Trans-tasman bubble talks moving ahead
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has confirmed she is ‘‘working hard’’ to arrange a trans-tasman travel bubble with Australia.
Yesterday, speaking to Australia breakfast TV show Today, Ardern said certain steps had to be taken before plans could be finalised. The first thing Ardern would like to see is for Australia to define what is meant by a Covid-19 hotspot and to put plans of containment in place, should another outbreak occur. ‘‘I think we should acknowledge that we do, as strange as it might sound, we actually miss each other,’’ Ardern said laughing. ‘‘What we will need to work through is what the definition of a hotspot really means?’’
As coronavirus cases continue to drop in Australia, the prime minister has not ruled out making separate agreements with states with low or no cases to help kickstart the tourism industry.
‘‘That is something we have always been open to,’’ she confirmed.
‘‘There have been a number of states that have had huge success with Covid. So much of that comes down to the decisions that Australia chooses to make going into the future.
‘‘What you can see is that we do want to make it work. We want it to be safe. We want everyone to be comfortable with it and know that we are safeguarding our own strategies as we do it.’’
Ardern’s comments come after she confirmed a travel bubble could be in place by Christmas earlier this week.
New Zealand has been widely praised for its approach to coronavirus. After a cluster emerged in Auckland in August, Ardern quickly put the city back into level 3 lockdown. Ardern said she had ‘‘zero tolerance’’ for cases in her country and planned to keep working towards an elimination strategy. ‘‘We want to keep our people safe.
‘‘I absolutely stand by that decision we had, which was go hard, go early,’’ she said as she addressed the effect of the lockdown on New Zealand’s economy. It meant we lifted our restrictions sooner than many others. We got our open economy back and our death rate was low.
‘‘Ultimately what is an economy without healthy people?
‘‘That has been the basis of a lot of our decisions.’’