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April 22, 2020 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 22 April 2020

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PhilBest

https://unherd.com/thepost/coming-up-epidemiologist-prof-johan-giesecke-shares-lessons-from-sweden/
Including video of interview….
Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government (he hired Anders Tegnell who is currently directing Swedish strategy), the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and an advisor to the director general of the WHO, lays out with typically Swedish bluntness why he thinks:
• UK policy on lockdown and other European countries are not evidence-based
• The correct policy is to protect the old and the frail only
• This will eventually lead to herd immunity as a “by-product”
• The initial UK response, before the “180 degree U-turn”, was better
• The Imperial College paper was “not very good” and he has never seen an unpublished paper have so much policy impact
• The paper was very much too pessimistic
• Any such models are a dubious basis for public policy anyway
• The flattening of the curve is due to the most vulnerable dying first as much as the lockdown
• The results will eventually be similar for all countries
• Covid-19 is a “mild disease” and similar to the flu, and it was the novelty of the disease that scared people.
• The actual fatality rate of Covid-19 is the region of 0.1%
• At least 50% of the population of both the UK and Sweden will be shown to have already had the disease when mass antibody testing becomes available

DailyWire reports on the interview here:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/epidemiologist-warns-lockdown-policies-not-evidence-based-unsustainable-in-democracies
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April 22, 2020 8:00am
- Caleb
  
  He is an expert no doubt, but has advised a certain strategy and is backing it, with a let’s see in one year disclaimer.
  Be interesting to see if the virus is actually wide spread in patients without symptom, therefore lowering the death rate.
  I think it’s risky to wait a year to see.. but also hard to see how vast highly dense and mobile populations can not do anything other than slow the rate to eventual herd immunity.
  NZ is much easier, we had time, opportunity to close the borders early, much earlier than we did. With low numbers we should have ample PPE and the ability to isolate infectious people into purpose treatment facilities. An aggressively targeted strategy would be expensive but nothing compared to shutting up the entire country.
  The cost of this is massive and still leaves us with the problem of shut borders until who knows when..
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:41am
  - Grant
    
    Hi Caleb
    We cannot live with shut boarders. It’s as plain as that.
    G
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:30am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    Indeed. There is no cure for a virus. Lockdowns are only intended to slow the rate of infection – to let health services try and cope.
    
    Funny how NZ seems to have forgotten this. Strikes me that with 500 people infected and most getting better, we are well within the systems ability to cope at the moment? Killing the economy, and triggering a depression over 5 dead punters, seems just a little extreme. Thats just a bad saturday on the roads.
    
    So why are we still in Home D, Cindy?
    
    There is no vaccine, and no virus has ever been abolished by hoping it might go away.
    
    Looking at the orchestrated pile-on of Simon B, looks like the princess is rattled – the dogs of Fraser House are unleashed. Which also explains why a whole bunch of new people, and a few reanimated ones, have turned up on KB to remind us of the foolishness of wanting to live in a free society, with a functioning economy.
    
    Where is David Lange when you need him? The Polish shipyard is back!
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:50am
    - JackRabbit
      
      ” There is no cure for a virus”
      
      Ahem, lots of success overseas with Malaria and other anti-parasitical drugs, even drugs for treating head lice.
      
      You would think if Mx Ardern and her team were as forward thinking as they posture, they would be looking into this “like a rat up a drainpipe”.
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:32am
      - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
        
        yes, and are malaria and head lice viruses?
        
        No.
        
        next question!
        
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        April 22, 2020 1:39pm
      - cmm
        
        nige:
        Remember that Covid-19 is a DISEASE caused by a virus. Covid-19 is not a virus.
        
        Malaria is also a disease, but is caused by parasites. It is not a parasite.
        
        Malaria has flu-like symptoms (fever etc) thus it is reasonable to expect that malaria drugs may be effective against other diseases with similar symptoms.
        
        Further, almost all drugs have side effects (positive and negative). A classic example is sildenafil (Viagra) – developed as a high blood pressure medication where it failed to perform – but was found to have other therapeutic properties where it has become a world leader.
        
        Apart from its erectile dysfunction role it is also being researched for other useful properties including treating jetlag and sports enhancement.
        
        Asprin is commonly used for headaches and such but is also effective for coronary patients.
        
        Thus, it is not at all surprising when a drug finds numerous applications.
        
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        April 22, 2020 2:58pm
    - PhilBest
      
      Isn’t that ironic – and I certainly agree. The one great figure from NZ political history who potentially could have cut through all the BS and asserted common sense, would be Lange of Labour.
      
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      April 22, 2020 11:26am
    - sam green
      
      Yes – there are cures for viruses. Hepatitis C comes to mind. Perhaps Ed Gane might have some idea.
      
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      April 22, 2020 3:16pm
  - Ed Snack
    
    I still reckon that talking of “herd immunity” is incorrect. You won’t get that, ever, with vaccination. You will reduce the disease to a chronic low level one with semi-regular outbreaks of varying severity; just like measles (and mumps etc) pre vaccination. There never was “herd immunity” to measles, just enough community immunity to reduce if from an epidemic most of the time.
    
    So that is what these people are arguing, leave it out in the wild, culling the vulnerable forever, or at least until a worthwhile vaccine is introduced.
    
    They may be correct that the overall costs are in the end similar, but the “let it rip” philosophy will at least initially lead to more deaths.
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:55am
    - Brian McDonald
      
      Saw something out of the states on this early this morning. 2% with immunity, how far that would take the death toll to have to be increased is an unimaginable figure.
      And as aunty quotes with Sweden, we see the failure of the concept as being a possible benefit.
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:45am
    - PhilBest
      
      You’re summing it up correctly – and Prof Giesecke says exactly that. You will get more deaths initially – from COVID-19 – but you will get them “over and done with”. And you will avert the “deaths from lockdown” and the “deaths from the economic devastation consequent on lockdown”. You won’t avert actual COVID-19 deaths, potentially you give a few people a few more months of totally miserable and lonely life, that’s all.
      
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      April 22, 2020 11:29am
      - Ed Snack
        
        I wonder, does anyone have access to estimates of what the Current R1 (spreadability index – how many additional people each person who catches the disease infects) is in NZ.
        
        There’s some interesting statistical work that purports to show that with the current sort of lockdown worldwide we’re seeing R’s around 1.0, or a constant spread at a steady rate. Exceptions being Taiwan and so far, Korea, plus if you believe their numbers, China.
        
        The Chinese are saying (or rather certain epidemiologists there are saying) is that they key to getting R down to 0.5 and below or quashing the spread takes going to the next step of specifically quarantining those infected in special units or places so they don’t infect those they are otherwise isolated with. Looking at NZ’s current numbers I would say we’re well below 1 in terms of spread now, so maybe the work is a bit premature. Certainly it relies on numbers infected gained through testing which apart from Iceland is only done on a subset of population, so true incidence is unknown.
        
        So be interested in a properly derived NZ R value, if one exists. I’m not able to readily calculate it myself right now.
        
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        April 22, 2020 12:10pm
      - Durden
        
        Ed S, Did Jacinda not say it is 0.54 or similar on Monday’s lockdown extending announcement?
        
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        April 22, 2020 2:11pm
    - Ed Snack
      
      Sorry, belated edit, should say that we won’t get herd immunity WITHOUT vaccination. Just have the disease present at chronic levels with outbreaks.
      
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      April 22, 2020 12:11pm
    - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
      
      Sadly herd immunity is the only strategy – it is a virus.
      
      The interesting question I have, is that the Government having recklessly gone all in on “eradication” for a disease that cannot be eradicated, have allowed their strategy to morph from reducing the pressure on the health system, to a touching belief that the virus can be stamped out.
      
      What this means in practice, is that when COVID inevitably pops up again during winter – and it will. People will start dying again – Princess Cindy will have failed, and will own it. Very very silly.
      
      By now its far to late to have a sensible conversation about precautions and expecting a certain rate of winter flu mortality, because Princess Cindy has saved us! And if she hasn’t and indeed couldn’t, why did she destroy the economy and imprison citizens in Home D?
      
      Asking for a friend…
      
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      April 22, 2020 1:44pm
  - Aunty
    
    I see the numbers out of the Swedish experiment are not looking too good this morning, are they? 15,322 cases and 1,765 deaths. And that death toll is only going to continue to go up and up. If those numbers were transposed onto New Zealand we would have over 800 dead by now.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:08am
    - Cinematic
      
      Aunty, do you think you run the risk of over simplifying here?
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:46am
      - Aunty
        
        Not at all. The numbers are the numbers.
        
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        April 22, 2020 12:45pm
    - PhilBest
      
      “…that death toll is only going to continue to go up and up…”
      
      Did you pay any attention to what that expert (and dozens of others) is saying? The death toll is not “continuing to go up and up”. It is being “got over and done with”.
      
      Even the justification for lockdowns in the first place, was that it “pushes cases out of the peak of the curve, into a longer and fatter tail” for the purpose of allowing ICU’s to keep up. The people saved rather than being allowed to die, are those who “couldn’t get into an ICU with a steep curve”.
      
      If, like Sweden, and even the UK, you aren’t anywhere near running out of ICU capacity, it is not a question of “saving those people” at all. You are saving everyone you can anyway. The people you might have lost in 6 weeks or 6 months, you are losing now. But what is being averted in Sweden, is the now-obvious, in British data, excess mortality that is not COVID-19, but is plausibly related to the lockdown. More heart attacks, more strokes, more suicides, etc etc. This effect has utterly swamped the savings on road toll and workplace accidents. There is approximately as many excess deaths right now from non-COVID causes as there are from COVID causes.
      
      Are we in NZ ever going to be told any data that isn’t convenient? We’re looking right now like the most totalitarian country outside China; as well as the least-hit by the actual disease.
      
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      April 22, 2020 11:37am
      - cmm
        
        Yup, but there’s an extra twist for NZ.
        
        “flattening the curve” just pushes the infections out in time.
        
        For Northern hemisphere that is good because it pushes those cases out of the flu season – improving survivability.
        
        For the Southern hemisphere it is less good because it pushes those cases INTO the coming flu season – reducing survivability.
        
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        April 22, 2020 3:04pm
    - MCos
      
      So 11% on those known to be infected have died.
      Coincidently their testing rate is very low.
      The unemployment rate has risen to 8%.
      
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      April 22, 2020 5:51pm
- Aunty
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:56am
- Cinematic
  
  Phil, what Prof. Giesecke failed to account for was the trendiness of Covid-19. To put it another way – Covid-19 is trending. It’s currently the trendiest virus on Earth.
  
  No one can stand in the way of the latest trend. Who wants to be a social outcast?
  
  Sweden now finds itself as the least trendy nation on Earth. Do you want that for NZ? Look deep within yourself.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:16am
  - PhilBest
    
    I see NZ as having had the chance to be the world’s luckiest country, and blowing it. We’d have had stuff-all deaths anyway, tens of times lower than anyone else, without the economic destruction from a lockdown. Either way we’d be an international icon. We could have been an international icon for our super safe environment; instead we are an international icon for a LIE-based construct: we’ve got low deaths “because rigorous lockdown”.
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:53am
    - Brian McDonald
      
      You can probably hitch a ride to Sweden Phil, tag along with some ventilators or something.
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:48am
      - Cinematic
        
        Brian, Sweden has more use for signed copies of Jacinda’s rarely purchased “A New Kind of Leader” than they do ventilators.
        
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        April 22, 2020 11:05am
- lastmanstanding
  
  As I have opined earlier the supreme irony is that having spread the virus to the West the Chinese Communist Party and its supporters are busy buying up cheap stocks across the Western world including NZ. I wont hold stocks in any company that has more than 5% Chinese investment.
  
  Why. They have a different values system to us. For those who disagree I suggest you Google Mainzeal and Jenny Shipley and see how a Chinese investor screwed over an NZ company and its Directors and shareholders and walked away untouched ignoring Court Orders.
  
  The big winner of Covid-19 is the CCP and the big losers are Western countries.
  
  And I havent even got to the geopolitical shift yet. That can wait for another day but in summary the CCP is looking to push the US out of the South Pacific region and replace it as the strongman.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:32am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    Its not ironic, it is a strategy.
    
    While this particular Deity isn’t going to claim that the release of the Wuflu is deliberate biological warfare by the CCP, it is pretty clear that they plan to ruthlessly maximise any advantage they have created.
    
    Western countries are particularly foolish in allowing predators into their business community.
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:53am
    - JackRabbit
      
      “While this particular Deity isn’t going to claim that the release of the Wuflu is deliberate biological warfare by the CCP…”
      
      About a decade ago, Wuhan started research into bacteriophages, which are of course viruses. The only difference is that bacteriophages attack bacteria cells, while viruses attack host cells.
      
      The following article raises some interesting points although the truth of all of it is under question:
      
      https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/taxpayer-funded-animal-experiments-tied-to-chinese-wet-markets-and-wuhan-laboratory
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:16am
      - Ed Snack
        
        USA has been funding research at Wuhan into Corona Viruses and their potential to cross species and cause a major pandemic. Does this potentially make the US liable if the source is an escape from the lab ?
        
        This does seem a perfectly reasonable thing to study especially in light of the current situation – done of course the proper precautions which the US finders May not have paid sufficient attention to. There were two reasons that the work was done in Wuhan (apart from cost), Wuhan is close to the source of these BCV’s and their hosts (bats), and the CDC in the USA was preoccupied with far more important research into racism, gender inequality, and micro-aggressions.
        
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        April 22, 2020 12:21pm
      - cmm
        
        USA withdrew funding of the Wuhan lab about 18 months back after various concerns were raided.
        
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        April 22, 2020 3:08pm
    - Komata
      
      ‘Diety@0953
      
      I was told many years ago to ‘Never trust a Chinaman; they’d sell their grandmother’s teeth if would make them money’ (subsequently learning the truth of the statement the hard way; no details), so this latest development comes as no surprise.
      
      What HAS been surprising has been the shear unwillingness of anyone in the West to concede that they will never get China to tell the truth, and that any Chinese involvement in a commercial operation will only ever be to the advantage of said ethnicity.
      
      It is also (at times ‘conveniently’) forgotten that all and any ‘Chinese’ money only appears at the behest of the CCP; and that they can (and will) turn off the tap should it be ‘useful’ and ‘expedient’ to do so while all the while maintaining the smiling faces and nods of agreement which are the hallmarks of Asian business practice.
      
      The ‘West’ has learnt a useful lesson about Chinese ‘Honesty’ ; It is the application of said lesson that will show exactly what has REALLY been learnt.
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:36am
      - PhilBest
        
        The Democrats in the USA are continuing to go full TDS, claiming that defunding the WHO is akin to “genocide”.
        
        If you want an indicator of how NZ right now is “learning lessons” I would say we are the Democrats, not the Trumpers.
        
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        April 22, 2020 11:40am
      - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
        
        “If it has four legs and it is not a chair, if it has two wings and flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.”
        
        Prince Philip, a very astute observer of the human condition
        
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        April 22, 2020 1:48pm
    - kowtow
      
      ‘Western countries are particularly foolish in allowing predators into their business community’
      
      Or into our parliaments……..
      
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      April 22, 2020 11:08am
  - curry4me
    
    lastmanstanding: Governments should intervene to reverse those deals. Chinese companies should not be allowed to benefit from the fallout of a virus which spread due in large part to the CCPs perfidy.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:45am
- BananaLlama
  
  Sweden has 1700 deaths currently and is twice the population of New Zealand with the number of new cases falling.
  Where are the hundreds of thousands of deaths?
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:37am
  - Cinematic
    
    Wow BananaLlama that’s an awkward and deeply unfair question and absolutely won’t be tolerated. You are way way off script.
    
    But seeing as you asked. It turns out the models were wrong by quite some magnitude.
    
    If there were a futures market for Covid-19 models it’d be headed down, as in straight down. Think Mariana Trench.
    
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    April 22, 2020 2:11pm
- JackRabbit
  
  Thanks for that.
  
  There is no question the lockdown is damaging and could collapse the economy and cause far more long term damage than Covid-19 by itself.
  
  I would add that antibody is a top priority to establish an exact picture. Also not enough is known about Covid-19 as to why children remain unaffected, at this stage.
  
  Studying the graphs, the percentage of cases according to age, vary wildly between countries, with Italy’s highest in 70-79 year old, and Korea highest in 20-29 year olds.
  
  Studying the graphs of other pandemics, the relationship between rates of infection During the pandemic and After the pandemic, vary markedly by age group.
  
  From several decades of research, I have no doubt that people that work in modern and high rise office blocks with hi-wall and ducted air conditioning systems will have less resistance to corona virus. Modern buildings have depleted and out of balance small air ions, aka sick building syndrome, compromising the air and lowering immunity to spread of respiration diseases.
  
  Coronaviruses per se have a small net electrical charge, which will alter the ability of the lungs to exchange oxygen and Co2, and this will be affected by the small air ion balance in modern buildings.
  
  Adding a twist to the tale, is the success that has been had with malaria drugs and other anti-parasitic drugs. Is Covid-19 essentially a parasite albeit an engineered one?
  
  The immune system in small children is not as mature as an adult, so if children appear unaffected, have they become incubators for a second outbreak?
  
  Antibody testing along with more detailed understanding is required. Testing for Covid-19 is not as important as testing for antibodies, as many will now have antibodies not Covid-19.
  
  However, I would suggest that any continued Covid-19 be prioritised for those under 19, and particularly those under 9. Not enough is known about Covid-19 to be complacent about why children remain unaffected.
  
  Our medical experts no doubt have a strong medical rationale as to young children are not at risk, but adults pose an extreme enough risk to continue lockdown Level 4 and Level 3.9 next week. Their credibility would rise dramatically if they shared the basis for their decisions.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:03am
  - JackRabbit
    
    typo: “However, I would suggest that any continued Covid-19 testing be prioritised “
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:34am
- Andrew Worth
  
  “Professor Johan Giesecke, one of the world’s most senior epidemiologists, advisor to the Swedish Government (he hired Anders Tegnell who is currently directing Swedish strategy), the first Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and an advisor to the director general of the WHO, lays out with typically Swedish bluntness why he thinks:”
  
  Suddenly the reasons for Sweden’s course, which has pushed it up the ranking in European Covid death rates, have become clear, 2 men stubbornly clinging on for the sake of their egos.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:05am
  - PhilBest
    
    “… pushed it up the ranking in European Covid death rates…”
    
    And as the Professor is saying: “getting those death rates over and done with now”. Their reputation rests on the statistics after a few months.
    
    “European” COVID death rates means Italy, Spain and France. Sweden is WAY ahead of those examples. It is only behind the outlier-best countries.
    
    And what “these two men” are telling the public, is the big picture. “Total excess mortality” and “ICU capacity to spare”. If the public in some other country are not being told these things, I ask why not? What’s the agenda?
    
    The other thing we will know (if we are told) in a few months, is how many people died “because of lockdown”. What we won’t ever know is “premature deaths because of economic destruction of lockdown”. Expert estimates of this are at least as credible as the modelling that lockdown is based on. Probably more so, given the exposure already occurring for that modelling.
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:48am
  - cmm
    
    Sweden has the same infection rates as Norway and Denmark.
    
    What is curious about Sweden is the death to infection rate. Lockdowns etc have little impact on those unless they are differential lockdowns (ie. locking down oldies, but not younger people).
    
    General lockdowns (like they have in most places, including here) have no impact on that. All they impact are the actual infection rates.
    
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    April 22, 2020 2:17pm
    - PhilBest
      
      What that expert was saying, is that it is Sweden’s Rest Homes that are the biggest problem. They have much larger rest home establishments than other countries do, and when one gets infected it is tragedy on a larger scale.
      
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      April 22, 2020 9:25pm
- Andrew Worth
  
  In terms of daily deaths/million population Sweden is now leading the world.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:53am
  - Jack5
    
    Where did you get figures for that, Andrew?
    
    Several countries would be ahead of Sweden on that basis, wouldn’t they?
    
    And for developed countries, at least Taiwan and Singapore.
    
    To my mind, Taiwan has been the world leader. It’s just had a blip thanks to a naval ship coming home from a goodwill mission to Micronesia. More than 20 of the crew contracted Covid-19 and 700 sailors are now in quarantine.
    
    The Minister of Defence has apologised for “shortcomings” in disease prevention.
    
    This is from yahoo.com:
    
    The Government is working to trace thousands of people in Taiwan who may have had contact with about 700 sailors on the Palau mission who disembarked in Taiwan before the coronavirus cases were confirmed.
    
    Taiwan’s Centres for Disease Control has sent some 200,000 text alerts via mobile phones week to people who might have been in contact with the sailors.
    
    Before announcing the navy infections on Saturday, Taiwan had marked three days with no new cases. Some buildings in Taipei had been lit up with the word “zero” in celebration.
    
    Meanwhile Singapore, which had been holding coronavirus numbers down, has had a blow-out in case numbers. This has been caused by an outbreak among foreign guest workers.
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:32am
  - BananaLlama
    
    Not so sure about that one chief. Who would have thought the Swedes have bigger balls than the rest of the world.
    
    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-3-day-avg?year=2020-04-21
    
    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/confirmed-covid-19-deaths-total-vs-daily
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:36am
  - bruceavon
    
    Yes. I see that. 185 deaths in a day. I don’t think that shows that their plan is very good. imagine if we had 90 deaths in a day? And all the stats are going up. Its a disaster to me.
    Surely they are going to come to their senses?
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:43am
    - PhilBest
      
      Why don’t WE come to our senses, given that the handful of deaths we’ve had would have occurred anyway without lockdown? And given that the curve of infections which turned down soon after lockdown, has to be a result of pre-lockdown realities?
      
      The shape of the curve is predictable but the NUMBERS vary wildly. NYC is around 40 times more vulnerable than the lowest density US States. Germany is around 40 times less vulnerable than Northern Italy. The fact that the shape of the curve is predictable is nothing to do with the NUMBERS of deaths or confirmed infections.
      
      The NUMBERS are everything to do with a range of other factors that determine the virus’s own chances of survival – even ambient humidity matters – and that determine the underlying health vulnerability of the population. Northern Italy is a medical disaster area every winter! It has outlier-high rates of air-pollution related deaths; smoking-related deaths; flu deaths; Legionella deaths; etc etc.
      
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      April 22, 2020 11:55am
    - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
      
      Well, if our normal flu season is 4 months, and we lose 500 people a year to flu related issues, that is approximately 4 dead per day.
      
      That is a normal NZ winter.
      
      Then add the cancer patients, traffic accidents, accidental injuries, heart attacks and other illness related deaths.
      
      Then add the domestic violence, suicides etc (1-2 per day probably if its 600+ a year)
      
      Then add normal old age.
      
      All that suggests at least 10 -20 NZers drop off their perches every day, and this is normal background.
      
      So far 5 old people have died with COVID as a co-factor, in a MONTH.
      
      That is not evidence for an epidemic. Or sufficient reason to destroy the economy, and put families under incredible stress.
      
      All deaths are individual tragedies certainly, but the only reason to imprison us and destroy the economy is the stated certainty of surplus deaths at a catastrophic rate – worse than the consequences of the lockdown.
      
      We don’t seem to have any surplus deaths due to COVID yet. How many are we having due to fear, mental health, drug addiction, family stress, business failure etc. Should we count the poor bastard executed by Cops in Auckland this week as a COVID statistic?
      
      Who, other than the Swedish, has done a rational analysis?
      
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      April 22, 2020 2:03pm
    - Cinematic
      
      I’m curious to know why bruceavon and his merry band are desperate to bag Sweden’s approach. It’s like they want it to fail. Why so?
      
      Wouldn’t it be great if the Swedish method turns out to be best? We will know in about 12-18 months. A balanced analysis of net cost will be carried out worldwide by proper scientists.
      
      I hope the Swedish method comes out on top, I expect it will. The reason I hope it does is because I value my liberty and the Swedish approach preserves it best. There’ll be another pandemic.
      
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      April 22, 2020 2:32pm
      - bruceavon
        
        as I have written before, I started out thinking that this was an overreaction and spent some time arguing the same thing with my friends as the Swedish approach guys. However I see why it would never happen here now.
        Because back on earth, in the real world, no one in New Zealand wants it. Not one politician and not the general public. Because no matter how many spreadsheets you produce, it is not a a question of pure logic or economics. It is a political and moral question. No politician in New Zealand of any party and virtually no one in the whole world is willing to lose lives, gamble on the herd approach, because it saves the economy. So its all very well for you guys coming up with figures at home on your couch, but you have zero responsibility. And those who have to take responsibility for the deaths simply will not do it. so the arguments are pointless. Ask Boris Johnson what he thinks of the herd idea now.
        
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        April 22, 2020 3:23pm
      - PhilBest
        
        Good discussion. Deity, Cinematic, you’re onto it. Bruceavon, I think your argument is much more sincere than the argument that “we were going to have thousands of deaths”, but people like me can still disagree with you without it being people like ME that are the “merchants of death”. We are clear about “the lesser evil”. The panic merchants wanting to “avoid responsibility” here and now are not.
        
        Isn’t it a bit strange that no-one feels the same responsibility to fund, say, Keytruda? Much cheaper way of saving lives, than crashing the economy to give a few dozen elderly people (tops) a few more weeks or months. I bet there is also a correlation between the mortality and the quality of life too. Dementia patients are the biggest cohort in our small numbers so far.
        
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        April 22, 2020 9:33pm
    - cmm
      
      ” imagine if we had 90 deaths in a day?”
      
      We have not had our flu season yet.
      
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      April 22, 2020 2:37pm
CJames

Just heard the “interview” between Ms Fergusson and Mr Bridges on Nat Radio. She spent a lot of the time talking over the top of him. Be interesting to know if the Prime Minister gets the same rudeness – I don’t remember it. And what people need to realise is that Facebook isn’t the electorate at large. Otherwise, Hillary easily won the 2016 election.
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April 22, 2020 8:00am
- CJames
  
  I note the Minister of Finance was able to waffle on basically uninterrupted. Worth listening to the contrast on replay Radio. RNZ does need to lift its game.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:16am
- Tricati
  
  My guess he is only out of step with the biased MSM and Cindy syncopates as there are plenty around my area thinking he is on the nail. He gets 20,000 comments, and not all negative, which is around 0.004% of the population and its main news, yet we have an article on poor PPE available leading to nurses contracting the disease and not a bloody word.
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/121146689/coronavirus-damp-unchanged-ppe-likely-behind-christchurch-nurses-getting-covid19
  I believe he is on the right track to now challenge what has happened, and where we are to end up economically, as the economics of this has been significantly overlooked on purpose.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:21am
  - Tricati
    
    OOPs – meant 0.4% of population – but bugger all.
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:26am
    - NoCash
      
      Also, people tend to voice their disapproval more often than approval, so the number is biased, but the MSM lackeys will latch onto it.
      
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      April 22, 2020 9:43am
  - PhilBest
    
    I see the postings on social media, of contrarian expert opinion such as those of Prof. Giescke above, are overwhelmingly getting positive comments and likes in the thousands.
    
    If this flips in the case of a politician saying much the same things, we need to ask why….
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:55am
- Ruahine
  
  The Election Campaign started on March 14.
  The Media Party are in full campaign mode. If Labour and the Greens are elected there will undoubtedly be ‘donations’ to the ailing media.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:36am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  PTPM always gets free reign to tell as many lies as she can. Fergusson would never dare stop her
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:36am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  It is always the same.
  Bridges needs to take control of the Interview.
  It is time for the Nats to bring in a couple of media experts to give Bridges training on how to handle this.
  
  The most obvious technique would be to keep asking Ferguson whether she wanted to hear his reply or whether she wanted to carry on doing all the talking.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:44am
  - Martin Williams
    
    It is time for the Nats to bring in a couple of media experts to give Bridges training on how to handle this.
    
    When this happens, it’s all over.
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:49am
  - Lee C
    
    Maggy I’ve been saying this for a while – It’s obvious that Ardern has a ‘coach’ and uses that coach all the time.
    
    It’s obvious Labour have a better grasp of how to use remote media.
    
    What is actually wrong with The National Party – are they that complacent?
    
    Why does Bridges insist on coming across like he’s still in the 1980’s?
    
    Don;t they understand that peoples’ expectations have matured yet their attention-span has waned?
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:50am
    - Martin Williams
      
      Maggy I’ve been saying this for a while – It’s obvious that Ardern has a ‘coach’ and uses that coach all the time.
      
      Nope. She’s just good, and despite the RW disparaging her degree, it’s what she trained in.
      
      Turned out pretty useful, eh?
      
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      April 22, 2020 9:46am
      - Philview
        
        I agree with you on this Martin. Her IUSY speeches in Eastern Europe 10 years ago showed the same set of skills in working an audience. She is a cunning operator.
        
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        April 22, 2020 10:52am
      - Batman
        
        She is trained by Linda Clark.
        
        Sorry Martin, you’re wrong as per usual.
        
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        April 22, 2020 1:44pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Put the reporters in their place – like Trump does.
    No nonsense
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:52am
  - Sacha
    
    Everyone has an opinion on how Simon Bridges should act.
    I think he is doing quite well – if he challenged Ferguson, he would be accused of bullying a woman or some such nonsense.
    I suspect/hope that the Nats have a plan, and it’s going pretty much the way they want it as of now.
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:55am
    - Miritu
      
      Bridges is weak and afraid of our communist media. Until he’s prepared to attack them and their PC narratives without fear, nothing will change.
      
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      April 22, 2020 9:57am
  - brett68
    
    Bridges is a weakling.
    No decent leader lets any reporter talk over you.
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:58am
  - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
    
    If I were Bridges, I will just keep quiet and let Ferguson talk as long as she wants. That will teach her a lesson.
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:26am
    - Nickc2
      
      ………………….”are you interviewing me, or just making your own political statement?”, Bridges said.
      
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      April 22, 2020 11:22am
  - emmess
    
    It is time for the Nats to bring in a couple of media experts to give Bridges training on how to handle this.
    
    No need, don’t waste your money
    Just watch Trump
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:14am
  - alwyn
    
    I don’t think anyone would hear him say it though Maggie. Whenever she started talking his voice faded away completely.
    Can she control the volume of his speech over the air?
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:39am
    - Jack5
      
      That’s a good point. Can the Lefties of Red Radio – and other radio interviewers – control the volume of an interviewee’s microphone?
      
      Did Bridges go into the studio or was it by phone?
      
      Is the broadcast live, or is there a second or two delay, and if there’s a delay, can the interviewer control the interviewee’s volume – even bleep out the interviewee?
      
      In the background: State participation in radio in NZ is much bigger than it should be in a democracy. Non-State stations have to convince their listeners to tolerate advertising.
      
      As well as Radio NZ, which is also now also a State internet medium and runs funding of a group of regional newspaper reporters, the Government subsidises 20 or more Maori tribal stations, and provides free spectrum to a heap of community stations. Sometimes these amateur stations sound like Leftist echo chambers.
      
      With turmoil in the news media and State participation rising, and with the coronavirus lockdown, we need a bit of inspiration:
      
      https://youtu.be/cmIwaIQXtkA
      
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      April 22, 2020 2:25pm
  - Durden
    
    Bridges needs to watch classics like these interviews.
    
    Key versus Campbell
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3ZCrxcte14
    
    Clarke versus Key
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dET78Z5b5s
    
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    April 22, 2020 2:23pm
    - Jack5
      
      Those two videos were good. Thank you, Durden.
      
      Clarke kept cool, stayed on her simple theme: “you have set me up with misleading questions”. She left us viewers to conclude: the interviewer is just a rude, ignorant tosser.
      
      I like the way John Key stayed on course. To Campbell’s interjections, he just counter-interjected “Ok!”, ignored the interruption, and sailed ahead, course unchanged.
      
      If Bridges isn’t used to whacking down radio pests could that be because of his background as a Crown prosecutor?
      
      In court, a judge ensures the “debate” is orderly, rational, and fair. Any put-downs are leisurely compared with the quick response needed on radio or TV.
      
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      April 22, 2020 2:54pm
- Martin Williams
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  The Prime Minister isn’t a smug, bumbling buffoon.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:48am
  - Lance
    
    No, just a world leading liar.
    Smiling and lying like only Cindy can.
    
    29 3
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    April 22, 2020 9:27am
    - doggone7
      
      If you follow this things and on your rating system have Ardern in the position you do, as comparisons, what sort of positions would you have Donald Trump in and John Key?
      
      2 1
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      April 22, 2020 1:30pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        Well Trumps a massive bullshit artist. John Key less so.
        But both are far far more competent than Cindy.
        
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        April 22, 2020 2:04pm
  - Libertarians are right
    
    She really is though. Only a smug bumbling buffoon would allow so many issues with her cabinet to go unpunished. Key and Clark would never have let their underlings get away with the corruption present in the current Government.
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:32am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    What are you suggesting Martin; that YOU are? I doubt anyone here would have any difficulty believing that ?
    
    25 3
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    April 22, 2020 9:44am
  - projectman
    
    Thank you for bringing that to our attention.
    
    Hands up everyone who thinks the Prime Minister IS a smug, bumbling buffoon and, as politicians are wont to say, if not why not.
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:45am
  - Ed Snack
    
    No, she’s worse, much worse, a thoroughly incompetent, smug, bumbling, but CARING puppet.
    
    She’s an outstanding example of how sychophantic media coverage can make up for a raft of deficiencies.
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:58am
  - Komata
    
    Martin@0848
    
    And the proof of your assertion would be?
    
    History and readily-available visual evidence would seem to suggest otherwise.
    
    Thank you.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:42am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Bro – All newspapers and Newshub have analysed the Facebook posts and come to the conclusion that Bridges and National are toast. All National voters are upset and voting Cindy. Game over bro.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:55am
  - Lance
    
    Yea right.
    Do you actually believe that or did you forget the /sarc/ ?
    
    14 0
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    April 22, 2020 9:28am
    - Dougal10
      
      Every post is sarc hence the name
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:04am
  - Mummy
    
    No we’re not. We’re voting for David Seymour.
    
    8 1
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    April 22, 2020 9:56am
  - Paulus
    
    Some of us do not have or want Facebook or other Twitters etc.
    So up yours.
    Two Blue ticks.
    
    10 1
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    April 22, 2020 10:13am
  - Jack5
    
    The game has just begun – first 10 minutes.
    
    It’s going to be decided in economic turmoil.
    
    Jacinderella will be the fall ~~guy~~ gal.
    
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    April 22, 2020 3:03pm
- 3-coil
  
  RNZ’s Suzy Ferguson’s “interview” with Bridges this morning was pathetic and embarrassing for her – we learnt nothing from SB because all she did was rant and screech over the top of him when he tried to speak. Her hysterical raving perhaps reveals that she is not handling the Level4 restrictions at all. Edit: The less charitable would say she needs to attend an anger management course.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:09am
  - brett68
    
    The least charitable would say Bridges needs to grow a pair.
    
    Hopeless.
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:35am
    - brett68
      
      less
      
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      April 22, 2020 9:43am
- Pete George
  
  I only heard the end of the interview but Bridges finished it poorly after being asked about internal polls and confidence in him from the National caucus – he sounded under pressure.
  
  Covered here: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/414821/covid-19-simon-bridges-defends-stance-after-backlash-from-post-criticising-government
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:16am
  - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
    
    He is gone by lunch time.
    
    4 14
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    April 22, 2020 9:27am
    - septic skeptic
      
      He has been killed as often as a cockroach.
      
      6 2
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      April 22, 2020 12:46pm
  - Liberty
    
    “I only heard the end of the interview”
    So you are giving an opinion while being ill informed.
    Which is the same as talking out of your arse.
    
    8 2
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    April 22, 2020 1:22pm
- Philview
  
  The Government were on TV last night saying it is safe for preschoolers to go back because there is no community transmission. On that basis it should be safe for most people to go back to work immediately. The media are more interested in attacking Simon Bridges and don’t go near the conflicting statements of the Government.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:43am
  - Ruahine
    
    Ardern and cohorts are trying to cover up a lie. The lie is that if you go to the butchers you will spread covid-19 if you go to Bunnings, if you go to Mitre 10, if you go swimming, etc, but if you go to school you won’t spread the virus.
    This school issue encapsulates the shambles of how much of the so-called lockdown policy and procedures that have been forced on us have been shown to have been unnecessary and that there are ulterior motives in play.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:28am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    That’s not correct. The evidence is that there is little transmission between children compared to adults.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:55am
    - RW Capitalist
      
      So, how many preschoolers have they tested?
      
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      April 22, 2020 11:07am
      - Brian McDonald
        
        Bloomfield didn’t quote the numbers just the results from WHO.
        
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        April 22, 2020 12:18pm
    - UrbanNeocolonialist
      
      93 cases in Marist college cluster shows that is utter bollocks. Lies being told by officials to serve a political purpose (as was the case with so may announcements by health officials over last 2 months). 10% of NZ cases are schoolkids.
      
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      April 22, 2020 8:43pm
- bruceavon
  
  I don’t agree that all of National Radio is hopelessly biased, Kathryn Ryan for instance is excellent, but Susie Ferguson is shocking. Bridges can be on there talking about some huge stuff up that the government have made and Ferguson will end up talking about some problem of Simon’s. She is horrible. She asks a question and the answer is barely started and she sounds like she’s bored and asks another. Bridges is not very good at handling it though. Listen to someone like Brownlee and Collins, they don’t get pushed around like that. But Ferguson should be sacked.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:46am
- Prince
  
  The difference between the Bridges and Robertson interviews was stark, as it usually is between Bridges and any Govt minister. Ferguson never allows Bridges to finish an answer, whereas this morning Robertson was given as much time as he wanted to complete an answer, apart from Corin Dann’s dog barking in the background for which Robertson got an apology. Given this is State funded radio I just don’t know how they can look at themselves after each day and be happy with what they are doing.
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:24am
  - septic skeptic
    
    Pretty bloody obvious I would have thought. They are advocating for the parties likely to provide more state funding. There is nothing about state funded that implies balance or neutrality.
    
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    April 22, 2020 12:50pm
  - doggone7
    
    Get a new radio or go to Earsavers or whatever they call places where ears get checked.
    
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    April 23, 2020 12:25pm
- chuk
  
  CJames – I’m glad you’ve raised the subject of Susie Ferguson’s appalling “interview” of Simon Bridges this morning. I was amazed he didn’t lose his temper, but good on him for not doing so as it was clear that was exactly what she wanted.
  
  For the first time ever I have taken the time to make a formal complaint via the RNZ website citing a lack of balance (standard 8 of the radio code of broadcasting practice).
  
  I’ve been informed they will respond by snail mail within 20 working days. Snail mail for an online complaint!
  
  Here’s what I said:
  Susie Ferguson’s interview with Simon Bridges was more than robust – she continually interrupted him and spoke over him. The later interview of Grant Robertson by Corin Dann was just the opposite. Robertson was allowed to complete his comments and when challenged by Dann it was done in a reasonable and polite manner.
  
  The two interviewees come from opposite sides of the political spectrum but they were treated very differently.
  
  There was no balance in the way these two senior politicians were treated within this programme.
  
  If your contention is that there was balance within the programme, please explain how that was achieved and provide audio links to back up that assertion.
  
  If your contention is that balance was achieved beyond the scope of that edition of Morning Report, please explain how that was achieved and provide audio links to back up the assertion.
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:56am
  - calendar girl
    
    Well done, chuk. Do let us know the response you receive.
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:35pm
    - chuk
      
      Thank you Calendar Girl. I will do that.
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:27pm
PhilBest

This is b—–y well said by Matt Walsh:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-if-you-still-have-a-job-dont-sneer-at-people-who-are-protesting-to-get-their-jobs-back
“…A woman at a protest in Maryland held a cardboard sign saying she wanted to save her small business. Democrat politicians would call that woman “selfish.” Talking heads on MSNBC would say she is part of a “death cult.” But it seems to me that she’s just a woman who wants to salvage the business that she has poured her sweat and tears into. And she wants to survive. Both of these seem like perfectly reasonable goals. Disagree with her approach if you want — though, honestly, I can’t see the problem with the approach — but to sneer at her and the other protestors, as so many in the media have done, is morally repugnant.
I would like to propose an unofficial rule for any further discussion of these protests and the lockdowns that prompted them. Before you give your opinion, you should first reveal whether you still have an income. The rest of us would like to know if you are earning an income while you smear your fellow Americans for wanting to earn an income. Indeed, it’s rather striking that the loudest voices in favor of the shutdown are primarily people who have lost nothing because of it. It is bad enough for those who’ve lost nothing to wag their fingers at those who’ve lost everything, but to call them selfish? Well, that level of hypocrisy is just too much to bear…”
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April 22, 2020 8:00am
Left Right and Centre

Cinders . . .
(1) PM
(2) NZ
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April 22, 2020 8:01am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  (1.5) UN
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:37am
- Critical Thinker
  
  (3) Economy in cinders ??
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:28am
MT_Tinman

Serious attacks on Bridges in Pravda yesterday and today.

Obviously the dictatorship is becoming unpopular with even the non-thinkers.
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April 22, 2020 8:03am
- PhilBest
  
  Not sure that comment makes sense – can you explain what you meant to say?
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:21am
  - MT_Tinman
    
    I can Phil, I will.
    
    The attacks by Pravda (i.e. the NZ slime) seriously increase every time Bridges threatens the popularity of the PTPM.
    
    I suspect the latest bullshit went over like a lead balloon in most previously working households in New Zealand and the polls are showing this.
    
    Unlike the slime, teachers and the voluntary proletariat most New Zealanders want to work, to provide for their families and to be independent.
    
    The dictatorship have no idea or experience in this sector hence the attacks on Bridges who does.
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:48am
    - PhilBest
      
      Ta, I thought you meant that but your comment was a bit brief, it really needed to make the clear connection between the two sentences.
      
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      April 22, 2020 9:57am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    It’s clear as a bell to me..
    
    Our Papers and RNZ are beginning to sense that all is not well in our fair and pleasant land.
    
    As the stench of destroyed livelihoods begins to assail the nostrils of the MSM, they’ve decided to divert sheeple’s attention away from the inadequacies of their beloved leader and her CoL towards comments from Simon Bridges about how poor the Government has been in safeguarding the jobs of small and medium businesses – our sacrificial Lambs to the Covid-19 Virus.
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:57am
    - Tricati
      
      And the MSM haven’t reported the appalling comments made to the Covid Select Committee yesterday by Deborah Russell – Basically saying if they don’t have enough capital to see them through, then its their fault. Even Robertson wasn’t accepting it. An absolutely disgusting comment given a free pass.
      
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      April 22, 2020 9:38am
      - Paulus
        
        But Russell is Labour’s Financial Leader elect when Robertson goes (somewhere).
        
        12 1
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        April 22, 2020 10:16am
      - Tony Stuart
        
        As Chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee, she’s pretty much a lock to become a Minister if Labour is reelected.
        
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        April 22, 2020 10:43am
      - curry4me
        
        Tricati: That comment is the only campaign ad National needs this year. If they don’t use it, ACT, or the NCs should.
        
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        April 22, 2020 10:56am
    - Gravelroad
      
      MW – it would seem to me that if Mr Bridges is as hopelessly out of touch, incompetent, lacking in ability, can’t speak properly, lets radio “celebrities” shout him down etc etc then the left wingers and disaffected commenters would be happy to let him carry on to self destruct.
      That’s what they want isn’t it?
      So why talk about him at all?
      
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      April 22, 2020 9:49am
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        He is being attacked by the MSM and trolls now because he’s dead on target, on message, on the button… and is showing up the glaring mis-steps of the PM and CoL who have NO IDEA what folks out in the community have been experiencing:
        
        *Small & Medium Business collapses
        *Deferred medical consultations
        *Distribution of PPE and Flu vaccination problems,
        and
        *Education sector muddles.
        
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        April 22, 2020 10:47am
- MrLovebucket
  
  The recent attacks on Bridges in the press signal the left recognise the election is knife edge and likely to be swung in his favour as time goes on. They are trying to destabilise and I believe internal polling is making them worried.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:26am
  - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
    
    Internal polling by Labour shows they are on 49% and can govern on their own. What internal polling are you talking about? Red Claire and Leftie to the core Sam Sachdeva have decided Bridges is finished.
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:56am
  - coge
    
    One the lockdowns are over prior to the election. The proverbial will hit the fan. Mass unemployment, countless businesses gone under, many people being discovered having died alone under lockdown.
    
    This is what Labour is fearing.
    
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    April 22, 2020 1:03pm
artemisia

Let us not waste the new and high health profiles of Dr Bloomfield and Ms Ardern. We are coming in to flu season. They can start adding to their daily stand ups the number of flu hospitalisations, deaths and jabs given.

And since they are going to be there anyway, why not add the number of children admitted to hospital after getting the bash, with a parallel report from police on how many arrests were made.

Could go on for years, but so so important for transparency and accountability on very important issues.

Not holding my breath, but at the very least journalists should be asking these questions regularly of the PM or Ministers. And reporting back to us.
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April 22, 2020 8:05am
- PhilBest
  
  Is it true that the process of who even gets to ask questions is being strictly controlled?
  
  This is the stuff of dictatorship. Present only partial information, spin it, and suppress the asking of questions that would be inconvenient.
  
  An honest strategy would be the Swedish one, telling the public how “mortality from all causes” compares to previous years; and “ICU capacity to spare”. Of course this strategy is part of convincing the public against lockdown rather than for it.
  
  If the Swedes are having a bit of a struggle, nevertheless this would have been a piece of cake in NZ with the myriad lucky advantages we have.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:25am
  - PhilBest
    
    From the Herald today – 22 April
    
    “Reports Suggest Many Have Had COVID-19 Without Symptoms”
    
    No shit, Sherlock…!
    
    Why didn’t you report on that when it was news, around 1 month ago?
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:57am
    - Ed Snack
      
      Possibly because previously it was simply speculation, and that only quite recently have some additional studies on the prevalence of antibodies been released to show that it appears that there are 10-100 x the number infected than currently recorded by testing.
      
      That isn’t universal; places that started well and controlled the virus early such as Taiwan and South Korea show a much smaller infected group – and they did far more intensive testing early on.
      
      But the first real clue I saw was the Icelandic random population testing result which showed a positive rate of I think around 3% in the population. More more recently antibody testing in the USA (Boston, California) has indicated from small samples that prevalence in the population could be over 5%, but not yet really certain.
      
      In NZ we have no idea of the real prevalence as until very recently all testing was risk based and hence unrepresentative sampling.
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:04am
      - PhilBest
        
        It wasn’t “speculation”; it was the early tests of a “whole population”; eg the town of Vo in Northern Italy; of evacuees from Wuhan; of the whole compliment on board cruise ships. And the Iceland project. Also, random hospitals in NYC started testing everyone who came in for anything, including accident victims, and confirmed the same very high rates of unknowing COVID-19 infection.
        
        Dismissing this for weeks, as “speculation”, just indicates shameless ideological committment and/or incompetence on the part of the politicians tame “experts”. The same people are furiously opposed to antibodies testing or any honest reportage of it or questions based on it. The same people are furiously opposed to promising early signs of plausible remedial treatments. There is a pattern here.
        
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        April 22, 2020 12:02pm
      - Durden
        
        PhilB
        
        You can add Stanford study in Santa Clara.
        
        Standford’s serological testing in Santa Clara for Covid antibodies provides a positive finding. Although a number of adjustments have been made to improve sampling validity, results supports the findings of a similar study in Iceland.
        
        https://paloaltoonline.com/news/2020/04/17/stanford-study-more-than-48000-santa-clara-county-residents-have-likely-been-infected-by-coronavirus
        
        Given the study’s estimate of 48,000 to 81,000 infections in early April – and a three-week lag from infection to death – the 100 deaths suggest that the infection fatality rate is between 0.12% and 0.2%. That’s a far contrast from the county’s mortality rate based on official cases and deaths as of April 17 — 3.9%.
        
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        April 22, 2020 2:32pm
    - emmess
      
      Yeah, only about three months behind the internet.
      Do try to keep up
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:17am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  Every single journalist is a Cindy worshipper. So don’t expect anything else from them. That is why I am happy for Stuff to go broke.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:58am
  - Ruahine
    
    I have heard that media have been given the wink that when Labour and Greens get in back after September 19th failing Media will likely get ‘assistance’ because a strong and free media is important to combat fake news.
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:36am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      I suspect they will be getting a major hand-out long before the Election.
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:50am
      - Nickc2
        
        Yes, and it’s called ‘payback’.
        
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        April 22, 2020 11:40am
      - Jack5
        
        Or, a major hand-out plus permission to merge with NZME over-riding the Commerce Commission.
        
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        April 22, 2020 4:22pm
Ford Prefect

Just had an argument with a die hard Cindy supporter who claimed if Simon Bridges was PM we’d be like New York, with stacks of body bags and up to half the population dead. I had to get out of the argument before it ran out of control, but there were a few interesting take aways.

– these attacks on Simon Bridges, and subsequent reporting in the media, show some weakness in the decision to delay the move to Level 3
– The rabid lefties see it as Cindy v Simon, not Labour v National
– They dont see the coming depression as anything more than a word for the time of year, such as summer or daylight saving
– Theyre willing to defend the green policies of high speed trains and fat footpaths because they are not National
– They hate Jacinda being referred to as Cindy.
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April 22, 2020 8:05am
- SGA
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Just had an argument with a die hard Cindy supporter
  
  Well, generalising all that on the basis of “a” conversation makes as much sense to me as forming an opinion of National supporters based on some of the characters here on Kiwiblog.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:24am
  - Simon
    
    Just to go to Russell Brown twitter to see the demented & the anger.
    
    Last century socialism killed over 100 million. The left is a death cult.
    
    This is very common:
    
    Nice article.
    
    I’d suggest we already have the answer, though:
    An eventual deadlier version of COVID-19, which is likely to remove all Boomers, idiots, anti-vax & anti-science nuts. (all highly correlated with climate denial)
    
    Then the rest of us can get on with saving the world.
    
    https://twitter.com/ThetaSalmon/status/1252453493568229376
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:43am
    - Jack5
      
      WTF is this “Russell Brown”?
      
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      April 22, 2020 3:05pm
  - mikenmildagain
    
    True. In real life, most National Party members and supporters are completely normal people.
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:50am
    - SGA
      
      That’s my experience too. What bemuses me is that those more to the extremes (left and right), those fighting the “holy war”, don’t seem to recognise that they are mirror images of each other.
      
      Add: In my experience the Greens attract a higher proportion of zealots, but that probably reflects that they are more of a fringe group to begin with.
      
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      April 22, 2020 9:29am
    - Libertarians are right
      
      I know many Lefties and they’re all normal and good people but almost all of them are completely unhinged at the moment. Bridges called out Jacinda’s ineptness and they all lost it. Almost all of them were amongst the 20,000 comments and none of them had any point other than anger at having their “leader” questioned. They were all pointing out that Bridges is just playing politics, completely oblivious to the fact that 1) holding the Government to account is literally his job and 2) playing politics is all the Government has done since this started. Calling Bridges out for playing politics is just the Left playing politics.
      
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      April 22, 2020 9:40am
      - SGA
        
        2) playing politics is all the Government has done since this started.
        
        I’m not sure what you mean by that? The govt has been doing (rightly or wrongly, depends who you ask) what it is supposed to do – take action. I don’t see them spending a lot of time blaming National, the Chinese, whoever. (In contrast, I’d say that Trump is “playing politics” too much and not leading enough). Maybe, you and I use “playing politics” differently.
        
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        April 22, 2020 10:15am
  - Ford Prefect
    
    Point taken, it was just one person. I’ll get back to you when I have a better sample size
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:55am
- igm
  
  Struck the double: Hipkins being shown up for what he is by Paul Henry, and that apology for an MP Nash, showed us how shallow, useless, and dangerous he is on Hosking’s show.
  What a pack of incompetent mongs this CoL is composed of, not to forget Peters, who has once again cost taxpayers millions to try and gain some political traction.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:28am
- kowtow
  
  ‘we’d be like New York, with stacks of body bags and up to half the population dead’
  
  Yes and prior to the NY vulture fest we were treated to the Lombardy death convoys.
  
  All this ghoulish coverage designed to panic and spread fear and uncertainty by a Media that is engaged in literally a world wide conspiracy to get govts to act to control our lives and change society to their “progressive” image.
  
  Today is Earth Day , look at what these Media organisations have signed up to . Not news , propaganda and our lot are in there boots and all.
  
  https://www.coveringclimatenow.org/about
  
  “What is Covering Climate Now?
  
  Covering Climate Now is a global journalism initiative committed to more and better coverage of the defining story of our time. Organized by journalists, for journalists, CCNow was co-founded in April 2019 by the Columbia Journalism Review, and The Nation, in association with The Guardian. Our partners include more than 400 news outlets with a combined audience approaching 2 billion people, and our innovative collaborations are driving stronger climate coverage across the media”
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:28am
- PhilBest
  
  That argument is just sickening. It needs to be pointed out that we would have become much more like NYC anyway, if that was a remotely credible argument. By the time we imposed lockdown, if we were GOING to have an exponential rate of increase in infections (actually positive test results) and deaths, we would have HAD them through lockdown anyway! Nowhere in the world has lockdown magically made the virus go away! The exponential increase continues right through lockdown or at least well into it.
  
  If this didn’t happen, it wasn’t going to happen anyway even if you didn’t lockdown. It is deeply depressing to be trapped in a society of fools drilling holes in the hull of their own ship.
  
  There is an old saying, in a nation of blind people, the one-eyed man is King. P J O’Rourke pointed out this is not true. What really happens is that no-one believes the one-eyed man.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:31am
  - Odakyu-sen
    
    The one-eyed man is Casandra.
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:25am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  You would have been better off spending time with a mirror.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:59am
- Piniwi
  
  Right Ford Prefect @ 8.05 am but there will be some serious changes of attitude ahead as the learn a sharp lesson. It is not a lock down ON lock down OFF situation already enumerated by Sir John Key. Lock down is easy but getting out of it is the biggest challenge to paraphrase him. The fun has not even started yet as those least effected by it will find out soon or will that be eventually?
  
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  April 22, 2020 2:23pm
KevO'Brien

Are there different virus strains out there?
https://www.rt.com/news/486425-covid-19-mutations-deadlier-strains/
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April 22, 2020 8:09am
- tf78
  
  I think I heard not long after China announced COVID that they’d also had an outbreak of bird flu, that never hit the news so don’t know if it was fake or the truth.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:15am
  - mic
    
    My sister in Germany had the birdflu in late February. She developed pneumonia, high temp etc, but thankfully recovered.
    
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    April 22, 2020 12:43pm
PhilBest

From the latest “Spectator” Newsletter:

Sharp rise in non-Covid-19 deaths in UK care homes

by Fraser Nelson

“Covid-19 kills people two ways: directly, and indirectly. So said Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, at the start of the pandemic. Yes, if people stay home, they are far less likely to get a virus. But the transformation of the NHS into a Covid-19 service would also have severe implications. The dip in cancer and mental health care will point to deaths further along the road. But in the pre-Covid-19 rush, thousands of hospital patients were sent to care homes with worse facilities. And what would become of them? Like Covid-19 itself, it’s hard to tell: we see only fragments of data. But an important fragment has fallen into view this morning.

The ONS reported 4,927 deaths in care homes in the week to 10 April, double the figure from before the crisis. And barely a third of them – 826 – explained by Covid-19. We should never read too much into a week’s data, but when care home deaths double and Covid-19 explains less than a third of them then questions need to be asked…”
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April 22, 2020 8:09am
- cmm
  
  This is really a version of the visible/invisible hand stuff Adam Smith wrote and talked about 250 years ago.
  
  When the state (or whomever) interfere in a process we hear all about the positive things they set out to achieve: tax spent, jobs created, houses built, lives “saved”, but we don’t get to see the things that were damaged by those interventions: businesses destroyed by extra tax (and therefore jobs lost), houses not built due to the state competing for resources and lives lost through interference.
  
  Governments (from low level bureaucrats to high level politicians) should always do the least interference they can, but unfortunately they always seem to be itching to fiddle with stuff.
  
  For those who like a bit of a read, here’s a short book from 1946:
  https://fee.org/media/14946/economicsinonelesson.pdf
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:42am
fernglas

When the Covid-19 vaccine becomes available, will it be compulsory? Or will the anti-vaxxers be able to refuse?
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April 22, 2020 8:10am
- cmm
  
  It will be rolled into the flu vaccine.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:25am
  - fernglas
    
    So voluntary, then? So all this nonsense will have been a complete waste of time?
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:48am
    - cmm
      
      Remember Swine Flu pandemic in 2009?
      
      H1N1, killed approx 300k people and infected a billion people? And we didn’t smash our worldwide economy for it? And we could still go surfing? Yes, that one.
      
      A variant of that is one of the strains in the 2020 flu vaccine used in NZ.
      
      Likely the 2021 or 2022 vaccine will include SARS-CoV-2 or one of its offspring.
      
      There will be some herd immunity benefit, but like with all flu vaccines, that is short lived.
      
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      April 22, 2020 9:37am
      - SGA
        
        H1N1, killed approx 300k people and infected a billion people?
        
        And that was over 18 months –
        Currently Covid-19 has killed about 180k people and infected about 2.5 million. Let’s say the infection rate is actually a whole order of magnitude greater – 25 million rather than 2.5 million. 40 x 25 million is 1 billion, 40 x 180k = 7.2 million. That would make Covid-19 over 20x more deadly than swine flu. And, if Covid is more infectious then the total would be higher than 1 billion infected.
        Apologies in advance for any errors in mental arithmetic.
        
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        April 22, 2020 10:06am
      - Ed Snack
        
        Yes, the H1N1 strain itself evolved to be less lethal, and is one of the two dominant strains worldwide. the other is H3N2, but a wide variety of others exist and circulate at low levels – and this allows the virus to continue to swap genetic material and evolve rapidly.
        
        For example on the H side, H1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10 are circulating. All of these also infect poultry (a major reservoir) and most also infect pigs. On the N (Neuraminidase) side, N1, 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8 are around.
        
        And again, SARS-CoV2, is a Beta Corona Virus, not an influenza virus. As an RNA virus it mutates relatively rapidly but does not have the specific gene capsules that are swapped amongst flu virii that enables them to evolve so rapidly with functional genes. The BCV is a single 30K base pairs RNA strand so must evolve as a whole to viable forms. that is a slower process, so any vaccine is likely to good for 5-15 years.
        
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        April 22, 2020 10:16am
    - MCos
      
      The flu vaccine is a bit of a hit & miss that immunizes the patient against a number of flu strains that might be prevalent in the coming season.
      Therefore it is never 100% effective.
      Far less than half the country bother to get a jab.
      However only 10-20% of the population catch the flu each year & about 500 end up dead.
      One would hope that a Covid-19 vaccine is developed by next season and is, say, 90% effective, which, as I recall, is around as effective as the measles vaccine. If 90% of the people are immunized that pretty much wipes it out and leaves a bit of room for the antivaxxers, sloths, religious hermits etc
      
      Personally if an effective vaccine comes along I’ll be pushing nuns and old grannies out of the way to be first in the queue because that’s what cabin fever does to a bloke.
      
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      April 22, 2020 9:59am
- PhilBest
  
  I’d say the same people who never bother with a flu vaccine because they are inherently healthy, need not bother with this either.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:32am
mikenmildagain

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Happy Earth Day!
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April 22, 2020 8:13am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Ah yes, Earth Day…
  
  Founded by the “Unicorn Killer”
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Einhorn
  …
  or is that another conspiracy the Greens and Lefties like to disassociate themselves from?
  
  https://time.com/5242190/earth-day-founder/
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:11am
  - cmm
    
    Those eyes… I hope I forget before bedtime.
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:24am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Look how “The Guardian” gushed over Earth Day man….
  
  https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1999/apr/12/features11.g24
  
  of course he didn’t know there was a body in his flat… the CIA hadn’t told him they’d left it there.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:54am
Brian McDonald

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
I find it hard to understand why Simon Bridges didn’t seize the moment when the Government named Tuesday as the day when level 4 restrictions would be lifted and say well now we have to get on with it. I guess politics is about being negative but instead of saying that National was looking forward to helping to get the country back on its feet and tell the electorate what ideas they would be pushing for. We got not a single one. Simon flew in the face of well-recorded public opinion on the lockdown and showed how far out of step he is.
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April 22, 2020 8:13am
- Scott
  
  astroturfing -“the deceptive practice of presenting an orchestrated marketing or public relations campaign in the guise of unsolicited comments from members of the public.”
  
  This is used all around the world by primarily leftist groups. We can see that in the response to Simon Bridges comments on social media. Count the number of people who said “I used to be a national supporter but now I’m going to vote labour because of this.”
  
  I believe in many many cases that should be translated – I am a Labour Party activist and I am doing my absolute best to participate in an orchestrated takedown of the leader of the opposition.
  
  Unfortunately this is being cheered on by the young women who comprise the New Zealand mainstream media. They appear to be sycophantic supporters of the Prime Minister and would love to see her re-elected at this next election.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:26am
  - igm
    
    Scott: They have a constant flow of these deadbeats ringing radio. It is easy to tell they are lying because most of them have diction problems, not unlike Ardern.
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:30am
    - Brian McDonald
      
      That’ll be astrotalking, won’t it Scott?
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:51am
  - Martin Williams
    
    This is used all around the world by primarily leftist groups.
    
    This is astroturfing.
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:54am
  - Suze Wainwright
    
    Yep, I commented last week that I’ve seen god knows how many Facebook comments along the lines of: “you know, I don’t actually vote Labour, but isn’t Jacinda just doing the most fantastic job!”
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:59am
  - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
    
    Newshub says they have done the analysis and they all appear to be genuine National supporters. There you go!!
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:02am
    - Lance
      
      One of my flatmates from many moons ago used to make it obvious he was about to lie when he would preface his assertion with “it appears that…..”
      
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      April 22, 2020 9:36am
    - UrbanNeocolonialist
      
      Well if they say so I’m definitely super convinced.
      
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      April 22, 2020 9:44am
    - gorse
      
      Sir Cullen, Newshub did the analysis? Jeez, I laughed and laughed and laughed.
      
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      April 22, 2020 12:14pm
  - Suze Wainwright
    
    And you call it astroturfing…?
    
    Surely not, the left are far too pure to ever engage in anything that might be construed as dirty politics.
    
    And anyway, the MSM Union of Aotearoa would be far too intelligent to ever get sucked in by such a simple ploy – wouldn’t it…?
    
    Oh, I’ve just seen an MSM article say that Cindy’s on a war footing, while Bridges is faltering… (War footing aye? Would Labour’s left and the greens be happy with that analogy?)
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:10am
    - Suze Wainwright
      
      Heh, “Onward Cindy’s soldiers, marching as to war…”
      
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      April 22, 2020 9:26am
  - tf78
    
    Do they really want her to be reelected or do they just want to keep their jobs.
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:18am
    - marcw
      
      They are hanging out for a taxpayer funded hand out next year. It’s been so strongly signaled by this COL, that they have the confidence now to abandon any pretext to reporting actual news and just go for the propaganda angle.
      
      It’s actually quite chilling to see it unfolding.
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:18am
  - bruceavon
    
    Garbage. There is an unfortunate trend on this blog to treat any news that does not fit to the right wing view of this blog as if it doesn’t exist or is a a lie. Like polls that say Labour are miles ahead.
    My Facebook is full of people who are suddenly fans of Ardern. This is not propaganda because they are people I know. Countless were previously in the middle of politics and some were definitely National voters. It doesn’t surprise me at all that Simon was pummelled on Facebook. The question is why did he choose Facebook? and why did he do immediately after Arderns announcement?The article in the Herald last night was absolutely right. Both were public relations blunders and National voters deserve better.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:28am
    - sam green
      
      He simply can’t read a room. People in this town are sick of him too – internet access my arse.
      
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      April 22, 2020 3:40pm
  - Mark Craig
    
    Now I put my name to my posts and can easily be called out if found to be bullshitting.Actually us lefties should be shutting up and leaving the National supporters blithely imagining that all is OK with their leadership and policies .After all when your opponent is stuffing up do not get in his way.Any way wot is going on with Duncan Garner claiming Mark [deleted -mod. }Mitchell is gathering the numbers to roll Soiman.And that Todd Muller and the blonde bimbo from Auckland central are doing the numbers for him.Heh,more popcorn.
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:34am
- fernglas
  
  Maybe public opinion isn’t the best gauge of the efficacy of a pandemic response. Or is being a politician just a popularity contest? Oops, that’s right…
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:27am
- MrLovebucket
  
  The lockdown has been a massive over reaction and people are whole heartedly sick of it – apart from a small group of noisy Jacinduh sycophants who are in full blown electioneering mode.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:31am
  - Lance
    
    No no no no, saint Cindy is beyond criticism or non sycophantic comment.
    Any such speech is opposed by ALL NZers whom 112% support every and all actions of the greatest NZ PM of all time and all time to come.
    
    ……………………………………………….. /sarc/
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:39am
- Simon
  
  “We got not a single one. Simon flew in the face of well-recorded public opinion on the lockdown and showed how far out of step he is.”
  
  You were played Brian and you fell hard.
  
  By the MofH own standards NZ should be at alert level 2 or 1. To be at alert level 3 community transmission might be happening.
  
  They are testing supermarket queues all around NZ and all negative. There is no community transmission.
  
  What are the standards? They shift all the time. The home detention continues because Ardern government isn’t prepared. Bridges is right.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:56am
- Old White Loser
  
  Simon knows the pain that is coming and is trying to fight for small business. You are part of the problem attacking the messenger not listening to what he is saying. In 6 months time you will realize you are wrong.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:57am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    He’s not fighting for small business if he was he’d have a plan and be shouting it out.
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:05am
- bruceavon
  
  yes. I have tried to give him the benefit of the doubt but he has no judgement. This goes back to the leaking scandal where he was yelling at Labour and accusing them of the leak, telling Mallard he was corrupt for stopping the enquiry, jumping up and down and meanwhile the whole of parliament ( and I was even told it was JLR by a friend from wellington) knew who it was. It was embarrassing.
  Bridges attack on the government over the delay is the last straw for me. Sure, he can oppose what they do, its his job. But just look at what he complained about and the way he did it. To me delaying the opening till the even of the long weekend is fine. The main forrest/manufacturing/ businesses would only lose two days anyway. Much was made of businesses like the takeaway hospitality losing the weekend. But it turns out McDonalds etc are only just going to make it to opening on Tuesday on time. But then he announces his opposition on Facebook virtually before Ardern has even finished her press conference. I don’t know how many people here are on Facebook, but I can tell you Ardern has fierce support on there at the moment. Not only from the left but from lots of people who are united behind her. Especially mothers. I don’t understand why, but they are protecting their families and see Ardern as protecting them too. Who knows. Kiwis are cautious. Most people wanted the lock down to continue. But based on my Facebook I would not say a thing ab0ut Ardern on there at the moment. How did Simon think it was going to go well? Both the timing, the tone and the platform were completely wrong.
  He should have waited a day, held a press conference and set out why National disagree, and what they would have done differently.
  The other point is the problem is not the extra few days on level 4, the problem is the level 3 is virtually the same. We don’t get out of lock down till we get to level 2. Something no one seems to be pointing out.
  That is going on for another two weeks. Bridges has done a good job on the committee but no one sees that. And they seem to bring up problems with the government and then the government fix it and take the credit.
  Whoever is his press adviser should be sacked. But for me I am sick of this guy and his blunders. National probably have no chance at the moment anyway, but get someone else. I would even support Judith. Who well may be the only one who wants it.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:59am
  - Mark Craig
    
    Oh yes yes please let us have [ nope = one more time and you are on holiday ] Collins in charge ,that is wot we need a touch of the whip,Maggy Thatcher style.Please please Gnats give us that woman to lead your once great party.
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:51am
- Cunningham
  
  1 billion dollars a day! That is what this is costing. And the government has the arrogance to say it is only 2 working days. Bridges is right to question it but people cannot even comprehend that amount of money yet so they pile in on anyone who even questions the government on what they are doing. In a few months when the shit hits the fan then may regret their unwavering support for this government and their strategies.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:09am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Brian – re Bridges’ comments on PPE, were you aware that the Auditor-General announced yesterday that he will conduct an inquiry into allegations that PPE has not been reaching the front line?
  
  I suggest you read some of the stories Mike Morrah has been publishing on Newshub in the last couple of weeks, about Burwood Hospital in particular. There is a problem, and Bridges was absolutely right to refer to it.
  
  14/4/2020 – https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/04/coronavirus-ppe-still-not-available-to-some-nurses-at-burwood-hospital-site-of-six-covid-19-deaths.html
  
  21/4/2020 – https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/04/coronavirus-top-level-investigation-into-health-ministry-launched-as-dhbs-say-they-still-don-t-have-enough-ppe.html
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:31am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    I wasn’t aware Tony but I heard Dr Bloomfield say he’d welcome such an inquiry.
    Furthermore, it has become clear internationally that many countries have had a shortage of PPE, the states in particular.
    I think there has been some diversion on the subject in NZ, I think most likely to avoid panic, but that might be too generous we’ll see.
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:11am
lifesgood

There was a massive pile on against Simon Bridges via social media yesterday. Ain’t it funny that it coincides with Peter’s loss in his case against National MPs re his unjustified claiming of benefits. After all, without him Labour is toast. Labour are running scared. Methinks they doth protest too much. Rumour has it that many off the anti Simon comments come via paid overseas trolls anyway but, my, how excited the NZ lefty losers are excited by them.
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April 22, 2020 8:14am
- MrLovebucket
  
  It was clearly orchestrated from the beehive. Shame on the NZ Press.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:33am
  - sam green
    
    Bullshit. Any evidence? No? Thought not.
    
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    April 22, 2020 3:45pm
- Toko
  
  Labour are miles ahead of National in the FB propaganda game. Every single story gets spammed by comments from the same people who follow a script along the lines of: I was a lifetime National supporter, amazing Jacinda has saved our lives, Simon is evil and stupid, the economy can be rebuilt, and anyone who questions this narrative is clearly a far right Nazi. They get hundreds of likes from the Lefty mob, and become the top comments. Every single story. Obviously organised by the party, but it seems to work for them.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:34am
  - Suze Wainwright
    
    Are you questioning…?
    Cindy is the Mother of the Nation and as a woman, she knows what her family needs…
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:59am
  - cmm
    
    The question is this: Do FB Likes actually turn into votes?
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:49am
    - tf78
      
      Not if you can only vote once they don’t.
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:55am
    - Brian McDonald
      
      No, the question is to ask if there is any proof or is it just the common response to blame the messengers.
      I like your paranoia but pray tell how were ‘trolls’ so well prepared and ready for Simon to put his foot in his mouth?
      He blindly hit a nerve and miraculously today there are reports of plots against him or is that ‘trolls’ as well.
      
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      April 22, 2020 11:19am
  - doggone7
    
    Is it fair to say of media that carry a weight on one side or the other that it is ‘obviously organised by the party?’
    
    So what goes on this site is ‘obviously organised by the party?’
    
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    April 22, 2020 1:35pm
    - Nickc2
      
      Yes, IMHO, all those Uni Students and school kids sitting at home with nothing to do have been employed to bag Simon Bridges. This is a ploy commonly used in Aust, where a Labor political group called ‘Get Up’ do the organisation and scripting of trolls posts.
      
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      April 22, 2020 2:01pm
Happychappy

Are Labour Jacinda Ardern and the Coalition getting thinking their internal polls have made them unbeatable.
So why would they play hardball with Doctors and General Practitioners over the $22 million that was promised to them by the Health Ministry.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/04/coronavirus-gps-fighting-government-to-deliver-on-22-million-they-believe-was-promised.html
The arrogance of this Government is unbelievable and still the Jacinda mania pushed by our own media is triumphant over policy.
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April 22, 2020 8:14am
- RW Capitalist
  
  Then why are they attacking Simon Bridges on the AM Show, with the “leadership challenge” crap.
  If he is so beatable?
  National are not stupid enough to change leaders, this close to the election.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:29am
  - Captain Mainwaring
    
    Labour changed a lot closer to the 2017 election and look what happened.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:27am
    - RW Capitalist
      
      and she was SELECTED by Winston.
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:47am
      - Steve Todd
        
        He had a choice: SELECT Jacinda, or SELECT Bill. He chose Jacinda.
        
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        April 22, 2020 4:26pm
    - tf78
      
      Yes just look – she’s turned NZ into a cot case.
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:56am
  - doggone7
    
    Don’t underestimate the stupidity. Look to leadership for role modelling.
    
    If following the leader means following the behaviour, stupidity isn’t out the back by the exhaust pipe, it’ll be in the back seat.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:30am
- igm
  
  Happy: To think the main supporter is pleading for monetary handouts.
  Go sink in the dross you have created Fairfax editorial, you will look good stacking supermarket shelves. Maybe that will be beyond their limited abilities.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:33am
- PhilBest
  
  Jacinda and her team will only get more arrogant the longer the MSM lets them. What will be the “bridge too far”?
  
  Part of political history that is not very well remembered, is Britain post-WW2. The people threw out the wartime PM Winston Churchill and elected the most rabidly socialist government imaginable – Britain spent a few years on a trajectory that would have taken it to Communism; the government’s policies were incredibly similar to Venezuela in the last few years. Wholesale nationalisations, Ten Year Plans, etc. Wartime controls and rationing remained in place. Hmmm….
  
  The book “Ordeal By Planning” by John Jewkes should be much better known. Winston Churchill was re-elected only after the Socialists went “a bridge or few too far” in their total control over people’s lives; endless creations of Boards of Kommissars for this that and everything else. The story is an incredible one of what people will actually tolerate before they wake up.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:39am
- Evadne
  
  Wash your mouth out! How dare you criticize the government in this time of emergency. That’s treason!
  
  The funding hadn’t been taken away…it’s just part of a “conversation”.
  
  “There is an active conversation between the Minister and General Practice leaders and the Ministry on further funding so that’s ongoing and I can’t comment any further on that.” Says Dr Blomfield.
  
  Nothing to see here. Move on. There are plenty of tests, PPE, flu vaccines, money to go round. And if there isn’t, then someone else has let us down. Because there is enough. You know this is a fact, because we’ve told you there is enough. In fact, we’ve been quite clear about it from the beginning. Let me say it again, so there is no mistaking: There is enough.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:45am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  She is assured of another 3 terms. She is unbeatable because Sheeple are so happy to be at home baking and making videos and getting paid.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:04am
  - Lance
    
    Until the money runs out.
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:43am
  - Suze Wainwright
    
    Have you accepted the challenge yet and put a childhood photo of yourself up on Facebook?
    Shame on you if you haven’t
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:02am
    - Ed Snack
      
      You mean, you actually use facebook…?
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:20am
- Nickc2
  
  Remember after the last election, where the Bradford Brat (TVNZ Talking head) stood in front of Parliament Buildings and stated “No matter what we did . . . .”. Well, I think for this election they are at it again and have started earlier, started stronger and gone dirtier (the same people).
  Lets call them out on that.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:39am
dave53

The Climate Activists were initially pushed aside as the media worldwide rushed to hype the coronavirus story, but they are rallying and have a big push this week, to coincide with the fatuous “Ëarth Day”.

You may or may not know that an international group of journalists and climate activists led by the Guardian and the Columbia Journalism Review have signed up many of the world’s major media organisations to present only the One True View of global warming and to suppress contrary views. They call themselves Covering Climate Now, and they run the biggest propaganda campaign in human history, below the radar with the wider public having no idea why their media is so full of “climate crisis” stories.

In New Zealand, RNZ, TVNZ, Stuff, Newshub, ODT, the Herald, Newsroom, the Spinoff and more have all signed up to this.

I am not talking about some wild conspiracy here; these are very big names and they are very open about it and even boast about how effective they are.

This link goes to their website page that sets out the campaign being planned for this very week. It was planned before coronavirus became THE media catastrophe de ano, but they aim to climb aboard coronavirus coverage to push their cause:

https://www.coveringclimatenow.org/events

If you read down below the section of this week’s campaign, you’ll get to the webinar they conducted among themselves to plan how to ride the coronavirus wave. There’s even a video of it.

And this link is to the ever-growing list of media organisations signed up to this international propaganda cause. Read through it and weep:

https://www.coveringclimatenow.org/partners

This is their About page, in case you think I am making this up:

https://www.coveringclimatenow.org/about

I am appalled that our media and so many journalists world-wide should so willingly join in this unprecedented propaganda campaign without so much as even discussing the ethics of it. But I am not surprised. Not at all.
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April 22, 2020 8:16am
- PhilBest
  
  More spew in the Herald today: “This is our chance to resest and build a golden age of sustainability”.
  
  Yeah that economic genius Ms Occasional Cortex is right with her Green New Deal, we can get rich at the same time as abandoning the cheap energy that powers 95% of the global economy. I believe the Congressional Budget Office had something to say about the credibility of the economics.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:54am
  - tf78
    
    I realized last night there has been a pattern since she was selected:
    Ban Oil & Gas,
    Christchurch – Ban guns, disarm the people.
    Covid – incarceration, sometimes called ‘home D’.
    
    Result : Angry people locked up for nothing they did,
    flights cancelled, driving cancelled, businesses ruined, jobs lost and low and behold we now have
    
    “The Green New Deal” in action.
    
    U.B.I on the way : JOB DONE!
    
    She will go to the top of the class in the UN.
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:07am
- mikenmildagain
  
  It’s not a conspiracy when media outlets decide that they don’t need to provide ‘balance’ by including fringe ideas. For two many years, media felt that there was a responsibility to cover ‘both sides’, but there was a belated realisation that one of those sides was comprised of nutcases and shills for vested interests, and that presenting their views to the public in the name of balance was counter-productive.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:54am
  - Ed Snack
    
    Bit the other way mikey, the media realised that they don’t have to be “balanced’ because if they support the nutcases and shills for vested interests, then that becomes the “consensus” and then they can avoid uncomfortable truths and just not publish them.
    
    Great con job, and looks like you fell right into it.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:22am
  - All_on_Red
    
    Meh
    ‘Fringe’ ideas are those who believe the Temp will rise 6C if CO2 doubles.
    And those who believe our Sea level will rise 1 metre by 2100
    Those people are the science Deniers
    
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    April 22, 2020 12:58pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  Two can plan. The climate change political debacle will probably come to a rest within a few years. The world only has to move into a long term cooling phase and the grrrs will not be happy.
  (There is reasonable sound opinion to believe that cooling is actually underway.)
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:16am
  - kloyd0306
    
    …..but don’t put it past the Grrrrrrs to take credit for any cooling. It’s their MO while humming John Lennon’s “Imagine”.
    
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    April 22, 2020 12:36pm
G152

No matter what Simon does the fake news will not report it.
And as we get further into this disaster the media is going to become more redundant and less trusted until they’re shut down and people have the Net for their daily news byte…
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April 22, 2020 8:16am
cmm

I dug into the new modeling coming from the Centre of Research Excellence. I could not get in as deep as I would have liked since they have only released a report and, after some email exchanges, they seem reluctant to actually release the model itself (ie. source code).

So why do I care about the modeling? Well modeling is used for the bulk of our decision making (other than inchewishun). When we hear “data driven” in the media they really mean “model driven”. If we’re going to make $100 bn decisions, and those impacting on hundreds or thousands of lives, it is a good idea for those models to be inspected, understood, and not be accepted on face value.

As it is, bureaucrats will still cherry pick models to get the results they want, but let’s at least first understand the quality of the models going in. For example here is the report suggesting when and how education facilities should be opened. It takes all the models it is using at face value, even though many of those models are obsolete and wrong. https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/covid-19_control_measures_to_deliver_covid-19_strategies_education_sector_evidence_review-21apr20.pdf

First up, I would like to acknowledge that this is new set of models is a huge step up from their 80,000 deaths modeling which was a very poor effort, IMHO. All they did was take an existing model, tweak a few numbers for NZ conditions then draw some conclusions. I consider it extremely irresponsible to have published that.

This new modeling is way better and is a far better reflection of NZ but still fails on a few critical points:
1) Their model fails the reality check. Reality is never wrong. If a model and reality disagree then the model is broken. This divergence from reality should have been somewhat obvious when the report was published (9 April), but was hopelessly divergent by 20 April. Unfortunately there seems to have been little effort to talk down or obsolete the models.
2) They modeled using three sets of numbers: pessimistic, optimistic and realistic. That is a good approach, but but reality shows that reality is way better than even their optimistic numbers. This invalidates the findings in the report, but, again, they still quote this report in the media.

The report does acknowledge that they do want to make a more sophisticated model which models demographic groups etc. These finer-grained models should give better results but should be icing on the cake. However if the basic models are flawed, then icing it does not necessarily lead to better results.

What really annoys me is the confident wording used in the report: “We have shown…” etc. This is perhaps the language physicists use in their physics experiments, but has no place in modeling. Modeling should be far more tentative: “Our modeling suggest that maybe…”.

Unfortunately this overconfident language is still used in the media interviews even though the model has shown itself to be flawed.

At the first signs that the model were off as far as it is, they should have obsoleted the report and talked it down in the media. Instead they continue to talk it up.

The model still entertains unrealistic level 4 lock down periods. They “show” that, even in their most optimistic scenario, 90 days of level 4 are required to eliminate the virus.

There is no way 90 days of level 4 can be tolerated.

So, in summary, while this is a huge step up it is not yet ready for serious decision making. I think it is irresponsible for the parties involved to be pushing these models as robust “data”.
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April 22, 2020 8:19am
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  Science done without full public visibility and explanation into the processes used isn’t replicable and therefore isn’t science. Such obfuscation is only necessary when the purpose is propaganda.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:32am
- KevO'Brien
  
  The model seems elementary toy grade. If demographics and economics are not included it’s useless for serious decision making.
  
  Basic medical decision making ignores most outside the body treating that as an isolated machine. Lock down 12 months to avoid catching a virus? Saves a body from having to deal directly with it but misses all the indirect costs both to that body and its associates.
  Those indirect costs may far exceed a fair value. Death may even have a +ve value in some cases. Preventing people working destroys future livelihoods. That bring worry and anxiety about the future. It also destroys opportunity for others. Loss of capital is not a hip-hurrah occurrence but potential suicides and an impact on many.
  Medical statisticians ignore these ancillaries: they can tell how many Maori will die from an infected toenail out of the total population but not how many will fail to thrive because work has become unavailable.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:37am
  - cmm
    
    Although I tore them a bit of a new one, I would not say they have a “toy grade model”.
    
    I think they have the makings of a reasonable model, using reasonable methods, but:
    1) They still have a long way to go.
    2) They are being irresponsible releasing an obviously problematic model with such confidence.
    
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    April 22, 2020 3:14pm
JibberJabber

Imagine a Government with ministers so incompetent, so useless, that in a time of a Health Pandemic the Health Minister is sidelined, exiled to his home and told to STFU, another so puffed up with her own importance she blames business owners for going under financially because of the conditions she and her colleagues imposed unilaterally without warning….oh, wait….
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April 22, 2020 8:20am
- RW Capitalist
  
  imposed unilaterally without warning..
  Now, are we talking about
  Covid 19 response?
  Oil and gas exploration?
  Petrol tax?
  Increase in Govt. charges?
  Everything to do with rental properties?
  All of the above?
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:48am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Sounds just like Venezuela
  
  26 4
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  April 22, 2020 8:54am
  - cmm
    
    Except without the oil…
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:25am
- cmm
  
  That’s so ridiculous. Absolutely impossible. Couldn’t even get the craziest conspiracy theorists to believe that.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:01am
Cunningham

It is odd that Bridges is being piled on for his comment, I thought he raised a legitimate point. I guess the government now cannot be criticised for anything. Anyone else starting to get concerned with our democracy process being slowly eroded? Media need to start questioning this government more. It’s hugely important.
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April 22, 2020 8:20am
- PhilBest
  
  I pray that the Nats aren’t put off by this but I’m not inspired by their past track record.
  
  Truth is worth standing by regardless. It is the most powerful of political levers. Give it up and you condemn your people to lie-based government forever; whereas otherwise a principled stand would have caused a turn perhaps in a few years of “unpopularity” meanwhile.
  
  John Howard said one of the best things ever: focus on winning the argument, not winning the election. It is better to win the election later after winning the argument, than to win the election now by abandoning the argument.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:45am
- Ruawai
  
  The select committee did well yesterday questioning Grant Robertson, Willie Jackson and Stuart Nash, proved they had no data backing up their decision to extend the lockdown other than a feeling. Also it is either safe for people to go back to work and children to school or it isn’t, the Government can’t have it both ways saying it is safe for children to go back to school as low risk but not safe for retail shops to open.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:03am
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    Lockdown costs NZ something like half a billion a day. Not something to buy on impulse – or becasue you are too incompetent to do cheap effective stuff on time. Other countries (Iceland, Taiwan, South Korea) have/are successfully stamping wuflu out with level 2-3 isolation measures, closed schools, lots of testing and good tracking.
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:41am
  - thetiedarch
    
    This is all well and good. But you just don’t hear about this in mainstream media.
    
    All we see in the headlines is how great Ardern is. It’s like no-one else exists in this government.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:47am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  Please realise that the media in NZ is an extended arm of the Labour party and they all have sworn allegience to the supreme leader.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:06am
  - marcw
    
    Sadly, the evidence is showing you are absolutely correct.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:36am
    - Martin Williams
      
      Sadly, the evidence is showing you have a tin foil hat.
      
      Fixed.
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:51am
      - kloyd0306
        
        Perhaps you are sitting on yours, except it’s a pointy one in the shape of a dunce’s hat.
        
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        April 22, 2020 12:41pm
MrTips

Leadership rumours are being swirled like lollywater over Bridges today. According to the media.

Meh, this is part of the territory.

But one thing National folk and anyone interested in getting rid of the CoL should remember.

Mark Mitchell is a Simon Lusk appointee. And like all weapons grade sociopaths, Lusk would come slithering out from the undergrowth and demand his true fee. Which of course would destroy the National Party because anything Lusk (and Slater) dream up turns to shit, in a big way. QED JLR.
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April 22, 2020 8:22am
- Poppa
  
  It seems very clear to me that Simon may as well pack his bags now, he is toast
  
  If the numbers are being done that is a signal that the knife is about to be thrust
  
  Mark Mitchell seems to be the tip, but public opinion would say Judith Collins
  
  It will happen soonish I think
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:25am
- tf78
  
  I like Mark but don’t consider him leadership material. People must remember National work as a TEAM as they have a lot of capable people. Labour’s only tool is Jacinda – dwell on that for a moment.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:33am
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    Not true, most of Labour’s cabinet are tools.
    
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    April 22, 2020 8:59pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  Got a ring yesterday from the new National candidate for my electorate. A good one.
  Don’t think the Nats are sleeping.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:40am
- bruceavon
  
  yep. I don’t like Mitchell because of his association with Lusk too. National needs to stay as far away as possible from that mob and also the cast of dirty politics.
  What about Paul Goldsmith? He doesn’t seem to have any baggage.
  Michael Woodhouse was excellent in the committee meetings.
  And I have always thought Nicki Kaye would be the perfect foil for Ardern. The problem is whoever takes over now receives the hospital pass. Many may choose to keep their power dry till the next time.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:47am
Justitia

Most of the electorate are suffering at present from a childlike state of dependency, confined to their homes and severely constrained in their social contacts. They are pathetically grateful to St Jacinda for delivering them from the pestilence which she, through her government’s incompetence and inaction from late January through to mid March, needlessly brought upon them. Had we attended to our borders and implemented full quarantine and contact tracing measures in early February, as many were then urging, we could have been spared the severe lockdown and much of the economic dislocation, as Taiwan has ably demonstrated. The scales will likely to start to fall from the electorate’s eyes as the return to work gets underway. For many there will be no work to return to.
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April 22, 2020 8:25am
- lifesgood
  
  Justita you are so right. I have the misfortune to have a multitude of Cindy supporters in my wider family. Even some who practically worship her and the child like dependency is something I’ve noticed amongst them. Every single thing she has said over this covid crisis has been taken absolutely as gospel. It reminds me of the old people who adored Muldoon “because he was strong” and the same goes for the old folk who still, despite everything, adore Peters.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:43am
  - tf78
    
    My older sister nearly became a convert, I couldn’t believe it- don’t worry I’ve put her back down to earth. She in the early stages and Alzheimer’s and she is really frightened by the continual bombardment from the media. These people make me so mad, they have no idea the fear, chaos and heartbreak they are causing.
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:38am
- calendar girl
  
  Well said, Justitia. Ardern’s Government was too slow to recognise the threat and to start firm NZ resistance to it at the country’s borders. Her claims that the Government went early and went hard against Covid-19 are not supported by the facts.
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:42am
dog_eat_dog

Massive raking over the coals of Bridges for his social media post yesterday. The guy isn’t the best communicator. Big news.

On the flipside, almost no coverage of the comments Deborah Russell made during the committee hearings, which were so far off the mark and unjustified that even Robertson pushed back on them, and is continuing to do so today as they do the rounds on social media. I’m hoping DPF deems them worthy of a separate post.
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April 22, 2020 8:28am
- RW Capitalist
  
  Robertson pushed back on them….but has said effectively the same thing in the past.
  When his ability/ job was criticized.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:43am
- John Warren
  
  I had an email newsletter from the Taxpayers’ Union this morning with a link to Bomber Bradbury on Twitter taking the abhorrent Russell to task, in no uncertain terms.
  
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  April 22, 2020 12:37pm
I remember when

How to live at Alert Level 4.
NO that wasn’t LIVING.
Let’s try level 3 again
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April 22, 2020 8:30am
RW Capitalist

AM Show
“Simon Bridges got 23000 comments, half of which were labeled negative”….Amanda Gillies
Yes you dumb cow and half were positive…
He is doing his job and holding JA to account.
Afterall JA is the ONLY one of the CoL fronting this, the rest 61 MPs are largely just the cheer leading section.
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April 22, 2020 8:31am
- Libertarians are right
  
  None of my right wing friends (who agreed with him) commented while almost all of my Left wing friends commented. Note that I have more left wing friends than right.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:51am
  - Papalazarou
    
    I’m sorry to hear that ?
    
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    April 23, 2020 10:09am
- Bobba Fret
  
  I feel sorry for Simon. With the red media anything he says to criticise the government is taken as politicing. You are not allowed to criticise or question what this government does.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:29am
Yvette

Winston Peters – “I am putting the money up here, putting it all on the line because I believe in a principle here …”

MINISTERS ‘SOUGHT TAXPAYER FUNDING’
The cross-examination continued into the afternoon, with Gray putting it to Peters that he was asking the court to award him “a lot of money, mostly paid by private individuals”.
Peters responded by saying it was the people he was suing who were opting to use taxpayer funds to defend themselves.
“I am putting the money up here, putting it all on the line because I believe in a principle here, and they have immediately sought taxpayer funding of their defence.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/117138262/winston-peters-superannuation-leak-malicious-a-slur-on-my-character?rm=m

Regarding court costs now, will Winston actually put his money where his mouth was?
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April 22, 2020 8:36am
- KevO'Brien
  
  Peters suit caused the expensive responses. He did all the damage from the outset with his petulant pride and lust for damage.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:43am
- Nickc2
  
  Peters should pay every cent of it. However, I also think Mallard will come to his aid and pay with taxpayer money. That’s the Labour way you know. Crooks tend to stick up for each other.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:55am
  - sam green
    
    Someone leaked personal information from a government department in order to make political mileage. As heads of those departments there needs to be some accountability. Bennett has form with this type of tactic. I get why Peters did it but no person could be proven to be culpable – well not the ones “accused”. But somebody is. The department should pay.
    
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    April 22, 2020 4:06pm
    - Nickc2
      
      Wrong again Sam! Peters bought this case himself and as such, he should be held responsible for the costs.
      Had the “department” bought the case, the “department” would thus be responsible for the costs.
      If Peters had won the case, would any monies paid by the accused be paid into the coffers of the “department”? Of course not, Peters would have made a tidy sum courtesy of the taxpayer.
      
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      April 22, 2020 4:28pm
      - sam green
        
        Responsible heads of department/ministers should be a damn sight more attentive. Sure Peters took the case – wouldn’t you? I’m no Peters fan but that was fucking rank.
        
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        April 22, 2020 8:18pm
      - Nickc2
        
        Sam, I have filled those forms out and didn’t make a mistake or tell a lie. If Peters had not told a lie, there would be no court case. With regard to the leak, no lie, no leak.
        Peters was always pissing into the wind when he had no evidence of who the leaker was. When he bought a case against a number of people simultaneously, that was evidence he didn’t know who leaked and he was hoping the court would do the job for him. It didn’t and he lost, therefore, he is liable for costs IMHO.
        Peters could have bought a case against the Department of Social Welfare for failing to protect his privacy, but he didn’t. IMHO, he wanted a National Party scalp hung on his belt leading into the next election and a shit load of money in the process. He got neither.
        
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        April 23, 2020 2:06am
RW Capitalist

Who was that LABOUR MP that said, effectively, all small businesses in any trouble, it was our own fault.
We were not sufficiently prepared for a negative event and not sufficiently capitalized.
Really???
So you are saying.
1. BEFORE this “event” we didn’t have enough money to ride this out BEFORE it happened?
A: then maybe CoL shouldn’t have taken more of our profits. The CoL shouldn’t have WASTED all our tax money.
2. Implying the all 500000 small businesses only started last year, if start up capital was the reason.
Mine is 10 yrs old now and under National was advancing and I was looking at hiring by now, but after CoL cancelled the tax cuts, increased charges and fuel tax, that opportunity disappeared long BEFORE Covid 19.
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April 22, 2020 8:39am
- RW Capitalist
  
  PS
  Hope you 500000 small business owners are paying attention and vote against these clowns.
  Because
  1. There policies put you in a weakened position BEFORE this lock down.
  2. Their handling of this lock down has been a disaster to small businesses.
  3. Their proposals for the future will be the death knell for most of the rest of you.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:43am
  - Ruawai
    
    And the people employed by these small businesses and the people who supply goods/services to these small businesses.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:03am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  It was Dr Deborah Russell
  https://twitter.com/dbseymour/status/1252428378012934145
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:04am
  - Ruahine
    
    Thanks Maggy.
    I now see why Mr Rawdon Christie got dismissed from TV One. All the best Rawdon.
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:50am
Lee C

‘Astroturfing’ Yep to repeat:
Just to save you all the trouble, I’ve composed a stock-reply to anything you think might be politically damaging should yo see it on faceboook, or in blogs. Just cut-and-paste the following.

“Frankly I’m shocked. And disappointed. I really thought that [insert name], given the current emergency, would have had a bit of a think, and realised that this issue is really not that important. Not when you consider how 80,000 lives have been saved by the government.
I used to be a National voter, but certainly won’t be this time.”

You’re welcome.
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April 22, 2020 8:43am
- PhilBest
  
  I can see what the Nats need to push back on, and hard, is the FABRICATION of predicted mortality. But they didn’t push back, back in the day, on the fabrication of a “climate crisis” even though there were hundreds if not thousands of genuine experts providing them with valid criticisms. Passionate and principled citizens still devote massive amounts of time to collating references that the “centre right” could simply pick up and run with – see the archives of scientific papers – thousands of them – on ClimateDepot for example. But much more expedient to accept the LIE that there aren’t any such papers.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:50am
Cinematic

What is going on in the UK?

“The Office for National Statistics said there were 18,500 deaths in the week up to 10 April – about 8,000 more than is normal at this time of year.

A third were linked to coronavirus, but deaths from other causes also increased, suggesting the lockdown may be having an indirect impact on health.”

BTW this is around 2k more deaths in a week than the last severe flu season in 2015.

And…

“The number of deaths from flu and pneumonia – at more than 32,000 – is three times higher than the total number of coronavirus deaths this year.”

Overall the UK is running at around 10k extra deaths for 2020. Against an annual death toll of about 600k.

Confusingly paltry numbers. A trendy virus omnishambles?

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52361519
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April 22, 2020 8:44am
thetiedarch

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/121153767/coronavirus-we-need-to-learn-to-be-critical-of-ashley-bloomfield

Can anyone imagine a world where an article like this had Ardern as the subject?
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April 22, 2020 8:46am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  The buck stops on Jacinda Ardern’s desk… but because the shit is starting to hit the fan… someone else needs to be the scape-goat.
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:06am
  - Tall Man
    
    Give it a week into level 3 bullshit then watch the deflection and buck passing.
    
    The lefties on here will start the campaign first about how MoH staff were deliberately interfering in ardern’s “great works”….
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:42am
Maggie Pie

SkyNews reports: “A 94 year-old woman, with multiple underlying health issues, has died in hospital of Coronavirus.”

Sad but true….

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWC03-vXgAEQYwC?format=jpg&name=small
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April 22, 2020 8:49am
- Greg Ettridge
  
  Meanwhile over at the ABC they are on cue.
  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-21/coronavirus-third-resident-of-newmarch-house-dies/12170482
  “A third resident at a western Sydney aged care facility has died of coronavirus.”
  No mention of any underlying illness.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:25am
Manolo

As Mr Norman, that fabled communist and visionary, predicted: oil price will spike and should reach $200 a barrel very soon.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Oil-crashes-to-11-a-barrel-as-storage-fills-up-15212810.php

After starting Monday around $18 a barrel, West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude benchmark, closed 300 percent lower at negative $37 a barrel for delivery next month.

The price of U.S. oil plummeted below zero Monday, as the falling demand for crude during the coronavirus pandemic sent a panic through markets that threatened to send the industry into a tailspin.

With storage tanks nearing capacity in some parts of the country, West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, closed at negative $37 a barrel, down 300 percent on the day, with buyers in effect paying producers not to deliver their oil.
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April 22, 2020 8:52am
- emmess
  
  Is Jacinda filling up our oil reserves?
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:35am
- krazykiwi
  
  Here’s a great Visual Capitalist infographic on this topic.
  
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  April 22, 2020 4:50pm
Yvette

From the Government covid19 website –
Time for symptoms to appear
We don’t yet know how long symptoms take to show after a person has been infected, but current World Health Organization assessments suggest that it is 2–10 days.

Recovering from COVID-19
For a person to be recovered from COVID-19, they must meet the following criteria:
• It must have been at least 10 days since the onset of their symptoms.
• After the 10 days, they need to have been clear of all symptoms for 48 hours.

If a person was hospitalised, it must be at least 10 days since they were discharged from hospital and they must be clear of all symptoms for 48 hours. – https://covid19.govt.nz

Questions which don’t seem to be answered –
It is assumed the moment a person is infected, that person can infect another, during the 2–10 days symptoms take to show – is that correct?
Then from the onset of symptoms, how long is a person infectious?

For example, does the last sentence above in italics mean that a patient could be discharged from hospital while still displaying symptoms, which could still last 10 days – or longer so then require a further two days (48 hours) – before they are officially recovered, but (one assumes of course) would not be released from hospital while still infectious?
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April 22, 2020 8:53am
- KevO'Brien
  
  The WHO proved to be agents of China.
  The reports from many worldwide put the time from contact to symptoms appearing to be up to 45 days. Most give about 2-3 weeks.
  Further, half or more never show any symptoms.
  The virus may not be the same worldwide. Here it seems to be just an irritant with great political features attached. The attributed deaths were all likely near term events anyway.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:51am
  - PhilBest
    
    “…The virus may not be the same worldwide…”
    
    The impacts of viruses are most definitely different. NZ doesn’t suffer anything like the same impact from ANY virus, as say Northern Italy does.
    
    So if COVID-19 is around twice as deadly as the flu, that means a doubling of something that in Northern Italy, pushes ICU capacity to the limit every second year: in NZ it means a doubling of something that no-one ever notices. Simple maths: double stuff-all is still stuff-all.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:08am
PJ39

Labour are locked in for another term. They have managed the first part of the virus well. It required a good front person, tick, lots of emotional talk, tick. It did not require walking the walk or any substance. They handled it very competently. Unfortunately, many will translate this to general competence and the election, even if delayed, will come while this perception remains. Within a relatively short time actual action, skill, competence and hard work will be needed for the economic recovery. They cannot provide this, outside of one or two Ministers. The mess will be significant but it will be another 3 years before the we can begin the clean up. Unfortunate.
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April 22, 2020 8:55am
- Cinematic
  
  If a week is a long time in politics how long is 5 months of recession?
  
  National could sit still, say nothing and still be a very decent chance come September.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:34am
  - Bobba Fret
    
    I hope you are right.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:32am
  - Tall Man
    
    Which, based on the current media obsession with ardern, is roughly what they should do.
    
    I have had a few “chats” with the checkout operators plus many others over the phone and I can assure you that “National” supporters are not the only ones sick to the back teeth of ardern and her fan club.
    
    Will this transfer into voting patterns, you betcha.
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:37am
- Tall Man
  
  “They have managed the first part of the virus well.”
  
  I disagree with that statement vehemently.
  
  [Deleted – Mod.]
  
  That’s labour problem solving for you.
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:34am
  - Tall Man
    
    Imagine what the mod deleted ……………. And you’ll never know.
    
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    April 22, 2020 3:50pm
Isobar

I don’t know – right now NZ needs good opposition and they have been doing some good work, but then something like yesterdays outburst happens and they just ruined a lot of the good momentum they were making.

Simon is starting to sound like the Labour leaders were against John Key, they were overtly negative and public rightly so looked at them as a joke, not as a serious alternative government. This is worrying.

Whilst I know here on Kiwiblog its hard to see outside of the kiwiblog bubble, the fact is with the public National now has a serious problem, they are unelectable with a lot of people.

They way i see it – they have two massive problems:

1. Simon just doesn’t resonate well with the public (in a similar way to Phil Goff or Andrew Little). He also has the additional struggle right now of getting airtime during an emergency.

2. National have no friends in government

Unless something happens in MMP that has never happened before, things do look bleak.

However, as some have suggested, this might not be a bad one to lose.

Here’s what I think would have happened if National won the last election. PM Bill English would have been listening to the same experts, Dr Ashley Bloomfield would (likely) still be fronting the cause and the results would have been pretty similar. Its always hard to contemplate what could have happened alternatively, but i don’t think its likely that English would have acted massively outside of the experts recommendations.
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April 22, 2020 8:56am
- Libertarians are right
  
  Except National would have acted without taking March 15th into account and we would have been much, much better off. AND they would have taken the economy into account.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:56am
  - Isobar
    
    Again, i dont think March 15 matters, they still would have had the same advisors, the same civil servants and same experts.
    
    You could argue that they possibly wouldn’t have closed the borders to China so soon and other dates may have happened slightly differently. However i dont think there would be any material difference.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:23am
    - Tall Man
      
      You are wrong.
      
      ardern wanted the March 15 commemoration to go ahead so all actions were stalled until after that date. I think the 5,000 potential attendees, many from overseas including Iran, was just a bridge too far for our MoH and the director Ashley Bloomfield so I understand “representations” were made which resulted in the 11th hour decision to cancel.
      
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      April 22, 2020 11:14am
      - Isobar
        
        I think this is a red-herring. Any govt be it National or Labour would have appropriately commemorated the anniversary, to say that a National PM would have not acknowledged it is disingenuous and just plain wrong. I think Bill English would have also planned to be in Christchurch on that day.
        
        You guys are being distracted by March 15, meanwhile the public doesn’t give a shit about what Ardern did or didnt do several months ago.
        
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        April 22, 2020 2:16pm
      - Tall Man
        
        Nice to know what fraser house’s opinion is on this but we all know that ardern postponed her actions until 15 March and I very much doubt it was to celebrate Caesar’s death.
        
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        April 22, 2020 3:53pm
cmm

Reading though the education sector strategies document makes it look like it was prepared more by activists than those interested in facts.

The section on evidence gaps for NZ just talks about impacts on Maori and Pacific Islanders. I fail to understand this:
* Are they a different species? I didn’t think so. Why do they need to be addressed differently? I can understand that perhaps people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds might have different issues but how is that different for different races or different, say, to poor people in UK?
* What about all the other NZ specific issues (eg. different flu seasons etc)?

https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/covid-19_control_measures_to_deliver_covid-19_strategies_education_sector_evidence_review-21apr20.pdf
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April 22, 2020 8:57am
Tony Stuart

Apologies in advance for the length of this post.

These are the words of the question Dr Deborah Russell put to Finance Minister Grant Robertson yesterday at the Epidemic Response Committee hearing. They have been transcribed (not by me) from the video on David Seymour’s Twitter page:

“Yeah, so Minister, moving on from that, I’ve got a series of concerns around small and medium business, and it sort of strikes me, there’s a couple of issues. The first is that we are seeing a number of small businesses really struggling, after only a few weeks in a pretty bad situation, which must speak to the strength of those small businesses going into this lockdown. It worries me that perhaps people went into small business, without really understanding how you might build up a business or capitalise it in the first place so you have the ongoing strength to survive a setback. And I link that in some ways we’ve had quite a low wage economy, so it looks like it might be better being off in business, rather than working for a low wage….”

https://twitter.com/dbseymour/status/1252428378012934145

At the same time as Simon Bridges was suffering a pile-on over his fairly considered comments on Facebook, Dr Russell has come along effectively saying “Hold my chardonnay!”.

Her “question” to Grant Robertson (which was more of a statement) was not only wrong, it was patronising and insulting to the thousands of small business owners who underpin the New Zealand economy.

She describes the L4 lockdown as “a setback”. It’s not Dr Russell. Small business was already struggling with a declining economy, as demonstrated by the December quarter GDP growth figure, where, in what should be the busiest quarter of the year, the economy grew just 0.5%. That’s half the level of the corresponding quarter in 2018.

Many businesses will not survive this “setback”, especially those in the tourism and hospitality sectors, and those who service them. The owners of those businesses will have the trauma of letting valuable staff members, many of whom have become friends, go and of losing everything they’ve invested into their businesses. In many cases, that will be a life’s savings, or even equity in the family home. But hey, it’s just a “setback” to Dr Russell.

As for the notion that people go into business to earn better wages, it might sound good in principle, but for many business owners it’s far from the reality. I know from our own businesses that there are times when we haven’t paid ourselves, because we had to pay the staff first. And Dr Russell’s comments don’t take into account the hours business owners work; on an hourly basis, my wife and I often earn less per hour than most of our staff. A recently-bereaved friend owns an essential business; she is regularly working to well past midnight, because she cannot afford to pay the staff to work extra hours, that’s if she can get the qualified staff her profession requires.

Dr Russell; many small businesses operate right on the margins, and rather than being a “setback”, having to close for five weeks without revenue coming in will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Get out and talk to the small business owners in your electorate, and get the real picture, not your impression, built no doubt of years in the ivory towers of academia, and now the hallowed halls of Parliament.

At least there was merit in the points Simon Bridges was arguing about testing, contact tracing and PPE. Your argument suggests you are completely out of touch with the day to day reality of running a business. No wonder Grant Robertson dismissed it so quickly.
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April 22, 2020 8:59am
- Ruawai
  
  Watching the select committee yesterday it sounds like the Labour ministers see businesses that were marginal before the lockdown as ok to just disappear. But many of these businesses that provided their owner with an average salary also employed other people, paid rent to a landlord, ordered supplies from other businesses and paid taxes, thus keeping the economy moving for a small benefit to the business owner. I think the Labour Govt forgets this.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:09am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Not forgets, the COL doesn’t understand the nature of economic activity in the first place. They expect the State to wholly provide for all. Only the ruling political class superiors will be better rewarded for their faithfulness.
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:58am
- Scott
  
  Tony Stuart – very good comments. When we finally emerge out of this lockdown I will be very interested in how many small businesses will survive? They still have to pay rent, they still have to pay rates, they still have to feed themselves and pay their mortgage.
  
  Also I worry about the ordinary workers. How many of them will have jobs when we finally emerge from this virtual house arrest? I know it is a little bit much to expect the leader of the Labour party to care about the workers, but the fact of the matter is that many of them will not have jobs anymore. For example will those hundreds of workers at Burger King have a job on Tuesday?
  
  Those who run the country will probably have jobs. Those who can work from home will probably be okay. But what about those thousands and thousands of small business owners and labourers and shop assistants et cetera et cetera? Are we heading to another great depression? I hope not. But I have little confidence in our present government to manage the economy with any degree of competence.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:17am
- GT Build
  
  Well said Tony but you have to remember that she is a tax expert so only knows how to take money not create it
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:21am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    Quite so GTB. If Labour is re-elected later in the year, I expect Dr Russell to become Revenue Minister, and given her comments on small business yesterday, that scares the bejesus out of me!
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:49am
- Brian McDonald
  
  Dr Russell if a f wit if she doesn’t understand a great many small businesses run on the smell of an oily rag, have good times and bad. That achievement for some is to ensure the educations of their children, get rid of a mortgage and hopefully have something put away at the point of retirement.
  She is equally a f wit to say that under capitalised small businesses who, like the world, didn’t anticipate the Corona Virus and what would follow from that, are victims of their own misfortune.
  But for all this talk ‘show us (being small businesses) the money’. Some concrete plans based on data that both main parties continue to ignore. Help, where and how, it is needed. There have been 1000s of letters to the Covid Committee, dissect them and get a picture.
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:40am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Dr Russell comes from a privileged background..
    Dr Russell seems never to have worked in the business world (ex public servant).
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12177106
    
    I don’t think she is a f.wit; I just think she hasn’t a bloody clue as to how working-class folks make do.
    
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    April 22, 2020 1:43pm
- Apteryx
  
  Genuine question. How much coverage does the work of this committee get on Stuff or the NZ Herald? It seems that very important issues are being grappled with, but there’s very little reporting of it. Linking to live coverage isn’t reporting; most people don’t have the time or inclination to watch this three days per week.
  
  OK, Russell’s remarks have now got onto Newshub. I see that RNZ has summarised a session. But actual reporting? In the two main newspapers? Why not?
  
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  April 22, 2020 12:58pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Why not?
    
    Because the hearings are recording a Litany of lost opportunities, abject failures, and massive muck-ups.
    
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    April 22, 2020 1:52pm
Justitia

I know this may not be popular but I think National need new leadership going into the election. I’ve appreciated Simon Bridges’ inquisitorial skills in the Epidemic Response Community but he can’t communicate effectively with the wider electorate. It’s not a question of accent, it’s also timing.

So my dream-team for National this election is Amy Adams and Matt King. Amy is an Auckland metro liberal, slightly wet, but highly personable and possessing good communication skills. Matt is a hard working, solid farmer-businessman and ex Police officer from the regions who isn’t afraid to ask tough questions. I think together they would pull it off.
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April 22, 2020 9:06am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Keep dreaming Justitia. Amy Adams has already announced she is retiring as an MP at the election, and a new candidate has already been selected for the Selwyn electorate.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:52am
  - Justitia
    
    Apologies, lockdown delirum: I meant Nikki Kaye who is the Member for Auckland Central.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:06am
    - Bobba Fret
      
      You are still dreaming. No matter who is National party leader would be between a rock and a hard place. Simon is doing ok under the circumstances as you are not allowed to question or criticise this government.
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:37am
    - Martin Williams
      
      That’s how memorable both Adams and Kaye are.
      
      I like Nikki Kaye though, just think she’s in the wrong party. She’d be welcome in the Labour Party I expect and would fit right in.
      
      Also a chance to boost her profile because she’d get a lot more opportunity there.
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:46am
    - Tony Stuart
      
      I also think it’s far too soon to talk about Matt King as a potential leadership team option. His priority this year is to retain Northland, even if Labour and NZF conspire against him. He needs to focus on that, then he can be looked at for some form of elevation.
      
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      April 22, 2020 10:51am
- Justitia
  
  Corrigendum: for Amy Adams read Nikki Kaye. My bad.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:07am
  - Captain Mainwaring
    
    Sadly, although Nikki Kaye is smart, she’s a lightweight. Just watch how the bully Mallard treats her.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:40am
- rererangihirihiri
  
  Don’t you mean Mark Mitchell?
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:16am
I remember when

#left:too
There is certainly a lot of effort being put into providing overseas media with content for articles of high praise for the PM. H1 an organizer?
Paul Henry finally provided some of the type of questioning needed for several weeks. Governments must never be allowed to go unquestioned. They are US.
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April 22, 2020 9:14am
- tf78
  
  It’s funny but Sky Aussie commentators regularly just laugh at the SLG – they can see right through her. I wish we had a similar channel here for some balance.
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:43am
  - lifesgood
    
    I love watching Sky News it is balm for the soul after the endless buckets of crap our msm deals us. And, yes, they think Jacinda is the biggest joke around. They had a good laugh over the Jacinda cake.
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:58am
BananaLlama

As the damage from the lockdown becomes more apparent expect people who supported the governments decision to attack critics much more vocally and dog pile on anyone who brings to light the governments poor decision making.
They will double down that they had to do this to save lives and the fact that more people will die from the economic fallout than would have died from the virus will be very unwelcome news.
Criticism of the government for not getting their shit together for example around PPE for frontline staff or closing the border to foreign travelers earlier will also be very unwelcome because they need to believe the government has done the right thing or all of the sacrifice will be for nothing.
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April 22, 2020 9:14am
cas

If I was Jacinda I would be buggering off to that world job right now as it’s not going to get any better for her ( i.e the adulation etc) as the economy tanks even more.
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April 22, 2020 9:16am
Andrei

Has anyone else noticed how feminized our State owned TV channel’s News is completely feminized

The only male pressnter is the cuckolded Simon Dallow and apart from that we are confronted by a sea of liberal females babbling away

I can’t watch it anymore
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April 22, 2020 9:22am
- KevO'Brien
  
  Indeed. I can’t tolerate it either. Awful voices and I suspect compressed too.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:01am
  - calendar girl
    
    …. and most of them invariably calling us “kiwis”; very unprofessional unless it’s used sparingly.
    
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    April 22, 2020 12:11pm
- BananaLlama
  
  I doubt many males watch state T.V anymore so they change the presenter to suit the audience.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:12am
- Fletch
  
  Yup, and when they show behind the scenes stuff, the camera people, script editors, etc etc are all women. The profession has been completely feminized. Then you have Matty McLean, who is gay, and Jack Tame who is hardly a man’s man.
  
  I think the media needs a real overhaul.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:43am
Lee C

In my opinion, (for what it is worth) the NZLP understand media and how to use it in ways the National Party don’t.

Do you recall where this started? With the Exclusive Brethren pamphlet and the howls of outrage – resulting in ‘Dirty politics’?

They (Hagar and NZLP) essentially cowed national into submission for a generation – hardly daring to whimper for fear of being tagged as ‘Dirty’.

This at the seam time Mike Moore was going to Australia to try and dig dirt on Key, Clark was using tax-cash for ‘pledge cards’ and they changed the law to make their illegality ‘legal’ meanwhile attempting to rort the system in their own favour with the Electoral Finance Act. Claire Curren was taken on by Helen Clark on the strength of a paper she wrote about redefining language to put a positive spin on it. Adern – a communications graduate.

They’ve been doing this for years and make National look like The Keystone Cops by comparison.

If Bridges and his ‘team’ don’t get real, learn how to communicate – they will certainly lose enough votes to render the election a close-run thing – and we all know what that means.
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April 22, 2020 9:23am
- Gravelroad
  
  Hahaha – Lee C- yep, National got really screwed over with that feeble Bretheren fiasco. Came out looking like amateurs.
  Since then, we have had a Prime Minister whose family background could be described as being influenced (in a “kind way”) by a non-mainstream, door knocking religion – Mormonism.
  No worries. Who cares – not newsworthy at all to our msm.
  Bretheren suspiciously weird and most likely nutters – albeit hard working wealthy ones.
  Mormons – not weird at all.
  Should I wait for a visit from the Police re hate speech?
  PS quiet a few years ago, while on holiday, we made the mistake of entering a Mormon history and information centre in Utah, USA.
  They bailed us up and wanted to know all about us, where we came from, all our family names etc. Wanted to put us on a list so that church members could visit us when we got home to “enlighten us”.
  We ran.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:39am
  - PhilBest
    
    If you get an email with the subject “Ding Dong”, don’t open it, it’s Mormons working from home….
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:14am
    - tf78
      
      I loved that skit on the “Book Club/Store” Show when the Mormons knocked at the door, when they were let in they didn’t know what to say because no one had ever invited them in before.
      
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      April 22, 2020 11:46am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Mike Williams….not Mike Moore.
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:14am
Dave Mann

The other day I posted on another blog that I had come to the conclusion that the Chinese Communist Party had subjected the world to a biological warfare attack.

I think this is only part of the story because (amongst other things) it seems too obvious that it originated in China, so although they probably didn’t release it purposely, they were more than happy to use this virus to their advantage once it had escaped into the world.

Thinking about this, an even more terrifying scenario presents itself: namely a viral attack on humanity by Artificial intelligence (AI).

Think about this. Biolabs all over the world are totally dependent on ‘smart’ technology, from centrifuges, gene splicing, sample analysis etc right down to the physical safety barriers such as negative pressure areas and airlock doors.

What’s more, guess how these so-called ‘experts’ make all their clever wildly differing fake predictions? That’s right – with computers, all linked through the worldwide neural network of the internet. And who is throwing up all these fancy modelling results predicting all kinds of ghastly scenarios on an hourly basis? Again, AI.

I think AI is just getting started on us. It successfully created and released this thing on the human race and it has driven almost the whole world into desperate survival mode within a few short months by feeding our paranoia and fear. In a month or two it will probably ‘save’ us and everyone will breathe huge sighs of relief – by which time we’ll all have chips inserted up our arses and our every move and thought will be monitored. If anybody starts misbehaving or questioning, Mr AI will release another one – and so on until we’ll all be slaves.

The ‘good’ news is that if we behave ourselves, our new master(s) will probably let us survive until we die out naturally through sheer lack of the reproductive urge and fear of the future.

Welcome to the end of humanity as we know it – unless we wake up as a species PDQ.
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April 22, 2020 9:23am
UrbanNeocolonialist

Another example of a country doing it better than NZ, Iceland:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Iceland
They’ve had the same number of infections as NZ, and equivalent of level 2-3 lockdown, and yet are getting close to zero new cases. However they did do proper border quarantine in late March and tracking app in early March.

Showing again that Labour has fucked up hugely with expensive lockdown and failure to do cheaper things in a timely manner that would have saved that unecessary cost. If a country of 360k can organise such stuff with a much smaller civil service to figure details then why can’t a country of 5 million?
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April 22, 2020 9:27am
- PhilBest
  
  All the low population density States in the USA are doing well too, Wyoming, North Dakota, Colorado. Note that being in the northern hemisphere is a disadvantage over the last few months.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:17am
Maggie Pie

For a moment there, i thort it was ……never mind.

Maybe a relation?

https://twitter.com/chicagotribune/status/1252603492960698370
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April 22, 2020 9:30am
- cmm
  
  Dr Fauci says hooking up with random people on Tindr is fine….
  
  But going to work and sitting fully clothed in your cube? Nope. Bad.
  
  What???
  
  https://nypost.com/2020/04/15/fauci-endorses-tinder-hookups-with-a-caveat/
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:45am
- Tall Man
  
  And a parent?
  
  https://lobsterbush.com/vintagewwf/singles2/redrooster1.jpg
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:52am
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Love innuendo 😛
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:47am
Odakyu-sen

If the electorate develops Stockholm Syndrome due to all the confinement, Labour will take the next election with an overall majority of seats.
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April 22, 2020 9:31am
- The Proper Ghandi
  
  I think it could go the other way, Odakyu-sen. The most affected will be the small business owner, and many of those could be Labour voters.
  
  The ‘big guys’ would typically vote National anyway. This is so unprecedented that I cannot see Nat voters changing their voting patterns, however I do see Labour voters going the other way.
  
  Some perennial Labourites are/were such because the economy was good enough to vote on a non-business basis. When it turns to shit, they may swallow a rat and go with the adults in the room. A state of pecuniary makes people rethink ideological principles.
  
  I see ACT getting a large upsurge in votes, and National doing even better than they did in 2017.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:08am
- Tall Man
  
  So what you are saying that it would take mass mental illness for labour to be re elected.
  
  I can see that 😉
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:16am
- tf78
  
  Odakyu-sen, I think that you are so right there is definitely brainwashing going on.
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:49am
The Proper Ghandi

DON’T back down, and DON’T apologise, Simon! It is a positive to get some sections of society in a knicker-twisted fit. You speak for the silent majority who have less of a voice at this moment. We want to avoid an utter economic disaster, because it is clear we will not see a public health disaster.

Bridges and Seymour were both excellent on the Committee yesterday. They exposed, particularly Stuart “what I will say is…” Nash, and the useless Willie Jackson – Seymour “wished more Ministers were like him,” a comment that was lost on Jackson.

Bridges, Seymour and then McLay managed to expose Nash and Jackson as not having any data on which to base their extension of Level 4. Just “beliefs.” The illegal road blocking in some areas was seen to be the cops just letting some people do what they want, regardless of what the law is. Nash didn’t have an answer.

We should all encourage people to watch these committee sittings – many of the Government have looked utterly shambolic, unprepared and uninformed with anything approaching actual data and analysis.
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April 22, 2020 9:39am
- Philview
  
  Labour can’t promise a Crown-Iwi Sovereign Partnership then turn around and saw Iwi have to comply with Crown laws. I am just pointing out the dangers of where Labour is taking the country.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:24am
YesMinister

Things are not bleak for National, but the biggest mistake they could possibly make would be to win the next election. Jacinda needs to be the face of the fallout.

And I also actually don’t think Bridges is doing anything wrong. Yes, he’s being mocked now. But in six months, and over the following three years, he’s going to have an awful lot of “I told you so” capital building up. The more they mock him now, the more powerful that moment is.

Make no mistake, Jacinda just destroyed the economy and everybody applauded. All the clapping loonies and Jacinda herself need to be there when it collapses. Labour needs to be the face of the overreaction heard around the world. She needs to be the one businesses tell to sod off when she wants their tax. She needs to be the one the people turn on when the lines for bread aren’t just because of an overreaction to a virus with a vanishingly small actual death rate.

National and Bridges would be much better served by losing the next election. Austerity is coming, and if they’re stupid enough to pick up that grenade and try to govern with it, then that’s on them. Winning the next election means nothing but becoming the face of Jacinda’s inevitable consequences.
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April 22, 2020 9:41am
- Philview
  
  I disagree about the election bit. This crisis is Mana from Heaven for Labour. They will be looking to implement their 2017 manifesto on workplace reform and have State/Union/Iwi control of every industry. Decriminalise all drugs, Iwi run prisons, significant new taxes. There will be those Hate Speech laws. Those school reforms will be back on the table. The scenarios are frightening.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:19am
  - MT_Tinman
    
    Spot on Phil.
    
    If indeed there is another genuine election, a win for the CoL or any of it’s components will assure there is never another free election in New Zealand until some sort of armed rebellion.
    
    I suspect that rebellion will only be sparked by New Zealand becoming the Venezuela of the Pacific; something inevitable if the CoL does retain power.
    
    For this reason National must not just try to, but actually, win the next election and then do what National does so well.
    
    Introduce austerity.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:43am
- The Proper Ghandi
  
  I have to disagree. Get the reigns as fast as possible. Yes, it will be bad, but you know what – the situation will provide a “nine years of neglect” refrain on steroids. Nobody really believes that rhetoric, but they will believe that it was the CoL who have steered us in a dire direction. None of it will be National’s fault – they were in opposition.
  
  If you think them getting us into this mess was bad, imagine what the Labourites will do to ‘”fix” it if given another three years.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:19am
- rererangihirihiri
  
  I agree. National would do well to sit out the next term. I don’t believe Cindy has the stones to go the distance let-a-lone the grey matter.
  It’s going to be a train wreck of galactic proportions & not just on these fair shores. In fact I believe I can hear a few creaking spokes as I muse.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:54am
  - Ian Hawthorn
    
    I don’t fancy living in a country which is a train wreck of galactic proportions.
    
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    April 22, 2020 12:32pm
Tauhei Notts

One huge advantage of internet advertising is that one can target the intended recipients of those internet advertisements.
I will endeavour to change my style of writing when placing a post on this site, as I note that my first entry onto this site each morning comes up with an advertisement for “period panties”.
Some of my posts on this site might possibly have suggested that I have been suffering from pre-menstrual tension. My wife of 42 years says that I exhibit symptoms of PMT after I have listened to left wing shit on RNZ National.
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April 22, 2020 9:42am
- Mark Craig
  
  Heh that had me splutter and spill my first drink of the day into my keyboard.I feel the same after I listen to the right wing dribbledicks on the media as well,so touche.
  
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  April 22, 2020 2:08pm
Odakyu-sen

With crude oil prices and exchange rates pretty much the same as 20 years ago, I guess increased taxes are why 91 petrol is $1.95 today instead of $0.95 a liter as it used to be.
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April 22, 2020 9:43am
- Bobba Fret
  
  I haven’t bought petrol for about five weeks now and was wondering what the percentage of tax is now that petrol price has reduced. Only the GST has reduced regarding the taxes.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:41am
- Mark Craig
  
  Actually Mr Notts you come across as more of a menopausal old biddy.
  
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  April 22, 2020 2:22pm
Grant

This turned up in my FB feed just now, and it was accompanied by a truly cringe making drawing of the poem’s subject.
I couldn’t read it all – I got as far as the line about her “calloused hands”, and then I needed a bucket.

I wonder if the author has seen this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfQU1zU3K08

G

BE CIND ?

As Summer waned and Autumn loos’d,
lightly tethered leaves,
A hemis-fear away families blanched,
and all-together grieved.

Bands of whistling, darkening clouds,
chimed in with bell-vire’ towers,
And squalled upon our sacred shores,
their deadly Covid showers.

Harken! Forced to act and act with force,
stepped-up our stately queen,
Her A-team laboured as surgeons might,
in a patient’s dream.

Locked-down, not out, our nation true arose,
to smote the viral foe,
E-sent workers, checkpoint heroes, all of us,
battled toe-to-toe.

‘Tihei mauri ora!’ encored high-up ancient folk,
a’bow in Matariki,
‘Toia mai! Toia mai!’ rejoined our captain queen,
with wiri feathered tiki.

O! As Maui had once pulled and fought,
to bare for us our lands,
So a’same our nation pulling taut was hauled,
by Jacinda Ardern’s calloused hands.

Many lives were saved and others cared a’not,
as our strategy evolved,
Vigilance with contact tracing, upped in rank,
For those in health were gold.

As wild winds calmed, light flittered, coloured,
with pi-waka amongst our forest trees,
Thoughts turned to thank our selfless leader,
who’d brought us off our knees.

NZ paused a’mome’ upon creative gesture,
of pure variant-word idea,
To capture ‘cind’ [kind] as in her name we see,
O! Our gift to her was clear.

‘Be kind’, her call, as ‘cind’ we immortalise it,
by quill and worded power,
As ‘cind’, our hearts rejoice, her legacy to us,
in our nations darkest hour.
#cindappreciationPM
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April 22, 2020 9:46am
- Tall Man
  
  Obviously someone struggling for relevance.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:45am
- MT_Tinman
  
  Have you reported this to the Indecent Publications Tribunal?
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:45am
Greg Ettridge

Chief health officer in Victoria stated if they hadn’t taken the action they had, 30,000 could have died.
Lets see how many we would infected to achieve this.
So on these figures, Victoria would need around
300,000 infections to get to anywhere near this figure if we look at worst scenarios in Europe.
Victoria infections were falling before the lockdown occurred.
These people talk absolute garbage and don’t actually think through what they are stating.
Sad thing is the Journalists let it all go through to the keeper.
He is even totally exaggerating if you take all of Australia’s infections and deaths.
Currently total cases 6,645 , deaths 71.
to get to 30,000 deaths would take around 2.8 around million infections, go figure.
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April 22, 2020 9:53am
- Tall Man
  
  Obviously on the same “medication” as ardern.
  
  A mate had surgery last week and prior he had to be “emptied out”…… Perhaps ardern needs a bit of that “medication” for the benefit of us rather than her.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:22am
- Libertarians are right
  
  The problem with these liars is that they are comparing it to no measures (not even social distancing & tracing etc). No one advocated that. Jacinda’s fans are doing the same, pretending she’s saved thousands of lives and ignoring the fact that we’re still in lockdown because the Government haven’t done the work to prepare us to come out.
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:10am
curry4me

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2020/04/20/hollywood-has-9-billion-reasons-to-not-blame-china-for-the-coronavirus-pandemic/

Harveywood loves China because it desperately needs their money.
A lot of westerners don’t bother with movies. China only allows 38 foreign films a year.
So no Harveywood movies have material that is likely to ‘offend’ Chinese censors.
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April 22, 2020 9:55am
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4lKS75V8Nc
Web portal for job retention is open and working.
No failures. The Tory government got it right. Done from scratch.
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April 22, 2020 9:55am
Tall Man

My son in Queensland received an email from their association advising that the “restrictions” in place were being reduced so more procedures could be done.

No press conference required just an email.

Obviously their politicians have no idea how to milk a crisis …. shame on them.
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April 22, 2020 10:04am
Philview

Interesting recent ommissions by the NZ media.
1) Reports on the street protests in Colorado didn’t mention that most businesses have been forced to shut but there is an exemption for marijuanah stores. Hence part of the reason business owners and community are upset.
2) There are significant riots going on in Paris.
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April 22, 2020 10:11am
- Tall Man
  
  No one carrying an “I love cindy” banner so no point reporting it here I suppose.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:38am
- MCos
  
  Rioting in Paris isn’t news.
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:08am
Maggy Wassilieff

Turning into the Epidemic enquiry now..

Dr Kate Baddock, Chair NZ Medical Association, has confirmed no Cancer screening has been carried out during the pandemic…

she labels the Flu Vaccine roll-out as a debacle, a total disaster…her practice hasn’t been able to get a steady supply of vaccine.

GPs cannot get their patients seen in outpatients’ clinics in Hospitals.
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April 22, 2020 10:17am
- Tall Man
  
  Don’t expect to see that in the media anytime soon.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:34am
  - MCos
    
    She was interviewed on RNZ at the end of last month https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018740719/have-flu-vaccination-distribution-problems-been-fixed
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:06am
    - Tall Man
      
      And yet the problem continues it would seem.
      
      I guess the “interview” didn’t fix the problem … weird.
      
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      April 22, 2020 12:05pm
      - cmm
        
        It depends on what you mean by “the problem”.
        
        Actually delivering the vaccines, no not solved.
        
        But, to use parliamentary talk, “addressing the issue” to deflect blame and impress people with “leadership”. Job done.
        
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        April 22, 2020 12:48pm
- cmm
  
  Those outpatient clinics are shut, and have been for the whole of the shutdown.
  
  Those clinics operate at full capacity, so there is no margin for “catching up” after they open again. Instead the testing threshold will have to be changed so that many cases are just dumped.
  
  This was all done to reprioritise the medical system to serving an overflow of Covid patients. But none came. Canterbury DHB has had zero Covid patients over 90% of the time. Still, everything is shut down waiting for Covid customers.
  
  I was lined up for some tests on 20th. Cancelled.
  
  I am having a flu jab this year for the first time in my life. My appointment has been bumped twice due to lack of vaccines.
  
  Shambolic springs to mind.
  
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  April 22, 2020 10:35am
  - MT_Tinman
    
    Serious question: What’s the use of getting a “flu” jab if a vaccine for the latest “flu” is not included?
    
    6 5
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    April 22, 2020 10:48am
    - cmm
      
      Well clearly they can’t cover the new flus because the vaccines have not been developed yet.
      
      The current flu jab contains vaccines for at least 4 different variants.
      There is still H1N1 etc out there and those can still happen.
      
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      April 22, 2020 12:51pm
  - Tall Man
    
    “Shambolic springs to mind.”
    
    You’re too kind.
    
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    April 22, 2020 10:57am
  - Andrei
    
    Lady across the road was moved to a rest home, for her own good. at the beginning of the lockdown
    
    Died last night, probably of despair
    
    17 1
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    April 22, 2020 11:13am
    - Evadne
      
      That is sad. Massive changes, like moving, and big changes to routine are very stressful for the frail elderly. Add to that the anxiety from the media hysteria, combined with unfamiliarity with her surroundings.
      
      Unfortunately, not a unique story.
      
      She is just one of the invisible victims of this covid panic.
      
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      April 22, 2020 12:05pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Hubby’s appointment at Eye clinic outpatients was cancelled for April 16th.
    
    He was rung by the Clinic that morning and must have expressed his fear that he would lose his sight if treatment was delayed. Following morning he was rung again and given an appointment for Monday 20th.
    
    His condition had stabilised.. and just getting that confirmation has been a great relief.
    
    Whereas some folks can put off their treatment for a couple of weeks without too many problems, delays in treatments for 8-10 weeks are likely to lead to more serious outcomes.
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:40am
rererangihirihiri

Fuel prices have dipped below a buck at the pump in Aus and continue to slide.
If that was NZ then the servos would be moving the stuff for free with the dollar plus whatever per litre going to the poo skins helming this sinking ship in Wellington.
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April 22, 2020 10:39am
RW Capitalist

“Another do as we say, not as we do 21 April 2020 ”
article reminded me of my wife’s visit to the hospital.
Not only were there more security guards than nurses.
Just like the police, the hospital cafe and canteen were open. Limited service, but open and charging customers.
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April 22, 2020 10:42am
Prisoner in Cindy's Kindy

Beautiful morning on the North Shore. Lots of people on Takapuna Beach.

Some knee deep in water having fun.

I’m gonna tell teacher on them.
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April 22, 2020 10:47am
- emmess
  
  Love the name?????
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:57am
  - All_on_Red
    
    Jacinda Jail
    
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    April 22, 2020 2:12pm
- Ruahine
  
  My builder neighbour has just remarked another wasted bloody day.
  
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  April 22, 2020 1:01pm
kiwiracer

Incompetent is the word I’d use.
I’ve just watched the rest home assoc guy on the committee live feed.
The propaganda coming out of the government and MSM is utter BS.
No wonder they are trying to divert attention to Bridges.
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April 22, 2020 11:06am
- Littletramp
  
  The guy from the pharmacy guild was equally as enlightening (and one sneeze away from breaking down emotionally through frustration). Just disgraceful that they have not yet been allowed a hearing with either the Minister of Health or the Director of Health . These guys own/run the chemists, in a time of a world pandemic. Staggering.
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:49am
Maggie Pie

My partner is sooo looking forward to the cell door swinging open at 11:59pm on Monday.

He’s already decided he’ll immediately drive to KFC in Quay Street and hopefully be first in the queue for Tuesday morning.
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April 22, 2020 11:13am
- Fletch
  
  Did you try those Tegel Louisiana Style Take-Outs?
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:18am
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Where do you get those Fletch? They sound delish…..
    
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    April 22, 2020 11:38am
    - Fletch
      
      Maggie, any supermarket. People on Facebook are saying they are very, very close to KFC.
      
      https://www.tegel.co.nz/products/tegel-take-outs-louisiana-style-portions-1kg/
      
      It has to be the “portions”. There’s also a very similar looking packet called “tenders” but they are boneless, I think.
      
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      April 22, 2020 12:18pm
- niggly
  
  Imagine the queues lining up hours before hand!
  
  (I recall counting about 40 cars queuing up to a BK drivethru on the evening of the lockdown)!
  
  But will the Police be manning roadblocks preventing citizens driving to what will technically still be a “non-essential” business??!!
  
  Can Minister Nash give a straight answer to this question please!!??
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:21am
- niggly
  
  Spare a thought for those poor souls who braved the KFC drivethru queues and are now driving back home with their treasure thru “Hone” territory and their roadblocks … will ~~confiscation~~ koha be expected?
  
  What does Police Minister Nash say to the citizens about this? 😉
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:31am
Surely Knott

For comparison: Sydney Morning Herald . Another day without a picture of Scott Morrison on the cover. Tops stories include international news about Sweden, Italy’s Us responses, Trump immigration ban, and Asia’s second wave. Science of coronavirus in the air. The possible origin of coronavirus. Queensland coronavirus update, queensland tracking app article, and a testing article. No pics of their prime minister.. No party political opinion pieces on their opposition.
I do not believe there has been a Herald paper this month where our leader has not been the feature picture for the front page story and often at least two pictures or more of her on the front page every day for the last month.
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April 22, 2020 11:15am
- Philview
  
  I read an article on a UK site by an Australian called Terry Barnes. He said “Scott Morrison as national leader during a crisis dwarfing even Australia’s bushfire disasters of just months ago has been a revelation”.
  
  You wouldn’t have thought that from the NZ media’s constant criticism of the same man.
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:52am
  - PhilBest
    
    An approximately similar death rate to here, with only half as extreme lockdown – heresy!!
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:40pm
- Tall Man
  
  As I posted earlier, my son got an email letting him know the new operating instructions for his industry in Queensland. No big poser on the telly, just an email.
  
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  April 22, 2020 12:00pm
Fletch

I would hate to be the surgeon who didn’t save Kim Jong-Un right now….
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April 22, 2020 11:17am
- Poppa
  
  Poor little Rocket Man, I wonder if he has visitors?
  
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  April 22, 2020 12:49pm
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  Covid might be a good assassination tool – hard to trace. I imagine that most North Koreans want Un dead.
  
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  April 22, 2020 2:25pm
I remember when

How many empty sports stadiums (indoor) around the country could have been set up by our armed forces (remember it is a war) as hospital WARDS?
Or why wasn’t part of a hospital set up as an isolation area allowing the rest to operate as near to normal as possible. Temperature testing area before being allow to enter.
How many of the NZ positive covid-19 may have been stopped at border if we had done this.
No-one has really asked why that didn’t happen. Organisation or perhaps savings costs.
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April 22, 2020 11:23am
oldfella

Is Cindy setting us up for a hard fall? (US website.)
https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2020/04/21/new-zealand-setting-hard-fall/
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April 22, 2020 11:26am
- Tall Man
  
  She hasn’t got a clue what’s may or may not be coming.
  
  For ardern, it’s all about her and her future, not ours or our country’s.
  
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  April 22, 2020 11:59am
  - cmm
    
    We’re just an annoying stepping stone to the real goal.
    
    #CinD4UN!
    
    It’s not just our media rooting for her either. Just had an email from a colleague in USA telling me how impressive our PM is and how her leadership has saved us form CV19.
    
    Having Her in the UN top spot would be awfully convenient for some people.
    
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    April 22, 2020 1:07pm
Critical Thinker

“You can take off the mask, the case fatality rate is 0.1 to 0.3 according to USC.”
– White House correspondent John Roberts caught on a hot mic at the press briefing yesterday ?

https://www.mediaite.com/news/white-house-hot-mic-catches-someone-joking-with-foxs-john-roberts-weve-all-been-vaccinated-around-here/
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April 22, 2020 11:30am
Suze Wainwright

Oh wow! I’ve just checked my diary and it’s the Mother of the Nation’s 40th on 26 July – has anyone checked with the MSM to see what kind of party is being arranged?

Public Holiday maybe?
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April 22, 2020 11:39am
- All_on_Red
  
  I’m building a Shrine
  Scented candles and everything.
  The kids are painting icons.
  She’s just so so amaze balls
  //
  
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  April 22, 2020 1:23pm
Woz

It’s interesting, perhaps even encouraging, to see that the Bomber is getting stuck into the reprehensible Deborah Russell on Twitter. Even he is aghast at her comments on small businesses. He isn’t mincing his words, either.
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April 22, 2020 11:50am
Tall Man

“Out of the 100 most recent comments on the post at the time of viewing it, Newshub found that four were in favour of the Opposition leader’s remarks while 96 were opposed. ”

This is the level of “journalism” at newshub.

Looks like we don’t even need an election now, 96 people have spoken, all heil the bots!
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April 22, 2020 11:51am
I remember when

This is war.
In NZ against those who don’t agree with Jacinda. It seems to be as much about gender as disease.
In Britain it’s against Boris and how silly his open border policy was.
In USA it’s against Trump and whatever he does.
It’s against China because it started there and we don’t like the domination of world trade they are starting to exercise.
It’s against Sweden because they might show that the rest of us got it wrong.
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April 22, 2020 11:56am
cmm

WHO still peddling the Chinese line trying to get the lab off the hook:

“All available evidence suggests the virus has an animal origin and is not manipulated or constructed in a lab or somewhere else,”

They’re being clever with words.

Even if it does have an animal origin that does not get the lab off the hook. The lab was working with different viruses from different animals – including bats. If that virus leaked out of the lab due to a biosecurity failure then it:
* Would be of animal origin
-and-
* Would have come from the lab.

Interestingly: “She did not respond to a request to elaborate on whether it was possible the virus may have inadvertently escaped from a lab.”

This is the most likely scenario and they refuse to answer that.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/121179925/coronavirus-likely-of-animal-origin-not-made-in-a-lab-who

The sooner WHO flush out their toxic political advocacy the better. Same for UN, IMF etc. Health seems to be secondary to what WHO does.

Perhaps it is too late and these organisations need to crash and burn.
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April 22, 2020 12:13pm
- rangitoto
  
  I’m referring to it as the Wuhan lab flu until plausible contradictory evidence is presented.
  
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  April 22, 2020 12:58pm
Wired-one

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12326575

Lead story on the Herald right now! Robertson accusing Bridges and National of “politicizing a pandemic”. Oh the bloody irony and hypocrisy in that! Our media are a disgrace.
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April 22, 2020 12:28pm
- emmess
  
  I watched that clip of Deborah Russell further down the story
  The arrogance of that woman was unbelievable
  
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  April 22, 2020 12:55pm
- Libertarians are right
  
  This is the same Robertson who attacked National when he announced the initial support package and tried to push Keynsian Economics which are not relevant in today’s world?
  The same Robertson who said he’s going to take the opportunity of rebuilding our economy to fix inequality?
  
  He’s politicising it more than anyone else (other than Jacinda who delayed our response so she could have her March 15th get together).
  
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  April 22, 2020 2:31pm
surfing

“The principal of Jacinda Ardern’s former college has criticised the decision that allows some students back to school next week, telling parents their children can die from the virus”

Technically true, in the same way that saying your kids can be killed on the way to school or could drown if they go swimming.

But given current covid-19 infection stats, children are probably more likely to die in a car accident on the way to school than from covid-19.

This principle needs to engage the same critical thinking skills that he tries to encourage in his students.
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April 22, 2020 12:34pm
- Surely Knott
  
  The media has been hard at work trying to scaremonger us that the risk to young people is serious and they can die and spread it to vulnerable elderly. So it’s funny watching them try to now backpedal and say that now Children don’t die and don’t spread it because actually they want them back in school so they can get the nation back to work. NZ Herald, “Infant under 1 youngest person to die…”, “Britains youngest victim dies alone”, “Europe’s youngest coronavirus death: Man aged 21 dies” Stuff, “Coronavirus: Young Brit with no pre-exisiting conditons dies” “Coronavirus: Younger people critically ill in Australian hospitals”
  
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  April 22, 2020 1:16pm
- krazykiwi
  
  His students are more likely to be abducted by aliens than they are to die from Covid-19.
  
  How the hell can someone with such a tenuous grasp on reality be permitted to ‘lead’ our children?
  
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  April 22, 2020 4:40pm
Local Miller

In all the comments about the Covid-19 virus, I have never seen anyone talk about the nature of viruses in general and how the “behave” WRT morbidity vs contagion.
A basic fact regarding viruses, based on their evolution is that they are either highly dangerous (high morbidity) OR highly contagious, but essentially never both. The basis for this is that a virus that is both highly contagious and has a high morbidity kills so many of it’s hosts that it isn’t viable long term, and so becomes the source of it’s own demise.
The virus causing COVID-19 appears to be (based on the data we now have) fairly contagious, but as a result cannot have a high morbidity.
Even before our glorious leader decided to lock us all up for 4 or more weeks, there was enough information available to have assessed the morbidity/contagion ratio, and that the majority of deaths were related to co-morbid conditions. Based on this a far better action than the lock down would have been to encourage “disciplined social distancing” for high risk people (elderly, sick, disabled, diabetic, etc.) and the use of masks for these and their carers, and some level of social distancing for others. Combined with a MUCH EARLIER lockdown of our boarders to stop new carriers entering the country. While the total number of cases may have been higher, the number of deaths would not have changed significantly, and the level of herd immunity would be much higher.
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April 22, 2020 12:38pm
Wired-one

This next election is arguably the most crucial election for the direction of the country in the last thirty years. The media have determined that they dont want Bridges to win and will not allow that to happen. So the question is, because Simon is sadly unelectable, who would Labour and Ardern not want to campaign against this election. In my mind there are only two candidates Nikki Kaye and Judith Collins. I would make Kaye leader and Judith her fiery in Labours face deputy. Kaye has consistently beaten Ardern, is well liked by the media and is young and fresh. We cant keep denying this, Simon cannot win the next election. Come on people we all know it. Time to step down Simon and swallow some pride like Little did. Thoughts?
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April 22, 2020 12:53pm
- doggone7
  
  What are the contexts of Kaye has consistently beating Ardern?
  
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  April 22, 2020 1:37pm
  - kiwiracer
    
    Auckland Central, every election they contested against each other
    
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    April 22, 2020 1:56pm
  - All_on_Red
    
    Auckland Central Election
    
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    April 22, 2020 2:09pm
- Wired-one
  
  I’m not trying to troll I’m as blue as they come, and its painfully obvious Simon cant win. Dont just downtick give us your views, if you think he can win. I DO NOT want another term of these inept fools, who absolutely do not deserve it, should not get it and who will be able to enact far left socialist policy and cripple the hard working contributors to this country, all under the cover of this bs pandemic. That’s what is about to happen if we dont change the government. It’s time to step up and win this election. State your case.
  
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  April 22, 2020 2:55pm
- rockape
  
  Well the cucus elected him in the face of other candidates with more prence and experience than most in the party. Like for example Joyce who would have been my first choice and Adams who would have been my second. Neither are now in the competition. If I was Dictator in Chief I would ask key, to come back with English and Joyce to come back to manage the crisis. Beg them just to do it for NZ and for just 3 years. Sadly Iam just a party member not Dictator in Chief
  
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  April 22, 2020 4:29pm
LetMeOut

There once was a PM called Cindy
Who jumped on a viral calamidy
To lock us all down
Cause small business to drown
And wipe billions off our economy
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April 22, 2020 12:54pm
MrTips

15 years ago, Helen Clark was telling us we should be more like Sweden.

Now, her protege, Socialist Cindy, is telling us that Sweden can’t be trusted.

Funny how the story changes.
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April 22, 2020 1:02pm
Maggie Pie

The NZH reports Police Minister Stuart Nash as describing this lot as…. “Ratbags and renegades”

https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1252477166706733056/strljRrb?format=jpg&name=small

My partner was wondering wot the shinny white boy is doing there?
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April 22, 2020 1:18pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Bloonfield: Pharmac ordered an extra 400000 fluvac doses before the Covid crisis.
Um, does not pass the sniff test.
Ardern: We started vaccinations earlier than normal.
That don’t pass the sniff test either. Many providers did not have it or ran out.
Lies from the left
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April 22, 2020 1:22pm
- MCos
  
  The additional 400,000 shots ordered for this year were based on the higher demand for vaccines last year.
  Normally they are available from 1-April, but this year that was pushed forward a couple of weeks for those more susceptible to flu & back for the rest.
  Your correspondent was inoculated a month ago, no problems.
  
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  April 22, 2020 4:44pm
bruceavon

what happened to David Clark our alleged Health Minister??
They kept him on because he was so essential. But we haven’t seen him since.
Ardern is essentially the health minister too at the moment. Can some journalist please give him a call? ask what the hell he is up to?
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April 22, 2020 1:36pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  He got told to go stand in the corner
  
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  April 22, 2020 1:39pm
  - Swifty
    
    Witless protection.
    
    7 1
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    April 22, 2020 1:58pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    He’s not the messiah, he’s a naughty boy!
    
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    April 22, 2020 2:02pm
- bruceavon
  
  My particular conservative thing is smaller government. Turns out we can get by with a PM and a finance minister. Well. Maybe 12 others. We could reduce parliament by half easily. get rid of half the bureaucrats. No need for the house either. This committee thing is much better.
  
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  April 22, 2020 1:53pm
Critical Thinker

30 million people could very well die of starvation from famines of biblical proportions over the coming months, caused by the world wide lockdowns, due to the China Coronavirus fears. Says the UN World Food Programme ☠️??

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52373888
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April 22, 2020 1:42pm
- burt
  
  Just wait till Trump says he’ll stop funding the UN, then these guys will start reporting even more scary scenarios trying to make themselves look like we need them.
  
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  April 22, 2020 1:54pm
- Ruahine
  
  Something else for the disaster porn industry known as the Media to drool over and insult our intelligence.
  
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  April 22, 2020 5:59pm
burt

I see some more hunters have been arrested for going hunting during lock down. What these people need to understand is that the mistake they made was not having a Labour Party logo on their car in the car park while it was at the road end car park.

Don’t they understand how to avoid prosecution !
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April 22, 2020 1:52pm
- Isobar
  
  You mean the hunters that were found to be illegally on private land without permission from the land-owner?
  
  I dont know about you, but i would not want people hunting on my land without my permission.
  
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  April 22, 2020 2:20pm
Maggie Pie

Roll on next Tuesday 🙁
I’m sooo over hearing about the corona boner.
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April 22, 2020 1:57pm
Swifty

A false COVID test result…..

https://www.liveleak.com/view?t=karFC_1587512112
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April 22, 2020 1:57pm
Poppa

So they report the numbers today….6

But that is another lie, 3 of them were brought in here on charter flights so the govt actually brought them in

So we are in jail when 3 new cases, all connected to clusters is all they can find in over 5000 tests

What the fuck are we doing??
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April 22, 2020 2:07pm
- Nickc2
  
  And at what fucking cost? How much per day is this fiasco costing us FFS? Cindy doesn’t care, its only taxpayer money to her. I doubt she has ever had to personally deal with IRD paperwork, let alone write them a cheque for taxes owed and see that money diminish her bank account.
  
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  April 22, 2020 2:26pm
- MCos
  
  Regarding today’s six confirmed infected people.
  According to the MOH web site five were connected to existing clusters, two of the clusters rest homes and the stag party.
  
  Two people who arrived from South America tested positive last week.
  What’s your problem?
  I somehow doubt they deliberately got crook.
  
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  April 22, 2020 5:27pm
- Alex13
  
  How is your being in jail related to COVID-19 numbers? When were you jailed and what are you doing time for?
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:57pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Hey Jacinda, this is not play school TV1 or CNN. It is OAN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVR1V_twFEU
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April 22, 2020 2:24pm
- rangitoto
  
  She’s good. Why isn’t there anyone in our media like that.
  
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  April 22, 2020 2:54pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Limited with intelligence.
    Labour cock suckers
    
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    April 22, 2020 4:20pm
cmm

Oh, please.

Why should a nurse be let off a speeding fine because she cried?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12326702
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April 22, 2020 3:17pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Crying and shaking. Drama queen. Branded car – prob had a magnetic Labour logo on it.
  Must try that, but it don’t really go with my Trump 2020 and Hillary for prison stickers
  
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  April 22, 2020 3:42pm
  - mikenmildagain
    
    It’s useful for other motorists that your car identifies you as mentally defective.
    
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    April 22, 2020 6:29pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Another immature opinion
      
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      April 23, 2020 10:32am
UrbanNeocolonialist

UK has estimated 100 NHS workers dead from Wuflu, a terrible statistic.

But 1.2million work for NHS, about 2% of UK population, and close to 25000 extra deaths so far during wuflu pandemic so only about 0.4% of deaths are for NHS workers. So average NHS worker has 0.2% risk of average population.
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April 22, 2020 3:44pm
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  Oops 0.2% should have been 20% obviously
  
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  April 22, 2020 4:07pm
- cmm
  
  Ok, first let’s fix that: “UK has estimated 100 NHS workers died with Wuflu”.
  
  Given most deaths are retired oldies on their final lap, it is not really surprising they are lower than the general population. There are very few retired oldies working at the NHS.
  
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  April 22, 2020 7:02pm
Tall Man

Just heard Kiwiblog posts cited as evidence of a coup against Simon Bridges.

Told ya moderation was getting over the top 😉
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April 22, 2020 3:48pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  You will now be punished and sent to the naughty corner.
  There’s only two leftie mods (maybe more) – good balance imo.
  But yes, we know when they are here, and when they are not
  Guess what? Mods use pseudonyms, or none at all, how about that?
  Can I post and sign Mod?
  
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  April 22, 2020 4:28pm
- Mark Craig
  
  Yep short arse that would be me ,having a crack at the lazy fecker Plunkett.He cannot be arsed getting off his arse to read the mood of the most popular wing nut blog in NZ and yet he thinks he still has a handle on what is going on .Pfffft go figure .Any how as I have posited afore ,why should I worry ,it is fecken delightful watching the Gnats crash and burn .
  
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  April 22, 2020 4:58pm
- Maggie Pie
  
  My partner was saying he heard that on Magic as well TM.
  Since being in loch down, he’s never listened to so much daytime talkback. He reckons 90% of the callers are so retarded they can hardly string 2 words together. And the other 10% sound like whinging poms.
  LOL!!
  
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  April 22, 2020 5:52pm
  - cmm
    
    Loch down? They make a good single malt don’t they?
    
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    April 22, 2020 7:03pm
Mark Craig

As a footnote Shortarse do not bring your intellect {A knfe }to a gunfight.
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April 22, 2020 5:01pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  Hi Mark
  I always wondered whether you felt you got a decent enough crack at test cricket.
  
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  April 22, 2020 6:26pm
  - Poppa
    
    Very observant Milky top marks
    
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    April 22, 2020 7:06pm
- MrTips
  
  You know, you and Martin Williams really should get better false names.
  
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  April 22, 2020 7:20pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/121199411/coronavirus-zero-international-arrivals-marks-low-point-for-nz-tourism
What ? I thought that since late March nobody except NZ citizens or residents could enter NZ ?
So what is the problem ?
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April 22, 2020 6:27pm
Mark Craig

No Mikey old boy different fellow.It was an enormous disappointment to discover my skills at cricket did not match my enthusiasm.In fact I still recall painfully barely making the 3b cricket team at MT albert Grammar School in 1967.Surprprisingly no doubt to many of the wingnuts infesting this blog I was an A stream academic student.As I recall the chap Allan Bollard reserve bank governerwas a classmate of mine ,I fear he was in the top 50% me sadly in the bottom 50 %of that august class.May I plead in my defence to lack of academic fervour finding girls. My mother had deserted the family some years before ,so when I came across shall we say nubile females of the species I was buggered.Completley hopelessly and to this day 50 years later motherlessly naked.Specially with my daughter who only has to bat her baby blues at me to have me as a gibbering idiot.
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April 22, 2020 7:23pm
- Swifty
  
  Creepy.
  
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  April 22, 2020 8:49pm
jonnycomelately

An observation… Is the government beginning to renege on it’s early promises of support made with gusto and fanfare 4 weeks ago? Much was made on the Epidemic Response Committee meeting today by the public facing medical folks like doctors, pharmacists & dentists about funding of $22 million that is over two weeks overdue and not mentioned much lately. And on TV one news tonight Phil Twitford seems to be back pedalling as fast as David Clark’s mountain bike ride on Sounds Air financial support out of the $600m Aviation Support package.
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April 22, 2020 7:23pm
[email protected]

Got A phone call from a company that advised us that the government has a grant ($2000 apparently) for any company to utilize its services to help your company navigate its way through this crisis. You authorize the government to pay them and they will advise you how to survive the crisis that this government has caused. From what I could figure, for this $2000 you get to watch 13 hours of online instructions on how to help your company survive.

We’ve been in business for 26 years. How is anyone going to tell us how to run our company?
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April 22, 2020 7:57pm
- Tauhei Notts
  
  Info@cruzpro;
  Could you please provide us with the name of this charlatan.
  
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  April 22, 2020 9:16pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Minister for Small Business Hon Stuart Nash
    
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    April 22, 2020 9:56pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      we are going to provide tailored support services to help businesses weather the storm, at no charge to the business.
      
      “Using established services including the Regional Business Partner Network and the helplines run by the Employers and Manufacturers Association and Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, we can get specialist, tailored advice where it is needed, fast. This could range from human resources advice to business continuity planning to financial management – because every one of these small businesses will have a different need,” Stuart Nash said.
      https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-backs-business-through-covid-19
      
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      April 22, 2020 9:59pm
Gus87

Why has JA not condemned the CCP of destroying our economy and jobs. We should stop the exportation of baby formula for starters, take over control of any Chinese businesses that have ties to the CCP and stop paying debt to them. I do understand that most kiwi businesses are slaves to the CCP and do not have a way out. Does labour support the CCP? Why are we so silent on this issue?
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April 22, 2020 9:26pm
Surely Knott

NZ’s leadership gets even more international media coverage, but the Herald seems to have missed it’s coverage of this one.
“The IMF believes New Zealand will see the biggest fall outside of Europe, except for Venezuela, an economy already in freefall.”
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/the-great-lockdown-shrinks-nz-economy/news-story/7b72feaa9ee224e4c93b61e744576cb2?fbclid=IwAR3ilj-pNS3xvRlBjigt_ToNG2gvOL8_0jh-JuT9q5g4I5P2r_0JcNH9M_M
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April 23, 2020 5:07pm

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