Further restrictions on entry into New Zealand

[Beanb41]

The Prime Minister of NZ has just announced that effective 30 June any personnel wanting shore leave off both cruise and cargo ships must undergo 14 days quarantine or have spent 28 days isolation on their ship. This however does allow crew of ships unloading cargo to venture onto the pier to assist in unloading cargo but not proceed outside the ships environs.  This has arisen because of concern that crews off cargo ships have been seen outside the port area without undergoing quarantine or covid testing.

 

The cabinet have also indicated that co payments of isolation / quarantine costs may be addressed in coming weeks.

 

As far as cruising goes it aint going to happen here for the foreseeable future with overseas ships and passengers

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by Beanb41

[Kiwi Kruzer]

They have also announced that all the hotels set up and set aside for quarantine are full and that any NZ citizen who has not arrived home by now MAY have to go on a waiting list to arrive back home when room is available. 

[MMDown Under]

1 minute ago, Kiwi Kruzer said:

They have also announced that all the hotels set up and set aside for quarantine are full and that any NZ citizen who has not arrived home by now MAY have to go on a waiting list to arrive back home when room is available. 

I wondered about that, as I saw that they shifted planeloads of people from Auckland isolation hotels to Christchurch isolation hotels. 

[Kiwi Kruzer]

5 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

I wondered about that, as I saw that they shifted planeloads of people from Auckland isolation hotels to Christchurch isolation hotels. 

The latest ones have been shifted to Hotels in Rotorua . Very unhappy locals as school holidays start next week and the holiday town is heavily booked due to the bargains on offer .

[mr walker]

7 minutes ago, Kiwi Kruzer said:

They have also announced that all the hotels set up and set aside for quarantine are full and that any NZ citizen who has not arrived home by now MAY have to go on a waiting list to arrive back home when room is available. 

 

Can't speak for NZ, I suggest that it's high time that any Aussies OS be set a deadline to return. It's been 3 months now since the borders were 'closed' & they're still arriving back, costing taxpayers money for quarantine accommodation & bringing the risk of infection to us all. Unless there is a incredibly important reason for them to remain longer and then return, I suggest from July 1, returning travellers be charged full costs of their isolation, and from 15th July, if you are not back here, you can't return until.... the crisis is over. Enough is enough.

[Kiwi Kruzer]

That’s also being discussed here .....entry to NZ ,citizens only and they pay for 14 days isolation in Govt approved Hotel .

[OzKiwiJJ]

I think there should be some flexibility ie those people who can prove they were booked to come back but were delayed by flight cancellations etc should get free quarantine but those people who have just decided to return to Australia because  there is less risk here should be charged for the quarantine costs.

[Kiwi Kruzer]

From July 1 QLD will be changing $200 per day .

 

https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-hotel-quarantine-queensland-to-charge-international-arrivals-from-july-1/aea3a63e-1702-4fde-a98d-57a8d33deff6

[sewgood]

31 minutes ago, Kiwi Kruzer said:

From July 1 QLD will be changing $200 per day .

 

https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-hotel-quarantine-queensland-to-charge-international-arrivals-from-july-1/aea3a63e-1702-4fde-a98d-57a8d33deff6

I heard on the news that Queensland and another state (I think SA or WA) were discussing the user pay charge for isolation hotels.

Now that Queensland is going to charge about $3700 a couple (about $2800 for singles) I wonder how many Queenslanders will now book their flights into other Australian states thus pushing up the cost in other capital cities.

If I remember correctly it has already cost NSW $50 million.

[getting older slowly]

The way things are going..... we both need to build higher fences and live underground and come back in a few years........   ( some what tongue in cheek ) 

  but with new outbreaks and the continuing flow of people entering both New Zealand and Australia....

The bucket still has a hole, particularly here in Australia...

so there will simply be on going cases... for months to come 

 

A grim outlook

Don

[Fletch1]

2 hours ago, getting older slowly said:

The way things are going..... we both need to build higher fences and live underground and come back in a few years........   ( some what tongue in cheek ) 

  but with new outbreaks and the continuing flow of people entering both New Zealand and Australia....

The bucket still has a hole, particularly here in Australia...

so there will simply be on going cases... for months to come 

 

A grim outlook

Don

 

And, unfortunately, there seems to be a lot more here in Melbourne at the moment!

[Aus Traveller]

11 hours ago, Fletch1 said:

 

And, unfortunately, there seems to be a lot more here in Melbourne at the moment!

I heard on the news that a few of the new cases in Melbourne were security personnel at a quarantine hospital, but what about the rest?

[sewgood]

13 hours ago, Fletch1 said:

 

And, unfortunately, there seems to be a lot more here in Melbourne at the moment!

Hopefully after two weeks those numbers will come down.

I feel for the cafe/restaurant owners who were expecting increased numbers this week.

All the rest of the Australia is wishing Melbourne all the best and we here in NSW realise how easily it could of happened here after the clusters we have had in our state.

A very complicated and nasty virus.

Stay safe to all in Melbourne.

[Ondine]

We seem to have some very large extended family groups who have been socialising and hence spreading the virus amongst themselves and aquaintances.  From what I see up the street social distancing is not being practiced like it was at the beginning.  And as for shopping centres!!!!!

 

Once Dan allowed the demonstrations to go ahead people people just gave up.  The Cedar meatworks fiasco didn't help either with it being kept quiet for several weeks.  And now we have the security guards socialising in hotels and the footballers not sticking by or bending the rules so why would ordinary people bother.

 

I think you can only lock people up for so long before they rebel.

[getting older slowly]

3 hours ago, Ondine said:

We seem to have some very large extended family groups who have been socialising and hence spreading the virus amongst themselves and aquaintances.  From what I see up the street social distancing is not being practiced like it was at the beginning.  And as for shopping centres!!!!!

 

Once Dan allowed the demonstrations to go ahead people people just gave up.  The Cedar meatworks fiasco didn't help either with it being kept quiet for several weeks.  And now we have the security guards socialising in hotels and the footballers not sticking by or bending the rules so why would ordinary people bother.

 

I think you can only lock people up for so long before they rebel.

I have to agree..... people are simply not following social distancing....

 

Have not been to a shopping centre since February..... and am not going now.....

We are finding the supermarket bad enough.....

and to be honest, the long this goes on, the more concerned one becomes.....

 

And you really can't lock yourself indoors for ever..... what do you do ??.

 

 Since the beginning all the people we have really see is my mum as she needs our help....

outside than people at the shops...... we are ready to escape ..

maybe a short stay in a cottage in the bush..

 

Cheers Don... 

[BulldustHHH]

4 hours ago, Ondine said:

Once Dan allowed the demonstrations to go ahead people people just gave up. 

This. After doing 'the right thing' and the politicians completely buckling to the mob, there was no way normal folk were going to keep up the effort. We got lucky in WA as there are no additional cases attributed to the protests from 10 days ago.

 

Why our borders are completely closed to areas such as the NT are anyone's guess. The NT hasn't had a case in about 10 weeks. SA over 5 weeks. I presume our fearful leader is scared of Vics travelling through those areas to get to us... 

[SinbadThePorter]

57 minutes ago, BulldustHHH said:

Why our borders are completely closed to areas such as the NT are anyone's guess. The NT hasn't had a case in about 10 weeks.

 

The NT side of the border is closed.

 

57 minutes ago, BulldustHHH said:

the politicians completely buckling to the mob

 

Which mob? The we should stop killing aboriginals mob, or the 5G causes covid conspiracy mob?

 

Given these virus resurgences, it's just as well our Qld Premier didn't buckle to the "Open up or else" brigade in the LNP and the Murdoch press.

Edited June 23, 2020 by SinbadThePorter

[lyndarra]

Whether a Premier says yay or nay to protests they were still going to happen. How could they stop them? Between a rock and a hard place it would seem.

[The_Big_M]

Yes. NSW said no to some protests, so they took to appeals court and was overturned. Other protests they said no to and lost, but went ahead with protest anyway.

[mitz18]

On 6/21/2020 at 11:25 PM, Beanb41 said:

 

As far as cruising goes it aint going to happen here for the foreseeable future with overseas ships and passengers

 

 

Only out of curiosity, is there any discussion on when cruise ships will be allowed back in Australia and N.Z.?  End of 2020?  Feb/March 2021?  Never? (JK on the last one - I hope).

[SinbadThePorter]

7 minutes ago, mitz18 said:

Only out of curiosity, is there any discussion on when cruise ships will be allowed back in Australia and N.Z.?

 

They've said cruise ships will be allowed back at the end of the covid emergency.

 

Nobody knows when that will be, or even how it will be defined.

 

All we can do is guess. My guess is the 2021/22 cruise season, if we are lucky.

[Beanb41]

The NZ cruising industry are currently working on getting smaller ships into NZ for domestic cruising only. These ships would be restricted to NZ ers only and would probably initially have to arrive empty and then be quarantined before starting cruising. My contact within the industry believes this is viable.

Regarding international cruising goes until the world is either free of covid 19 or there is a vaccine forget it. I note that cruise ships are still anchored off around the world.

Be prepared that we will not be the first to open our borders. Instead of COVID 19 being on the decline it is exploding again with open borders

[MicCanberra]

The way some government officials and some Politian's are talking the borders may be closed to international tourism until the vaccine is not only available but also the community is all vaccinated. This may take up to 2-3 years.

[Rassa]

GREAT that the talking has started and getting the cruise ships going, but have you seen the prices for those small ships.   $12,000+ to do the Kimberleys and then there is the cost of the helicopters for sightseeing.  

 

Hopefully, this would start the talking for Australian cruises visiting ports within Australia only.   These are hugely popular with Australians, in particular with Princess and Royal doing one.  I love doing the Barrier Reef cruises.   Done NZ, done the Pacific Islands, happy to only cruise within the Australian bubble for as long as we have to.

 

So, Victorians do the right thing and get the numbers down so we can travel north or far west to the better weather.

[Aus Traveller]

3 hours ago, Rassa said:

Hopefully, this would start the talking for Australian cruises visiting ports within Australia only.   These are hugely popular with Australians, in particular with Princess and Royal doing one.  I love doing the Barrier Reef cruises.   Done NZ, done the Pacific Islands, happy to only cruise within the Australian bubble for as long as we have to.

 

So, Victorians do the right thing and get the numbers down so we can travel north or far west to the better weather.

This is what I see at the start of Australian cruising - domestic ports only but limited to Australian passengers. The next step would be cruises to NZ and possibly the Pacific islands, but (once again) no international passengers.

 

We are booked on a NZ cruise from late November to early December. I do not think there is any chance that this cruise will go ahead. We booked using future cruise deposits, so we will wait for Princess to cancel.

 

I don't think it would be wise to allow international passengers on cruise ships until either they have been vaccinated or they spend at least 14 days in quarantine, then have a 'negative' test. Authorities (either the cruise line or the Aust government) could not allow the same thing to happen as did on the Ruby Princess - an infected person board the ship at the start of the cruise and have the virus spread.