After Coronavirus: A Trans-Tasman travel bubble?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2020
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
New Zealand is seen by many as a great example of surviving coronavirus, but with such a tourism-heavy economy there are concerns a further shock is to come. One idea mooted to help alleviate this is the so-called “trans-Tasman bubble” in which travel restrictions between Australia and New Zealand would be reciprocally lifted, before all the world’s borders open up, to stimulate commerce between the two nations. This programme features Colin Peacock in Wellington, Maggie Fea from Gibson Valley Wines in Queenstown, Veteran New Zealand politician Peter Dunne and Pacific health policy expert Dr. Colin Tukuitonga.
(Picture: The Australia and New Zealand flags. Picture credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Vivian Nunes and this is Business Daily on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:07.2 | Today we're in New Zealand where the coronavirus seems to have been brought under control. |
| 0:12.4 | As businesses adapt to new rules, are we seeing a return to some kind of normality? |
| 0:17.8 | What a lot of businesses are now starting to say is they want to get back to work. |
| 0:21.1 | People are saying we've done a huge job but has the medicine been more severe than the disease |
| 0:26.0 | itself. But what about the wider Pacific? Australia and New Zealand employ thousands of workers |
| 0:31.9 | from surrounding island nations. Now many of those have been shut out of their home countries |
| 0:37.0 | because of virus fears. |
| 0:38.9 | It's so hard being away from them for so much months like this, but we're still out here working and still earning money. |
| 0:47.0 | That's Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:51.7 | New Zealand. Its isolated corner on the world map has meant its long been seen as some kind of safe haven. |
| 0:58.6 | Now it's the envy of many. The country has begun to ease its lockdown measures after the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern declared community transmission of COVID-19 has been eliminated. |
| 1:11.3 | Over recent weeks, though, all non-essential businesses have been closed |
| 1:15.5 | under one of the strictest lockdowns in the world. |
| 1:18.7 | So, after the first few days of restrictions easing, |
| 1:22.3 | how have businesses started to adapt in the capital Wellington? |
| 1:26.2 | Colin Peacock has been finding out. |
| 1:33.9 | That's the sound of business getting underway again at Palmer's Garden Centre on the main highway |
| 1:38.6 | north of New Zealand's capital city Wellington. And it's music to the ears of owner Richard Pearson |
| 1:44.0 | after more than a month with no customers and no income, but plenty to sell. |
| 1:48.8 | The plants have loved it. They've flourished. They've put on lots of growth. We've been down watering and feeding. |
| 1:53.8 | So plants have loved it, but you can't operate a business without customers and income. |
... |
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