Why crucify MIQ travellers with debt?
Debt collection for up to 100 quarantine bills to start this week
Up to 100 invoices for managed isolation/quarantine stays will be referred to a debt collection agency for the first time this week.
It is the first tranche of MIQ bills being referred for debt collection. Debt recovery action isn’t considered until invoices are 90 days overdue, or 180 days from when the invoice was issued.
As at April 30, 291 invoices were overdue by more than 180 days with a combined value of $909,535. It was unclear how much the first tranche of debt collection represented.
A total of 13,221 invoices had been issued for total MIQ stays as at May 9 – worth $60.8 million. Of this, $38.3m had been paid (63 per cent). A further $16.4m was not due to be paid yet, as they were within the 90-day period.
If you can pay, you should pay, but I see no worth in hunting down those who can’t pay.
These are New Zealanders returning home, to dump the cost of quarantine upon them for an event beyond their control seems mean spirited in the age of Kiwi Kindness.
The State should be accomodating here, not sending in the Debt Collectors.
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Nope bill them, they can’t even be bothered giving them an invoice. Sorry tertiary students and beneficiaries in NZ don’t get amnesty so not sure why global travellers should.
In what sense was using MIQ an event beyond their control? I thought it was free for everyone other than non-citizens/PR, people returning for less than 3 months and people who left New Zealand after a particular date (well after the start of the pandemic). No New Zealander who was stranded overseas by the outbreak of Covid has been charged as far as I know.
Apparently it’s the ‘kind’ and fair thing to do @Martyn. Got to keep all the figures tickety boo in their various cost centre slots
Meanwhile, another immigrant suicide yesterday in this kind and transformational society
Why burden tax payers with MIQ debt, it is an easy fix if and when you come home you will not be able to leave with paying up the same as those with student debt were treated. It took me seven years to pay my student loan and being Maori and a women it took me two years to get a decent job as racism and discrimination was rife and still is in our country.
I can’t condone that type of policy being adopted wholeheartedly because things are good and getting better and I’m not willing to give more control to you, the government or the wallstreet crowd.
Sounds like a hangover that hasn’t gotten the attention it needs yet… But is getting it now, hopefully.. I notice the herald still trying to faithfully do their work for their true masters, regardless how utterly facile those “masters” be… “Chase ’em down, make ’em pay.. probably all labour voters anyway”.. Yepsirree, some things never change, no matter how long I stay away..