A Facebook group of about 11,000 Kiwis stuck outside of New Zealand has brought a lawsuit against Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's government, alleging the country’s quarantine system is breaching its Bill of Rights.
Called Grounded Kiwis, the group has raised $176,000 NZD ($166,000 AUD) through crowdfunding to bankroll the case and has employed the services of leading New Zealand barrister Paul Radich QC.
“We’re suing the New Zealand government for breach of the Bill of Rights Act, [which] is the breach of the right of New Zealanders to come home,” Australia-based spokesperson of Grounded Kiwis, Martin Newell, told SBS News.
Mr Newell’s comments come days after Immigration New Zealand started granting visas to wealthy foreigners again, allowing them to compete with returning citizens for limited managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) spots.
The case is set to be heard in the Wellington High Court on 25 and 26 January.
A delayed reopening
The New Zealand government had planned to allow fully vaccinated citizens and residents to arrive from overseas from 17 January without quarantining in a hotel.
But in light of the new coronavirus variant, Omicron, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins announced last week the country would be postponing its plans to reopen the borders until the end of February.
The decision has thrown a spanner in the works for the estimated “hundreds of thousands” of Kiwis who were looking forward to returning home and reuniting with their families.
“A lot of people have been disrupted by that. Air New Zealand had to cancel flights with 27,000 people on [them] in January alone coming back from Australia,” Mr Newell, who lives in Melbourne with wife Ayesha and three young kids, said.
The length of a hotel quarantine stay has also been increased from a week to 10 days.
A strained system
The move is expected to put greater pressure on the MIQ system, which is already struggling to cope with foreign arrivals.
According to the MIQ website, “approximately 10,500 rooms per 33 days” become available for quarantine purposes.
But according to Mr Newell, that “number is much lower because of the way the government uses cohorting, which is they bring in several flights of people over a couple of days and put them in a hotel and then they’ll block off admission to that hotel”.
MIQ hotel rooms are also being used to quarantine local community members, which further exacerbates the situation, Mr Newell said.
“COVID is now in the community in New Zealand. And certain people that aren’t able to isolate at home are put into quarantine … so roughly [only] about 6,000 people [from overseas] can come home every month,” he said.
‘It’s against our human rights’
The means of securing MIQ hotel rooms – by entering a lottery – have also been questioned and criticised by some Kiwis.
“I don’t gamble [so] I don’t know why I would go in a lottery system. It’s not fair because I’m fighting against other New Zealand citizens,” Sydney-based Elizabeth Mitchell, who hasn’t seen her family in New Zealand for two years, told SBS News.
“Jacinda [Ardern] used to say, ‘We’re in a pandemic. Let’s be kind. I expect the citizens to be kind.’ But it doesn’t feel like she’s kind. She’s the opposite of kind. It’s against our human rights to let [some] people in front of other people,” she said.
Ms Mitchell moved to Sydney 12 years ago with her husband Andrew, on the provision they visit their family in NZ once every year.
Elizabeth Mitchell with husband Andrew, son, James, and daughter, Christina. Source: Supplied
But the couple and their two children, James, 15, and Christina, 10, haven’t been able to reunite with Ms Mitchell’s ageing parents since the start of the pandemic.
“Sometimes I wake up in the night and I stress that I’ll never get back. Sometimes it makes me cry. I went to the beach and there was a grandma and her full family and it just made me cry,” she said.
“And then another time I went to a party and [an] American said, ‘lockdown was hard and I didn’t see my family for two years. At least I can fly to America and see my family.’ And I just started crying at the party, because why can’t I go home?”
Investor visas get green light
It comes amid New Zealand’s recent decision to once again start granting investor visas, which allow affluent foreign nationals to relocate to the country.
“Essentially, if you have [a few million] New Zealand dollars and you can put it into the country, you’ll get a visa and then you’ll be able to go into the lottery with other New Zealand citizens,” Mr Newell said.
“And that is upsetting to a lot of Kiwis because that feels like the government is abandoning the needs of its own people for those that can buy their way into the country.”
SBS News contacted Immigration New Zealand (INZ) for comment.
“It is important to note that INZ is now processing and deciding residence applications across all categories received before the border closure in March 2020 – not just those in the investor category,” an INZ spokesperson said.
“It is also important to note that the number of decisions on investor category visas are significantly lower than for other resident visa types … Since processing began at the beginning of December, over 1,000 people have had their applications approved.
“In comparison, between 1 January 2020 and 11 December 2021, INZ made 229 decisions under the two investor visa categories – 108 applications have been approved and 121 have been declined.”
Those numbers are no solace to Mr Newell, whose youngest child, two-year-old Joni, has never met her grandfather.
“From what Immigration New Zealand are saying is that it’s a small number, a few hundred people that are competing with New Zealanders. But [those] small numbers have a big effect when you’ve got a hard border between New Zealand and the outside world,” he said.
According to the INZ spokesperson, investor category visa-holders deliver more than $1 billion NZD ($940.5 million AUD) in investment each year in New Zealand.
“They also create valuable business links and opportunities that will help assist in the government’s COVID-19 economic recovery plan,” the spokesperson said.
But Mr Newell is not convinced with that response either.
“There’s tens of thousands of Kiwis that want to come home that could also assist in the government’s COVID recovery plan,” he said.
