 The National Party's launched a petition calling on the government to establish a trans-Tasman bubble immediately. Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson says the government will make a decision soon. National's leader Judith Collins is with us now. Kia ora. Oh, good morning, Susie. How easy would it be for the government to open the bubble? I think it would be pretty easy, actually. They've already got the Australians saying that they want to have the bubble. We've had New Zealanders able to travel without quarantine to Australia for the most part since October last year, and we could get this moving. I just think that the government here needs to actually find a way through and help our tourist industry, but also help free up 40% of the beds in the managed isolation facilities, which will get more families reunited. Could it, though, not mean a net loss for New Zealand? Because people may take advantage of being able to go over to Australia. And Australians might not necessarily come over here. Oh, no. I think the Australians, we're desperate to get to our ski season in Queenstown, and they will be wanting to come here because they'll be bored in Australia. I think that's absolutely true, is that New Zealand tourism is the biggest market of the Australians, and at the moment that's been choked off. We've got to do this. They've got to have a visa, though, to leave the country. That's yet another hurdle to get over, so travel is still not straightforward. Well, no, but the Australians and New Zealanders are not stupid people. We can make stuff happen and we can get stuff done. I mean, we're going to win the America's Cup today. We can do anything if we really want to. What if there's an outbreak in either country? What happens? Then when you close the border temporarily, and that's what the Australians have done to us. And I know that the government has said, oh, New Zealanders could be stranded in Australia for, you know, a couple of weeks. Well, they could be. I think, yeah, but you know what, Susie, seriously, people have to make their own decisions. We need to stop treating everyone as they were five-year-olds. But this is the difficulty, isn't it? Because what happens if you do get stuck over in Australia, you get stuck for, say, two or three weeks? What do you think people's employers might say to that? Oh, sorry, I can't turn up for a couple of weeks because I'm stuck in Australia. Well, people have to make those choices themselves and they run those risks. But this is what I'm wondering. Would people actually run those risks or would people think, I'm not going to take myself and the kids over to Australia for a week in the winter? Because what happens if we get stuck? That's when I lose my job. That's when I can't pay my mortgage. But that's for them to decide, isn't it, Susie? It's not for you and me to tell people whether or not they should. They need to actually make their own decisions. And I just think people, you know, it's not like Australia's a third-world country here. I mean, that's not the problem. What we'd rather have is Australians here building our tourism again and actually saving places like Queenstown. But this is why I ask whether they would actually come or not. Like you're saying this is, you know, it's a risk that people have to take. But people might not be that keen on taking a risk in a global pandemic like this. I think they will. And the other thing is what's your option? What are we going to do? Tell Queenstown people to go and pivot like their tourist minister has here. Is that what we want to do? Tell the West Coast they've lost their timber, they lost their mining and now they've lost their tourism. Well, what are they going to pivot to? The fact is we need to get on with it and we need to. One of the things I quite like and admire about the Australian attitude and their government's attitude is they actually want to get stuff done and they think about how they can make it happen. And over here, we've got this absolute paralysis by analyzing all the things that go wrong. How about think about the things that could go right? But isn't that one of the ways that the government has been able to keep New Zealand safe is by analyzing the ways that things can go wrong? And we wouldn't have, for example, contact tracing that would necessarily work in if suddenly a case popped up on either side of the Tasman. The Australians have, in general, with the exception of Victoria that went through a very tough time, other states have done really well. And look, I just look at this and think, do we want our tourist industry or not? Do we want to do this? Or do we want to actually just close up shop, throw away the biggest market that we have when we've got an opportunity now with the Aussie government trying to open up the border and we're standing around saying, oh no, well we can't do that. Well, you know what? We are the back ourselves as we don't as a country. I believe in Kiwis and I reckon we can do this really, really well. Some people that we are allowing to come in, cast and crew from the Lion King Musical, what's the problem with that? There's no problem with that and I've said that. Also, they're coming out of Australia. So Victoria hasn't had any COVID in the community for quite a long time now. So they actually would be able to come in without going through MIQ. So no problem. So you're happy with that even though I guess people might go and see that rather than seeing some homegrown talent perform? Yeah, I actually think we need to stop telling people what they're allowed to go and see. I actually, you know, I think people, you know, there's been loads of opportunities for me to go and slam the government for letting the Lion King people in. But actually why? You know, surely if we open up 40% of the opportunities in MIQ for people to come in from other parts of the world and go into quarantine, we could do that by allowing the Australians or Kiwis to come back from Australia. But you're not explicitly wanting to support the local performers? No, I think you're just going way too far on that one, Suzie. I obviously want to support local performers, but I'm also not silly enough to think that you just every country go to as a production like Lion King, that you suddenly get all new performers in that country. These are professional artists who have been trained in this particular thing. That is what they do. It's just like, you know, we've just got to be a little bit more open, Suzie, and a bit more generous and kind. But is it fair that they go ahead of, for example, crucial healthcare workers or families that are needing to come back and see relatives? Well, I am with you on this, Suzie. I think it's really sad that we've got families who can't get back to relatives, dying relatives in New Zealand and their family members in Australia trying to get back here. That's why you have the trans-Tasman bubble. This whole miserly attitude towards people goes away. But Miss Collins, you're having a bobbage. We're on this one, aren't you? I've just got the solution, Suzie. That's the issue. I've got the solution and the government needs to stop going around saying, yes, we'll pick these winners. We'll have the Lion King, but we won't have families coming back to be united. We can have what we need to have, which is open that travel bubble with Australia, get on with it, and we close it if there's a problem. That's what we do. Everybody's happy. Just very briefly, you said earlier you like the Australian attitude. Do you like the Australian attitude towards the 15-year-old who's come back here? Well, I said that I like the Australian attitude that they can get stuff done and they can take a risk. Well, they got that done. In fact, they certainly did. And I think that's awful, actually. I thought that was dreadful. But I also don't like the Australian Peter Dutton, their minister, coming out and saying he's throwing out the trash. In the same week as we had the commemoration for the 51 people murdered and all those other people severely injured by an Australian. So this war of words is not helpful to either New Zealand or Australia. And it's unnecessary. So our government needs to be careful. We need to say not do things like go and, like Damian O'Connor did, and go and tell the Australians go and behave themselves with China and be kinder and nicer to them. Oh, for goodness sake, keep our nose out of other people's business. And the other thing is the Australians need to show us respect. We need to show them respect. Sending a 15-year-old kid back here. And it turns out Nanaima Huta, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, I saw yesterday, had no one for weeks about it. Well, I don't think she told the Prime Minister. Thank you very much for your time. Judith Collins there, National Party Leader.