The National Party is pledging to “inject some steel” into the country’s border control systems by requiring people to present a negative Covid-19 test before boarding a plane to come to New Zealand.
Once they arrive, it wants to require “compulsory use of contact tracing technology”.
National also wants it to be compulsory for those working at managed isolation facilities and points of entry into the country, as well as health staff treating and testing patients, to use contact tracing “technologies currently available”. At present, this is the Covid tracer app.
However, National wants contact tracing technology to be Bluetooth-enabled. It is committing to exploring options, including the “CovidCard”, which is a Bluetooth-enabled lanyard.
A half an hour before National's border policy was unveiled, the Government announced it would test the CovidCard with staff at a managed isolation facility, "with a view to a wider roll out in the coming months".
The card is also being trialled by up to 300 people in Rotorua.
Centralising the response
Importantly, National wants a “Border Protection Agency” to be established to have overall control of the response when dealing with an outbreak.
The Agency would report to a government minister and be empowered to make orders to ensure compliance with the policies it sets.
The likes of the Ministry of Health would continue to manage the health response, but the Agency would have oversight of policies and procedures.
The idea would be for the agency to “enhance” the current all-of-government response, which involves a number of agencies working together. It would reflect the way Civil Defence operates in an emergency.
National would get the Border Protection Agency up and running within its first 100 days of taking office.
New Zealand First on Wednesday announced its policy to likewise create an overarching agency - "NZ Border Force". However New Zealand First wants the military much more involved. The "Force" would combine functions of the Defence Force, Customs and Immigration.
Its call followed the Government announcing Helen Clark's former adviser, who recently completed a major review of New Zealand's health system, Heather Simpson, would head up a new group to oversee testing at the border.
Testing, testing, testing
National is also committing to widening the availability of testing throughout the country, and making sure there are readily deployable mobile testing stations.
It wants to “implement a target for test waiting times of no longer than 60 minutes for a test”.
The party wants to require regular testing of aged-care workers, and ensure there are opportunities for testing within retirement homes.
International students not a priority
National’s border policy doesn’t address international students. National’s former deputy leader, Nikki Kaye, had campaigned on allowing universities to take care of isolating students on arrival, rather than the Government.
However National Party Leader Judith Collins wouldn't on Wednesday commit to this position.
More broadly speaking, she didn’t say she wanted to keep the virus out of New Zealand. Rather she said she wanted to “keep the virus at bay and allow our economy to thrive”.
“The current ad-hoc system of managing Covid-19 at our border - putting various agencies in charge of different facets - has led to a disorderly and confused response, putting the health and livelihoods of five million New Zealanders at risk,” she said.
“More than 1.6 million Aucklanders are locked down right now because the Government dropped the ball on testing, tracing and managing people in isolation. It’s not good enough.”
See National's border policy in full here.
Govt announces plans to bolster security at facilities
Housing Minister Megan Woods, in her Thursday morning announcement, also said the Government planned to invest around $6 million in installing systems at managed isolation and quarantine facilities that would sound an alarm if residents tried to leave.
Woods is proposing to add the following security enhancements where feasible:
- Thermal CCTV (night and day vision) around the perimeter with geo-fenced alarming. This technology would create an alarm when people move within a defined area;
- CCTV in public and exercise areas to monitor distance breaches;
- CCTV in accommodation corridors to monitor any breaches between rooms;
- Security Control Room/Desk,
- Audible alarms on fire exits
- Electronic access systems to restrict or track movement around a facility.
Woods assured increased surveillance would only be in public areas, not in people's rooms.
NZ First's army camp solution
Coming back to New Zealand First, its proposal is to turn at least one existing military facility into a quarantine facility.
It on Wednesday suggested camps at Waiouru, Manawatu and Christchurch were options.
Defence Force personnel would be posted on long-term operational rotations, which would minimise movement in/out of quarantine facilities.
Extra temporary and/or longer-term infrastructure, like prefabricated buildings and other facilities would be built.
New Zealand First suggested this would be much cheaper than using hotels, and if people tried to escape, they'd be in more remote locations, and thus less at risk of spreading Covid-19.
It suggested the facilities be run and operated by the Defence Force with the help of Police.
115 Comments
Didn't really need polling to know that Sweden-style wasn't popular. It's a minority view even on this site, and the posters here are, shall we say, not representative.
Stronger border controls might be a winner, though. Won't be popular with the expat vote, but national doesn't scoop much of that anyway.
Einstein, when as a Jew he escaped to the USA because of the civil rights violations he saw coming, was a minority view. It was an understanding of what was going to happen, rather than an impossible dream of what should happen. Border control has failed, it will fail again because the fundamental structure required is missing.
Haha, a good thought. The point with Einstein is his stance was actually well reasoned and against the popular sentiment at the time. PDK is making a valid point about the politician going with the flow. It goes like this: Resources of the planet > Peoples consumption behaviour > Politics. The lead not follow. Thing is the virus is a symptom of resource constraints that can't, but it's nature, be abated in the long run. Which is where I differ, like Einstein, from the hard right view.
What is reprehensible about Collins is she can't stick to any principle. It is national that have been crowing about civil rights abuse, but they'll take any view that gets them into power.
Democracy is an illusion.
Didn't really need polling to know that Sweden-style wasn't popular.
I think if you interview expat kiwis living in Europe you'd find most would be horrified or depressed at the overzealous hysterical response in NZ which is killing the economy and curtailing freedoms. The worst is behind us in Europe, Japan and the USA while in NZ the worst lies ahead, thanks to crazy unsustainable policy.
As someone overseas its nuts over here, you live in fear of catching the virus, your children catching the virus and your friends catching the virus. We live in an environment of fear and uncertainty. We are scared to touch delivered goods, you come home and disinfect, you wipe down your food you get delivered. Then their could be another lock down with another wave its the pits. Have you not seen the thousands of people that have died. Just locally some father of a child died from the school, at work a friends friend had lung disease where the option was to do major surgery, but the person recovered just before the operation was under taken. That's just from people close.
Plus its not just catching it and dying, its my kids getting some type of illness that could follow them around for the rest of their lives. Its a horrible, horrible situation to be in.
Well I'm living in Munich Germany and it's all good here. Economy's ticking along fine. Nobody seems too worried about the virus. There were hundreds of people tonight in the English Garden enjoying picnics, and swimming down the Eisbach. We went to a Thai restaurant last night and the town was buzzing. My girlfriends colleague came back from a skiing trip in Ishgl months ago with COVID19 so we all got it. The guys that brought it back didn't even know they were sick. From my experience the symptoms were so mild I barely knew anything was wrong with me. Slightly tight chest and nasty diarrhea which went away then came back again a week later. I purchased a pulse oxymeter but by the time it arrived I was fine so that was a waste of money. My grilfriend got "covid toes" after a month (that's a thing - google it). Nothing serious though.
I met a friend who's an ICU nurse on the weekend. A few months ago they'd deferred some non-urgent surgery and created ICU capacity. She actually had some people on ventilators, and most survived but some died. She said the numbers of coronavirus patients are drying up so they're converting back to non-urgent surgery.
Yeah it's annoying but not that bad. Life is definitely different having to wear masks all the time in 30 degree heat. It's just not something worth shutting the economy down over, or losing sleep over for that matter.
That's just scaremongering. People die every day. People also die or live shorter lives as a result of poor economic conditions. If you're honest and objective about assessing COVID impact you'd factor it all in and look at excess deaths, as highiligted by a recent economist article.
I wouldn't put "only gets stuff done once media/opposition points out it's not being done despite insisting it is" as competent. But good to know you agree they're winging it. Kind of insulting to the Kiwis outside the public sector bubble who took a bunch of wage pain to make the lockdown work, don't you think?
I don't agree they're winging it, I pointed out that they've been very successful so far, despite the fuck ups.
I wouldn't put "only gets stuff done once media/opposition points out it's not being done despite insisting it is" as competent.
I wouldn't say banning travel from China despite the opposition and sectors of the economy whining, stockpiling huge numbers of test kits, warning people about potential resurgence, having plans in place for how to securely move people from the airport to their MIQ facility and between the facilities as "winging it".
But then I'm not prone to complete exaggeration like you are.
"Just say we're doing something, don't actually check we are and only jump on it when we're called out" sure sounds like winging it to me.
You can have all the plans you like. They matter not one iota if you're not actually going to implement them until someone questions your assertions that they've been implemented. The virus doesn't care if you have a great plan for it sitting in drawer at the other end of the country.
But then again I'm not prone to being OK with being repeatedly asked to look the other way while someone figures out what the latest excuse or line of spin is for why they haven't done what they said they did.
"Just say we're doing something, don't actually check we are and only jump on it when we're called out" sure sounds like winging it to me.
Which is not what happened anyway. They first said there would be 'regular' testing in June. On 22nd July it was evident from reports they were receiving that it wasn't happening in the way they expected, so a statement was made in cabinet that it needed to be sorted. Prior to the current outbreak, they had done at least 2 testing sweeps of all workers in MIQ hotels, but it wasn't as frequent or comprehensively monitored as what cabinet was expecting.
They were already working on this before the media started bringing it up. The media made them speed the process up, but that doesn't mean they "only jump on it when called out" as you are again exaggerating the case to be.
Pointing out the facts of what actually happened doesn't make me partisan.
Just because a lot of commentators on this site like to construct their own narrative about what is going on and how (in)effective this government is at tackling COVID, doesn't mean the facts support their narrative or that someone who is bringing those facts to light is a cheerleader for the government.
singapore realized that early on
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53216450
The so-called TraceTogether tokens are an alternative to the government's contact tracing smartphone app.
They are aimed at people who do not own or prefer not to use a mobile phone.
The announcement of the device was met with concerns in some quarters over privacy.
The first batch of the devices are being distributed to vulnerable elderly people who have little or no family support or have mobility problems.
The tokens have unique QR codes and do not need charging as they have a battery life of up to nine months.
Interesting to see them now (temporarily?) back down on importing volumes of international students. Not playing well with audiences, potentially, given the borders are already bottlenecks.
But yes, very interesting on compulsory tracking. I can only imagine what National would have said if the government had suggested this. But then, we should recall that the last National government did have a track record of increasing and broadening surveillance on New Zealanders.
Doesn't help, Judith's historical involvement in leaking private details suggested in the source materials of Dirty Politics either.
A quiet word to Google and Apple and a few 10s of millions, and the App could easily be made compulsory and permanent. I still don't get why the competing QR codes haven't been manditorily removed so there's only one functional code available. As for the fascism claim... really??
Very convenient for National to propose creation of yet another bureaucratic agency now when the party's tagline always been a 'smaller' government.
I am glad everyone agrees that the 'export education' sector is not a priority for now. The sector desperately needs a policy reset to become something more than a means to line the pockets of institutions and low-value businesses.
Where are the overseas students coming from - certainly not from China, are they ? I would have thought China would be reluctant to send students to Oz because of their trade war. Didn't it start over students spying on Australian intellectual property also they were disruptive and had bad attendance, obviously due to the spying, so the Australian authorities said no more.
Fritz, alas no. It's been a massive scandal in the UK recently and has provoked more (yes more) protests. There is pressure on the current Minister of Education to resign but thankfully the government have back peddled and teachers are now assessing grades, rather than the algorithm.
Testing before travelling won't achieve anything. From Brook Sabin's reporting: https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/travel-troubles/122483665/coronavirus-is…
[French Polynesia] opened to tourism a month ago, with strict rules. Before travellers arrive in Tahiti, they are required to obtain a Covid-19 negative test within three days of travel, and then self-test on day four.
Just a month into that new plan, the country now has 130 cases in a significant second wave of the virus.
Some of these measures seem sensible, some of them seem like ones the government is probably working towards already, and others are just meh.
Government might as well just steal the good ideas, thank National for contributing to the good of the country's health and move on.
"National’s border policy doesn’t address international students."
Of course, it doesn't.
National wants International Students back ASAP. Get them tested before they leave, wherever, ( I reckon I could cobble together the right documentation on my laptop in KL airport before I board if necessary?) and ship 'em back in to get the old economy going again.
If it were to be otherwise, National WOULD have addressed the issue?
Sorry, what is the current plan for international students, other than make out anyone who asks what the plan is as some sort of madman? It would be good to know what our actual government, you know, the ones in power and who are making these decisions have planned, but apparently National has to have all the answers first?
I don't think either party has any plan to be honest. I use to have better plans than this lot when I went into town after a bottle of tequila.
Realistically by now all major parties should have released a COVID19 3 year plan, dealing with scenarios. Specifically in the event that the vaccine in 2021 proves unrealistic, what action will their party take? Will they open up the boarder while COVID rages or will the shut us off completely for the next 3 years? Nothing of this nature has been put forward. Labour just reacts to the situation in a somewhat adhoc manner. National just sits on the sideline criticising.
The plan, as I understand it, is that international students will start to be allowed only when there is capacity to quarantine them without bumping citizens/PRs down the queue. When that might be, though... who knows? The numbers are problematic. Something like 40k have now been through MIQ all up (almost 5 months). The number of international students coming in pre-covid dwarfs this.
Politically it seems to be a non-starter. My best guess is that small numbers will start to be allowed over the summer, before the start of semester 1. But it won't be anything like it was before.
Int'l students studying via distance learning is the new paradigm. The old paradigm had mainly to do with residency aspirations anyway - a strategy we most certainly do not want to go back to. If our university sector right-sizes and becomes focused on local funding as a result, surely most NZers would agree that is best.
And secondary schools getting into fee paying overseas students definitely never felt right to me. Return to student exchange programmes of the past - win-win for both students and their respective countries.
Exactly!!!!
LEGITIMATE degrees should be able to be done online, easily, You wont make as much money per student but you should be able to do more students.
There is money to be made there.
The business I work in has everyone working fro home and all training of staff is done via zoom and online. Ends up not that hard to do...
Kate you are a voice of common sense and reason within this (slightly surreal) narrative, which risks demonising both foreign students and policies that prioritise other entrants. I've commented before on this. If we invested in world class tertiary education in disciplines that mattered in a changing world - be it business management, governance, health and wellbeing, engineering or free-thinking - it wouldn't matter if it was delivered via distance learning or bums on seats in AKL, CHC & (perish the thought given rentals here) WLG. Its not difficult to rule out residency for foreign students unless they meet other criteria - a lot harder to convince them to invest their future in a higher education system that's sub-par.. Unfortunately none of our recent politicians have built on Rutherford's legacy. National (and the Douglas-led government before it) just wanted quick cash, New Labour has yet to recognise the opportunity.
interesting that labour now testing the covid card at one hotel, why just one you need a bigger sample it should be given to all incoming passengers and staff , maybe it might have found the link for the maintenance worker,
even better it would give a better picture of interactions of staff and returnees with each other
would've should've could've seem to be the way we are handling this at the moment.
that is the trouble with a government response it is always bureaucratic and slow.
it was interesting seeing the tracking map this morning of the cluster, if we could fill that in quicker the better
1. Who determines the validity of the negative covid test attained from an overseas source?
2. Are they going to still go with charging all returnees for their stay? Didn't see anything in the article about this.
3. Getting a test result within 60 minutes, how do they plan to do that? What testing technology do they see as being viable and reliable to do that? Surely if it existed, we'd already be doing it right.
4. Saying that there are too many agencies already involved, and then wanting to create a new one is an interesting approach.
3. I think they actually mean the wait to have a test administered to you will be 60 minutes or less. The processing time to get the results will still be 24 hours or longer.
It's typical National tapping in to the angry-man-on-the-street who had to wait in his car for 3 hours before he could get a test. National will make that slightly less inconvenient for you! Who cares how much it costs or if that money could be put to more effective use.
Same vein as their Roads of Notional Significance with cost:benefit ratios of less than 1, like 4 laning the Ashburton to Christchurch motorway which absolutely doesn't need it - there are only 3 sections of passing lanes between Timaru and Oamaru, much better to spend a fraction of the money there to double that to 6 and use the rest of the money elsewhere. But that's not a sexy policy of that type that Muller would like to be interviewed on.
alot of infected people coming into the country are from india, pakistan and the middle east. Anyone who has visited that part of the world understands how hopeless their officials, administrators and processes are not to mention corruption.
Inconceivable that Nation could be so daft
She probably isn't but it sounds like a good policy that useful idiots will lap up as being "obvious" and "why didn't the government do that?"
Hipkins answered it today - the ministry considered a range of different controls, and eventually settled on the MIQ tests at day 3 and 12 as being the most sensible ones to put in place.
I think that the preflight tests are a very sensible idea. I would however as I have been pestering Megan Woods to do this for a few weeks. But IMHO they seem beyond helping.
Recent developments in this area include:
1 British Airways look as if they are about to require pre- flight tests. One of the other advantages claimed is that passengers feel more secure if they know that their fellow passengers have been tested. Given the state of the pandemic in the U.K. we have a lot more to lose by not testing.
https://www.express.co.uk/travel/articles/1322746/british-airways-fligh…
2 Emirates are working with pre-flight testing.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/emirates-coronavirus-testing/
3 It looks like Hong Kong is requiring a pre-flight test.
4 Clearly Tonga are requiring pre-flight tests
5 IAATA are considering standardising pre-flight tests
https://www.aviationtoday.com/2020/06/16/airlines-standardize-pre-fligh…
6 On Radio NZ, last Sunday morning, Michael Baker suggested that we should be considering pre-flight testing,
There are a number of quick tests being developed that while not perfect, offer a very useful method of reducing the risk that passengers have the virus. One certified by the FDA takes only 15 minutes for a result. Even if only 80% accurate, is an 80% reduction in the number of infected people entering the country not a big improvement.
I suspect that if we pre-flight tests the reduction may be far greater than we expect. How many people who think that they may be infected do their level best to hide their infection and get back to the safety of NZ? Going back to the SARS epidemic, my neighbour’s daughter was overseas and came down with it. His advice was to take a good dose of Panadol to mask the fever and get on a plane back to NZ as fast as possible! She did just that! If people know that they are going to be tested, they are more likely to avoid the trouble and cost of organising a flight from which they will be thrown off.
Recognition that running the Ark sees ever more tighter, more rigid, operations.
Not helped by the single source of truth routine.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/122510038/government-not-using-all-the-t…
Always check assumptions. is this the thing now, that we thought it was in March.
Peak Prosperity is worth a look
https://youtu.be/G7TWiweluwA
Question, when people prove positive, what therapy is applied?
Here is the WA no mucking about.
Ankle Bracelets for at risk wanderers.
Many argue any form of lockdown beyond what resembles level 2 is pointless as such restrictions are deemed sufficient to stop spread. There is no published research that shows stringent lockdowns work. There appears to be a Govt admission that level 4 was pointless by promising Auckland it will never go back. I guess there's been a lot of dog whistling of late.
they had problems looking down auckland, down south the locals used the back streets for the first week before the cops realized they had a hole.
it is interesting in that they could most likely shrink the level 3 area you could bring the north back to a lne across from hatfield beach you only have 4 roads to block
and south you could move in towards drury and open more area up to level two.
i think they will extend level three or maybe move to a level 2.5 for 10 days from friday
Putting aside the partisan bollocks, on the face of it this is a great policy. It identifies many of the deficiencies of the current system and offers feasible solutions to fix them. For those suggesting compulsory tracing is a breach of human rights, well, some would argue locking down is too. But we did it to eliminate COViD. Now we need a policy that minimizes the chance of it returning and has a robust system in place to attack it when it does - to go harder and earlier. Contact tracing is the most important factor here. I like the policy.
Government outlined the same potential scenario about 3 weeks ago for their resurgence plan. The new outbreak in Auckland proved to be larger than would be covered by only locking down a suburb though.
Although I have to wonder how realistic such a notion really is - most people don't go to work in their suburb, or eat only at restaurants in their suburb.
Thanks big Lanth. You've (one again) saved me from venting about the silly "...if I were in charge" comments that have come to dominate this site, which so quickly turn to apoplectic rants. The reality is hat:
1. No one has a foolproof Covid management strategy
2. Whoever is running the Government better learn to think on their feet as they balance the health impacts with individual/commercial/anyotherbloody impacts
3. What parties say today about how they would manage the border has bugger all to do with good government and everything to do with opportunism
4. The party that comes up with a commonsense and strategic approach to getting wee NZ out of this mess in the best possible shape - from an equity, growth and international standing point of view - gets my vote - not the one that dresses its Minister in a new uniform and epaulettes as Commander in Chief of a new Border Security & Homeland Interim Territorial (BSHIT) Force.
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