MoH advice to close border to NZers rejected

WELLINGTON: The Government rejected advice to close New Zealand’s border to anyone coming to the country amid the Covid19 crisis, it has been revealed.

In a speech yesterday, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters revealed the Ministry of Health recommended a total shutdown of New Zealand’s borders.

That would have included returning New Zealanders.

The recommendation was made on March 25 — a day before the Level 4 lockdown began.

The Cabinet rejected that advice because it was ‘‘inconceivable that we will ever turn our backs on our own’’, Mr Peters said.

Just over 10,600 people have returned to New Zealand since the lockdown began, the vast majority presumed to be New Zealanders.

They all would have been barred from entering if the recommendation was accepted.

Speaking to media not long after, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern agreed, admitting that the recommendation ‘‘was never entertained’’ by ministers.

‘‘It would have been extraordinary for the Government to make a decision to strand New Zealanders and give them no ability to be able to come home,’’ she said.

That decision would have meant that New Zealand citizens would be rendered stateless, which was not an option for the Government.

‘‘You would be hardpressed to find many countries in the world which have taken the extraordinary stance to exclude their own citizens from returning back to the one place they have a legal right to be.’’

Directorgeneral of health Ashley Bloomfield said that when his ministry made the recommendation, it had its goal of Covid19 elimination in mind — ‘‘keep it out and stamp it out’’.

At the time, the majority of new cases were coming from overseas.

The recommendation would have needed a law change.

The Immigration Act states that: ‘‘New Zealand citizens may enter and be in New Zealand at any time’’.

Ms Ardern said that the Ministry of Health was giving advice from a health perspective and was not obligated to consider legal repercussions.

Mr Peters said the ministry was pushing strongly for the closure of borders — including to New Zealanders seeking to return home. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Mfat) officials rejected that suggestion.

New Zealanders overseas would have ‘‘never forgotten’’ if the Government had turned its back on Kiwis in other countries.

He said te Cabinet considered the tens of thousands of New Zealanders overseas when the Ministry of Health pitched the idea.

Health officials’ advice was to close the border for ‘‘as long as was needed’’, but while Cabinet ministers respected the idea, it was ultimately rejected.

He denied New Zealand was too slow to close its borders.

The Government’s budget for repatriation flights was ‘‘many, many, many millions of dollars’’ but the final numbers were being worked through.

Mr Peters said the Government’s main goal was to ensure quarantine was successful.

‘‘I think we can look back and say it worked seriously well.’’

He dismissed criticism that the Government did too little too late to combat Covid19.

He said New Zealand went hard and it went early.

‘‘International comparisons reveal that New Zealand was extremely unusual in closing our borders to foreigners and in implementing a lockdown before we had lost a single person to Covid19.’’

Mr Peters said the managed exit of foreign citizens stranded in New Zealand was another complex decision.

About 45,000 foreign nationals left New Zealand during Level 4.

Mr Peters said earlier the Government was now considering its foreign and trade policy priorities.

‘‘We need to be focused on how New Zealand positions itself in the new normal emerging following the arrival of Covid19.

‘‘The longer the pandemic prevails, the greater the probability that all sorts of unforeseen secondorder disruption will kick in as the global economy unravels.’’

He said that New Zealand needed to seriously think about its future in the transformed global economy. — The New Zealand Herald