The former Premier of New South Wales, Gladys Berejiklian, probably never wanted to see the Ruby Princess again.

Three years on we might wonder, what on earth was she thinking … that an inanimate object could bring her career down any more than a toaster could’ve done earlier that day if her toast was burnt?

Surely the chaos was nothing to do with the people in charge? The New South Wales Covid response became a nothing-to-see-here fiasco, and be assured, the senior bureaucrats were all skilled experts in virology, media, and spin.

Little did Premier Gladys and Dictator Dan know (or realise) that passenger ships provide ideal centres for quarantine (as they have for over 200 years). Instead of making them anchor in the already allocated quarantine anchorages around most ports in the nation, these premiers and other inexperienced leaders shooed them away and nominated CBD hotels as quarantine centres. How dumb!

This demonising of cruise ships brought a screeching halt to my addictive habit of cruising under the guise of working, something I do at least three times a year.

A couple of weeks ago I made a last-minute booking for a ship going from Sydney to Melbourne and then around to New Zealand. This is a dangerous undertaking for Queenslanders as we acknowledge that Melbourne is now firmly the epicentre of green madness and New Zealand is spiralling down the socialist path with a burgeoning bureaucracy and the accompanying national poverty. We know this because of the hundreds of thousands of escapees arriving from Victoria and New Zealand that have been blocking up our Queensland roadways in the last few months.

But was I prepared for the post-Covid upgrades of border security, biosecurity, and the created armies of bureaucrats by socialist leaders? The first security encounter in the cruise industry was amusing to me in that a retired Swedish couple in front of us had their luggage checked. Security pulled out three objects that were obviously causing the scanner to beep. Two were miniature metal replica souvenirs of the KL Tower and the Sydney Tower, while the third item was a miniature steamer to unwrinkled clothes. The first two could have been used for stabbing had the couple been young and athletic, but contrary to logic security confiscated the clothes steamer. Perhaps they thought the ship’s laundry would be under commercial threat?

To get the ship out of White Bay, my ship pilotage friends said, ‘We just stick her into astern, spin her around into Darling Harbour, and head out under the Harbour bridge, hoping that the sea levels haven’t risen since this morning or else we may hit it.’ I knew the 54-metre bridge clearance was safe.

Wearing a CPAC cap and carrying a copy of The Spectator Australia around all the public areas of the ship for the two days down to Melbourne confirmed my discovery that most of the 2,000 passengers had flown in from the US, and thankfully, exhibited no sign of local left-wing loonies, Greens, or Teals.

The Melbourne visit came with the splendid news that Jacinda Ardern, (or as my pals from the marine industry call her ‘Just in’ta Astern’ the same as she has done to New Zealand), had resigned! This resignation was surely her reaction to my impending visit and my notified Land Claim for all of the South Island to be given back to Scotland.

Yes, you may scorn, but it was only the Scots that were brave enough to face the constant rain, cold weather, and sheep with unfortunate looks, to develop the place. It was in 1848 that the first large contingent of Scots arrived and created the town they named Dunedin (Gaelic term for Edinburgh) and developed the community, built the hospitals, schools, and churches. Looking at the old photographs at the museum there was not much there before that.

Of course I hadn’t realised the depths of despair that New Zealand had plummeted into. The minute the ship arrived in Dunedin’s Port Chalmers she was boarded with brigades of uniformed bureaucrats from different agencies making sure that us ‘temporary invaders’ would toe the line.

Immediately, the long Biosecurity announcements, including all screens on board, started warning of taking food off the ship or wearing muddy shoes from farms ‘as other countries have had Foot and Mouth’. This long message was repeated every 30 minutes and after 2 hours I approached the reception pleading that was enough for reasonable coherent and educated people to bear. But this was the New Zealand government and our ship had to follow their instructions. After several ports it was a scramble for passengers to get off or listen to the Groundhog day message and by now we had all been on a farm – New Zealand, for the last few days.

Clearly the army within biosecurity had to be kept busy. In the previous few weeks four cruise ships of impeccable credentials had been found in breach of biofoul standards due to algae and barnacles on their hulls. They had to cancel schedules, upsetting some 15,000 tourists. Having owned boats and commercial vessels for the last five decades, I can assure readers that you can find algae and barnacles within three weeks of coming out of a drydock or slipping, given the right water conditions. Such growth starts immediately when the vessel is immersed and if New Zealand bureaucrats are serious, they should check every ship or boat arrival or even their own domestic fleets, but there’s no money there.

Keeping bureaucrats busy is one thing, but picking on five-star cruise ships and upsetting inbound tourists and national tourism operators is a new and dangerous game.

Not to be dissuaded from my voyage mission, and armed with my Land Claim entitled Give it Back, I ventured ashore at Port Chalmers and caught the bus into Dunedin.

Ardern’s Army also instructed all passengers to show not just their electronic cabin keys (which have an embedded photo for the ship’s scanners), but also a separate picture ID. This required another army of checkers at all the dock gates. Interestingly, New Zealand domestic airlines don’t impose such a duplication for transiting flights.

‘Put your seat belts on in case the police board,’ instructed the bus driver in Wellington. ‘Or it is a $50 fine each of you!’

The beggars in the six ports visited, unnoticed in my last visit before the Arden policies came into effect, were in every street. This, along with the burgeoning army of bureaucrats and new measures of total control even for tourists, is a great sign of socialism at work.

I also hadn’t realised that all New Zealand bureaucracies do not attend their offices on a Monday or a Friday and now have embedded the four-day weekends in their psyche to offset the recent pay rises that the poor souls had to grapple with. So my Dunedin and Auckland visits were disappointing, as no one was home to accept my Land Claim for Scotland.

We have agreed that our next cruise will be to the Pacific Islands where the locals actually do welcome visitors.