Sunday Panel: Will 'risk-averse' Government announce a trans-Tasman bubble this week?

Cabinet ministers will discuss a trans-Tasman travel bubble with Australia on Monday with a view to mid to late April as a potential start date. Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins yesterday indicated a bubble would be at least three weeks away because airports and airlines would need time to set up the necessary systems.Speaking on The Country Thursday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said: "I am confident that we will be able to do it soon. We haven't put precise dates around it just because we want to make sure when we announce it, we can give something definitive to people."The National Party has been pushing the Government on opening the travel bubble now, and a petition it started this week has now collected about 37,000 signatures.Speaking on the Sunday Panel, political commentary Ben Thomas told Francesca Rudkin the government has become "risk-averse and conservative" in their Covid-19 response due to how pleased they are with their Covid-19 record. "They only make changes to their programme when they are facing intense public pressure. It's been a reactive iteration of the response, but I think their natural response is to put these things off and off and off until a perfect time."There is never a perfect time. We know any person coming across from Australia is more likely to catch Covid in MIQ in New Zealand than in Australia, so hopefully they just take the plunge."NZ Herald senior writer Simon Wilson is also uncertain if a decision will be made, but thinks the"I do have some sympathy for the Government in this. There are constantly asked to provide certainty, to be consistent, but they are also constantly asked to not allow us to get into any kind of yo-yo situation. Those two things may sound the same, but they actually contradict each other."LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.