It will not be read. So comprehensive is our collective amnesia over Covid that it has provided herd immunity around Chris Hipkins’ ministerial career. If we could remember, he’d be answering the phones at Arden’s Christchurch Call make-work-scheme and the leader of the Opposition would be the Honourable Michael Wood.
But, here we are.
“In total, $70.4 billion was allocated to Covid-19 response and recovery initiatives… from mid-2021 onwards, both the pandemic itself and the policy responses to it started having economic and social impacts across society, sectors and regions that were strong, unevenly distributed and negative.”
Was it worth it?
The Commission dances around mortality: “For more than 4000 New Zealander who died between 2020 and the end of October 2024, Covid-19 either caused or contributed to their deaths.”
Around thirty-five thousand Kiwis die each year. It actually fell during the pandemic, but we are catching up, making up for those protected by the flu during the Great Isolation; but there is no currency in those relieved of their remaining months by influenza.
Sweden, which took a more hands-off approach to the pandemic, lost 28,000 souls according to Wikipedia and has twice the population.
The Commission does not look at the cost relative to that of doing nothing, as in Sweden, only comparing an elimination strategy to that of suppression, as practiced in Britain. But even that is challenging: “… we must weight differential impacts across health, economic and social domains and such weighting is inherently value-based, with no technocratic ‘right’ answer.”
The Commissioners then outline the costs.
The human impact of locking Kiwis out of the country. Stopping children being with their parents as they died. Preventing kids from socialising with their peers and the decline in education. Increased rates of truancy that persist. Driving the vulnerable to suicide hot-lines. Reckless monetary policy locking a generation out of housing. A mountain of fiscal debt that will be a drag on our economy for the balance of this century. Mandates that forced people out of jobs and careers and drove a level of community mistrust and a breakdown of social cohesion.
And in case there was any lingering uncertainty about the economic costs, on Thursday Treasury released the latest Crown accounts that shows the ongoing impacts of fiscal recklessness.
The four months ending in October resulted in a $2.3b deficit, pushing gross sovereign debt to $192b. The cost of servicing the monster Ardern and Robertson bequeathed to a grateful nation is ten billion dollars.
But this is not a mistake that we can only reflect on in hindsight. It was obvious to even the most clueless.
As the rowdiest village idiot raged impotently in April 2020: “We have traded agency over the minutiae of our lives to prevent a one-off jump in mortality that, as more data arrives, appears to be trivial… should we be so quick to embrace what could be a permanent expansion of the state and the destruction of the income and wealth of a vast swath of the population in order to prevent a one-off spike in mortality?”
No one listened then and, now that the results are in, no one wants to acknowledge what happened. We choose the illusion of safety over the real virtue of freedom. That we were cowed by the need to conform, to denounce our neighbours, to cheer at those whose lives were upended because they refused to submit.
We do not want to look back because to do so will require an honest assessment of our own priorities and our actions. We were presented with a test of character and we collectively failed, and our children, those who choose to remain, will be covering the cost.
The arrival of Boris Johnson, the lumbering pantomime fool who betrayed a lifetime of passionately articulated principles by plunging Britain into an ineffective gulag of idiocy, received more publicity for his grifting tour than did the Commissioners’ report.
New Zealand is ashamed about what happened in the Covid years and we wish to pretend it did not happen. But it did.........The full article is published HERE
Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers’ Union and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective
Was it worth it?
The Commission dances around mortality: “For more than 4000 New Zealander who died between 2020 and the end of October 2024, Covid-19 either caused or contributed to their deaths.”
Around thirty-five thousand Kiwis die each year. It actually fell during the pandemic, but we are catching up, making up for those protected by the flu during the Great Isolation; but there is no currency in those relieved of their remaining months by influenza.
Sweden, which took a more hands-off approach to the pandemic, lost 28,000 souls according to Wikipedia and has twice the population.
The Commission does not look at the cost relative to that of doing nothing, as in Sweden, only comparing an elimination strategy to that of suppression, as practiced in Britain. But even that is challenging: “… we must weight differential impacts across health, economic and social domains and such weighting is inherently value-based, with no technocratic ‘right’ answer.”
The Commissioners then outline the costs.
The human impact of locking Kiwis out of the country. Stopping children being with their parents as they died. Preventing kids from socialising with their peers and the decline in education. Increased rates of truancy that persist. Driving the vulnerable to suicide hot-lines. Reckless monetary policy locking a generation out of housing. A mountain of fiscal debt that will be a drag on our economy for the balance of this century. Mandates that forced people out of jobs and careers and drove a level of community mistrust and a breakdown of social cohesion.
And in case there was any lingering uncertainty about the economic costs, on Thursday Treasury released the latest Crown accounts that shows the ongoing impacts of fiscal recklessness.
The four months ending in October resulted in a $2.3b deficit, pushing gross sovereign debt to $192b. The cost of servicing the monster Ardern and Robertson bequeathed to a grateful nation is ten billion dollars.
But this is not a mistake that we can only reflect on in hindsight. It was obvious to even the most clueless.
As the rowdiest village idiot raged impotently in April 2020: “We have traded agency over the minutiae of our lives to prevent a one-off jump in mortality that, as more data arrives, appears to be trivial… should we be so quick to embrace what could be a permanent expansion of the state and the destruction of the income and wealth of a vast swath of the population in order to prevent a one-off spike in mortality?”
No one listened then and, now that the results are in, no one wants to acknowledge what happened. We choose the illusion of safety over the real virtue of freedom. That we were cowed by the need to conform, to denounce our neighbours, to cheer at those whose lives were upended because they refused to submit.
We do not want to look back because to do so will require an honest assessment of our own priorities and our actions. We were presented with a test of character and we collectively failed, and our children, those who choose to remain, will be covering the cost.
The arrival of Boris Johnson, the lumbering pantomime fool who betrayed a lifetime of passionately articulated principles by plunging Britain into an ineffective gulag of idiocy, received more publicity for his grifting tour than did the Commissioners’ report.
New Zealand is ashamed about what happened in the Covid years and we wish to pretend it did not happen. But it did.........The full article is published HERE
Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers’ Union and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective
4 comments:
I don't think it is shame but a deliberate media strategy to cover their ideological alignment with the leaders of the last Labour Government.
Great article. Very well said. 😊
Is it not interesting, when the " disease started to manifest itself", well documented in Wuhan, China (there was leaked info from this City, which the CCP cut off very quickly) - and raised its head in Italy, as those Chinese, residing there arrived back from celebrating the Chinese New Year, with family.
Then " wild fire with an enemy that no one knew anything about, yet we suddenly had honored persons who held Health Portfolios telling us what to do", yet me thinks they " knew nothing".
Some thing went wrong, we needed a Commission to investigate, sadly they were allowed to prevail, when they should have been shut down. Why - " who is going to act on any recommendations put in print ".
After
- the Spanish Flu, how many of you heard of specific recommendations being " put in place";
- the outbreak of Polio, what recommendation came out. Oh yes they concocted a vaccine, the end of an serious problem - not so - look at Africa many years later and we have had resurgence of same here in New Zealand- any Commission of Inquiry then!
Oh and did our esteemed Commission look at how many Kiwi's committed suicide during our Covid moment?
Damien relates to the fiscal issues, what about he ongoing mental ones as well?
I got mandated to take it. Refused. Fired. Took a crap pay job for 13 months. My money focused wife got mandated. Took three. All kinds of turmoil in my house because I didn't & she did. I'm selfish. She vaxed my eldest daughter behind my back with 1 dose of Pfizer because she believed the NZ governments lies. She then spent 12 days in ICU after her booster. But she then told me, it couldn't have been the vaccine because "the government wouldn't lie to us!"
Our marriage hasn't been right since.
Post a Comment