National Party Leader Judith Collins released the party's border policy Thursday morning, which includes mandatory use of contact-tracing technologies and everyone returning to NZ required to test negative. Video / Mark Mitchell
COMMENT:
Whether intentional or not, the National Party's border policy effectively removes the Welcome Home mat for Kiwis living overseas.
The requirement to test negative within three days of boarding a flight is being sold as an extra layer of defence against Covid-19.
But it would also make some Kiwisless likely to want to come home. And for others, it would be impractical if not impossible.
If you happen to be in a country where the testing regime isn't credible or widely available, with a quick turnaround, then sorry not sorry.
And best of luck trying to travel in a Covid-ravaged world from wherever you might be to a country where testing - and flights to New Zealand - might be more credible or available.
The key question is not whether it would protect us more from Covid-19. It is clearly another layer of defence.
The question is whether it would be worth the hassle and cost, given that returnees would still have to be in Government-run isolation facilities for 14 days and be tested on days three and 12.
The 14-day period is considered the best way to ensure any infection is detected before someone leaves.
That's why the Ministry of Health was confident there wouldn't be any transmission in the community after they failed to implement the days three and 12 tests in June, when some 1300 people were allowed to leave without being tested.
They all did their 14 days. None of them tested positive in the clean up.
If this is a deliberate electoral strategy by National to tap into public sentiment, it aligns with its other promise to charge all returnees for the cost of managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ).
A recent 1 News Colmar Brunton poll showed 75 per cent support for having returning Kiwis "contribute towards the cost of their stay in managed isolation".
And while many will be offended at a policy that makes it harder for Kiwis overseas to return to their homeland, others worried about the threat of Covid-19 and a leaky border won't be too fussed.
The silver lining to this latest outbreak is that all parties have upped their game in terms of Covid policy.
Prior to the outbreak the Herald was compiling a pre-election feature about what each party would do to keep Covid out of the community.
The cupboard was looking bare, and thin on innovative ideas.
The feature is now being completely rewritten given the release of new policy this week from National, New Zealand First and Act. Should MIQ facilities be army bases (NZF) or private places (Act)? Should there be a singular border agency (National, NZF) or, as Act wants, an epidemic response centre?
Even the Government has been forced into action.
A few hours before Jacinda Ardern found out about the new cluster, she was asked by the Herald if Labour's Covid election policy was any different to what the Government was already doing.
Her answer - that the current strategy had led to New Zealand being Covid-free - implied 'no'.
After the abject failure to test border-facing workers, the Government brought in 500 more Defence Force personnel, and Heather Simpson and Sir Brian Roche to babysit the Health Ministry's testing regime.
Yesterday after the Herald revealed National's plan to make it compulsory for border-facing workers and overseas returnees to use Bluetooth contact-tracing technology, the Government rushed out an announcement that it would trial the Covid Card for MIQ staff.
It's been something that Otago University epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker has suggested. He also pushed for mass masking months before the Government changed its mind on mask use.
He's also been calling for more meaningful case data, an inquiry into New Zealand's Covid response, and a single public health agency.
He and other public health experts have been calling for these measures for some time. The ears of the Government, and all parties, now seem to be much more receptive.
