Should New Zealand open it's border to a wider bubble?



According to The 2020 Vision Project's participants, "Yes but not yet"

As part of The 2020 Vision Project, we’ve been asking a range of New Zealanders from across the country how they feel about the world around them, and some of the key issues coming out of COVID that affect organisations and people alike. One of the most topical has been about the closure, and maintenance, of NZ’s border.

At the point at which we conducted our second wave of interviews, there had been much public discussion about whether NZ should open up our borders to a trans-Tasman or Pacific travel ‘bubble’. There had also been the much publicised issues at the border, where 1000 people had been allowed out of quarantine without being tested.

So what was the sentiment of the average New Zealander? 

The border issues were disappointing, but we're still trusting the government response

The issues identified at the border were clearly a disappointment to the people we spoke to, with many commenting on the hard yards that the country as a whole had gone through to eliminate COVID-19 in the community. In fact, there was a sense of pride in what had been achieved, the sense of “haven’t we done well?” compared to other nations – and this was all being placed at risk.

But interestingly, people still trusted the government’s response in managing the border. Comments such as “I don't think you’re ever going to eliminate it … we're always going to be cases coming in. It’s just how they're managed” suggested that people were in some way understanding of the difficulty in managing such a complex undertaking, reliant upon so many people doing the right thing consistently. While the gloss had been slightly tarnished on the government’s response, there was still widespread trust that they’d sort the issues and get it right – or else. 

“I guess it's very hard to manage and they probably have to realize that there's going to be a lot of people that probably slipped through the controls that they put in place as it already happened”

We're looking forward to a wider bubble - just not yet

There was widespread interest in the idea of opening up our borders to Australia and the Pacific – just not yet. At the time of interviews, the numbers of cases in Victoria had slowly started to increase (this was before Melbourne’s 2nd Lockdown) and the border issues had highlighted the level of risk that were sitting in the wider world.

People were interested in opening up our borders – seeing the impact this would have on our economy, and to a lesser extent, the ability to restart something akin to normal life (e.g. the holiday to Fiji, visiting family and friends in Australia). But after 49 days of Lockdown, people expressed reluctance to risk the gains we had made, given how much it was seen to cost us.

The general sentiment was: “We want it, but not yet”. 

“They haven't even got their borders open between states, let alone opening their border to us. I think they need to get themselves sorted inter state first and then look at maybe a trans Tasman bubble and the islands”

The border highlights a difference in values: health vs economy

While people were generally reluctant to open up the borders – showing a degree of consensus on this point – their reasoning tended to differ along two key lines: an emphasis on protecting the health of New Zealanders, and on protecting the economy. This suggests a difference in value judgement, which could be an interesting point of division in the upcoming election.

For those talking about health issues, it really came down to a prioritisation of people’s well-being; the idea that you can rebuild an economy, but you can’t bring back a human life. This line of thinking has come up in recent years in arguments about Pharmac and funding of cancer drugs – and whether you can place a value on the loss of a human life. 

“I know how devastating a disease can be. The people who are [pushing] the decision to control rather than eliminate [COVID] are just looking at the economic impact of the disease … so if you ask a person, a family member who las lost someone to COVID-19 … I don’t think they’d support [opening the borders]”

Amongst those who were concerned about the economic impacts of opening up the border, this largely centered around not wanting to run the risk of another round of Lockdown (as Melbourne are currently experiencing), and experiencing greater economic hardships. There was a sense that we’d already been through it once, and that now was the time to ensure that we’d preserved the gains made. 

“I think they've spent too much, invested in the [elimination] strategy that we’ve sort of committed to it. And I think that if we were to change our strategy now would have wasted a lot of our efforts previously”

Note, neither viewpoint was disagreeing with the other – in fact we often heard both points of view being expressed by the same participants. But what we did hear was people leaning towards the health vs economic impacts. 

There was less clarity around what it would take to open up the borders

This point is interesting – alongside people’s confidence that the border shouldn’t be opened, and equally, confidence that it needs to be opened in the future, people were less specific about what it would take to make opening the border in the future agreeable. Was it no cases in countries like Australia and Singapore (NB: the Pacific is already there)? Was it a decline in community transmission, even if cases were still apparent in those countries? Was it having people tested before departing their country of origin, and demonstrating their COVID free status?

We see this as a challenge for the government and the economy going forward. While not suggesting what the correct response is, the issue with our current level of zero cases is this – perfection is a hard thing to maintain. It limits the number of acceptable responses – and could impact how New Zealanders were to respond to any future news that COVID has spread outside of our isolation facilities.

After all, there is much research that points to how humans respond much more strongly to a loss (e.g. of our COVID-free status) than to a gain (e.g. benefits to the economy) – otherwise known as loss aversion. 

People are aware of the economic impacts of the border closure

The impact, both now and in the future, of COVID-19 and the NZ border closures on our economy have been well documented. Not surprisingly then, GDP decline, job losses, and the impact on key sectors of the economy were brought up during interviews.

Two concerns were brought up – the impact that the border closure was having on our tourism sector, and on overseas trade: 

“I guess we have to at some point, you know, to get our economy going. I mean, tourism is a lot of jobs, and does this mean we can sell our stuff overseas? I don’t know”

Interestingly though, there was some support in loosening up some of the restrictions associated with economic migrants. Despite some of the contentious reporting around foreign Avatar and America’s Cup employees entering the company, people could appreciate the benefits – as long as there was sufficient protection in place. Whether these were workers on Kiwifruit employees, foreign students or skilled workers on high value films, there was acceptance that there were benefits to opening up the borders – to some. 

What have we learnt?

What this research has shown is the difficulties with managing NZ’s border in the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic – but equally the levels of trust we place in the government’s management of the process. There could be some wider support in loosening border restrictions for foreign workers (or students) who bring some economic benefit to the country; alleviating the economic costs that the country is widely accepted to be incurring. But equally, there is little support to loosening up border restrictions more generally, in the form of a multi-country bubble.

We’re largely confident in our ability to control COVID at the borders, and few seem willing to risk what we’ve gained. Not yet anyway…



This article was first published as part of The 2020 Vision Project on 22 July 2020.