But we have been assured time and time by Jacinda Ardern that we're all in this together and we're constantly being urged to be kind to each other.
The longer the lockup the shorter the tempers have become with many stories of intolerance, of people being accosted while out for a run or walk, activities we are assured is good for our mental health providing we keep our distance.
Out walking you can't help feeling a bit like a leper must have felt with people giving you a wide berth.
We have all become a little scratchy which is perfectly understandable. But the mood isn't helped for some of us who daily watch the politics of it all, and this oozes politics with an eagle eye on this year's election prize.
You can't help feeling for Simon Bridges who has become virtually invisible as Ardern daily steps up to the podium to essentially repeat what we had already heard a couple of hours earlier from the health, civil defence and police bosses.
But the focus on Ardern, which is inevitable in this time of crisis, exposes the naked politics being played in the Beehive.
Increasing a minimum living wage by $1.20 an hour on April Fool's Day is bad enough at a time when business is on its knees, but looking after its Māori constituency lays bare the superficiality of the claim that we're all in this together.
Ardern proudly told us the $56 million laid aside last week to Māori to fight Covid 19 has already been allocated. It's been spent on 100,000 care packages which gives Māori access to products which will ensure they're safe and can meet the guidelines set by the Health Ministry.
The money will also help kaumatua get priority testing for Covid 19 and will provide food and clothing for the vulnerable and assist them to get into isolation accommodation, all of which the rest of us have to pay and wait for.
It’s difficult to find why Māori would be harder hit than the rest of us with this virus.
But it’s not difficult to deduce that Labour, with the seven Māori seats now back on its ballot, is determined to keep them there.
Barry Soper, the political editor of Newstalk ZB, is one of the country’s most experienced political broadcast journalists and the longest-serving member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
9 comments:
Maori in the 1918 flu epidemic died from it at a much higher rate than Europeans. I would think that a lot of the reason was that they had less natural immunity than Europeans.
Would that exist to any extent to those with part Maori anestry today. Does anyone with medical knowledge have an answer?
That the government has succumbed to the avaricious claims of Maori ministers makes a complete mockery of Jacinda Ardern's assertion to the Mosque Muslims that : “ We are one....” or in Orwellian terms : “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.”
Peeni Henare states: “As ministers we know the need to help Our people...Great Treaty partners!”
Apartheid successfully beat the crisis on day 1. Last time I read the Treaty we were all "one people".
It just shows the Government can be run by half the number of MPs. A great opportunity to reduce their numbers, starting with the 7 race based seats.
Maori have a greater need of protection than none Maori. Cobblers the mixing of genes since 1918 will have pretty well equalised immunity, but what a wonderful excuse to buy seats in the next election and at only $8 Million of taxpayers money, a seat an absolute bargain.
I thought the Treaty of Waitangi made tangata Maori British subjects with the same rights as the people of England so that all the people of New Zealand would come under Queen Victoria's Royal Charter/Letters Patent dated the 16 November 1840 that made New Zealand a British colony under one flag and one law, irrespective of race colour or creed.
"Would that exist to any extent to those with part Maori anestry today. Does anyone with medical knowledge have an answer?"
Not medical, but an observation, Perhaps it was the Hongi, that helped the Influenza bug spread among maori
As you have all mentioned, this WE ARE ALL ONE TOGETHER seems to go out the window when Maori raise their problems, considering they get all the same things that the rest of us get, yet get paid a huge sum to look after their population. What do they do with the huge payouts they are still getting from the treaty?? it doesnt seem to go to help their people.
Is there anyone other than tribal heavies getting support from Government, mayors and the police for their illegal roadblocks on public roads? These activists obviously don't care all that much for their kaumatua and tamariki because they're not going home and staying home to protect their whanau. Anarchy reigns!
In 1877, New Zealand's Chief Justice, Sir James Prendergast ruled, “So far indeed as that instrument (The Treaty of Waitangi) purported to cede the sovereignty it must be regarded as a ‘simple nullity’. No political body existed capable of making cession of sovereignty”. This ruling has never been overruled but has been completely ignored by governments and our justice system. Why?
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