Where is New Zealand’s smart border?

News that the Government is suspending all flights from India to New Zealand will be devastating for our Indian community here.

We know many of you have been separated from your families for many months, in some cases more than a year, and will have been looking forward to being reunited.

I want to make clear that the National Party appreciates our New Zealand-Indian community and the important role you play in shaping our country.

We value your contribution to our country, both economically – including the $10 billion that Indian migrants contribute to our economy – but also socially and how diverse you help make New Zealand. This latest announcement from the Government will be a blow, and we hope to see the issues at our border resolved as quickly as possible so that these flights can be reinstated.

The frustrating thing is if the Government had listened and acted on the National Party’s calls for a smart border back in January, we may not have got to the point where we have had to suspend flights from India.

We have previously asked the Government to separate our arrivals into New Zealand based on a traffic light system.

It would mean arrivals from countries that are deemed higher-risk due the sheer number of Covid-19 cases, such as the United States, the United Kingdom and India, would be placed in a dedicated hotel.

This would avoid arrivals from high-risk countries mixing in MIQ with passengers coming in from low-risk countries, like the Pacific Islands for example. We know that the people coming from India with Covid-19 did not want to catch the virus or pass it on to others, but it is why separating high-risk and low-risk passengers is needed.

We would hate to see a situation where Kiwis are torn apart from their family overseas for even longer periods of time because our Government cannot get its border defences right.

National also believes it is time for the Government to introduce rapid antigen testing for all people getting off international flights in New Zealand. You receive the results in as little as 15 minutes and if anyone tests positive then they are immediately moved to quarantine and have their results confirmed by a standard PCR test.

Day zero and day one tests are a critical party of our border defences, but returnees can be in a MIQ facility for up to 24 hours waiting for results and potentially spreading Covid-19 if, they are positive. There’s a couple of other things the Government could do to strengthen our border and avoid having to suspend flights, such as conduct daily saliva testing of every person who works in an MIQ facility; look at constructing a purpose-built Cobid-19 quarantine facility on the outskirts of Auckland; and make sure every border worker is vaccinated, if they refuse then remove them from the frontline.

We do not want to see any further flights have to be suspended because our border is not up to scratch.

-Chris Bishop, National's Covid-19 Response spokesperson