All of New Zealand is in “the red zone”.Everyone in Wellington is staying away. Here’s Lambton Quay, Wellington’s “Golden Mile”, at 12:15pm today …Businesses are struggling because economic demand is being strangled by the government locking New Zealand down
RNZCGP Medical Director on COVID Fear
FROM THE HERALD – 16 FEBRUARY 2022Dealing with Covid needs a mindset changeLet’s keep calm, keep healthy and, more importantly, get vaccinated and boosted. In the end we will get there and back to our ‘new normal’.The New Zealand HeraldDr Bryan Betty is medical director at The Royal New Zealand…
Testing, public sector style
So, I’m sitting at the Lower Hutt COVID testing center, waiting to get a test.I’ve been here for over two hours now.The government coordinating this is a complete mess, and waste of time.The reason for the long time delay turned out not to be related to volume: some numpty changed…
Injustice
CONTEXT: I WATCH TOO MUCH TVI’m watching a documentary on Netflix called, “The Tinder Swindler” about a con artist. The antagonist is an evil swine who stole what the documentary maker guesses was approximately $10 million dollars from innocent women whom he met over Tinder.My blood boiled. I can’t imagine…
Follow Vic Sefton on the Tour of Aotearoa
Last year, Victoria Sefton was one of my regular blog readers while I was doing the Tour of Aotearoa. This year, she’s going to be pumping her own peddles and doing the hard kilometers.Follow her travels and support her: https://vicsefton.wordpress.com/home/vic-sefton-tour-aotearoa-blog/Also, every tour rider contributes to a charity. Feel free to…
A divided country
Today, in Wellington, thousands of normal people peacefully protested the government’s COVID-19 policies.The protest, reported by RNZ as having approximately 3000 protestors, was much larger, and filled Lambton Quay for 45 minutes, as the crowd marched to parliament.Unlike previous COVID protests, this march missed the usual kooks and weirdos that…
In trouble with the law
I’m of the firm belief that at some stage (preferably during their youth),everybody needs to get in trouble with the law.It’s only when you butt up against authority do you really know the power and strength of authority and all the things it’s legitimised to do to you.And then, you…
…Yes they do…
From https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/457811/regions-hit-hard-as-rents-increase-nationallyArdern ‘determined to see a change in housing’ “No one wants to see our housing market crash,” Prime Minister Ardern said at the post-Cabinet meeting press briefing this afternoon.
Vaccine passports and Locke’s Treaties on Government
Here’s a little something from the Swedish newspaper, Svenska Dagblatdet, translated into English by the fine app PressReader.I’ve included it in my blog because I haven’t seen or heard debate in mainstream New Zealand media that questions our incoming vaccine passports.New Zealand commentary couches a resistance to passports as “fringe”…
5 strategies to avert identity politics – Guide for New Zealand
From The Strait Times paper, out of Singapore The Straits Times 24 Nov 2021 Linette Lai Political Correspondent linettel@sph.com.sg As Singapore turns the tide in its fight against Covid-19, it must not allow the differences that have emerged during the pandemic to become permanent divides that affect its politics, said…
Making a more responsive primary care health sector
It was with a lot of sadness I read on the Weekend Herald on 13 November 2021, about a grieving daughter whose father died a painful death at home 12 days after contracting Covid-19. The father had tried to get medical help but was told from the sources advocated by…
Totally over mask wearing
I’m so doubley-dosed with vaccine.Why do I need to wear a mask?I’m totally sick and tired of all of the government’s COVID-19 rules, and I’m over labour’s nanny state.The worst thought is there’s another two years worth of her hell before I can cast my vote to throw out the…
All Hail Pressreader.com!
Here’s a GREAT app / website: https://www.pressreader.com/catalogI found Pressreader through the Hutt City Library who have a library-wide subscription allowing their members free access to the world’s papers.For all those current-events interested persons who are sick of Radio New Zealand’s sycophantically-biased selection of news content, Pressreader allows readers to triangulate…
Wolves in sheep’s clothing
The government’s Three Waters reform is wiffy. Seriously wiffy that not all looks as it seem, sometimes milk masquerades as cream.Phil Goff, current Auckland Mayor, ex-labour party leader and a long term pinko-socialist isn’t towing the party line over the government’s Three Waters reform. I can imagine this is to…
Frontier Firms, Entrepreneurial Credit and Housing Inequality
There’s a couple of ideas swirling around my head at the moment, stimulated by MOTU’s paper on New Zealand Frontier Firms, and Bob Jones’s observation here: That fate may still await us if we don’t open the immigration doors. The average age of European kiwis is 40, that is past an…
Better data storytelling
There is no such thing as truthThere are only stories. And everyone has their own version. For example, when talking about why the sun rises, over the ages there have been many many different stories people believed to be true.The Greeks and the Aztecs thought the sun to be a…
My life is full of non-single use, non-disposable bags…
One of the first things 2017’s Labour / Greens / New Zealand First coalition government did was strongly signal its “green credentials”. First cab off the ranks was stopping new offshore drilling oil permits.The second cab off the ranks was, oddly, single use disposable plastic bags….Rejoicing in the collective kumbiya…
Living on a completely different housing planet
I wish I could tag-out of New Zealand’s property market. What a mess!Here’s something I recently read from Singapore. Not only did their equivalent of our Reserve Bank governer take personal and professional responsibility for an overpriced housing market, but a sniff of an “overheated” housing market is one where…
Human Rights Commission: This wasn’t really a report about migrants, was it…?
Here’s a seriously dodgy publication put out recently by the Human Rights Commission: Drivers of Migrant New Zealanders experiences of racismFrom its forward, Meng Foon writes: Findings from Stats NZ’s General Social Survey indicate that people born outside of Aotearoa report higher rates of discrimination compared with those born in…
Got a new cat 🐱
Meet Marco 😁