Fair dinkum, Kiwi?
NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern comments, "I'm very disappointed at the actions taken by the Australian Government as we have controls in place but, in the end, this a decision for the Australian Government."
New Zealand still requires all Australian visitors (no matter where they reside in Australia) to
complete two weeks' managed hotel quarantine at their own expense.
Australian Capital Territory, Northern Territory, Tasmania, and Western Australia have had no community transmission for in excess of six months. States like New South Wales has kept borders open with minimal local transmission and well-managed control and tracing systems.
New Zealand's overall Covid-19 strategy – i.e: eradication/suppression - is confusing at best. It is only a matter of probability as to whether Covid-19 escapes hotel quarantine.
As a New Zealander living in Sydney who would love to visit elderly relatives, we only ask that the New Zealand Government treats Australian visitors as all Australian states and territories have treated New Zealand visitors since October 2020. This is the definition of a transtasman travel bubble.
It is accepted that borders may close briefly on the outbreak of any community transmission. There are hundreds of thousands of Australians who would also love to holiday in New Zealand and I'm sure New Zealand's tourism industry and economy would appreciate the business.
Robert Ludecke, Roseville, NSW.
Generous welcome
Parents of a friend of mine who have lived in London for more than 10 years have just returned from London for their annual Kiwi summer holiday. They are New Zealand citizens but have no intention of living here anytime soon.
As their stay in NZ is for more than three months, the NZ taxpayer generously fully funded their entire MIQ stay, supplying free food and accommodation for the first two weeks of their holiday.
I was astounded to find out that the policy of "accepting all returning citizens" includes people with no intention of staying here and that their MIQ stay is free of charge.
While most of us have done the hard yards contributing to the team of five million, the current policies are putting us all at risk, at great expense to the taxpayer.
Fiona Cameron, Green Bay.
Learning lessons
The Government and Ministry of Health have learned little from the Simpson-Roche inquiry into New Zealand's Covid response, which found the local success was luck rather than good management, and delaying its release to Christmas seems designed to cover it rather than act on the criticisms.
The situation in Northland is unacceptable when a single easily-identified case, who has done everything right, causes panic and queues for testing. People have been advised to be tested but wait up to eight hours while health workers write on clipboards, bureaucrats make excuses and our PM talks of being kind.
Taxpayers expect and deserve competence in troubled times; the amateur way everything is organised, even after a year to prepare, is disgraceful. They cannot efficiently manage one community infection and it does not bode well for the vaccination scheme.
Government departments should have taken expertise from industry and commerce to re-purpose existing resources; a booze-bus has all the facilities to become an instant testing station wherever it is needed, McDonalds has an iPad system for taking customer details in the line, the supermarket system for distributing perishable goods could adapt to handle vaccines, and many more.
Learn - and do it better.
Alan McArdle, Glen Eden.
Isolation camps
Why are we mixing travellers and Covid suspects in hotel rooms? It's crazy.
During World War II in the Pacific, the American Army brought many of their wounded to New Zealand and quickly built special pre-fabricated hospitals to house them (the one in Cornwall Park was there for many years).
Our health authorities/government should be doing something similar for Covid Isolation suspects instead of contaminating hotel rooms and placing unsuspecting travellers at risk.
Infections are here for many years and yet we have no adequate isolation areas to house them. It 's just incredibly silly.
Catherine Curlett, Remuera.
Automatic jabs
The world has known for a year that vaccinations would be required to control the worldwide spread of Covid-19. Yet there has been, to my knowledge, no development of robotic vaccination.
Surely, with the amazing abilities of robots to carry out so many precision operations in medicine today, the simple process of placing a needle "X" mm into the upper arm and injecting "Y" ml of vaccine would be a straightforward operation?
To vaccinate six-seven billion people, not the entire world population but sufficient to control the spread, we will need to automate.
Warwick Reed, Te Mata.
