Emotional moment a woman breaks down as New Zealand closes its border to Australians FIVE MINUTES before she was due to board her flight
- Young woman broke down after her flight home to Auckland was cancelled
- Chels Badger, 26, stranded in Perth after travel bubble with Australia paused
- The university worker had flown to Western Australia for her father's funeral
- Shared tearful video of herself after she found out her flight was cancelled
A young woman has broken down in tears after New Zealand closed its travel bubble with Australia five minutes before she was due to check in for her flight.
Chels Badger, 26, was stranded in Perth after the New Zealand government paused the quarantine-free travel exemption for travellers from all Australian states and territories on Saturday night.
The university worker flew to Western Australia for her father's funeral but an outbreak of Covid-19 cases across the country meant she then couldn't get back home to Auckland.
'I can't,' she wrote next to a TikTok video of her wiping tears from her eyes after finding out her flight was cancelled.
'New Zealand just shut its borders to Australia five minutes before I was supposed to check into my flight to Auckland.'
Ms Badger said her partner flew back to Auckland for work after the funeral but that she stayed in Perth for five more days.
'I’m grieving at the moment, and it’s incredibly difficult to be away from my partner and my home on NZ,' she told Daily Mail Australia.
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Ms Badger is originally from Perth but moved to New Zealand in January 2020.
She said she stayed behind in the WA city to spend more time with friends and family.
'It was not a leisure trip and it most certainly was not a holiday either,' she said.
Chels Badger, 26, was stranded in Perth after the New Zealand government paused the quarantine-free travel exemption for travellers from Australia five minutes before she was due to check in
The university worker flew to Western Australia for her father's funeral and said the trip was not a holiday
'When I returned to Australia, I was very aware of the risk that I could get stuck there but since Perth hadn’t had cases for a long time I just really didn’t expect for the bubble to be paused.'
The earliest flight she could find back to Auckland was on July 8 and Ms Badger said she fears she could be locked out of New Zealand for longer if the travel bubble suspension is extended.
The pause is scheduled to end on July 6 but could be extended further if the deadly Delta variant of Covid-19 continues to spread across Australia.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern shut down travel between Australia and NZ on Saturday night after an outbreak of coronavirus cases across the states and territories. Pictured are family and friends reuniting after the travel bubble between the two countries began in April
About eight million Australians are under some form of lockdown restrictions after cases broke out in Brisbane, Sydney, Brisbane, Darwin and Perth.
Anyone living in the Perth or Peel regions are under stay-at-home orders from 12.01am on Tuesday for four days, and are only allowed out for essential reasons.
Gyms, shops, bars, restaurants and places of worship will be forced to close and all social gatherings are banned, with no one allowed to leave the metropolitan area for all but essential reasons.
Masks are also mandatory in all indoor settings outside the home.
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