Jacinda Ardern is defending using managed isolation spots for New Zealanders returning from Australia.
Kiwis stuck in New South Wales will be able to book flights back to New Zealand this morning.
Air New Zealand tickets will go on sale from 10am for those looking to return home and spend two weeks in managed isolation. Qantas will also be offering flights through a priority phone number being released today.
It comes after parts of the trans-Tasman bubble were put on pause as the Delta variant of Covid-19 continues to surge across the ditch.
"We've always said as the situation evolves we will move with it and the advice from health was they were concerned at the level of the outbreak, the scale of the outbreak, the number of people that were being hospitalised," Ardern this morning told Breakfast as to why the green zone flights were paused.
"Sometimes you get some indicators that you might have a wider range of infection than perhaps is even being picked up, obviously wastewater testing is telling us it is a significant situation in New South Wales so that was the health advice, was that we needed people to go in isolation on return and the safest way to do that was managed isolation."
Return flights will start bringing people home today before travellers head into an MIQ facility for 14 days. They will not have to pay.
"Just to correct some of the discussion that was being had, those who are coming back from New South Wales will not be 'competing' with others who are from overseas trying to book rooms," Ardern said.
"The reason for that is when we started up the trans-Tasman arrangement we kept some rooms in a contingency, that's helped us do other things like cohorting with our returnees, but we will take some of that space back in order to return these individuals.
"People will say 'is that fair relative to someone else who might be trying to get a booking?', well the answer is if you're a New Zealander and you've gone to a country and made the deliberate decision to travel to a country that requires MIQ on the way back you know that and you have the ability before departure to book and make those arrangements before you leave.
"The people who went to Sydney did not go there knowing they'd have to go into MIQ on the way back so that's why we've created that contingency, to manage a scenario where we as a government are deciding that's what needs to happen to you."
It also comes as the ministry responsible for MIQ faces new criticism of the managed isolation system from other travellers over a website charging New Zealanders upwards of $1200 so they can secure a spot in MIQ.
MIQ Helpers are being accused of taking advantage of people’s desperation, however MBIE says it's a returnee's choice if they want to use a third party to help them book.
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