Court ruling would change MIQ, minister says

New Zealand’s strict managed isolation and quarantine system could be re-established if the border is closed again, but a policy is yet to be developed, Covid-19 Response Minister Ayesha Verrall says.

Verrall appeared in front of the Health Select Committee yesterday to speak about the renewal of the Covid-19 Public Health Response Act, which gives the legal framework to impose pandemic restrictions until May next year.

However, a resurrection of one of its most controversial tools – the managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) system – would be based on ‘‘different policy’’, Verrall said, after Grounded Kiwis, a group representing New Zealanders affected by MIQ, won their High Court challenge to the fairness of the system in April.

Justice Jill Mallon said the now-dismantled MIQ system did not take enough account of personal circumstances so individuals could be given priority as needed and that grounds for emergency allocations were too strictly set.

Verrall said the finding was ‘‘a message to the Government, should MIQ ever be required again, which of course we hope that it is not . . . it would have to be a different policy – but . . . the policy has not yet been developed’’.

The Government was keeping a close eye on the current outbreak. There were 21,595 cases in the past week, Verrall said, but this was potentially slowing.

The Government has already trimmed its Covid powers, scrapping vaccine mandates, gathering limits and lockdowns, as well as the MIQ system in October.