John MacDonald: There is no doubt in my mind that the government has done this right thing

How are you feeling about mixing with other people at the moment? 
From midnight Friday, we are going to wind the clock back two years, and any New Zealander who wants to come home can walk off the plane, jump in a car, a bus, a taxi or an Uber, and not worry about MIQ or isolation of any sort. They’ll just need to do a RAT test when they arrive and five or six days after they get here. 
For kiwis coming here, it’s going to be just like it was before the pandemic. A big change. 
As for tourists, that’s still a work-in-progress. Tourism Minister Stuart Nash was very upbeat on Newstalk ZB this morning, saying tourists will be free to come here much sooner than we might have been expecting. 
We just have to get over the worst of Omicron, and then the Government will be in a position to make a decision. 
But, for New Zealanders, the border will be fully open for business come midnight this Friday. 
And there is no doubt in my mind that the Government has done the right thing here. No longer can we put up a watertight defence against something like Omicron, which is showing that it can't be completely shut out.  
If you’re like me, you’ve probably been somewhat surprised at the rate Omicron seems to be taking off here in New Zealand. It’s not quite the rate that the modellers were talking about a while ago – well, not yet anyway – but it is spreading.  
Nevertheless, come midnight Friday, I will not be feeling any less secure than I do today – because, personally, I’ve reached the point where after two years I’m ready for us all to be living with this COVID thing. 
And that’s why I am more than comfortable with the Government’s decision to open the border to New Zealanders from all over the world, from midnight this Friday. 
I’m comfortable with it because I am ready to have more people in the country. I am more than comfortable mixing with other people. Do you feel the same – or not? 
The other consequence of the border re-opening for New Zealanders is that we can now think about overseas travel without MIQ and isolation of any sort being part of the equation. 
How different is that going to be from how we’ve lived over the past two years? 
Right now, I couldn’t afford to take a big trip overseas. There are teenage mouths to feed and all the other costs that go with raising a family. 
But, as of midnight Friday, international travel is going to be back on the cards for us New Zealanders on this side of the border too. 
I know some people have still been travelling even with the restrictions that have been in place. I remember hearing from someone last year who’d been travelling around the States and Europe and called us from inside MIQ. 
That’s all changing now. And, if I could afford to travel overseas right now, I would. Because, as per my feeling about people coming into New Zealand from overseas – and my comfort with that – I’m ready to mix with people in other countries as well.

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