Recently the National Party has been pushing for the Government to open a travel bubble with Australia.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!This would see mean people coming from Australia could bypass our Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) facilities if they provide a negative Covid-19 pre-departure test within 72 hours of travel.
It may seem like a small thing, opening travel with Australia, but it has big implications on our economy.
Before Covid hit, 40 per cent of tourist visitors to New Zealand were from Australia.
Right now, our tourism industry is on its knees, begging for help. A trans-Tasman bubble would be a lifeline for those businesses.
Tourism New Zealand has estimated a bubble with Australia, combined with domestic tourism would see tourism revenue return to 70 per cent of pre-Covid levels.
That would make a huge difference to the businesses on the West Coast, in Te Anau, Queenstown and across the country that are crying out for this investment.
Both countries have a similar Covid profile and Australia has proven a bubble can work.
Australia opened their border to New Zealanders in October, and it has worked, showing us the risks associated with a two-way bubble are minimal and manageable.
But just as important as the economic boost a trans-Tasman bubble would have, it would also free up space in our MIQ facilities.
Managed isolation is overrun with long delays because 40 per cent of places are being taken up by Kiwis returning from Australia where there is little, if any, risk of Covid-19.
This would make a huge difference to our critical migrant workers who have been separated from their families for more than a year.
Many migrant workers who came through the border before it closed last year have been kept apart from their partners and children.
There is no pathway for their families to come to New Zealand and be reunited, and it is causing many to seriously consider leaving New Zealand.
Migrant nurses are one example of those workers who arrived in New Zealand before the borders closed and have been separated from their children.
The only option for these nurses is to leave, at a time when our nurse workforce is critically short-staffed, and we are about to undertake the biggest vaccination programme in living memory.
It is not just our nurses though, this issue risks eroding our critical migrant workforce more widely – our medical specialists, mathematics teachers, engineers, and tech experts – because those workers have no hope on the horizon of being reunited with their families.
Freeing up those beds in MIQ by created a trans-Tasman bubble would mean these migrant families could be reunited over a manageable period.
A travel bubble with Australia clearly has more than an economic impact, but a significant social impact too.
We have been told for months that a trans-Tasman bubble is being worked on, but our borders remain sealed.
National is calling on the Government to make this a priority. New Zealanders deserve action now.
– Judith Collins, National party leader based in Auckland. Leader of the opposition, Member for Papkura, National Party.