Robyn Stent and husband Barry Brill are frustrated they have not been able to get an MIQ spot from Perth for the past seven months. Photo / Supplied
Northlanders Robyn Stent and husband Barry Brill even looked at Dunkirk-type evacuation by sea to get back home from Australia for nearly seven months during border closures and now feel "most unwelcome" in their country of birth.
"New Zealand has shocked the world with its inhumane treatment of its citizens. The only country that does not allow its citizens to return to their lives, homes, businesses while we try to manage from afar," said the owner of souvenir shop the Cabbage Tree New Zealand creations in Paihia, who is being forced to run her business from Perth.
Her frustration follows the Government's decision to reopen the border – starting with Kiwis coming from Australia from February 27 - with the managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) system to end for all but "high-risk" unvaccinated travellers.
Everyone else will be allowed to self-isolate as the border reopens in five stages.
Health care workers in Northland fear the opening of borders may put further strain on the already struggling sector, while those in education are cautiously optimistic overseas-based teachers can help alleviate their staff shortfall.
From March 13, fully vaccinated New Zealanders and other currently eligible travellers from the rest of the world will also be able to travel into New Zealand without going through MIQ.
In step three from April 12, a large international student cohort of up to 5000 students ahead of semester 2 and temporary visa holders who still meet relevant visa requirements will be able to enter New Zealand.
Australians and all other visitors and other visitors and business travellers who can normally enter New Zealand without a visa will be allowed in no later than July at this stage, under step four.
Step five begins in October and includes all other visitors and students who require a visa to enter New Zealand, with normal visa processing resuming.
Stent and her husband flew to Perth when the transtasman bubble was open in July last year to see their grandsons for a four-week holiday but couldn't return when positive Delta variant cases were discovered in New Zealand.
The Government halted the transtasman bubble for eight weeks through to November but signalled the reopening of borders would rely on vaccination rates.
Although she managed to secure managed isolation spots in New Zealand in November, Stent couldn't find flights out of Perth. She rebooked for January 17 but that flight got cancelled due to Omicron.
The couple have travelled the length and breadth of Australia to places with no Covid cases and Stent said it seemed ironic that having kept themselves safe so they could not infect Kiwis they were now given the okay to fly home at the height of the epidemic.
"From removals of life-threatening melanoma and difficulties with outback medical assistance to frustrations with queues for MIQ spots, we even looked at Dunkirk-type evacuations by sea, to no avail," she said.
The Dunkirk evacuation was the uplifting of Allied soldiers during World War II from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the north of France, in 1940.
"We feel most unwelcome.
"To managing a business from motels/cars/bedsit with a five-hour time difference. So now we don't quite know if we can trust this latest decision as we've been here before."
Luckily, Stent said a Kiwi found them a little bedsit in Perth which the couple furnished with basics from a hire company and borrowed enough equipment to see them through the past three months.
To add to her woes, Stent had her New Zealand superannuation stopped on January 17 — the day she was booked to fly to New Zealand — because she has been out of the country for more than six months.
"We will return to an empty town and a country that it seems is changed in so many ways— much of it unrelated to Covid. Paihia trade was down further even than last summer. Current sales are even lower than during the Auckland lockdown, and no international visitors until next summer."
Stent said although yesterday's announcement of the return of foreign visitors showed light at the end of the tunnel, the big question was how many businesses would survive until overseas tourists flocked to New Zealand.
On the upside, the couple had loved seeing their family and Western Australia.
"While NZ did not want us, we did not have to endure any lockdowns and had not a single community case until a few days before Xmas. So the PR of keeping citizens safe in NZ does not hold up to the WA example— certainly WA did not permit foreign DJs to enter."
Health workers in Northland expect to lose 50 per cent of their staff to sickness from the Omicron variant and predict they'll have reduced ability to respond.
Coast to Coast Kaipara GP practice owner Dr Tim Malloy is concerned about the ability of hospitals to provide their usual services that are not related to Covid.
"At the end of the day, we have a limited workforce or resources, and as a consequence it can only spread so far."
Malloy was sceptical and did not have high hopes that the border announcement would help with the current staff shortage in Northland hospitals.
"We are dealing with a marketplace where there is a huge demand around the world for health care workers. Particularly our close neighbour Australia represents a very attractive offer for nurses around the world.
"It takes six to nine months for doctors to get into this country, in terms of recruitment, bringing them through medical council and immigration processes, and landing them here to be able to work."
Northland District Health Board chair Harry Burkhardt said it was encouraging the Government was allowing 300 staff across the country to come this month and a similar number later.
"We are not sure what the risk looks like for us going forward, but we know that even with a closed border, Covid-19, Delta and Omicron have got into the country.
New Zealand Nurses Organisation Northland organiser Julie Governor said the possibility of skipping MIQ was "great news", as the biggest challenge was to wait for an MIQ slot.
Manaia View School principal Leanne Otene said that with the borders opening, larger cities rather than rural communities would probably see the benefit of the workforce coming in from abroad.
"We are already looking at alternative ways of staffing our school with limited authorities to teach (LAT). But that is only a short way of dealing with the problem."
Kamo High School principal Natasha Hemara said although the decision would not necessarily fill gaps immediately for the schools which are short of staff, it still gave an element of certainty the borders would open.
Hemara had lost seven staff members due to the vaccine mandate. She said she was going through the process of getting overseas teachers in the country and it was a struggle.
