Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will this afternoon reveal the commencement date of the highly-anticipated transtasman travel bubble with Australia.
“We are ready to put out a commencement date,” she confirmed this morning.
Although Cabinet has not yet made an announcement on the bubble’s start date, Air NZ is planning to operate quarantine-free flights from April 12 from Auckland to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
But that date, the Herald has been told, is not necessarily an indication of where Cabinet will land for a starting date, which won’t be today but is still expected to be before the end of the month.
Ardern this morning said airline companies, such as Air NZ, have not been given prior warning on Cabinet’s decision.
They had, according to Ardern, started selling tickets on their own accord.
As well as this, a prominent Australian newspaper this morning reported that federal government and industry sources have confirmed the bubble would begin on either April 12, or April 19.
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry tourism chief John Hart told The Australian “the 19th was pretty much definite”.
“That’s what the airlines have been told and they’ve already started bookings,” Hart said.
Today’s announcement is highly anticipated as it has been the topic of conversation for a number of months.
Two weeks ago, Ardern announced that the Government would make an announcement on the commencement date of the bubble today.
National Covid-19 response spokesman Chris Bishop was disappointed in this, saying an “announcement of an announcement” was not acceptable.
But, at the time, Ardern said that New Zealanders want certainty about the bubble, but it was “highly complex”.
It needs all technical issues resolved and appropriate regulatory mechanisms in place, Ardern said.
Director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield was also required to provide an assessment.
This afternoon, Ardern will reveal Bloomfield’s advice as well as a number of other issues pertaining to the bubble’s commencement.
These will include what will happen if the bubble needs to be paused, as well as what will happen with the MIQ slots which will be freed up as a result of the policy.
On the latter point, there is no shortage of opinions.
About 50 migrant workers, who have been separated from their families, called on Ardern to use the slots to bring in their families.
“We are asking for Jacinda and all the Government to listen to us, to be kind and [allow] us to reunite with our families again,” Patrick Tedeschi, a software developer separated from his family in Brazil, told the Herald.
Speaking to media this morning, Ardern said she would share more details around how the Government planned to mitigate this issue this afternoon, after Cabinet has made its decision.
“We have, however, as you know, separately undertaken some work to look at, if we can start bringing in extra cohorts, of family members who are separated.”
But Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi dashed any hopes that an announcement pertaining to the split families would be made this afternoon.
“They [the families] won’t get an answer today,” he said, speaking to reporters after the rally.”
He called on split migrant families to have “a little bit of patience”.
This content was originally published here.
