A-G: TRAVEL BUBBLE BETTER THAN AID, ASSISTANCE
Minister for Economy and Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has stressed that a travel bubble with Australia and New Zealand is better than aid and assistance. Mr Sayed-Khaiyum’s view was featured in the leading business and finance newspaper The Australian Financial Review.
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum wants Fiji to join Australia and New Zealand’s plans for a coronavirus-safe travel bubble, proposing a restart to South Pacific tourism and temporary worker programmes.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern this month agreed to create a transTasman tourism zone, allowing flights between the two countries as soon as coronavirus lockdowns were eased.
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum on Wednesday proposed Fiji be included, taking advantage of any move to restart international travel more than a month after Fiji’s last confirmed COVID-19 case, the newspaper said.
He told The Australian Financial Review the country was on the precipice of eliminating local community-based transmission, having successfully used border closures, aggressive contact tracing, isolation rules and World
Health Organisation-certified testing.
COVIDSafe app
Fiji is also developing a bluetooth-based contact tracing application, based on the COVIDSafe app designed for the Australian government.
“We embarked on the largest health mobilisation campaign in Fijian history, with nearly 95 per cent of our population screened by medical teams going door to door to take temperatures and check for symptoms,” Mr SayedKhaiyum said.
Labour shortages
Any move to include Fiji could also help fill labour shortages in New Zealand and Australia, with the nation’s government also eager to attract manufacturing and supply-line businesses.
“A travel bubble that includes Fiji alongside Australia and New Zealand would do far more good than any aid or assistance,” he said.
“While we’re incredibly grateful for the help of our larger regional neighbours, Fijians yearn to swim sustainably, not just be kept afloat.”
Australia’s High Commissioner to Fiji, John Feakes, told Radio
New Zealand the Fijian Government’s proposal would be considered.
Travel bubble
Under the travel bubble proposal, Urbis chief economist Richard Gibbs said Australia and New Zealand would see a domestic demand boost of at least 0.4 per cent in the second half of 2020.
He said the plan would boost confidence and help restore some of the AU$19 billion (FJ$28bn) twoway trade between the nations in 2019, with economies around the world hit by the global downturn caused by the pandemic. In 2018, two-way merchandise trade totalled around AU$17.6bn (FJ$ 25bn).
Food security and biosecurity
Food security and biosecurity could be strengthened, and a new global brand for COVID-19 safe tourism and culture promotion could be created.
“Both countries have reputations for clean, green food production and agriculture, but also very high-quality health management and delivery systems,” he said. “The containment measures were well implemented and well accepted by the populations.
“That has really stood the trans Tasman alliance in good stead in terms of international reputations.”
Mr Gibbs, a former chief economist at Macquarie, called for Ms Ardern to become a permanent member of Australia’s national cabinet. He said the bringing together of state and territory leaders under Prime Minister Scott Morrison had seen Australia’s national governance move towards New Zealand’s system.
“We eliminated several layers of governance, in terms of bureaucratic and management mechanisms. We also removed a lot of the politics.”
Visitor arrivals
Last year New Zealand welcomed more than 1.5 million Australians, who spent AU$2.7 billion (FJ$3.9bn). More than 1.4 million New Zealanders crossed the ditch to visit Australia, just behind China.
Ms Ardern and Mr Morrison have warned implementing any new travel arrangements would take months.
Australian Trade and Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham said on Wednesday broader international travel was likely not possible for the rest of 2020.