The Breaking Views blog is administered by the New Zealand Centre for Political Research at NZCPR.com. The views expressed are those of the author alone.
As Aucklanders endured their last weekend of an alert level lockdown, waiting to move into our red traffic light this weekend, Covid reminded us that it’s in the driving seat, not us.
Relative freedoms just a handful of days away, inching towards some kind of normality, and then boom, news erupts over the weekend of this new variant Omicron.
With hope having been dashed to shreds over this past year, it’s hard to stay positive, especially when countries start restricting travel again, re-introducing self-isolation, and not ruling out a return to lockdowns. The familiar creep of dread washes over us.
But we would be fools to believe that now a settlement has been reached, we can all return to normal.
There are reasons why it is not possible in the current climate.
The settlement of claims against the Crown can only be described as breathtaking, considering the scale of its disingenuous response to legitimate grievances.
The behaviour of some Crown Ministers who had responsibilities for drawing a line under one of the darkest chapters in this country’s history can only be described as contemptuous.
Policing is responsible for crime prevention alongside
its core law enforcement role, but it does not and cannot prevent crime. Unaware
of this fault, it continues to covet the role by defending its failures and influencing
law changes that do not enhance its prevention value. The most vexing consequence
is policing’s ability to control the message that allows it to obstruct the fault
from lawmakers who are then unable to expose and remedy it.
In this newsletter:
Who should take over the leadership of the National Party?
In the mix right now: Christopher Luxon, Simon Bridges, Mark Mitchell, Chris Bishop, and Shane Reti.
Shane Reti is not an option. He helped Judith Collins commit the murder-suicide on Simon Bridges on Wednesday night so he’s too tainted.
Chris Bishop is not an option yet. Too many people are still too angry with him for helping in the Muller coup. He’s doing great work so he’ll recover, but it’s too early.
In this newsletter:
1) It’s heat or eat as energy crisis bites
The London Evening Standard, 23 November 2021
I don’t mind that Shane Reti is the interim leader. The main reason being, if you are going to do this, try and do it properly. Far better to make a solid, well considered decision over a mad cap heat of the moment one.
Whether Reti held the job for a while will matter not in the fullness of time.
As for poor old Judith Collins, her demise will be quickly forgotten as well. We don’t spend a lot of time talking about the David Shearer years, the David Cunliffe years, the Andrew Little years, or the Bill English years. Not that most of them even had years to talk about, sometimes just months.
The point is once you're gone, you're a feather duster.
What the hell is going on inside the National Party?
Here's the problem with that question. We shouldn't even be asking it. We shouldn't need to ask it. They shouldn't be making everything about them and drawing attention to themselves in this way - at a critical time for the opposition to make hay, with so much material available to them to clobber the government with. What are they thinking?
This hit job on Bridges is so poorly timed, mind you, so is his clearly bungled coup attempt.
A family of four, been at sea several weeks with no sign of
the virus having infiltrated their “bubble”, find themselves near New Zealand –
just as the sea water converter on board, breaks down.
No water.
The KLOCHKOV family seek permission to make landfall in New
Zealand to take on board – water.
Topping up the food stores was also on the agenda.
To their shock and dismay, agents of the great humanitarian,
Jacinda Ardern, said:
NO ENTRY.
Is there no end to the absurdity of this Government's decisions?
They’ve today announced they will NOT free up MIQ in time for Christmas.
Instead, Kiwis stuck in Australia have to wait to January 17 to isolate at home.
Why do they have to wait?
No reason; other than Jacinda, Grant and Chris have decided to ruin Christmas for families.
Let’s be clear about this, double jabbed kiwis stuck in Australia are virtually no risk to us in New Zealand.
Do you think our government has thought about immigration lately? Do you think they have a plan to get international students back? And if they do, when?
What about the chronic labour shortages? Do you think there is a plan that could be unleashed tomorrow to ramp returns up when the border opens? By the way, when do you think the border is opening?
Australia has announced 200,000 visas. Australia also has its border open. So a quick question, for starters, would be how is it that Australia can open its borders and we can't? How is it they're inviting hundreds of thousands into the country to fire up the economy and we haven't?
The bits we live on are mostly solid chunks which we call “land” floating on this gooey mess, bumping into each other, pushing over and under each other as they have done for billions of years and surrounded, marvellously, with a thin layer of another remarkable fluid - water - in what we call “oceans”.
On the surface - or very near it - there has been another marvellous development - it is called "life", in millions of diverse forms.
New Zealanders like their heroes talented and modest and preferably devoted to public service as well. Sir Edmund Hillary is the exemplar of that breed and very few have the mana he enjoys in our collective consciousness.
Nevertheless, there are many others similarly talented and dedicated to the collective good but who go largely unnoticed outside their professional lives.
One such is Professor Garth Cooper, who is suddenly in the news because he is under disciplinary investigation by the Royal Society Te Apārangi, the nation’s premier organisation promoting science and the humanities.
Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on Santa delivering a new Prime Minister!
In this newsletter:
1) Energy crunch drives Europe to burn more coal
Bloomberg, 22 November 2021
In keeping with Canada’s moribund political culture this was dutifully endorsed by Premier Jason Kenney on social media. Mr Kenney and the AHS are entitled to their opinion about the efficacy of Ivermectin as a Covid-19 treatment for that is all it is – an opinion. In fact, there is strong circumstantial evidence that Ivermectin is effective as not just a treatment, but also as a prophylaxis against the disease of which two examples of many will suffice.
While most governments have reacted to this threat to
their sovereignty in a conservative manner and hoped for the best, few have
been bold enough to adopt policies that offered greater rewards in spite of
increased risk of failure.
Some, like our own country, have squandered advantages that accompany an island state that provided protection against the initial onslaught not available to most other nations having to impose lockdowns that dramatically affected the economy.
Irrespective of the reasons for protesting, the overall themes were perceived loss of freedoms - compulsory lockdowns, mandatory vaccinations, freedom of choice, ominous climate change proposals. The right to protest within the law is fundamental in a true democracy and must of course be upheld.
With the lockdown of Parliament unprecedented in the last 40 years, according to Speaker Mallard, politicians dared not address the crowd. Imagine the reception Prime Minister Ardern would have received had she fronted! Instead we had a dismissive comment from Ardern to the effect that the protesters were “not reflective of the vast bulk of New Zealanders” - a dangerous and ignorant comment in that these brave souls had the courage to demonstrate, whilst many others who might have quietly agreed with them, stayed at home.
In this newsletter:
1) Rolling blackouts threaten Europe this winter
The Daily Telegraph, 17 November 2021
2) Forget COP26: India's Jindal plans to start building Botswana coal mine in 2022
Reuters, 19 November 2021
After the
event!
So, we are informed by Main Stream Media
today.
This is a
very important claim.
This is the
same media which by my standards, is largely beholden to protect the
government.
As Hon Dr
Bassett comments on the Public Interest Journalism Fund (2) established by
Labour:
“Stuff received $300,000 to establish a “cultural competency course”. To encourage Maori TV, NZME, Pacific Media, News hub and support partners to take on journalism cadets who are Maori or Pacific, a cool $2.4 million was handed out. NZME that produces the New Zealand Herald got $440,000. One estimate I’ve seen is that 40% of the total beneficence will go to Maori projects.”
Net Jobseeker numbers dropped by nearly 5,000 in the week to November 12. That's fantastic.
The number of people cancelling their Jobseeker benefit numbered 8,280 - an increase of 5,535 on the prior week. The economy must really be picking up!
Biden will be the 11th. He almost certainly won't run for a second term. If he does, he will almost certainly lose.
It's more than fair, I think, at this point in his first term, one year in, to suggest that most people are disappointed. The numbers certainly back it up. Every poll you can sight has the numbers going the wrong way and the numbers saying those who disapprove of what he's doing far outweigh those that think the opposite.
In this newsletter:
In particular, it is still experimental – the vaccine trial will not be completed unto 2024 – and many of the side effects are particularly disturbing, especially since the long term consequences are unknown.
The pressure the government is putting on people to force them into vaccination with the “No jab, No job” threat is completely unacceptable - as Michael Kowalik says in his article on the ethical case for vaccine refusal, published on 26 Feb 2021in the BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics:
“There is neither a moral obligation to vaccinate nor a sound ethical basis to mandate vaccination under any circumstances, even for hypothetical vaccines that are medically risk free. Agent autonomy with respect to self-constitution has absolute normative priority over reduction or elimination of the associated risks to life. In practical terms, mandatory vaccination amounts to discrimination against healthy, innate biological characteristics, which goes against the established ethical norms and is also defeasible a priori.
In this newsletter:
1) Bang on time: COP26 faces its final stretch with a deadlock in the negotiation
AFP, 12 November 2021
So, as I said last week with the other two polls, what you look for is a trend. And multiple polls showing the same thing is a trend.
And the trend’s not good.
Not surprisingly, with the shambolic vaccine rollout, the cluster that is MIQ, divisive policies and controversial mandates. Three waters, He Pua Pua, a never-ending lockdown for Auckland, businesses going belly up, a token insulting ultra-curated stopover in Auckland and inauthentically calling that “a visit”.
The great mystery for me of the vaccine mandate is, just what is it about the vaccine that would lead you to voluntarily want to quit your job?
I get it if you're 22, your job sucks, you're on minimum wage, you don’t really know what you want to do in life, and the benefit still offers an element of appeal. But the mandates around teaching and healthcare are different, aren't they?
Firstly, you are qualified and you studied. To study you had to dedicate yourself, you clearly wanted to do this. And yet a jab is the difference between you following your dream and being unemployed? You are not going on welfare, it's a world away from where you were financially.
Australia has 440 million hectares of grasslands – that 4.4 M sq km is larger than Europe’s total area of 3.5 M sq km. We also have 147 million hectares of native forests, 1.8 million hectares of plantations and 4% of the world’s global forest estate. Australia has the world’s sixth largest forest area and the fourth-largest area of forest in nature conservation reserves. We are not short of trees.
In this newsletter:
1) China, India & 20 developing nations call for key emissions section to be ditched from COP26 agreement
CNN, 11 November 2021
In fact it appears that the “one way” transfer of our
productive grazing land into the fast expanding exotic forestry estate is all
part of the government’s plan to achieve its ill-advised zero carbon emissions
target. More about that later.
The upcoming sale of 6200 hectares of prime East Coast hill country (Huiarua and Matanui Stns) with a combined carrying capacity of over 45,000 stock units and the probability that it might all end up in trees is more than just a little bit worrying.
Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on the Minister of Foreign Affairs!
