Originally Posted by
Chris2303
This was mooted in NZ as well and turned down. I believe that the bureaucrats don't like using the plebs' ideas.
There were two reasons that the NZ proposal to put returnees in Covid Isolation / Quarantine at a military base was turned down:
- It would put the thirty-two hotels being used at the moment out of business, and throw all their thousands of staff onto the unemployment benefit, both factors costing the government a big pile of money. There are no international travellers to fill up these hotels.
- There is no space in the NZDF's facilities to accommodate thousands of returnees. The NZDF two years ago started on a ten-year two-billion-dollar programme to bring its facilities up to the state where it is reasonable to ask 2020s soldiers to live in them. The vast majority of the barracks were built forty or more years ago and are frankly crappy - I was at a meeting where the then CDF said "I would dearly love to drive a bulldozer through every building in Linton [Army Camp] and start from scratch, but we don't have the budget". One senior politician suggested the NZDF should build a suitable facility at RNZAF Base Ohakea, where there is some 'spare' land. It would need not just accommodation, but medical facilities, more accommodation for the staff, a major upgrade to the base power supply grid and a whole new sewage treatment and disposal system for a small town of four or five thousand people. If it was done at stampede pace with no consideration of costs, it would take at least two to three years.
So, yes the proposals in NZ were rejected, but for totally good reasons