With the Pullman Hotel receiving MIQ returnees again, it’s important the Government immediately releases the reports into how COVID-19 was caught by three people in the facility, National’s COVID-19 Response spokesperson Chris Bishop says.
"The Government has indicated it will release the Pullman Hotel reports in due course. But this brings to mind its handling of the Simpson-Roche report, which it received in September then sat on for two months and finally released under the cover of Christmas.
"Hardly an open and transparent way to handle improving our border security.
"New Zealanders and MIQ returnees need to know, in detail, what happened at the Pullman, how Covid-19 was able to spread and what specific steps have been taken to fix these issues.
"It is in the public interest for these reports to be released. It’s likely the findings will have implications for other MIQ facilities and Kiwis need to have confidence that the Government is doing all it can to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
"As public health experts noted this morning, it is critical to have independent scrutiny over the report and this can only happen in the public domain.
"New Zealanders rightly expect transparency about what is being done to minimise the risk of future economically-damaging lockdowns."
