Lets re-cap Nationals policy at the election on returning NZers, suck it up leftie scum
Election 2020: National wants travellers to test negative for Covid-19 before flying to NZ
The National Party is promising to create new “border protection agency” and require travellers to test negative for Covid-19 before boarding a plane to New Zealand if elected in October.
National leader Judith Collins has promised a hard-line policy on returnees to New Zealand, saying there would be no exemptions if they couldn’t prove they were negative within three days of boarding a plane.
“This is tough, but tough times need tough measures. I imagine the New Zealand public will be very pleased to have tough and smart borders in place,” she said at the launch of the party’s policy on Thursday.
The party would also require returnees, border workers, and healthcare workers who test and care for Covid-19 patients to wear Bluetooth contact tracing devices.
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Just minutes before National launched its policy, the Government announced it too would be trialling the use of the Bluetooth CovidCard inside managed isolation hotels.
National’s border policy comes a day after NZ First’s Winston Peters declared his party wanted a “border protection force”, and amid a week of controversy over the Government’s failure to routinely test border and isolation facility workers.
Collins said it was not an undue burden to ask returning New Zealanders to first get a test.
“Look at the shocking burden that 1.7 million New Zealanders in the Auckland region are currently undergoing ... It’s a very small price for someone to pay to help keep the country safe,” she said.
“New Zealanders would say that they want us to keep Covid-19 out. We've seen what happens when a less-than rigorous approach has been taken, we're not prepared to allow that to happen.”
Asked about the worth of testing people before they travel to New Zealand, and are possibly infected during transit, Collins said it was just one “strand” in the party’s border policy.
National Party health spokesman Dr Shane Reti said there were many countries that mandated testing at a traveller’s point of departure.
He said it would set an “expectation” returnees follow the rules when entering the country.
“We’re very strong that if we can have a strong border before people even arrive on the plane, that they know the rules when they come into New Zealand, then a test within three days of leaving is a good thing.”
Health Minister Chris Hipkins said there were logistical challenges to testing travellers before departure, including varied testing turnaround times in other countries.
“There is risk that people pick up infection whilst in transit, and that journey can, at the moment with the limited number of flights available, people can be in transit for quite some period of time,” Hipkins said.
“There’s no evidence that would necessarily reduce the number of positive cases that we had coming into New Zealand in the first place.”
Health officials in New Zealand currently provided Covid-19 tests for travellers heading to countries which required this, at the traveller’s expense.
Hipkins said a “big restructuring exercise” to create a new border agency, or “another bureaucracy”, would not help the pandemic response.
Green Party immigration spokeswoman Golriz Ghahraman said National’s border policy showed the party did not care about New Zealanders overseas.
“They want to leave New Zealanders stranded overseas, where we can’t guarantee they will have access to adequate healthcare or support,” she said.
“They also make the incorrect assumption that tests are easily accessible overseas. We know that in many places, including the United States and even parts of Australia, testing is hard to access or very expensive. It could leave New Zealanders stranded overseas indefinitely.”
Suburb-sized lockdowns and a border protection agency
National’s proposed border protection agency would be primarily focussed on public health, and would run isolation and quarantine facilities. The Ministry of Health, DHBs, and regional public health units would work with the new agency.
Collins said it was not intended to be an enforcement agency, and would scale up and down as needed, in a way that was similar to Civil Defence.
National also wants to significantly scale up testing for the virus and create a “more effective” Covid-19 resurgence plan so future lockdowns could be shorter.
Lockdowns of suburbs, instead of cities and towns, would take place and would be administered by the border protection agency. The agency would establish a system that would allow people to cross shut borders for essential work.
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