“The ACT Party welcomes the Government’s decision not to impose mandatory testing for arrivals from China,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“This is a sensible position instead of importing 2020 panic into another new year.

“As ACT has pointed out, with an estimated 10,000 cases per day and 43 international flights landing at Auckland Airport yesterday alone, putting up barriers to a few hundred Chinese travellers each day would not have made sense.

“The effect of pre-departure testing on New Zealand case numbers would have been negligible. The effect on Chinese Kiwis eager to see family, and tourism operators wanting to get Chinese customers back would have been major inconvenience for little benefit.

“What’s more, pre-departure testing is no silver bullet. Testing negative within 48-hours of flying does not mean you don’t have Covid, it just means you weren’t infectious enough to test positive at that time.

“ACT suspects that countries around the world are buying into anti-Chinese sentiment. We’re glad New Zealand hasn’t. There are good reasons to be skeptical of the CCP but the New Zealand government should not act irrationally towards them, or anyone else for that matter.

“It’s good to finally see some common sense from Labour around Covid. Let’s hope it continues through the year.”

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