Daniel Hutchinson From The Hutch

There is a lot of suffering in the world which can be quite inconvenient at times.

Normally, Kiwis can just book a flight out and travel the world. Most return with stories of how safe and comforting our little shire is. Others pick the worst hole in the world and stay to help.

At any one time you can count on there being Kiwis in pretty much every corner of Earth, doing a DIY haka and waving the silver fern just so there's no mistake.

The rest of us take up surfing or gardening or something, and pop a bit of cash in the kitty when there is a newsworthy disaster in a less privileged place. Every now and again we spread our wings and head out again to explore.

I'm not sure why we're called Kiwis, we're more like albatrosses.

Born free

Most of us don't take our lifestyle for granted or our freedoms – notably our freedom of expression and the lesser-known but equally important freedom of movement.

So, it's no surprise that our Prime Minister's much-publicised cancelled wedding and adherence to close contact quarantine rules was met with a collective ‘whatever' and ‘ova it'.

We all know you can't go too far or plan anything too big.

To put it into context though, North Korean Supreme Leader - yes that is a title - Kim Jong Un did every democratically elected leader a massive favour on Tuesday with the release of his documentary ‘The Great Year of Victory, 2021'.

I'm not sure millions of people being on the verge of starvation thanks to drought and economic sanctions are to be measures of success, but the struggle is apparently very real for Kim.

Great year of victory

By way of a bit of background, Kim was a solid boy before he became a giant leader. United States spy agencies once estimated his weight at 140kg.

More recently his rapid weight loss has become the subject of speculation that he might be horribly unwell.

To dispel this myth, rather than simply saying he is on the Atkins diet, the state-sponsored documentary assures people that Kim has in fact 'completely dedicated his body to realise people's dreams”.

It's hardly reassuring but, then again, neither is New Zealand's policy on allowing its own citizens back into the country for emergency reasons.

Yes, we are managing a pandemic and don't want people washing in and out of the country like a diseased tide. When you need to come back, that needs to be done without the bureaucratic gobbledegook dished out to foreign correspondent Charlotte Bellis.

Baby on the way

Charlotte is a Kiwi, and her partner is a Belgian photographer called Jim who works for the New York Times. They have a baby on the way, which would normally be cause for celebration except they have been living and working in Afghanistan.

In case you missed it, the ultra-conservative Taliban have retaken that country and being an unmarried pregnant woman is now frowned upon. They also have something of an economic crisis and a dysfunctional health system. Even paracetamol is hard to come by.

So, it seems like a bit of a no-brainer that Charlotte, like any other pregnant New Zealander, should be given priority to re-enter her own country. Yet, her situation was not deemed enough of an emergency.

Charlotte is no stranger to standing up for the rights of women, but I doubt she would have ever thought she would have to resort to an open letter to New Zealand, complete with baby-bump photos and an explanation of the heady times surrounding the surprise conception.

The issue, it seems, was that because she hadn't booked her flights within two-weeks of the date she wished to enter Managed Isolation Quarantine, it can't have been an emergency.

Now I'm not a mid-wife, but I'm pretty sure that with babies, the manufacturing time is relatively consistent – nine months. The closer you get to the due date, the more of an emergency it becomes.

The point of it all is that you should never wait for the emergency before acting, and this is a sad indictment on our ability to look after our own. We've had years to sort this stuff out and it should be happening in a sensible and orderly fashion.

I hope I never conceive a baby during a civil war, in the middle of a pandemic.

daniel@thesun.co.nz