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Jacinda Ardern says a trans-Tasman bubble could happen sooner if it happens state-by-state, rather than waiting for the whole country.
Australia's Tourism Minister says a trans-Tasman bubble may be in place by September, provided Victoria gets its Covid-19 spike under control.
The prime minister has previously said she'd prefer to open the border to all of Australia at once, but Ardern told Mike Yardley New Zealand could open up state-by-state with Australia, if state border restrictions remain in place.
"If they wanted to move as a state, that's for them, but if they wanted the whole country to go with travel, then it would be further off the horizon."
Any states New Zealand opened its border to would depend on them meeting our criteria, Ardern says.Â
"Are you free of community transmission? Can we make sure that your travel routes are really confined, that you're directly coming out of that border with tight controls around it. No crossover."
Speaking to journalists yesterday, she defended the government's elimination strategy and national lockdown.
"Had we chosen another path, if we'd chosen to have an ongoing tolerance of covid and cases all around us in the community, I have no doubt we would still have restrictions in place that would be costing us in many, many ways.
"The health response has not ended. It will need to be ongoing as the pandemic surges around us," she said.
Ardern also confirmed that the wage subsidy scheme will end some three weeks before the election.
"We have clearly signalled the wage subsidy is not something can go on for the never-never," she told journalists after a rousing speech to around 600 Labour Party faithful and an online audience of thousands for the party's traditional election-year Congress.
Extending the wage subsidy beyond its current cut-off of Sept. 1 risked delaying "the critical work that businesses may need to do to pivot into the new covid environment."
"Businesses themselves have said that continuing for too long could run the risk of being harmful for the long term resilience of some of those businesses," she said.
The subsidy scheme has so far cost some $12.3 billion, according to the Ministry of Social Development's June 26 update, covering some 1.7 million employees.
Ardern pointed to the $400 million tourism recovery package the government is starting to enact and the existence of a covid-related employment loss benefit that is equivalent to the minimum wage, which is now available for people whose jobs no longer exist because of covid-19.
Her comments came as the government today announced the extension of one-off loans to small businesses, administered by the Inland Revenue Department, through to the end of the year.
Ardern used her speech to the Labour Party Congress both to lay out what she called a five-point plan for recovery and to argue the government's previous commitment to low levels of debt was justified because it made the response to covid-19 possible.
"New Zealand is a place where the unexpected can happen," she said. "That's why, when we were criticised for being focused on getting debt down to under 20 per cent of GDP, we steadfastly argued that it was necessary – it was for a rainy day.
"Thank you for your foresight Grant Robertson," she said. "You have been the Finance Minister New Zealand needed at this time, because that rainy day has arrived. Now is the time to put the umbrella up, to provide support to those who need it."
In a speech that effectively marks the start of Labour's campaign for the Sept. 19 election, Ardern took the most subtle of digs at her coalition partner, NZ First, which has styled itself a 'handbrake' on the government's agenda.
"Don't put on the brakes when now more than ever is the time that we need to speed up," she said, before invoking Labour's campaign slogan for this year: "Let's keep moving."
National Party leader Todd Muller scorned Ardern's vision.
"Labour promised three years ago to 'Let's do this' and hasn't done any of it," he said. "Three years later, Labour has nothing left to say for itself except to keep moving, on a road to nowhere.
"Today's so-called economic plan will go in the same rubbish bin as its KiwiBuild plan, its light rail plan, its mental health plan and its child poverty plan."
- text by BusinessDesk
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