Cook Islands PM Confident NZers Will be Arriving in May
Cook Islands businesses are disappointed over travel bubble vagueness, and while PM Mark Brown is “very confident” of a May start date, he says it’s a requirement for the economy’s survival into next year. New Zealand and Cook Islands Prime Ministers Jacinda Ardern and Mark Brown met at Auckland War Memorial Museum on Friday and jointly announced plans for a Cooks vaccination campaign and an aid package of $20 million to support Cook Islands government services, but no firm date for a two-way quarantine-free travel bubble. Ms Ardern said there had been significant work done, and the countries were “working in earnest towards a May commencement” for a travel bubble.
“The Director General of Health has also advised that beginning vaccination will add to the safe opening of quarantine-free travel,” she said.
Mr Brown told RNZ’s Checkpoint the delegation had come with the aim of firming up a date for the bubble and - despite any reticence from New Zealand officials - he was happy with progress so far and confident of opening up in May.
“We’ve made a joint commitment with New Zealand that we will be looking at May. It’s a requirement for our economy now to be able to survive into the next year,” he said. Mr Brown said he could understand New Zealand’s sentiments in terms of wanting to protect Cook Islanders - particularly in light of the recent measles epidemic in Samoa - but it was time to get back to business.
He said without a bubble by the end of the year, private sector tourism operators - many of whom invested millions of dollars into their product - stood a real risk of losing their investments due to lack of income.
“That’s a far greater issue than just a balance sheet problem because there’s a far greater structural problem with the economy that we need to address in the first step,” he said.