The above, a recent opening line in the New Zealand Herald by its Science reporter, Jamie Morton.
Plainly Jamie doesn’t read the foreign press. All year New Zealand has been a
laughing stock in the British media over its closed off society and vaccine
failures.
The serious media such as the Economist, in articles on dealing with covid has always politely dismissed the New Zealand hermit state approach as essentially infantile, unnecessary and hugely harmful.
And infantile it is with the government methodology more
appropriate to addressing 3 year olds; e.g. “team of 5 million” (in my 8 plus
decades I’ve never known New Zealand so divided and certainly not a team,
particularly regarding race), but worst of all, the unbelievably childish teddy
bear in the windows nonsense and “Be Kind” messages on our highways etc. It’s
mind-blowing.
The out-spoken British press such as
the Telegraph and Daily Mail have poured scorn on New
Zealand’s covid response all year, in the process eliciting thousands of
endorsing responses.
Many are abusive of the PM such as “Let’s know when St.
Jacinda has wiped out flu, venereal diseases, croup, TB, bubonic plague and
other diseases”.
“Jacinda is the modern day King Canute”.
“Beautiful country; daft people”.
“People in Britain and the USA would find it hard to
comprehend the meek acceptance of an authoritarian police state”.
“A nation of sheep hoping for flock immunity”.
“Kiwis; Get off your knees”.
“Kiwis are supposed to be courageous, well educated and
wise. What happened?”
The above are indicative of the literally thousands of
similar comments but, are at the polite end of the spectrum, particularly
regarding the Prime Minister.
Tune in to TV One or TV3 6pm news
and it’s non-stop covid. Switch to CNN, Sky Australia, Sky UK, the BBC or Al
Jazeera and covid rarely rates a mention. They got on with vaccinations
(Australia excepted although at least its Prime Minister apologised to the
nation for their failure in contrast to the blatant fudging and lying by our
government) and are now getting on with life.
People are dying of covid abroad but nearly all are
non-vaccinated through ignorance or religious belief as vaccines are now
readily available, especially in Europe, Canada and Britain. In contrast we
continue to cringe under our beds.
Perhaps due to our small population and isolation our media
has always been obsessed with foreign media comment about New Zealand, so why
have they ignored the relentless criticism?
Name another country in the world in which newspapers run a
“What the foreign press said” following any events occurring here.
With the passing of time and thus perspective, our enforced
hermit kingdom approach I have no doubt will be viewed as a black period in our
history.
Sir Bob Jones is a renowned author, columnist , property investor, and former politician, who blogs at No Punches Pulled HERE.
5 comments:
It became very clear in late April of 2020 that Covid provided great cover to both win an election and drill through unpopular and undemocratic legislations.
It stopped being about health then too, when we now know that no more ICU beds are available, vaccine roll out was delayed (front of to back of the queue)Hipkins in July slowed deliveries and yet billions have been borrowed. The media funded to hold the narrative (hence covid it front and centre)and 18 months have now passed.....THEY HAVE NO PLAN because it is about them not us!
Even this mornings headline in the paper lockdowns til Xmas if Auckland fails........how does a city fail? It does not, but a government proven to fail will lock us down and scapegoat Auckland so as to not lose the CONTROL they have taken.
The government, in conjunction with our abysmal MSM, is deliberately dumbing down the population with their meaningless and oft-repeated Covid catchphrases. And judging by the latest opinion poll it's working a treat!
The media love the rest of the world loving NZ, falling over themselves to report any positive comments and blindly ignoring or indignantly criticising any negative comments. This is a very insecure and childish way to treat foreign opinion and Kiwis have been bombarded with this position for many years now.
We now have a PM who loves to be loved. She treats criticism in exactly the same way and has bought off the MSM to ensure the public get the "right" message.
It's OK to be upbeat and proud of your country but not to the extent that any criticism is treated as an insult. NZ needs to grow up a bit and elect a government that treats us like adults not primary kids. Then we stand a chance of making NZ a truly great country again rather than a propaganda fantasy.
In UK the gloss is coming off this self aggrandising Govt.
Some journalists can see past glib responses and all photo opportunities to see that this govt is extremely shallow with nothing set in place for NZ to go forward.
Purely control, control, control. And PM just hoping this lasts until next election when suddenly she will release us all!
The Covid shroud will suddenly come off!
Our daughter, in London, a Financial Controller of firm doing business in many o/seas countries, says she is embarrassed to let people know she is a Kiwi.
We are a laugh to thinking people!
Go Bob, I like your style.. always to the point.
Right Bob,
Why should we, vaccine shy people believe this IS a vaccine.
And not only that. Why should we believe the jab IS SAFE, while the frabrication pharmacy doesn't trust their product by having NO liability for side effects.
And NO, IT ARE NOT the unvaccinated people dying.
First of all it are the people which are vaccinated, but have underlying health problems like, heart, cancers, obesity, diabetes etc.
In Britain, even road accident deaths are mentioned as "Covid" deaths.
Just lift the statistics and get everyone scared.
The PCR test has NEVER been made to determen if someone might be positive or not. And with a CT of over 24 times, the amount of FALSE positives is about 85%+.
In our little country the CT is 40. OOPS!
And lets face it, one possible positive case in AUCKLAND, you sure have to put the whole country( also the South Island) in lockdown, because virussus can swim for miles.
Cookstrait is just a piece of cake for them.
Goodness, what a clever lot do we have in Wellington.
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