Stuff Digital Edition

MIQ booking debacle can’t be our new normal

Dileepa Fonseka dileepa.fonseka@stuff.co.nz

Anything is tolerable if it is temporary, especially if you are living to the promise of ‘‘building back better’’. But what if the pain isn’t fleeting but permanent, or what you are building isn’t better, but worse?

There are plenty of things we could point to today that would seem at odds with our shared values from just three or four years ago. Who would have thought New Zealand would be the country to effectively turn its back on its own citizens in India, Brazil, Pakistan and Papua New Guinea, while at the same time making it all but impossible for anybody other than its most wealthy to return?

At a New Zealand Trade and Enterprise forum for exporters in Auckland this week, a Government official admitted you need a ‘‘quick finger’’ or a ‘‘tech-savvy company’’ to make your way through the managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) process.

Early yesterday, the going rate at one of these savvy companies, MIQ Helpers, was $2590 for a single slot in a managed isolation facility. This is double what you used to pay for a plane ticket to some of the countries our citizens are now stuck in.

Some of the poorest countries on Earth have taken thousands, if not millions, of their citizens back during this pandemic. Many of the poorer countries that migrant workers came from have not made it any more difficult for them to return when they were forced to leave.

Imagine if New Zealanders were being forced out of foreign countries – how would our system cope?

Is this a blip, or is this the new normal? Immigration New Zealand relationship manager Paul Millar certainly seems to think systems around MIQ bookings are unlikely to improve any time soon, and that costly tools could give people an advantage in securing spots.

‘‘The one thing we can’t control is MIQ. A lot of people think that’s an immigration thing,’’ Millar told a gathering of exporters this week.

‘‘While it is inextricably connected to the immigration process, MIQ is a beast all of its own making.

‘‘We do say to businesses that you have to allow for that, for the MIQ process and timing and being able to either have a really quick finger or know a very tech-savvy company that can help you, and pay a premium to get a space.’’

The Government might be creating border exceptions to bring a limited number of critical workers in, but it seems these workers can still get locked out by the limited quarantining capacity.

This makes it even more important to use every room we can rather than leaving up to 20 per cent vacant, as has been the case in recent weeks.

Hastily set-up systems, like the one created for managed isolation bookings, are fine if they are some sort of pit stop on the way to a new normal, but not if they are where we are supposed to end up.

Yet there is a real fear that disruptive elements of the pandemic, such as the chaos in international shipping, are set to become permanent fixtures.

You can see apprehension at the prospect of this new normal in revised inflation and interest rate estimates flowing out of the banks. They are worried supply-chain pressures and labour shortages could be more permanent than first thought.

Limited managed isolation capacity, and the way it’s allocated, is not just a humanitarian issue but also an economic one.

Earlier on in the pandemic many people criticised the use of managed isolation for ‘‘business trips’’, but we will need to accommodate a certain level of business travel to maintain our country’s economic growth.

Exporters need people to buy their exports, even if those products are digital. And when you are negotiating across borders or competing against competitors who can meet buyers in person, an echoey Zoom connection won’t always cut it.

Trade Minister Damien O’Connor flew to the United Kingdom recently to sort out tricky issues regarding negotiations for free-trade agreements in the UK and the European Union, and businesspeople here will most likely face the same necessity too.

Some even flew while the preDelta variant of Covid-19 raged. I spoke to one businessman a few months ago in the IT sector whose business was in the supply of software to companies in Asia. It was telling that even though he was selling a digital product, and appeared petrified of Covid-19, he still felt the need to fly.

This experiment to open up some countries before vaccination rates have achieved herd immunity might be ill-advised, but many countries will still probably try to push on with it regardless.

That is already starting to work to our disadvantage economically, as NZ Trade and Enterprise chief executive Peter Chrisp relayed to exporters this week.

‘‘It’s not like everyone is out there starting to trade, but there’s more starting to happen,’’ he said.

‘‘And the more it happens overseas, and people stop having virtual trade shows, and they start expecting to see their suppliers, our relative disadvantage increases. And that’s starting to happen now.

‘‘Our relative disadvantages are increasing because our customers are wanting to see us in market.

‘‘And so then, you know, going out and then navigating MIQ on the way back, that’s going to be really important. This part of the dilemma is going to get bigger and bigger.’’

Yet it is clearly going to be unconscionable to use the MIQ system for business travel while citizens in need are effectively locked out of it and families of critical workers such as teachers and healthcare professionals are not able to use them either.

Surely this will all be fixed soon, you say? You would hope so, but if the pandemic has taught us anything it is that we shouldn’t assume it will be fixed at all.

As Chrisp said late last week, some of the bad things we are seeing now, from supply-chain issues to heavily restricted border flows, might very well be here to stay.

‘‘This thing is rolling, and rolling, and rolling, and we don’t know where it’s going to go and for how long.

‘‘So don’t go thinking there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I just don’t think it’s sort of healthy to think like that.

‘‘You’re better off to sort of hunker down and deal with what’s in front of us.’’

The going rate at one of these savvy companies, MIQ Helpers, was $2590 for a single slot in a managed isolation facility.

Business

en-nz

2021-07-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/283888756093482

Stuff Limited