve sort of hit it lucky, you managed to get home and you got MIQ for free. Everybody else pays and if you’re in Melbourne you may not get any rescue flight or MIQ for free at all.”
But Hipkins refuses to admit to the obvious double standard.
Hipkins: “Well, like I said, there are people in NSW who are still waiting and maybe waiting for some time…”
Garner: “So why did they get special treatment?”
Hipkins: “Well we said when we opened up the trans-Tasman bubble that we would set aside some rooms and capacity for emergency situations – this is an emergency situation in NSW – it could be some time before we’re able to reopen the safe travel zone with NSW so we’ve put this extra support in place for them but we can’t accommodate everybody all at the same time. There’s quite a few people over there, some of them are going to be waiting a while before they have the chance to come back to NZ.”
Hipkins takes the view that any Covid-19 outbreak is dire and classified as an emergency.
In 2020 it took six months before the government starting thinking about charging returnees for MIQ stays and when they did, the expected revenue fell far below budget and took too long to collect.
MIQ has not been well managed. The latest is that the government has been bested by opportunists using software to nab MIQ places and onsell them, not to residents desperate to return home, but to cretins happy to pay for gaming the government’s dubious system.
“Websites are now offering up to $2415 to use bots and scripts to quickly snap up an MIQ room, while one tech-savvy person is now voluntarily helping people book MIQ rooms with the help of a script that partially automates the process.”
Instead of ordering a review of the MIQ placement system the PM asks us to use it fairly. Some travellers have waited months to return home, and one technical official on standby for the Tokyo Olympics had their dreams dashed because there is no MIQ space for returning home.
The MIQ booking system is broken, and predictably, the PM asks us to be kind.
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