Stuff reports:

Wellington City councillor Fleur Fitzsimons is bowing out of local body politics but is not ruling out running for Parliament.

“I have done five years and there have been highs and lows,” she said on Tuesday, as she announced she would not stand for council again in local body elections later in 2022.

Fleur is, like me, a political animal. The only reason she would quite Council after two terms is because of the chance to stand for Parliament.

But she is doing the right thing. Far better to not stand again for Council because she is interested in Parliament, than stand again in October and cause a by-election a year later if she becomes an MP.

Rumours around Wellington have long circulated that Fitzsimons was considering running on a Labour ticket in the Rongotai ward in the next general election.

On Tuesday, she said she was not ruling this out, but would need to discuss it with current Labour MP – and former Wellington deputy mayor – Paul Eagle.

The fact Fleur is retiring off Council, is an incredibly strong indicator that Paul Eagle will stand for Mayor.

This isn’t a bad thing. Paul may be in Labour, but when he was on WCC he showed a real ability to work constructively with people from across the political spectrum. And Wellington needs a Council that can work together, as opposed to the chaos of the last few years under Lester and Foster.

Councillor Nicola Young – politically to the right of the Fitzsimons – was someone she now considered a friend.

“I have found her to be someone really committed to Wellington,” she said.

This shows you can disagree on politics, but still work well together. Nicola is very good at working constructively on issues.

Molly Codyre writes in The Independent:

It’s been nearly two years since New Zealand essentially closed its borders with the introduction of the Managed Isolation and Quarantine system. Two years since the option to go home – a human right, and a lifeline for expats – was ripped away from most Kiwis. Jacinda Ardern spent press conferences referring to those back home as the “team of five million” and urging people to “be kind”, while the one million New Zealanders who live overseas looked on in desperation, the message clear: you are not welcome here. …

The Facebook group Grounded Kiwis recently obtained government data under the Official Information Act outlining how many emergency allocation spots had been approved in the period 1 July 2021 to 6 September 2021: just 7 per cent of applications for those suffering the death of a close relative were approved; only 10 per cent of people with a terminal illness themselves were allowed to go home. 

Think about that. Only 7% of those who had a close relative due were given MIQ priority. Only 10% of those with a terminal illness were given MIQ priority. That is inhumane.

For the second Christmas in a row, just four of our five family members will be able to be together. This time, I’m the odd one out. The concept of hugging them all in February was getting me through. Now I just feel spent. I’m sick of shouting about how angry I am, I’m sick of writing articles and letters and telling the devastating stories of those who have been locked out of their country for months and years. I’m sick of watching athletes, pop stars and international DJs get coveted spaces over the average citizen.

DJs and pop stars just waltz into and out of MIQ on demand, while people who are dying can’t get in. The priorities of the Government are really fucked up.

Graham Adams writes:

When the Prime Minister claimed in her first term that her government was going to be “transformational” many voters took her seriously — until it became apparent she was unlikely to transform anything much, whether it was unaffordable housing or inadequate public transport or introducing a capital gains tax.

Perhaps, however, we should have been listening more closely when a year ago — and only a few months into her second term — Ardern referred to “foundational change”.

The change in wording was quickly dismissed as a rebranding exercise dreamed up by Labour Party strategists to distance the government from its failure to be in any way transformational. But foundational change is certainly what we are getting in Ardern’s second term — even if most citizens remain unaware of the steady remaking of the nation’s constitutional arrangements via a radical interpretation of the Treaty as a 50:50 partnership.

Hard to deny that is the agenda, when it is being implemented every day in almost every portfolio.

What voters have not been told clearly is that these three seemingly unrelated events — road blocks (as an expression of rangatiratanga over traditional territories); iwi co-governance in Three Waters; and giving matauranga Māori parity with science in the education system — are all part of an overarching programme to implement a radical view of the Treaty.

Call it a strange coincidence if you like but all three were foreshadowed clearly in the revolutionary document He Puapua that was presented to Nanaia Mahuta in November 2019 but kept from the public (and Winston Peters as Deputy Prime Minister) until after the 2020 election.

However, because nearly the entire political commentariat deny that He Puapua in any way informs, inspires or predicts government policy, most voters are unaware that the co-governance model outlined in that revolutionary document is being steadily implemented in a wide array of domains.

The Government denied the document had any status, but their policies since suggest the opposite.

Nevertheless, voters are starting to have their suspicions. And if anything is likely to have convinced them that something deeply underhand is going on, it was the revelation in November that Cabinet had agreed in July that Three Waters would be compulsory.

That, of course, made a complete mockery of the “consultation” period with councils — that culminated in a summary of their submissions being sent on October 22 to Mahuta’s office for appraisal.

The consultation had been sold as a democratic exercise to get councils’ feedback on whether they were likely to opt in or out of the new system. Now it is clear that opting out of a programme that would transfer ratepayers’ assets to four regional entities — and share governance equally with iwi — had never been a real possibility since at least July.

People are very worked up on the Three Waters issue. If the Government refuses to compromise, their provincial electorate MPs are going to be wiped out in 2023.

A good article on how anti-semities often try to hide behind what they are doing by calling it anti-zionism. Firstly what is zionism?

Zionism — the movement for Jewish self-determination and statehood, reflects the millennial longing of Jews to return to their ancestral homeland in the land of Israel. Zion is a biblical term used interchangeably with Jerusalem. This longing to “return to Zion” has been a tenet of Jewish tradition since the Romans destroyed the Jewish Second Temple in 70 CE and dispossessed the Jews of their sovereignty over the region. …

Zionism posits that Jews ought to have a safe haven from the bigotry and endangerment they suffer perennially as a minority culture among non-Jewish majority cultures — be it from Tsarist pogroms, Hitler’s Europe, the expulsion of Jews from Arab lands, anti-Jewish restrictions in the Soviet Union or the increase in antisemitic violence in contemporary France.

Zionism asserts that the Jews have the same right to self-determination and nationhood that is typically afforded to other nations.

To be a Zionist basically just means that you support the right of the State of Israel (as a Jewish state) to exist at all. Technically anyone who supports a two state solution in the Middle East is a Zionist. That is all it means. It doesn’t mean you support particular boundaries, just the right of nationhood.

Zionism is a big tent that includes progressive Jews, conservative Jews, apolitical Jews and non-Jews who believe in and support the right of the State of Israel to exist as a Jewish homeland. There are Zionists who are critical of Israeli policies, just as there are Zionists who rarely voice disagreement with the Israeli government. There are diverse views among Zionists about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and about how to promote peace or support for a two-state solution.

Again anyone who supports the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state is a Zionist.

Those who propagate “anti-Zionism” distort what Zionism is and define it narrowly and perniciously. Some express criticism of specific Israeli policies by assigning blame to “Zionism” or “Zionists,” thereby turning a critique of policy into a negation and demonization of Jewish statehood and its supporters. Denying the plurality of thought among Jews and Zionists, anti-Zionism envisions Zionists as a monolithic evil and as inherently opposed to Palestinians’ human rights and to the values of social justice. Like classic antisemites, sometimes anti-Zionists even use “Zionist” as a derogatory term for all Jews or interchangeably with all Israelis — a dangerous conflation.

Anyone who tries to blame Zionists for something, is often using it as code for Jews.

Anti-Zionism views Jewish power as fundamentally malevolent and denounces the Jewish aspiration for sovereignty. Often anti-Zionists do not scrutinize other nations or movements for nationhood to the same degree. Israel is regarded simply as an illegitimate state, founded on a lie. Some anti-Zionist activists have even sought to normalize the exclusion of Jews en masse from political movements unrelated to Israel unless they proactively denounce Israeli policies.

In February 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron stated, “Anti-Zionism is one of the modern forms of antisemitism. Behind the negation of Israel’s existence, what is hiding is the hatred of Jews.”

If you want to criticise the policies of the Israeli Government, then criticise the Israeli Government. But people who rant and rail against Zionists are basically just spreading hatred.

Tara Henley writes:

For months now, I’ve been getting complaints about the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where I’ve worked as a TV and radio producer, and occasional on-air columnist, for much of the past decade.

People want to know why, for example, non-binary Filipinos concerned about a lack of LGBT terms in Tagalog is an editorial priority for the CBC, when local issues of broad concern go unreported. Or why our pop culture radio show’s coverage of the Dave Chappelle Netflix special failed to include any of the legions of fans, or comics, that did not find it offensive. Or why, exactly, taxpayers should be funding articles that scold Canadians for using words such as “brainstorm” and “lame.”

Everyone asks the same thing: What is going on at the CBC?

When I started at the national public broadcaster in 2013, the network produced some of the best journalism in the country. By the time I resigned last month, it embodied some of the worst trends in mainstream media. In a short period of time, the CBC went from being a trusted source of news to churning out clickbait that reads like a parody of the student press.

Damning words.

It used to be that I was the one furthest to the left in any newsroom, occasionally causing strain in story meetings with my views on issues like the housing crisis. I am now easily the most conservative, frequently sparking tension by questioning identity politics. This happened in the span of about 18 months. My own politics did not change.

To work at the CBC in the current climate is to embrace cognitive dissonance and to abandon journalistic integrity.

It is to sign on, enthusiastically, to a radical political agenda that originated on Ivy League campuses in the United States and spread through American social media platforms that monetize outrage and stoke societal divisions. It is to pretend that the “woke” worldview is near universal — even if it is far from popular with those you know, and speak to, and interview, and read.

To work at the CBC now is to accept the idea that race is the most significant thing about a person, and that some races are more relevant to the public conversation than others.

Sounds like it could apply to other countries also. And note this is not a conservative complaining about wokeness. This is someone who used to be on the left of the CBC staff.

To work at the CBC is to submit to job interviews that are not about qualifications or experience — but instead demand the parroting of orthodoxies, the demonstration of fealty to dogma.

It is to become less adversarial to government and corporations and more hostile to ordinary people with ideas that Twitter doesn’t like.

It is to endlessly document microaggressions but pay little attention to evictions; to spotlight company’s political platitudes but have little interest in wages or working conditions. It is to allow sweeping societal changes like lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and school closures to roll out — with little debate. To see billionaires amass extraordinary wealth and bureaucrats amass enormous power — with little scrutiny. And to watch the most vulnerable among us die of drug overdoses — with little comment.

It is to consent to the idea that a growing list of subjects are off the table, that dialogue itself can be harmful. That the big issues of our time are all already settled.

It is to capitulate to certainty, to shut down critical thinking, to stamp out curiosity. To keep one’s mouth shut, to not ask questions, to not rock the boat.

This, while the world burns.

How could good journalism possibly be done under such conditions? How could any of this possibly be healthy for society?

Maybe Mediawatch could ask Tara on their next show, and ask these questions of NZ broadcasters?

A guest post by Tudor Clee:

In January 2021 Prime minister Jacinda Ardern righteously exclaimed that “We have to let people who have a legal right to live here – such as our own citizens – to come home, otherwise you are making them stateless.”

Within months MIQ bookings were closed and she was doing exactly that.

The challenge was how to remove the rights of millions of kiwis without ‘removing’ the rights. It is well known that Kiwis cannot fly back to New Zealand without an MIQ Voucher – that can only be obtained from a perverse squid game lottery system, or making an Emergency Application. It is often claimed that this lottery system breaches Section 18 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 – being the right to enter New Zealand. But it doesn’t. And hats off to the cleverest lawyer Ms. Ardern could find. 

No citizen is stopped entering. Let me say this one more time, no citizen is stopped entering.

They are stopped boarding an overseas commercial aircraft that will be penalized if they allowed someone to board without a voucher.  It only has one flaw – citizens can still board the aircraft without a voucher if they are transiting New Zealand.

For instance, on a ticket from Sydney, to Auckland, to Los Angeles. 

Assuming the citizen meets the entry requirements for the United States (fully vaxxed, a $12 ESTS Visa, and a hotel address) they will be allowed to board in Sydney to Auckland.  On landing in Auckland there is nothing the Government can do if someone ‘decides’ they wish to enter New Zealand instead.

Nothing.

The reason for the change of mind doesn’t need to be explained. A citizen intended to only transit and then they decided not to.  It is the beginning and end of it.

The “Right to Enter” is more than just fluff – it is the name of the Section in the Immigration Act 2009 and goes as far as spelling out the right in detail, including that a citizen cannot be deported.

13 New Zealand citizens may enter and be in New Zealand at any time

• (1) For the purposes of this Act, every New Zealand citizen has, by virtue of his or her citizenship, the right to enter and be in New Zealand at any time.
  
• (3) (b) no New Zealand citizen is liable under this Act to deportation from New Zealand in any circumstances.

As such a citizen can walk off the plane in Auckland. Go to health check, go to immigration, stamp in, have their bags collected, and be put on a bus to MIQ.

All without a voucher.

They can’t be put in a room, forced on a plane, waterboarded, beaten up. Nothing.  

The conundrum for the Government was how to stop people exercising this basic right. The first course of action was to provide misleading information on their own websites.

https://covid19.govt.nz/travel/international-travel-and-transit/transit-through-new-zealand/

This page discusses transiting in New Zealand. It states:

“You can only transit New Zealand through Auckland International Airport, where you must stay in the transit area of the airport. You cannot apply to enter New Zealand.”

It doesn’t provide an asterisk to advise New Zealand citizens that they don’t need to ‘apply’ to enter New Zealand and cannot be held in a transit area. The ambiguity helps maintain the falsehood that the border is shut to Kiwis.

The second course of action is to maintain the high level of fear for all travellers. One person told me her friend said the transit passengers were ‘escorted by armed Police’ as if to ensure no one make’s a break for it.  Whether that is true or not, in the era of Covid hysteria, it was enough to put at least one person off flying home.

If a Police Officer of Immigration Officer attempted to ‘hold’ a citizen in a transit lounge they would at best only be sued for false imprisonment and likely fired – and at worst criminally prosecuted for kidnapping. 

The Government is fully aware they cannot criminalize a citizen entering.  As such the sole penalty for entering without a voucher is a measly $1000 infringement notice – essentially like a parking ticket that does not go on your record.  This is on the basis that it is a ‘medium risk offence’

A breach of a requirement where the worst potential outcome of the breach is a possibility of transmitting or spreading COVID-19 or limiting the capability of the public health response, which does not otherwise meet the description for low risk or high risk.

How this is arrived at is not explained.  Every single traveller has a ‘worst potential outcome’ of transmitting COVID as we have seen with foreign DJ’s who freely enter the country, break the rules and even then are still not prosecuted.

It also doesn’t ‘limit’ the public health response – it makes use of it.  MIQ was set up for overseas citizens returning – and these are overseas citizens returning.

In my view the infringement is challengeable in Court – paying a fine to enter your own country, or for the Government’s failure to plan a public health response 2 years into a pandemic, doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that would hold up in court.

So the question is – why is the news and social media filled with the most horrific stories of grief, loss, desperation, of Kiwis stranded overseas when they can simply get on a plane and fly home tomorrow?

The explanations I have had included not wanting to ‘take’ a space from someone else.

This is of course total nonsense. There is enormous capacity at MIQ – they have space for summer DJs, foreign sports teams, The Wiggles, the previously unheard of Dutch Cricket team, and yes, even more DJs.  They definitely have space for Kiwis.

They also have a successful home isolation program that was used for 4000 plus actual positive Covid cases to stay in the community and of course a Member of Parliament coming home. 

The other explanation is that people are scared of what will happen to them.

I accept this. Most of the people I’ve spoken to are law abiding citizens. The notion of having to ‘break the law’ is terrifying, even when ‘breaking the law’ is going home and paying a fine.

How interesting that most people would be prepared to speed to catch a flight they are late for (and risk an infringement) yet are terrified of getting the same infringement for going home.

How reprehensible that we are living in a country our own citizens are ‘scared’ to return to. Given there is a way home, immediately, there is no longer an excuse for the endless posts of misery. 

The solution is entirely in the hands of Overseas Kiwis.

Tudor Clee is an Auckland based Barrister who assisted 30 pregnant couples through the MIQ system including filing 8 Judicial Reviews pro bono to obtain MIQ vouchers.

Tudor has also provided the document below which goes into more detail around the law says, but note this is not formal legal advice.

MIQ Transit v5 by David Farrar on Scribd

The Government has decided to effectively close the border and not give overseas Kiwis any chance of coming back to NZ indefinitely, and rather than have the PM or a Minister announce this at a press conference where media could ask questions, they sneak it out at 8 pm at night via tweet from a departmental account.

It’s cowardly and the opposite of accountability.

It also suggests that the Government thinks it can keep Omicron out of the community. They should read the fable of King Canute.

Don Brash writes:

What would bring prices back to a more affordable level? Only the removal of the artificial boundary around Auckland which is keeping section prices at truly ridiculous levels. At the moment, 400 square metre sections (one-tenth of an acre in the old terminology) are being offered in Papakura at $977,000, with title not available till 2023. That isn’t the price of a house, but simply of a very small bare section. That implies that the price of land is in the order of $20 million per hectare (allowing for the need to leave space for roads). Given that the price of good dairy land is around $50,000 per hectare, it is clear that something is seriously nuts.

$20 million per hectare vs $50,000 per hectare. It is nuts.

Labour promised to repeal the boundary in 2017. It was a good policy. Merely moving the boundary just moves the price difference. Abolishing it would result in a huge drop in the price of land in Auckland.

But surely we don’t want urban sprawl? Why not? Less than 1% of New Zealand’s total area is currently urbanized. If in a decade’s time 1.25% was to be urbanized, would that be a disaster if, as a consequence, the great majority of ordinary New Zealand wage and salary earners could afford to buy a home? (By way of comparison, some 9% of the United Kingdom is urbanized, and 15% of the Netherlands.)

The recent deal between National and Labour now makes it easier to build up, which is good. But you will only fix the housing crisis if you allow people to build both out and up. As Don points out, an increase from 1.0% to 1.2% urbanisation would still be miniscule compared to other countries.

But what about the environmental impact of urban sprawl? How can we tolerate that? Well, the Government is planning that most of us will be driving electric cars within a few years and given that, it is by no means obvious that allowing the suburbs to spread a bit further will have a serious environmental impact. Indeed, high rise apartment buildings – made of concrete and steel, requiring 24-hour lighting and elevators, often involving air-conditioning systems and certainly requiring electric clothes dryers rather than an old-fashioned clothes-line – may have a more adverse impact on the environment than “sprawling suburbs”.

Exactly.

Despite all the media stories about “house” prices – and yes, I know the price of building materials has gone up over the years, and wage rates as well – the real culprit is not “house” prices but section prices. Those have gone through the roof, and the only way to reduce them, and thus to reduce the price of the house-and-section package, is to remove the artificial boundary around Auckland (and our other major cities).

Those who oppose the removal of that boundary are effectively condemning nearly half the population to a life of continuing financial stress, with all the adverse consequences for the physical, mental and emotional wellbeing of literally millions of Kiwis.

I hope National in 2023 campaigns on abolishing the boundaries.

Ben Kepes writes:

A few months ago, Green MP Golriz Ghahraman​ took part in a protest in support of the Palestinian people living in Gaza and, more pointedly, Israel’s treatment of those individuals.

At the protest, there was much rhetoric around the perspective that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people is akin to the way the Nazis treated the Jews during the Holocaust. 

More recently, coverage of the Voices of Freedom anti-vaccination, anti-lockdown and anti-Covid control protests have shown people wearing yellow stars and carrying placards likening Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and our current government to the Nazi Party.

The false equivalency is tiresome and offensive. I know the serial number of my great grand mother on the train that took her to the concentration camp where she died, along with 140 other members of her family. When you have that happening, then you can compare things to the Holocaust.

Let me be clear for those who didn’t do Year 9 history: The Holocaust was a specific event in which the German Nazi party, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, sought to permanently eradicate the entire Jewish people from the face of the earth.

Alongside this, other classes that the Nazis regarded as subhuman – homosexuals, Gypsies, the disabled – were targeted. Roughly 11 million human beings where slaughtered in this time, six million of them Jews.

While I absolutely agree that Israel continues to treat Palestinians in Gaza poorly, there is no genocide going on – it is correct to contend that they are subjugated, but words matter. Genocide has a very specific meaning, and it doesn’t apply in this case.

And in the case of those anti-vaxxers using the Star of David as part of their protest, Jews were forced by the Nazis to wear the Star of David across Europe. Failure to do so could, and often did, result in execution.

Likening the vaccine passport to this is a hugely false equivalency – the vaccine pass is fundamentally aimed to keep citizens safe.

You can criticise Israel without comparing them to Nazis. Likewise you criticise the human rights implications of vaccine mandates without comparing them to Nazis. In both cases you trivialise the actual Holocaust.

The BBC reports:

The US Supreme Court has blocked President Joe Biden’s rule requiring workers at large companies to be vaccinated or masked and tested weekly.

The justices at the nation’s highest court said the mandate exceeded the Biden administration’s authority.

Separately they ruled that a more limited vaccine mandate could stand for staff at government-funded healthcare facilities.

This is totally unsurprising. The powers of the President don’t extend to ordering private businesses to do vaccine mandates.

If you want to implement a vaccine mandate, you should pass a specific law authorising it, as they did in NZ.

An excellent article in The Australian:

Bill English has been banging on about the deficiencies of the welfare state and its role in the “pathology of deprivation” for years but his moment might just have come.

The former New Zealand prime minister does not necessarily want cuts in welfare spending – in fact he says sometimes more money will have to be spent – but he wants governments to start using data and technology to pinpoint where funds can be directed to achieve results.

After 40 years of “persistent failure” in welfare in the West, he says, we need a fresh angle and “the freshest is the mixture of actuarial models, data tools, customer segmentation – really boring down, really getting to understand the risk factors down to quite small components of your community”.

The former National Party MP is not holding his breath about the bureaucracy changing tack. But he believes charities and impact investors can show the public sector a way forward by adopting the kind of measurement tools regularly used by digital businesses such as Amazon.

“It’s not complicated, really, it’s a matter of will,” says English, who has just joined the board of Australia’s richest philanthropic foundation, the $4bn Paul Ramsay Foundation.

“The effort involved in landing the right coloured T-shirt for a 16-year old boy in a Kmart in (a New Zealand town) is way more sophisticated and focused than servicing broken families with housing needs.

“If Amazon can customise for hundreds of millions of people, then surely we can do it for a few hundred,” he says.

Such a good point.

Since the 1980s, many governments in the West have tried to tackle problems with the welfare state by slashing national budgets, but English says: “In my experience, the best way to achieve fiscal control is to actually solve the problems of the people who are driving the spend. Bureaucracies are very reluctant to admit that what they’re doing is not working … but we shouldn’t pretend when we know we’re failing.”

Sometimes much more money is needed, he says, but it has to be applied in ways that work, dealing with one problem at a time.

Hence the social investment programme he did in Government. Compare that to the billions being wasted by the current Government.

“The first thing for governments to do is admit what they’re not good at,” says English. “And what they’re not good at is complexity – that is, people who need multiple services, and don’t fit the boxes. So those people are all getting little doses of commodity services that usually wear them out rather than have any impact.”

He points to a “trained hopelessness” in the welfare sector and argues that identity politics is making it worse, “because it’s saying that who you are determines what you will be; and, of course, that’s the kind of thing a lazy universal system would say”.

For the people on the receiving end of that bureaucracy, it’s tough: “People on middle-class incomes … have no idea what it’s like to be enmeshed in 10 different systems (of payments) … these people are worn out … and we give them bad service.”

Targeted flexible support is what is needed, not dealing with 10 different agencies.

What about the bigger philosophical argument that promoting private investment and philanthropy is just a way to cut government spending and avoid responsibility.

English doesn’t pull his punches: “I think we should have that discussion on the lawn outside the house where the child is getting beaten up, and while the kid’s screaming, we will have that philosophical contest. And when someone wins it, then they’re allowed to go in and deal with the child.”

It is such a shame that Winston choose Ardern over English in 2017. Another three years of Bill as Prime Minister could have made a real difference to the lives of those most in need.

There is a bill going through Parliament that will change the law so Ngai Tahu directly appoints two members of the Canterbury Regional Council, or ECan.

This is different to having Maori Wards. Because at least with Maori Wards, it is still one person one vote.

But what this does is give members of Ngai Tahu two votes.

Every resident of Canterbury (of whom 11% are Maori) will get to vote in the elections for ECan. But if this bill passes, then Ngai Tahu will get to appoint two additional members directly. So members of Ngai Tahu get to be represented twice – both by the person they vote for, and by the direct appointees (who are appointed by their Iwi leadership whom they vote for)

This is a radical development in democracy. And if it passes, it will set a precedent.

Really puzzled by why the Minister of Defence thinks a selfie of him in the gym is appropriate response to what is happening in Tonga.

Have been told the story of a Kiwi family in Australia who were desperate to get home, as there were serious mental health issues due to being stuck in Australia. But the Government refused them a compassionate spot in MIQ and of course people in Australia can’t even go into the MIQ ballot at the moment.

So what they did was book an airfare to Fiji which had a stopover in Auckland. In Auckland they got the kids to refuse to get back on the plane, as the kids wanted to see the rest if their family in Auckland. It seems that there is some international convention that prohibits forcing children onto a place, so the family was then transferred into an MIQ facility in Auckland, which is what they wanted.

The MIQ facility was in fact half empty (as many are, as the Government is unable to do simple stuff like match supply and demand) so they weren’t even taking a place from someone else.

So if you have kids, can’t get an MIQ spot, and don’t mind forking out for a wasted airfare to Fiji, this could be a way home!

And it occurs to me there is another way stranded Kiwis could get home, even if they don’t have kids. Just book an airfare which has an Auckland stopover and during the stopover, claim asylum. I know it is ridiculous for a NZ citizen to claim asylum against a country they have lived in such as Australia or the UK, but it doesn’t matter how ridiculous it is.

You see the moment you have informed a NZ official that you are seeking asylum, they are forbidden from forcing you to get back on the plane you were on. So the plane will leave without you, and you will be transferred to MIQ. You then drop your claim for asylum and after your MIQ stay, get to stay in NZ (as a NZ citizen or permanent resident).

Josh Bloom at the American Council on Science and Health writes:

Round 4 started today, with the FDA granting Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to Pfizer’s Paxlovid (1,2), something that was a foregone conclusion. Paxlovid is an effective, direct-acting antiviral drug that can be taken orally in pill form. If life makes any sense at all, Round 4 will be won by science. But instead of a knockout, I would expect multiple knockdowns.

However, when added to the beatdown the virus took in Round 2 from the vaccines, we can reasonably expect that the match will end with both opponents standing and the judges awarding the match to science by points.

Translation: COVID isn’t going away, but its threat to human health should be significantly reduced. 

All of this is possible because, unlike what happened with Merck’s molnupiravir, the interim clinical results for Paxlovid held up in the final analysis, while molnupiravir’s efficacy dropped significantly when all the data were analyzed. Pfizer’s gain will likely be Merck’s loss, which is a shame because the two drugs operate by a different mechanism and could be used to complement each other, just like cocktails of drugs of different classes turned HIV/AIDS into a manageable, chronic disease instead of a guaranteed death sentence. 

As I have written here and here, Paxlovid is a potent inhibitor of the viral M^pro (main protease) enzyme, which is responsible for chemically cutting newly-formed viral protein, which is initially a single long, non-functional chain, into multiple functional proteins that the virus requires for replication. This is not a novel approach; inhibitors of viral protease enzymes became approved drugs for both HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C.  

Clinical data were consistent with the antiviral profile of Paxlovid. In other words, both the inhibition of M^pro in an enzymatic assay and inhibition of viral replication in a cell-based assay were predictive (3) of the drug’s efficacy in humans. The drug, when taken early in the infection, (4) reduced hospitalizations by 89% and deaths by 100% and had no adverse effects (5). As someone who did antiviral research in a former life, to me these data are nothing short of spectacular. 

The key takeaway is that Covid-19 is not going away, but this drug can massively reduce the severity in those infected, reducing the hospitalization rate by 89%.

I hope our Government has placed a large bulk order.

A guest post from a reader:

As someone who has clocked up over 300,000km in diesel 4×4 utes, it pains me to note that I now drive an electric vehicle.

There was only limited choice in this transition, as the EV-as-company-policy came with the new job. A ute was simply not an option.

And I have very mixed feelings about this.

The EV will never have a towbar and so I’ve had to keep the ute to tow the boat, but having sad that the EV is a nippy wee thing around the city. The torque response means one can launch off into a much smaller gap in traffic than a ute, but the speedbumps that Council insist on putting on roads and zebra crossings are now noticeable, whereas in the ute they were but pimples.

In diesel-days I’d know the price of fuel at every station on my regular routes and be able to predict the sales and do some amateur hedging over a few weeks as I ran the risk of an early-and-expensive purchase versus running the tank dry. Now I negotiate with my colleagues on who gets to plug in every couple of days at work, with Mondays and Fridays being at a premium.

In this car, a commercial fast charger from 10% to 80% takes around 40 minutes, and will get me about 180km and cost around $16. Another 10% will take another 10 minutes and cost another $3 for about 25km. On a slow charger like those installed at work or homes, that charge to 80% or 90% would take all day. These numbers vary hugely depending on the passenger loading in the EV, and the commercial chargers fees are comparable to what I was paying, litre-per-kilometer, in my ute.

It is nice to be able to park up at the supermarket and plug in, fire up an App, and then charge while doing the shopping, for this saves standing around on a windblown forecourt. But the novelty soon passes when you need to wait around in the supermarket carpark anyway for a charge when you’d rather be doing other things. I’ve been known to sit in the shaded back seat with the doors open and work away on my laptop, but that gets tiring pretty quickly.

But Auckland is a big city. You simply cannot drive from one side to the other, back again, then from top to bottom without either a full charge before to make it and afterwards to get home, or without a charge and work-in-the-back-seat in the middle. Last weekend I started out with a full charge and went to the beach and then home, then into work, and I needed to charge before popping out again.

Indeed, my last commercial charge saw me arrive to find someone else using the charger, for his company car. Given his company-shirt and company-branded-car he was circumspect in our discussion, but he was open that he not impressed with the interruption to his day that charging necessitated. As someone who thinks technology should fit the person, not the person fit the technology, I was bound to agree.

One thing with EVs as company cars that is overlooked in their adoption is the probable increase in kilometres driven. Because I’m not paying for it, I don’t object to do several different trips to the fruit-n-vege place, kids sports, to run personal errands, and the like. When I was paying for it I’d delay one of those to do two or three on one trip, and so I suspect I’m doing more kilometres around town than I used to.

I know that EVs are not the panacea to all our ills, whatever they may be, as claimed by some, but I’m not the sort of person whose identity is enmeshed with their vehicle. To me, they are a tool that I can and try to take pleasure in using. And I do. I love the ‘bugger you’ thought to the council when my ute plows over speed bumps and medium strips and ‘traffic calming measures’, and I enjoy being pushed back into the seat of the EV as I ‘gas it’ through a gap the ute would never have made.

I’m also very aware that in 100,000km the EV will be knackered, but my ute has done that and then some and still gets me, and my stuff, where I want to go. And it will. I think of the EV as a disposable car, like plastic bags that fill up landfills, whereas the ute is like nana’s huckery old basket.

As I said, I have very mixed feedings about this EV business. I’ll drive the EV for work and private use as it comes with my job and is free, but it won’t tow the boat or be loaded for trips away, and so I’m not selling my ute. Besides, who knows how long the job, and therefore the EV, will last?

An op ed from six NZ academics is a good one:

In their 2018 book The Coddling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt explore the recent explosion of anxiety and depression experienced by young people in many of the wealthier countries of the world.

Lukianoff and Haidt lay the blame on “three great untruths” that, they believe, have taken hold in these societies, one of which – in an inversion of Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous maxim – is, “what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker”.

By this they mean that our society has become so risk-averse that many young people have grown up without experiencing the psychological strengthening that comes with suffering setbacks and overcoming difficulties.

Among the chief culprits for this over-protective society, argue Lukianoff and Haidt, are universities, which have promulgated the notion that even mere exposure to ideas with which one disagrees can be dangerous to one’s mental health.

This is, in fact, precisely the opposite of what universities are supposed to do. In addition to teaching the knowledge associated with specific academic disciplines, it is the mission of universities to prepare students to think critically.

Sadly this is becoming more common in NZ, with some universities saying that “danger” to mental health will be used as a factor in deciding who is allowed to speak on campus.

Critical thinking requires us to engage with ideas we find disagreeable, difficult and even offensive, and to learn to bring to bear reason and evidence, rather than emotion, when we respond to them. One of the core principles that have historically enabled universities to fulfil this mission is academic freedom.

New Zealand’s Education and Training Act (2020) enshrines “the freedom of academic staff and students, within the law, to question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas, and to state controversial or unpopular opinions”.

Thus, the Act recognises that the expression of unpopular opinions – which, almost by definition, will be deemed offensive by some – must be allowed, if universities are to fulfil their mission to advance knowledge. Members of the academic community must accept that universities are venues for robust debate, which will inevitably sometimes cause upset or offence.

This is a key point. The Act explicitly defines academic freedom as including controversial and unpopular opinion. Such opinions are by their nature always offensive to someone. I find defences of communism highly offensive as it is an ideology that has killed tens of millions. But I don’t advocate banning Marxists from campus (which would mean a lot fewer lecturers 🙂 )

Well-reasoned criticism of the arguments raised by the Listener seven would, of course, be entirely legitimate and firmly in keeping with academic freedom. However, the personalised attacks on them from several quarters and the action by the Royal Society – both of which are likely to intimidate anyone tempted to make similar arguments – are not. Such reactions stifle, rather than promote, healthy public debate, not to mention debate within universities themselves.

Furthermore, they send a terrible signal, especially to young people, that some ideas are too sensitive – or even too sacred – to discuss openly. This is anathema to the spirit of academic freedom and to the scientific mindset.

The reality is that some people do want certain ideas to be sacred and beyond debate. They attack and stamp on anyone who disagrees.

The church authorities, it would seem, were not big fans of academic freedom. Indeed, in 1619 Lucilio Vanini had his tongue cut out before being strangled and burned at a stake in Toulouse for his sins, one of which was proposing that humans had evolved from an ape. Two and a half centuries later, when Darwin made his similarly outrageous claim, that human beings had descended from ape-like ancestors, the church’s power had waned.

Science was coming into its own and, while many of a religious bent were incensed – although some clergy were also supportive – Darwin promulgated his theory without threat of reprisal, to the great benefit of human knowledge.

Obviously, the reaction to the Listener letter doesn’t come anywhere close to the violent persecutions that were faced by scientists and free-thinkers in the past. Still, the role that powerful institutions have historically played in setting the boundaries of discussion – often to the great detriment of society as a whole – should lead us to think hard about the relationship between academic freedom and whatever ideology is currently in the ascendant. If the record of intellectual history shows anything, it is that opinions that were once seen as indefensible – both morally and intellectually – have often turned out to advance knowledge.

Great to see some academics coming out strongly in favour of academic freedom.

An interesting tweet about how Omicron is a massive 91% less deadly than Delta. It was wrong to compare the original version of Covid-19 and the delta version to the flu, but the Omicron version is comparable. It is highly highly infectious, but massively less deadly.

And in case anyone thinks this comes from an anti-vaxxer, the tweeter is the Director of the US CDC.

I’m 100% in favour of people choosing to get vaccinated as the benefits of doing so massively outweigh the risks. But what Omicron is showing is that the justification for the public health restrictions of the last two years is much reduced. Our strategy for Omicron should be different to Delta. It should be about mass rapid testing. It won’t be about contact tracing (which will be impossible as Omicron will spread so fast).

A guest post by Owen Jennings:

An interesting court case in Wellington.  A 76 year old man sold his house to a developer.  His daughter is disputing his right to do so.  She is claiming there were understandings about the property not being sold because there is tikanga involved, her baby’s placenta is buried on the property and that there were clearly issues of ethnicity and cultural values at stake.

Without commenting on this particular case it does, however raise significant issues about the nation’s slide into what can only be a quagmire of confusion, uncertainty, heartache and vagueness.  The harder the elitists, the media and the academics push for the adoption of Māori language, Māori ownership, Māori control, the adoption of ill-defined terms, the incorporation of Māori factors into science and, particularly, if the courts continue down the path of judicial activism by embracing ethnic and cultural values into judgements and judicial process the greater the problems will become.

Instead of promoting this surreptitious and arrogant movement the Government needs to stand firm and stop this nonsense before even more harm is done.  They won’t, of course, because they are beholden to a bloc vote in their caucus and they want to bask in the adulation of their sister elites.  They are like a bunch of vacuous art critics cooing and fawning over a blank wall that some artist has offered as modern art.

The problem is there is no clear definition of many of the terms and concepts that the conceited want to impose.  They cannot even agree among themselves.  Because they are revisionists they will force the most extreme position.  Take ‘taonga’.  At one time this term was quite limited in its application. Hone Heke used the word in relation to items gained in battle – a mere, a korowai or similar.  Today it can mean any tangible or intangible item including radio waves.

This creates uncertainty.  Uncertainty halts process.  Progress ends.  Investment stops, decisions get deferred or just not made, wrangles emerge, division and antipathy grow.  Instead of a nation of “one people” we are being cleaved down the middle – the totalitarian elitists on one side and the hoi polloi on the other.  The arrogant writing their own cheques on the back of those who have no claims, no acceptable blood. The anger is now evident.  The push is too far, too fast.  The future looks bleak, even bloody.

Sadly, those who will miss out yet who need common sense solutions are people like my neighbours – John and Tracey.  John drives a digger in a quarry and Tracey works part time at shop.  Both have small percentage of Māori blood.  They rent. Their kids struggle to read.  They have little to get by on. They have not seen a red cent from any settlement. The problem for John is there is dispute with an iwi group about a grave site near the quarry.  The business owners have given notice that they may just wind up and let John and his fellow workers go.  The very people who need genuine help are ignored, thrown a welfare cheque bone or have the state force their wages up by fiat only to see jobs disappear.  The negative stats affecting Māori just get worse.

This uncertainty, confusion and growing unresolved claims plays havoc in the business world.  It kills entrepreneurship, smothers risk taking and investment and jobs go.  The low paid jobs go first.  The crème le crème are not affected.  When their bloated salaries are insufficient they sell their over-rated service under contract and double their income.  They become a consultant and double it again.

Meanwhile Minister Robertson crows about a strong performing economy. His selectively adopted numbers are justification for his claims.  Alas, he confuses wheel spinning with winning Bathurst.  He and his equally hoodwinked mate at the Reserve Bank think that sustainable economic growth is about money creation and topping up countless bank accounts with tax money.  Meanwhile the critical factor – labour productivity keeps going south.  Thanks goodness, the much maligned rural sector is still smart enough to bail us out.

Down on the street in Otara gang life looks even more attractive.  The weed kills the pain.  The shoplifting techniques get sharpened. The black economy picks up. The police are too busy with Covid ‘criminals’ to stop the rot.  We slide further toward third world status – Aotearoa New Zimbabwe.

What to do?  Can paradise be regained?  Ultimately power lies with the people.  It may take a decade, it may take a century but eventually the masses prevail.  If we do not want a split nation, a fully totalitarian state, a country of even greater ‘haves and have-nots’, a basket case economy where long proven values of free speech, freedom of association, freedom from state control are lost, we need to take action now.  We either do it now by talk and the ballot box or we do it later by more dramatic means.  Is Groundswell an answer?  Should it grow an urban leg?  Is there a political party with the balls to rise above the scrum of mediocrity and absurdity?

Exaggeration??  Hyperbole??  Unrealistic??  I desperately want to be shown as wrong.  I love this country.  I want my grandkids to have better.  Tell me I am wrong.  If I am not don’t just sit there, do something.