Originally Posted by
Mwenenzi
19 Oct New Zealand general election
31 Oct Queensland state election
After those dates the situation/attitude of the pollies will miraculously change !
Any and all current comments by politicians (standing for re election) are directed to getting more votes/not losing a vote
Federally AU position has always been open state borders before TT travel
Jacinda has stated needs to be 28 days covid free before a TT bubble
Auckland region, Sydney & south east QLD all have community transmission (very small numbers:-- not zero over XX days)
Melb metro area has a reducing community transmission (under extreme lock down conditions). After lockdown I would expect a very small trend up again (as happened in Sydney, SE QLD & Auckland)
Air NZ has a profitable business in transporting non NZ people across the Tasman from/to their USA, etc flights.
And taking transiting pax ex AU from QR, SQ etc onto NZ.
Air NZ will not want to loose that traffic or put on dedicated flights for those transit pax. (NZ Government owns the majority of Air NZ shares: they are not independent)
I flew MEL-AKL about 2.5 weeks ago. 64 pax on a B787 with about 10 transferring to other Air NZ international flights.
Air Auckland (as people living south of mid North Island know that airline ) are only flying AU to/from AKL. They could fly to/from other NZ airports.
Yeah I noted the elections in various places. I want them to be over. I think one article said any bubble would be after the NZ election? But hey that’s faster than March 2021 which Foran was quoted as expecting.
Feds position has changed and state by state with NZ ok. But it’s really the individual states/territories that seem to have the last say and that’s what’s holding things up. Even SAs CHO said 14 days no community transmission and they’d open to NSW yet QLD CHO says 28 days.
Go figure! Pretty sure the NT is aiming to open to SYD around October 9th? It’s very hodgepodge but hey it’s progress so, can’t complain (too much).
AKL, SYD, QLD numbers going well. QLD had no new cases for 15 days or so? Pretty sure they were able to link their cases as well as a result of a Melbourne seeding. At least the last 4 QLD cases were at the border. No one cares about those too much. SYD had one case with unknown link to cluster still under investigation but otherwise it was about 15 days or so without an unlinked case hence SA CHO said open. I’m sure NZ will clear their actives in coming weeks.
I’m not too fussed about Melbourne. I breathed a sigh of relief when NSW closed that border. Basically any uptick is going to be contained. Have to wait and see if Melbourne plugged all its holes and can contain any uptick. Only 9 active cases in regional VIC and metro cases falling away nicely. Outside of aged care/staff/HCW been single digits for general community cases for a wee while.
The bubble can only happen with clean flights. No transit pax (ex-AU onto US is fine). Maybe they can just funnel pax from further abroad onto QR or SQ direct into AKL/CHC. I think the Tasman market will be more important to NZ than those transit pax. They should already have a plan for the Tasman though as it was proposed months ago.
Originally Posted by
bensyd
Gladys made a suggestion at today's presser that she is keen to open up to NZ because she wants to not use up resources quarantining returning Kiwis/Australians who are arriving from NZ.
New South Wales will probably have stamped out the Victorian outbreak in the next few weeks. Although the government is saying the threat is still there (and it is) they're actions re stadiums etc suggest that they are comfortable that it is contained at this point. Given WA is flat out refusing to open its border until there is a vaccine regardless of what the situation looks like in other states then it seems like state by state will end up being on the table, or at least all states bar WA open to eachother and NZ.
I didn’t see her presser today but agree it is a waste of a quarantine spot especially when Oz has so many other Aussies to get home from overseas. Also a waste of people’s money who come from Oz to NZ to see a dying relative then return to Oz. I don’t have any concerns over SYD right now. Stellar contact tracing, but that’s what happens when you actually invest in your health system.
WA I’m waiting for Clive Palmers case which is now November. I think he’s a PITA for WA but I hope he wins the border case. Early on expert advice to WA was the risk of opening borders was <1%, this was before Melbourne took off again, so I imagine the risk now is similar to that. I’m not advocating anyone opening to Melbourne just yet. I can’t see NZs nonstop flight to WA returning in a hurry either.
I wonder if early-mid November is a more realistic time frame for a bubble.