I’m a tad worried about the Xenophobes.

They’re out in force.

Any mention of the ‘b’ word – ‘border’ and out they come.

The annoying thing about this is the confusion, the misunderstanding that those coming in and being quarantined are ‘foreigners’. They’re not. They’re Kiwis coming home.

There are a handful, less than 2 percent coming in who are not New Zealanders, they’re the people with exemptions, like the Avatar film crew.

What is of concern though, are reports that some of these returning Kiwis include people who've gone away post-Covid, for a holiday, and have just factored in quarantine time. If that's the case, they're a drain on the taxpayer and that's the sort of stay we shouldn't be funding. If you decide to take a holiday during Covid, that's on you.

But if you've been stuck overseas unable to get back since Covid began, then that's on us.

We can't stop Kiwis coming home, we can't close our borders to returning citizens, it's not how the world works.

Your home country doesn’t shut up shop on you – ever. Not even in a pandemic.

So the reality is, with more airlines up and running, more countries open for business, more Kiwis are able to get on flights and come home. And come home they are – in their droves.

The fact we can’t manage our borders or quarantine accommodation in a sustainable way is not their fault.

It’s something the government professes to actively be working on, but then they said about the PPE gear too.

Time and several ‘reports’ will eventually tell us the truth - but they’re adamant at the moment that they’re getting it under control.

And isn't that the other issue at play at the moment – credibility. Our trust in this government’s response to Covid was built around flimsy slogans like ‘Be Kind’ and touchy feely gestures like teddy bears in windows. It underscored the seriousness of it, and it detracted from the hard work that needed to go into getting ourselves properly prepared and ready – for the border, for the quarantine procedures and protocols, for the inevitable return of the disease.. if in fact we ever eradicated it at all. Did we?

Or did we just stop testing so much?

But the fallout and anger – the subsequent feelings of betrayal by our team of 5 million, has left a bitter taste and when you lose the buy in, you lose the kindness. Anger's replaced it. Disappointment, mistrust, and now even with the border, flashes of racism.

“Why are ‘they’ coming here?,” infers a false hierarchy or a superiority.. ‘they’ are your fellow New Zealanders, ‘they’ are entitled to come home. So we can pack up the Xenophobia, and pop it away for good. This is not about the borders and closing our country off to the world, this is about our government working harder to get the fundamentals right, so that those coming home, can do so without unwarranted backlash.