Never before released data shows the scale of the humanitarian disaster that is New Zealand’s MIQ system, says National’s Covid spokesperson Chris Bishop.

“The latest MIQ lottery lobby has just opened, with New Zealanders overseas desperately participating in a Hunger Games-style lottery to win the right to come back and spend 14 days in MIQ.

“Answers to written questions reveal that, as at 23 September 2021, there were 394,918 users registered with the Managed Isolation Allocation System. On the same date, 232,045 users had not secured a MIQ voucher.

“These figures are astonishing. They indicate that more than 230,000 people are keen to come to New Zealand but have never been able to. Every MIQ lottery for the last few weeks has had tens of thousands of people participating in it but the suspicion has always been that demand is much higher than that, with many people not participating on the basis they have no chance of success.

“It’s time to end the lottery of human misery that is MIQ. The Government is now overseeing a situation where fully vaccinated travellers with no Covid are shut out from their own country, while more than 2000 people with Covid (and their close contacts) self-isolate at home in Auckland.

“As public health experts said yesterday, ‘if you’re at the supermarket in Auckland, a fully-vaccinated person randomly teleported from Canada is less likely to infect you than an average resident Aucklander in the aisles’.

“The MIQ Lottery is cruel, callous, and legally dubious. More than 80,000 people have now signed National’s petition to ‘End MIQ Now’ and, in less than a week, it is already the most popular petition National has ever launched.

“New Zealanders understand that it’s time for MIQ to end. The Government needs to get onboard.”

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