National's Agenda is not OUR agenda

Nov 09, 2021

On 15 March this year, National launched it's now-notoriously Bad Idea petition to open up a trans tasman 'bubble' with Australia:

The pressure for a TT 'bubble' had been growing, exerted by business interests with their political wing - the National Party - adding force:

National's leader, Judith Collins, made her wishes clear:

“There’s no good reason why we can’t have quarantine-free travel with Australia right now. Australia did it for New Zealanders last October, but our Government won’t return the favour.”

Even Australia's Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, helpfully joined the shrill chorus to pressure the Labour government:

“If the New Zealand government doesn't wish Australians to visit New Zealand and spend money in Queenstown or Wellington, or other parts of a country, that's a matter for them, it has always been a matter for them,” he said.
I'm happy for them to open it up as soon as the prime minister and her Government would like to do that.”

(This story was canvassed in a recent blogpost: The Virus, the Bubble, and the Trap.)

PM Ardern announced the opening of the Trans Tasman 'bubble' for 19 April. New Zealanders made use of the new opening with unbridled enthusiasm, despite being warned: 'Flyer Beware'.

The warning was prescient.

On 16 June, the Delta Strain burst into New South Wales and then it's neighour, Victoria.

From when the first case appeared in Sydney, cases increased exponentially. By 25 October, the death toll in New South Wales reached 502 people. Prior to the June Delta outbreak, the death toll had stood at 56.

On 6 May, the government announced a "travel pause" with New South Wales.

From early morning of 15 July, the travel 'pause' was extended to Victoria.

By 23 July, the travel 'pause' encompassed the whole of Australia.

On 7 August, a Returnee from the Trans Tasman 'bubble' arrived back into Auckland and went into immediate MIQ.

Ten days later, the first community case of Delta Strain was discovered; a 58 year old Devonport resident. The link of transmission has never been clearly established.

Aotearoa New Zealand was placed into Level 4 lockdown on 17 August, to attempt to eradicate the virus. The Trans Tasman 'bubble' had lasted a little of three months, crashing with a dramatic end.

No one in the business community spoke up to voice regret that the 'bubble' had not only failed, but had introduced Delta into Aotearoa.

The National Party - eager to take credit when the 'bubble' opened -

-- declined to accept responsibility for its doom and calamitous consequence.

Despite vigorous agitation and shrill demands for the 'bubble', National's response was to point their bony, emaciated finger of blame at the Labour government. It would take no responsibility for a policy it demanded and campaigned so stridently to achieve.

Not content with it's doomed Trans Tasman 'bubble' petition, on 4 November, National has opened another one. This time, calling for MIQ to be ended:

National's "plan" called for:

“National is launching this petition to demand the Government put an end to MIQ. Clearly we need quarantine facilities for some community Covid cases, but we must move to a system where fully vaccinated travellers who return negative pre-departure tests can enter New Zealand without spending time in MIQ hotels.
National’s ‘Opening Up’ plan envisaged travellers from lower risk jurisdictions – such as Queensland – not entering isolation at all, while travellers from higher risk places such as New South Wales would spend a week in isolation at home. Under both scenarios, MIQ would cease and there would be no state-imposed limits on travellers to New Zealand.”

The risks associated with this "plan" should be well known by now:

Fully vaccinated people can still carry the covid virus - though with a significantly lower 'viral load'. The recently discovered 'Delta Plus' (AY.4.2) variant is reportedly to be even faster transmission than the current Delta Strain.
Current nasal-swab testing is inaccurate and we have seen countless stories of false 'negatives'. National's much-hyped Rapid Antigen Testing (RAT) is even more notoriously unreliable, at only 50% to 75%.
Allowing "travellers from higher risk places such as New South Wales [to] spend a week in isolation at home" would be fraught with risk. There are weekly - almost daily instances of absconders from guarded MIQ facilities. And National wants Returnees from high-risk places to be trusted to remain at home?

The question also begs to be asked: what happened to National's call for a $200 million purpose-built MIQ facility?!

Why did National demand a $200 million facility be built - only to demand scrapping MIQ altogether months later?

None of Nationals petitions or it's much-hyped alternative covid-policy - National’s plan to tackle COVID-19, end lockdowns and reopen to the world - make much sense if looked at through the prism of safety, common sense, and keeping covid out of Aotearoa.

And that's the problem.

National's policies are not purposed to keep covid out of Aotearoa. They are certainly not put together to help this government.

Quite the opposite. National's petitions, policy documents, media announcements have been systematically and strategically crafted to pressure the government to undertake risky measures that, when they fail, will cause great damage.

National's policies are purposefully designed with one agenda, and one only: to weaken the government's authority; to shake our confidence in the government and Ministry officials, and more vitally, to damage PM Ardern's leadership.

The Trans Tasman 'bubble' petition succeeded in throwing open our borders to Australia. It also allowed Delta to enter Aotearoa.

Chris Bishop is now touting to abolish all MIQ's and instead allow Returnees to take up the weakest, most insecure form of voluntary isolation at home?

Anyone who thinks that National has been creating these policies to "assist the current government" does not understand how politics works. National is not here to help the government. National wants to replace it.

Their covid policies are not designed to help the government fight the virus - they are purposed to pressure the government to make the riskiest decisions and increase likelihood of mistakes.

Remember that it was National MP, Michael Woodhouse, who in June 2020 stunned the country by disclosing that he had not passed on vital information of critical MIQ border failings to the Ministry of Health. Instead, he waited and politicised it by going to the media days later.