Over the past two years we've heard it ad nauseam. We're a team of five million and we are constantly reminded to be kind to each other and yes, it's come from the self-appointed team leader Jacinda Ardern.
Many of us retired from the team shortly after it was created and it now grates to still be described as members of it.
It should come as no surprise to Ardern then why her popularity's on the wane – last week's One News Kantar poll gave her a miserable personal rating of 35, one percent lower than where John Key was when he decided to call it quits.
Labour's rightly worried with the elevation of Chris Luxon to National's leadership – he's unlikely to hoover up votes like Ardern did at the last election, thanks to Covid, but he's determined to suck them up with a broader brush rather than simply relying on a virus as she has done.
He knows the Government has now lost that argument; they are finally resigned to living with it even though the phase we are currently in is still incredibly a stamp-it-out strategy.
But it's the virus that will be the Government's undoing even though it's still doing its best to scare our citizens into submission by trotting out modellers' predictions, telling us we'll all go to hell in a Covid cart unless we're careful. As one of the most vaccinated countries in the world the dire predictions are unlikely to materialise, but a scared population is a compliant one.
The Beehive knows it's losing its sting and that was evident over the weekend, and since, over the case involving Charlotte Bellis, the pregnant kiwi journalist working for El Jazeera out of Afghanistan. It seems the Taliban's more sympathetic to giving her sanctuary to have her baby there rather than the Government in this country.
There were legitimate issues raised that made her find her passage back to New Zealand wasn't as simple as she thought it should have been, not the least that she wasn't prepared to travel within 14 days of lodging her emergency allocation application for an MIQ slot.
Put that to one side though and think about the callous, cruel policy that prevents Kiwis from claiming their birth right, to come back to their country, to come home, when they want to.
MIQ was justified two years ago when we were entering the unknown. But it's not justified now when the mutated Omicron, is likened to little more than a bad cold at worse.
Bellis deserves credit for raising the plight of thousands of New Zealanders who should now be allowed to come home and it seems the Government's starting to listen.
As the pressure built on the Bellis case, Covid Minister Chris Hipkins put out a statement urging her to reapply, adding there will be changes at the border and they will be announcing them soon.
Why the delay?
It's unlikely to help the distraught man who phoned Newstalk ZB from New York saying he wanted to get home to see his elderly mother who's dying in hospital while his father is left to fend on his own.
How many times have you heard stories like that?
Barry Soper is a New Zealand political journalist, and has been featured regularly on radio and television since the 1970s. Currently, Soper's main role is political editor at Newstalk ZB, a radio network in New Zealand.
6 comments:
Barry, the virus is only one aspect of the rabbles downfall. 100,000 Kiwibuild houses, a health minister mountain biking while Rome burnt, a Maori minister assaulting staff, plenty of PPE, ha ha ha, Maori Wards, 3 Waters, He Puapua, ute tax, I could go on for an hour. Their bullshit machine can only fool people some of the time, the sheeple are finally grasping the truth. I keep forwarding articles such as yours to friends , writing to MPs, talking to people to make them aware of facts, attending the Groundswell protests etc. If we all try together then sanity will prevail in 2023, if National grows some balls and actually opposes without fear of being called racists. Kiwialan.
The virus is not what is going to be the governments undoing.
What is going to undo the government is the population finally becoming aware of the lies,corruption and propaganda being used by this authoritarian government to exert control and remove freedom. Their intention to introduce apartheid and separatism to cause disruption while carrying out the UN's agenda.
Excellent article Barry.
You have summed it up very clearly.
The MIG is one issue that has been targeted for some time but I wonder who of opposition and MSM is going to be the first to raise the question of abolishing the vaccine mandates and passports. With the high rate of vaccination, high transmissibility of Omicron variant and its vaccine evasiveness it is crystal clear that the majority of infected and spreading the virus will be the vaccinated. So what is the raison d'etre of mandates and passports? Why should we continue this divisive and socially damaging policies? The atmosphere of fear of the virus successfully fed by MSM, the atmosphere of fear to speak openly about the policies, about early treatment options like Ivermectin and prevention starts to be unbearable and chocking people desperate for the breath of hope and freedom.
This government under Adern will live on in infamy in our history books as the worst govt in NZ's history. Shambles from start to finish, bunch of toddlers at best.
If you listen to Dr Shakara Chetty of South Africa, you will realise the vaccine has been the cause of Covid in many, & that the vaccine does not protect.
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