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…
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…
…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…
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…
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…
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…
Fair pay agreements are bad policy for everyone
As Michael Wood steps into his Delorean to take us Back to the Future with this government’s labour relations agreements, he’s setting New Zealand on a crash course to the worst industrial relations policy New Zealand had to offer from the 1970’s and 1980’s.Here’s something I’ve written previously.
On budgets and band aids..
Lots of writing by the talking heads in the media about the government’s up coming budget.The Word on the Street is summerised nicely by former Nayland College old boy class mate of mine, Bryce Edwards. Writing for that hand-wringingly leftish, rainbow-coloured, de-colonised state broadcaster RNZ, Bryce advises Jacinda and Grant…