Better border policy

National has announced a much better border policy:

A National Government will inject some steel into our first line of defence against COVID-19 by delivering robust border systems that will keep the virus at bay and allow our economy to thrive, National Party Leader Judith Collins says.

You can read National’s Border Policy Document here

“The threat of COVID-19 will be with us for years to come and National is committed to safeguarding the health of all New Zealanders, as well as the wider economy.”

National’s border security plan includes:

• • Establishing ‘Te Korowai Whakamaru/NZ Border Protection Agency’ to provide comprehensive oversight and management of COVID-19 at the border, as well as other public health threats.

This is sensible and had it been done months ago would have avoided the shemozzle of what at best has been miscommunication between the government, the Ministry of Health and workers at the border.

• • Requiring international travellers to provide evidence of a negative COVID-19 test before arriving in New Zealand.

This doesn’t mean people who test negative can’t come home at all, it means they must get over the illness and test positive.

It won’t keep everyone with the disease out, some who are incubating it could test negative before they fly, some could become infected in transit. But it would reduce the number of people with Covid-19 who get here, keeping other travellers, airline staff and border workers safer.

• • Compulsory contact tracing technologies to be used by agency employees, border facility workers, and District Health Board staff who treat or test patients.
  • Rapid deployment of Bluetooth applications to enhance contact tracing while also exploring alternative technologies, such as a Covid Card.
  • Striving towards a test-on-demand system with a waiting time target of no longer than 60 minutes for a COVID-19 test.
  • Widening the availability of COVID-19 testing nationwide.
  • Regular testing of aged-care workers and increasing opportunities for testing within aged-care facilities.
  • Preparing a more effective response to future outbreaks, should they occur, allowing lockdowns to be more targeted and shorter in duration.

The government has learned little from mistakes made in the initial lockdown, in particular its  insistence on the arbitrary essential rather than safe in dictating which businesses can operate.

“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,” Ms Collins says.

“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.”

Reducing the need for lockdowns could not be more crucial. The first lockdown saw 212,000 Kiwis end up on unemployment benefits with another 450,000 jobs kept alive by wage subsidies. The current lockdown is estimated to be costing Auckland 250 jobs and up to $75 million a day in economic activity. . . 

Heather du Plessis-Allen says this is the most important policy of the election:

The policy National released today is the most important policy we will see this election campaign.  

For both health and the economy, nothing else matters as much as the border right now, because it is the most important protection we have for both.

 Parties can announce as much as they like for future health spending, but if that border leaks, people will die. 

They can announce as much money as they like for future wage subsidies but if that border fails and we’re in lockdown, businesses will fall over. 

They can announce all the infrastructure spending they like but unless that border lets key workers through, the projects won’t get finishes. So everything hinges on the success of that border.  

And that is why National’s policy is the most important announcement this campaign. . . 

The Labour leader said this would be a Covid election. It is. This is why this policy is so important, and it has already made an impact in making Labour improve its performance:

Because it can’t be acceptable to us that they promise testing and then don’t deliver, that they can’t find where cases come from, that they lock down an entire city as a default. 

Potentially we’ve just seen the first example of Labour being forced to lift its game: National promised that Bluetooth contact tracing like the Covid Card in an embargoed press release at 10:04am. 

27 minutes later, Labour announced it would pilot using the blue tooth in isolation facilities too.  Labour have had the Covid Card proposal on their desk since since mid-April and took more than four months just to get to a pilot. 

Hopefully this is the policy alternative that reminds Labour – and us voters – that we can and should do better at the border.

We have been badly let down by mismanagement at the border.

The impact of that is having not just health consequences but social and economic ones.

We’ve all made sacrifices to eliminate Covid-19 and we’ve all been let down by laxness at the border.

We need much better border protection and National’s policy would deliver it.