The (Un)Kindness of Strangers

 

It is unforgivable what New Zealanders are doing to New Zealanders now.

The ill-conceived, cumbersome, and intransigent MIQ Lottery System is leaving thousands of New Zealanders overseas unable to return home, and confronted by the debacle of a totally inadequate quota system.

We have, effectively and, in the government’s case, inefficiently, abandoned these people.

The Government will point to what in their view is a fact—that we are living in an unprecedented time. We’re not. We have faced pandemics before: Spanish Flu in 1918, SARS from 2002 to 2004, Avian Flu between 2013 and 2017 and ongoing cholera. In none of these cases, did the then governments close our borders stranding our people on the other side of them.

As a further rationale for their actions, or inactions, the Government tells us that the lack of MIQ facilities is a direct consequence of our inability to staff them. Their hands are tied.
Again, not the full story. It’s been almost two years since covid reached our shores and almost from the outset, there were calls for the Government to build a dedicated MIQ facility staffed by dedicated staff in a relatively compact, safe, and secure environment. Instead, we still have a hodgepodge of facilities which amount to little more than cattle pens, with staff spread thin throughout the country and struggling to cope.

The system has failed those people overseas. Yet the Government’s sticking to it, trying to explain and rationalise it and showing a grim and cruel determination to keep it going.

Regardless.

What it (the Government) is not doing is changing it, let alone apologising for it. 

 

Then there is the case of Winston and Rae Wallace. Stuff reported their plight earlier this week.

Mr & Mrs Wallace are stranded in Australia. They went there in mid-April, when travel was allowed, to help their daughter, who they say was desperate for support in these difficult times.

They could not return before trans-Tasman travel closed in July but hoped to return on October 29.

Their flights were then cancelled, leaving them stranded and unable to get space in a managed isolation and MIQ facility.

And now comes the point. Under the law, a person is entitled to the first 26 weeks of their normal rate of superannuation while overseas, provided they return to New Zealand within 30 weeks.

The Wallaces have been told their payments will be suspended on October 22 and, if they cannot return by November 11, they may have to repay six months’ worth of their pensions – estimated to be between $13,000 and $14,000.

In other words, they have the potential to be penalised severly for the failures of this government and MIQ.

I have a friend in a similar situation, though he is not yet overseas, but would like to do so for compassionate reasons.
When he wrote to the Ministry of Social Welfare seeking clarification on the pension situation, he received a reply which stated in part:

“I can advise that people who leave New Zealand after lockdown started on 26 March 2020 would not meet the criterion of being an unforeseen circumstance. This is because COVID- 19 and the effects on travel are widely known and accepted; therefore, it is reasonable to foresee that there could be issues returning to New Zealand.”

Again, really?

What my friend is being told is the Government expected us to know back in March 2020 that MIQ would be totally inadequate and there would be no compassion or flexibility offered.

Many months ago, the Prime Minister went on television and told us to be kind.

She didn’t need to.

It is my belief that, at least until recently, New Zealanders are inherently kind. It is who we are.

The only people not being kind, it seems, is the government she leads.

They are strangers to us.

This is not who we are.