Paula Bennett: Borders are open but NZ far from welcoming

Australia is open but returning to New Zealand is fraught with red tape. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Opinion

OPINION

Australia is open! Not "New Zealand pretend open" but really open and welcoming. We recently went to the Gold Coast to see my daughter and grandchildren for a few days. To be fair I would have gone through anything to get to see them, but leaving and returning to New Zealand was a complete rigmarole. At Auckland Airport barely any retail was open, food places were scarce and the people were lovely but not really into it.

Arriving in Australia was great. We had to fill in an Australian Digital Passenger Declaration. Download the app, fill in your information and prove you have been vaccinated. Access your information by putting in your name and your password. Easy, done, welcome to Australia.

In contrast, coming back to New Zealand we had to fill in a declaration online – no app, you were given a special (ridiculous) reference number, then prove you're not a robot and then get sent a verification. You are doing this on your phone at the airport as you can't complete your form until you have done a verified negative Covid test within 24 hours of departure.

So we lined up at the airport, getting there 3.5 hours before our flight. Paid $72 each for the test. Went through more and more form-filling. Waited an hour to get the result of the RAT and then had to download that into our declaration. We were starting to get a bit stressed, hoping our result would come in with enough time for us to check in, as we couldn't do so without our test result.

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The stress, time and money-wasting is one thing, but the utter ridiculousness of it is another thing completely.

Queensland's population of 5.1m had 4252 new cases on June 7. New Zealand, population 5.1m, had 7135 new cases on June 7. Yet the Government makes me test to come home because I might bring Covid with me? There is no logic to this whatsoever and is just another example of the Government's inability to move quickly and logically. Yes, they have indicated there will be changes but they are too slow and the damage to people wanting to come to New Zealand and getting mixed messages will continue. It is far too boring for me to go into the level of detail required in my form-filling to enter NZ – except to say that after doing it I needed a drink at 11am.

Australia is open! No mask-wearing – anywhere. The customer service everywhere we went was exceptional, however, I was told off twice for asking about Covid and was told in no uncertain terms that even talking about it is banned.

We went to go out for dinner one night and came across a huge traffic jam and the footpaths filled with people. Smiling laughing happy people – they had a "GC is open" SeaFireworks evening and more than 100,000 unmasked people came out to celebrate.

Australians think New Zealand is closed. They can't believe we still wear masks and have to test to enter. The message this sends is that we live in fear. The rules are confusing and nonsensical and make us look backward and closed.

Paula Bennett. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Paula Bennett is a former Deputy Prime Minister and National Party politician who now works at Bayleys Real Estate as national director — customer engagement.