“Nothing has changed in the past six months that has made isolation more viable. The only reason it has taken this long is that the Government has been driven by public opinion research more than science,” says ACT Leader David Seymour. 

“We should be up to thousands of travellers per week on a self-isolation scheme like this. The whole of Auckland has been self-isolating for the past seven weeks. Announcing 150 travellers will self isolate after travelling is hardly news to them.

“A business travel network was first proposed by ACT in March as part of our COVID 2.0 paper when we said ‘The Business Travel Network would establish special requirements for business travellers to come here while safely managing the risk of COVID-19.’ ACT’s policy also had a traffic light system and special testing requirements.

“The Prime Minister should not be triumphantly announcing this long-overdue development. A leader with humility would be apologising for delivering so little, so late.

"ACT will release our COVID 3.0 plan tomorrow. This time we encourage the Government to take our ideas immediately, rather than waiting six months."

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