National says opening of one-way travel bubble with Australia can reunite migrant workers’ families
National Party is saying that opening of one-way travel bubble with Australia can help two critically affected sectors in New Zealand economy – Tourism & getting highly skilled migrant workers into the country.
The party’s spokesperson for Covid-19 response Chris Bishop said, “it’s clear the trans-Tasman bubble negotiations are going nowhere under Labour, and it’s time for New Zealand to take action to save our tourism sector.
“Australia has moved and now we need to move as well. We decide when we open our border – the decision is not subcontracted to Australia.
“We could start accepting travellers from Australia, provided they have a negative pre-departure test, from tomorrow – and that’s exactly what we should do,” Bishop said.
This was after Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins told the parliament on Wednesday, March 10, that after 12 rounds of talks over many months on a common framework, both parties [NZ & Australia] have effectively left the negotiating table.
The National is asking that the government should consider opening one-way travel bubble to get more tourists and travellers into the country and help the tourism sector that is desperately looking for more visitors into the country or some substantial support from the government.
The Party’s Immigration Spokesperson Erica Stanford is saying that such unilateral opening of the travel bubble can potentially solve another major issue of attracting and retaining the highly skilled migrant workforce in the country.
“New Zealand risks eroding our critical migrant workforce – our medical specialists, mathematics teachers, engineers and tech experts – because those workers have no hope on the horizon of reunification with their families.
“Despite countless heart-breaking stories of workers who have been separated from their partners and children, in many cases for more than a year, Minister Faafoi has ignored this problem for eight months.”
“A travel bubble with Australia would see MIQ spots freed up so these critical workers can be reunited with their families,” Stanford said.
Notably, tens of thousands of temporary migrant workers who were ordinarily resident in New Zealand remains locked out of NZ borders ever since bordered were closed almost a year ago on March 19, 2020.
The temporary migrants, including those on student visas, post-study work visa, essential skill visa, open work visa, and partners and families have not only invested tens of thousands of dollars for a dream of Kiwi-life in NZ and have spent several years living and working in the country towards that now elusive dream.
The government had only allowed back a minuscule category of essential skilled work visa holders in a staggered manner that will only allow potentially around 850 temporary migrants back into the country, while others still remain locked out with no respite in sight.
The government had always shrugged off the urgent need of allowing those temporary migrants back into the country, hiding behind the pretext of “limited capacity of MIQ facilities”, which continues to serve the citizens and residents only largely.
The government had also explicitly denied any intention of expanding MIQ facilities that can potentially be targeted to serve temporary migrants – both stuck offshore and onshore.
Temporary migrant workers trapped inside NZ’s closed borders.
It is also important to note that the current closed border regime had also entrapped more than 170,000 temporary migrant workers who are currently onshore and cannot travel overseas without risking losing the right to re-enter the country.
Those temporary migrant workers are currently living as an underclass in New Zealand, seeing citizens and residents travelling overseas at the time of family emergencies such as grieving with death or terminal sickness in overseas family, while they are continued to be denied of any such compassion.
National Party is saying that opening of one-way travel bubble with Australia can help two critically affected sectors in New Zealand economy – Tourism & getting highly skilled migrant workers into the country.
The party’s spokesperson for Covid-19 response Chris Bishop said, “it’s clear the...
National Party is saying that opening of one-way travel bubble with Australia can help two critically affected sectors in New Zealand economy – Tourism & getting highly skilled migrant workers into the country.
The party’s spokesperson for Covid-19 response Chris Bishop said, “it’s clear the trans-Tasman bubble negotiations are going nowhere under Labour, and it’s time for New Zealand to take action to save our tourism sector.
“Australia has moved and now we need to move as well. We decide when we open our border – the decision is not subcontracted to Australia.
“We could start accepting travellers from Australia, provided they have a negative pre-departure test, from tomorrow – and that’s exactly what we should do,” Bishop said.
This was after Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins told the parliament on Wednesday, March 10, that after 12 rounds of talks over many months on a common framework, both parties [NZ & Australia] have effectively left the negotiating table.
The National is asking that the government should consider opening one-way travel bubble to get more tourists and travellers into the country and help the tourism sector that is desperately looking for more visitors into the country or some substantial support from the government.
The Party’s Immigration Spokesperson Erica Stanford is saying that such unilateral opening of the travel bubble can potentially solve another major issue of attracting and retaining the highly skilled migrant workforce in the country.
“New Zealand risks eroding our critical migrant workforce – our medical specialists, mathematics teachers, engineers and tech experts – because those workers have no hope on the horizon of reunification with their families.
“Despite countless heart-breaking stories of workers who have been separated from their partners and children, in many cases for more than a year, Minister Faafoi has ignored this problem for eight months.”
“A travel bubble with Australia would see MIQ spots freed up so these critical workers can be reunited with their families,” Stanford said.
Notably, tens of thousands of temporary migrant workers who were ordinarily resident in New Zealand remains locked out of NZ borders ever since bordered were closed almost a year ago on March 19, 2020.
The temporary migrants, including those on student visas, post-study work visa, essential skill visa, open work visa, and partners and families have not only invested tens of thousands of dollars for a dream of Kiwi-life in NZ and have spent several years living and working in the country towards that now elusive dream.
The government had only allowed back a minuscule category of essential skilled work visa holders in a staggered manner that will only allow potentially around 850 temporary migrants back into the country, while others still remain locked out with no respite in sight.
The government had always shrugged off the urgent need of allowing those temporary migrants back into the country, hiding behind the pretext of “limited capacity of MIQ facilities”, which continues to serve the citizens and residents only largely.
The government had also explicitly denied any intention of expanding MIQ facilities that can potentially be targeted to serve temporary migrants – both stuck offshore and onshore.
Temporary migrant workers trapped inside NZ’s closed borders.
It is also important to note that the current closed border regime had also entrapped more than 170,000 temporary migrant workers who are currently onshore and cannot travel overseas without risking losing the right to re-enter the country.
Those temporary migrant workers are currently living as an underclass in New Zealand, seeing citizens and residents travelling overseas at the time of family emergencies such as grieving with death or terminal sickness in overseas family, while they are continued to be denied of any such compassion.
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