After seven months of being shut tight, Jacinda Ardern is now promising to open our borders to people from overseas, and if Labour is elected, it would make room in our isolation facilities for critical workers.
It comes as Ardern features in a new Labour Party TV ad - a big deal for political parties - in which she tells New Zealanders how "together we went hard and early" to fight COVID-19.
This election for Ardern is all about looking presidential. It's not shot in her ninth floor office at the Beehive, but it sure as hell looks like it.
"We've seen what we can achieve with a strong plan so let's stick together and let's keep moving," she says in the TV ad launched on Friday.
Gone are the days of DJ Ardern. When you see her now, Labour wants you to think 'Prime Minister', and the party's policies reflect that.
"Now is the time to sell our story to the world," Ardern told the businesses community in Auckland on Friday as political parties pitched their ideas for the economy.
That means a creaking open of our borders, which Ardern described as "significant".
Labour is promising to reserve 10 percent of beds in the state-run managed isolation facilities for workers deemed critical to our economic recovery.
We have room for 14,000 a month, so 1400 would be reserved for overseas workers, including from countries experiencing COVID-19 blow-outs, like the United States.
Ardern is confident it won't open us up to more risk.
"We are absolutely assured that our quarantine regime, first and foremost, is for the safety of New Zealanders," she said.
The plan is to also woo business investors from overseas, like Microsoft which is setting up shop in New Zealand. Any personnel they bring with them would come under the 10 percent quota.
As for whether we could see more Silicon Valley-type doomsday preppers coming to New Zealand, Ardern said it's a possibility.
"If it is a situation where it's an entity where there is a direct benefit to New Zealand then that's when we should be having that conversation," she said.
That's a yes.
New Zealand is already a haven for the super-rich to escape to come the apocalypse, and this is a passport for more of them.
National Party leader Judith Collins agrees we need help rebuilding.
"We cannot have fortress New Zealand forever," Collins said on Friday.
So, whether it's National or Labour, the borders will be likely be wedged open. But it's no piece of cake - the borders still present our greatest risk.
