Newshub reports:

Mounting political pressure is not the reason pregnant journalist Charlotte Bellis was offered an emergency MIQ spot, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson says.

That whopper would make Pinocchio’s nose reach the moon.

Yes it had nothing to do with the fact the story dominated NZ news media for several days, was reported in scores of countries around the world, and the outrage from fellow Kiwis that a New Zealander was being forced to give birth in Afghanistan instead of New Zealand.

Instead Grant would have us believe, they merely rechecked the paperwork and found she qualified after all.

The Government has finally accepted the inevitable, and announced dates for reopening the border. But they have done this twice before, and then reneged, so these should be treated more as aspirational targets than certainties. But for what they are worth, the details are:

1. 28 February – NZ citizens in Australia can return without MIQ
2. 13 March – NZ citizens anywhere can return without MIQ
3. April – Visa holders such as international students and skilled migrants can enter without MIQ
4. July – citizens from visa-waiver countries such as Australia, US, UK can enter without MIQ
5. October – anyone eligible to enter New Zealand and enter without MIQ

Those entering NZ will still need to self-isolate for seven days, and take a RAT on day 1 and on day 6.

Newshub reports:

The Government’s proposed income insurance scheme would see workers made redundant, laid off or who have to stop working because of a health condition or disability, receive 80 percent of their usual salary for up to seven months.

It would include a four-week notice period and four-week payment, paid at 80 percent of salary, from employers. The worker would then get a further six months of financial support from the scheme, including support for training, also at 80 percent of salary.

However, the maximum payment would be capped at 80 percent of $130,911, in line with the maximum leviable income that ACC has in place.

To pay for it, the Government is proposing an ACC-style fund that both workers and employers would contribute to, paying about 1.39 percent each into the scheme. It would be administered by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). 

This is a terrible policy.

Every working New Zealander will have their take home pay drop (at a time when inflation is rocketing) to fund this scheme which could see someone who loses their job paid $60,000 to stay home and do nothing for half a year.

People will get paid up to $400 a day to not look for a job.

Georgina Campbell reports:

Wellington City Council is looking at a 9.1 per cent rates increase this year.

It comes on the back of interest rate hikes, inflation hitting a 30-year high, and a 13.5 per cent rates increase last year. The latest rates hike was revealed at an Annual Plan workshop yesterday.

While Mayor Andy Foster was sympathetic to the squeeze on budgets, he told the Herald that last year Wellingtonians were “absolutely emphatic” they wanted the council to invest in the city.

Sympathy doesn’t allow households to pay the bills.

WCC has made decisions to spend over $100 million of a second music venue and tens of millions on a convention centre that will be a massive loss maker. They are treating ratepayers as an unlimited source of funds.

The Campaigns Manager at the Taxpayers’ Union is heading overseas after many years of stunningly good work fighting for lower taxes, less waste and more transparency in Government.

If you are interested in replacing him, the job advert is here. The key skills are:

• Communication
• Media savvy
• Digital competency
• Organisational skills
• Management
• Networking
• Political Interest

The Taxpayers’ Union is based in Wellington, with a second office in Auckland. The team is small (7-8 staff) and skews young. We take pride in punching above our weight, and being hungry, nimble, and responsive to the 15,000 small dollar donors who make our work possible.

In an increasingly polarised political landscape you’ll need a thick skin to deal with the haters, but will be rewarded with a fun, fast-paced workplace that values creativity and humour and hones your effectiveness as a communicator and team leader.

Above all, you’ll be fighting for a cause of virtue: protecting hard-working taxpayers from the grasping hands of the state and championing the small-government values that have seen New Zealand ranked as one of the world’s most free economies.

Matt Burgess writes:

The Reserve Bank has no statutory mandate for climate change. Yet, since Orr’s arrival in 2018, the Reserve Bank has become virtually fixated on the issue. Its most recent annual report has three times more references to climate change than inflation.

And inflation is now at double the maximum level the Reserve Bank agreed to keep it to.

The Reserve Bank’s response to Covid has been nothing short of a catastrophe.

Once the scale of the threat from Covid became clear in March 2020, the Reserve Bank responded with “quantitative easing”. It printed money.

Between March 2020 and July 2021, the bank used its Large-Scale Asset Purchase programme to buy $54 billion of government bonds. It poured tens of billions of dollars into the economy.

The bank ran the programme for too long. When it finally switched off the printing presses, unemployment had been depressed to record lows, wages and consumer prices soared, and inflation expectations increased. Already-high property prices soared by more than 30 per cent in a single year.

The Reserve Bank overcooked the economy, and now inflation is nearly triple the target inflation rate of 2 per cent.

Do not believe those who say the high inflation is mainly due to international factors.

Today, the Official Cash Rate is 5 per cent below inflation, an unprecedented position since at least 1985 and probably in this country’s history.

The OCR and interest rates may have to raise to brutal levels.

High land and house prices will multiply the pain of rising interest rates. Average house prices across the country recently passed $1 million, an incredible figure. The average Auckland home now costs $1.7m. For anyone with a $1m mortgage, each 1 per cent rise in interest rates will cost $200 per week. Higher interest rates will send some households and businesses to the wall.

So if interest rates go up 3%, then they’ll be paying a massive $600 a week more.

Alexandra Birt writes:

There is no denying that MIQ was an integral part of keeping COVID-19 largely out of New Zealand, and that it has saved many lives. There is also no denying that MIQ was always going to require sacrifice, most notably from those separated from family.

In return for that sacrifice, though, Grounded Kiwis expected the system to be fair. They expected it to be proportionate. They expected that in an emergency, their government would have their back.

A fair system would prioritise pregnant women over British DJs. A fair system would prioritise people with dying relatives over sports teams.

Grounded Kiwis receives daily messages daily from individuals who have been declined, and are desperate for support. Not all of these stranded Kiwis are pregnant in Afghanistan, but plenty have funerals to attend, serious mental health impacts, children due to start school this week, ageing whānau to care for, mortgages they are struggling to pay, jobs they are waiting to start, partners they are separated from, or pensions they’re about to lose.

If someone had described this to Kiwis in 2019, we never would have believed that New Zealand, which prides itself on kindness and compassion, would implement such a brutal system. Yet it has, and many Kiwis have simply turned a blind eye because it doesn’t affect them, or worse, have decided the best response is to lash out on social media against their fellow Kiwis, even against the most vulnerable.

It is brutal, and it has exposed the nasty side of many New Zealanders.

Charlotte’s story has helped to bring New Zealand’s border policy to the attention of the world. The Guardian, ABC News, Washington Post, and BBC, among others, have picked up the story. We can only hope that this international pressure will hasten the re-opening of our border. Even if self-isolation on arrival is introduced, New Zealand will still have some of the most stringent border settings in the OECD.

It’s simple. If you are a New Zealand citizen and you have been fully vaccinated and test negative for Covid-19 just prior to departure, you should be able to come home and self-isolate. If it was good for James Shaw, it is good enough for all New Zealanders.

The December 2021 Roy Morgan is out.

Party Vote

• Labour 35.5% (-0.5% from November)
• National 31.5% (+5.0%)
• Greens 8.5% (-2.0%)
• ACT 18.5% (+1.0%)
• Maori 1.0% (-2.0%)
• NZ First 2.0% (-0.5%)

Seats

• Labour 45 (-20 from election)
• National 40 (+7)
• Greens 11 (+1)
• ACT 23 (+13)
• Maori 1 (-1)

Governments

• Labour/Green 56/120
• National/ACT 63/120

Direction

• Right 42.5% (-3.5%)
• Wrong 44.5% (nc)

This is the first poll since the 2020 election that shows National and ACT able to form a Government.

The net country direction has gone negative for the first time in 13 years or so. In the beginning of 2021 it was a massive +54% and ends the year on -2%.

The Herald reports:

Bellis said they had recently received an email from MIQ inviting them to apply under a different category.

“The category being that there’s a serious risk to our safety, as opposed to ‘we need medical treatment’,” she said.

“I don’t know why we’re debating clauses, when nothing has changed in our application.

“The fact of the matter is, I’m a citizen, I pay taxes, I pregnant and I’m in a dangerous situation. Why am I jumping through hoops, you’ve already got all the information.”

At least four people have offered to give up their spots in MIQ for Bellis, but the system does not allow for any swapping of allocations.

A second country has also reportedly offered Bellis refuge.

If a John Key Government had locked pregnant Kiwis out of New Zealand, forcing them to consider giving birth in places like Afghanistan, the entire left would be melting down in fury. The Human Rights Commission would be denouncing the Government in the loudest terms. Every union would be up in arms. There would be street marches led by Labour and Green MPs.

But when Labour does it, so many of them fall silent. Has anyone heard from the Human Rights Commission on this? Have the Greens peeped a word?

Stuff’s Keith Lynch has some really useful data showing hospitalisation rates for both Delta and Omicron Covid, and the impact of vaccination and also a booster. There’s data for different age groups.

Take me. I’m aged 54. If I got Delta and was unvaccinated there was a 1 in 12 chance it would be so serious I would need to go to hospital.

For Omicron, if unvaccinated the chance of needing hospitalisation is 1 in 36. That’s still pretty high.

I’m currently fully vaccinated. That has reduced my hospitalisation chance to 1 in 100. That’s a lot better.

Later today I get my booster. This reduces my chance of hospitalisation to 1 in 350.

If you’re over 75, the chances of hospitalisation is:

• Delta unvaccinated 1 in 2
• Omicron unvaccinated 1 in 5
• Omicron vaccinated 1 in 14
• Omicron booster 1 in 50

And for a 25 year old:

• Delta unvaccinated 1 in 80
• Omicron unvaccinated 1 in 240
• Omicron vaccinated 1 in 1,000
• Omicron booster 1 in 3,300

HDPA writes:

The story starts last year. Private businesses wanted to import RATs into New Zealand. Much of the rest of the world was already using them. In the UK, school children were testing themselves with RATs twice a week. They were being handed out in packs of seven for free.

But our Government refused to bring them in. Ashley Bloomfield slapped a ban on the importation of RATs to make sure it couldn’t happen.

First they banned them.

In late November, Omicron was in Australia. By December, private businesses here could see the disruption it was causing or going to cause over the Tasman. They could also see it wouldn’t be long before it arrived in New Zealand.

And so they started ordering RATs. They knew they needed RATs to screen their workers regularly to keep Omicron out of their worksites as much as possible. Too many sick workers would shut the shop. The RATs were clearly going to be critical to keeping business going.

They got themselves prepared.

So private businesses two months ago were ordering in RATs because they could see the future and plan ahead.

Then around two weeks ago the bad news started coming in. Orders were being cancelled. In some cases the orders had already been paid for. Businesses were told they wouldn’t be receiving the RATs. The Ministry of Health had overridden their orders and taken their stocks.

The reason the ministry did that was because they hadn’t placed their own orders in sufficient quantities.

Truly appalling behaviour.

Terrance Berryman is a Mongel Mob leader. His father had some sort of road rage incident with another motorist.

Berryman tracked down the other driver and turned up to his place with 17 other gang members.

In front of the man’s partner and three children they beat him so badly he had a traumatic brain injury, a fractured skull, a deep skull laceration and a burst eardrum.

For leading such a brutal attack, he got a paltry 23 months sentence.

TVNZ has published the approval ratings from their January poll. They are:

• Jacinda Ardern: 52% approve, 37% disapprove, +15% net approval
• Christopher Luxon, 42% approve, 20% disapprove, +22% net approval

Both are positive ratings, but rare for an Opposition Leader to score higher than an incumbent Prime Minister.

15 months ago Ardern was at +55%, so a large drop (from a high base) over the last year.

Leo Molloy’s video to Jacinda has gone viral with over 1,300 shares.

The full results are here.

Party Vote

• National 32% (+4% from last poll)
• Labour 40% (-1%)
• ACT 11% (-3%)
• Greens 9% (nc)
• Maori Party 1.6% (+0.7%)
• NZ First 1.8% (-1.5%)

Seats

• Labour 51 (-14 from election)
• National 41 (+8)
• ACT 14 (+4)
• Greens 12 (+2)
• Maori 2 (nc)

Government

• Labour/Green 63/120

Preferred PM

• Jacinda Ardern 35% (-4%)
• Christopher Luxon 17% (+13%)
• David Seymour 6% (-5%)
• Judith Collins 0.2% (-4.8%)

Economic Outlook

• Better 22% (-7%)
• Worse 49% (+2%)
• Same 29% (+4%)

Charlotte Bellis wrote:

My name is Charlotte Bellis and I am from Christchurch New Zealand, but based in Afghanistan.

You might know me for being that Kiwi journalist who asked the Taliban in their inaugural press conference; “what will you do to protect the rights of women and girls?”

What no one has known, until now, is that I conceived a little girl a week after that press conference. 

She found out she was pregnant in Qatar, where it is illegal to be pregnant and unmarried.

With Jim stuck in Kabul, we made a plan to keep everything secret until I was safely out of Qatar and try to get an MIQ spot in New Zealand. I immediately started playing the MIQ lottery, waking up at 3am and staring at my computer, only to miss out time and again. I resigned from Al Jazeera in November, losing my income, health insurance and residency.  …

Then, some relief. The Government announced that New Zealand would open to citizens at the end of February. The timing was perfect. I would be 29 weeks pregnant and could get back in time for our little girl’s birth in May. Foreigners would be allowed in from the end of April, so Jim could be there for the birth too. We booked flights home and found a midwife in Christchurch.

So all was okay so long as the Government kept its word.

The problem was the only other place we had visas to live was Afghanistan. I organised a meeting with senior Taliban contacts, “you know how I am dating Jim from The New York Times, but we’re not married, right?” “Yes, yes we respect you both and you are foreigners, that is up to you.” I nervously continued. “Well, I am pregnant and I can’t get back into New Zealand. If I come to Kabul, will we have a problem?” One translated for the other and they smiled. “No we’re happy for you, you can come and you won’t have a problem. Just tell people you’re married and if it escalates, call us. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

When the Taliban offers you – a pregnant, unmarried woman – safe haven, you know your situation is messed up.

Think about that sentence. A pregnant Kiwi had to rely on the good graces of the Taliban as she couldn’t get home.

Soon after, the February border reopening was “delayed” and the lottery suspended. We were devastated. There was no way home other than to apply for emergency MIQ spots. We had read the horror stories of pregnant women being rejected, seen the statistics of just 5 per cent of Kiwis being approved if they are unable to stay in their current location and only 14 per cent being approved if there is a risk to their health and safety. We talked to Grounded Kiwis and lawyer Tudor Clee, who agreed to take our case pro bono and had a track record of helping pregnant Kiwis stuck abroad.

Those stats are a disgrace.

Between Jim and I, we submitted 59 documents to MIQ and Immigration NZ, including a cover letter written by our lawyer summarising our situation.

On Monday, 24 January, we woke up to an email. We were rejected.

Bellis is a New Zealand citizen. She should not have to beg to be allowed home, especially when she is pregnant.

I had tried to prepare for this day. I thought I would cry, but I was in shock. I had done everything they asked. What was the threshold? What more can I do? How did they want me to prove that giving birth was a scheduled, time-critical medical treatment? Did they want me to be induced so there was a firm date? And how to prove that Afghanistan did not offer the same maternity care as in New Zealand? I thought about sending them a story I did in October at a maternity hospital in Kabul where they had no power so were delivering by cell phones at night. They couldn’t do caesarean deliveries and the only medicine they had were tabs of paracetamol wrapped in crinkled newspaper. The hospital staff said even those would run out in a month’s time. The UN wrote recently that they expect an extra 50,000 women will die during childbirth in Afghanistan by 2025 because of the state of maternity care. Note “extra” – the total will be closer to 70,000.
Here, getting pregnant can be a death sentence.

The inhumanity of MIQ.

But then the issue made it way to Chris Hipkins’ office and Hipkins realised the incredibly bad look this was, so he got the decision reversed.

While Jim and I still have not been approved to return to New Zealand, I will not sit in Kabul, hopeful they will slide us through the back door of MIQ. They rejected us, like they have so many thousands of other desperate New Zealanders, and seemingly, because of who we are and the resources we have. They have quietly overturned their ruling and are now “reviewing our application”.

The Minister intervened because Bellis is a globally famous journalist. But what about all the other pregnant women out there locked out by this Government?

The decision of who should get an emergency MIQ spot is not made on a level playing field, lacks ethical reasoning and pits our most vulnerable against each other. MIQ has set aside hundreds of emergency rooms for evacuating Afghan citizens, and I was told maybe, as a tax-paying, rates-paying New Zealander, I can get home on their allotment. Is this the Hunger Games? Pitting desperate NZ citizens against terrified Afghan allies for access to safety? Who is more important – let’s let MIQ decide.

The comparison to The Hunger Games is very apt.

I am writing this because I believe in transparency and I believe that we as a country are better than this. Jacinda Ardern is better than this.

I’ve got bad news for you!

The morning we were rejected, I sobbed in my window overlooking Kabul’s snow-covered rooftops. I wasn’t triggered by the disappointment and uncertainty, but by the breach of trust. That in my time of need, the New Zealand Government said you’re not welcome here. It feels surreal to even write that. And so, I cried. I thought, I hope this never happens again. I thought, we are so much better than this. I thought back to August, and how brutally ironic it was, that I had asked the Taliban what they would do to ensure the rights of women and girls. And now, I am asking the same question of my own Government.

Pleased that Bellis will be able to come home and hopefully safely deliver her baby. Sad that so many others remain locked out by this Government.

On Christmas Eve Family First emailed its supporters about a court challenge being brought against the traffic light rules.

15 applicants, representing 110 Church congregations and 2 Mosques, with over 26,000 congregants between them, filed an application for judicial review of the rules in the covid traffic light order applying to Churches and Mosques.

The Churches and Mosques say the traffic light rules are an unreasonable limit on their right to manifest their religion in public with others, which is protected by section 15 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

The applicants have filed in the Wellington High Court asking it to declare that the restrictions imposed on religious gatherings are unjustifiable. It will be a fascinating case that will spotlight if the Bill of Rights Act has real teeth.

When Governments use regulations to impose restrictions on important rights to protect us from a pandemic, it is important that they show that the restrictions they put in place are the least restrictive means available to achieve their goals. During lockdowns, I understand the Churches and Mosques were happy to comply with the restrictions they faced because it was important to keep everyone safe and elimination was the goal.

However, now that RATs are available to allow for domestic travel for the unvaccinated, and now that, using safety measures, schools can open with unvaccinated students, the churches and mosques believe the same options should be available to them – a way to practise their faith, safely, in a manner that does not require them to segregate or exclude people over their medical choices.

The Applicants say that manifestation of religion in public with others is not a social or leisure activity like with other social group activities. It is essential; it is a protected legal right like the right to education, like the right to freedom of movement, like the other essential rights that are protected under the traffic light rules.

Religions must be able to assemble as their religion. They argue they cannot do that with separate types of service for those with certificates and those without. It cannot be required by the State to effectively ex-communicate people for their health decisions.

The Applicants have asked the Court to rule that the restrictions the Covid Minister has imposed on places of worship by the Traffic Light Rules are outside the powers given to him by Parliament, and that he failed to take account of the importance of freedom of religion at law and to properly understand the theology of religious practise.

The Applicants all agree that Covid-19 is a serious public health threat. All are committed to the public health effort. All are law-abiding. They are heavily vaccinated; some of the applicants have even run vaccination drives in South Auckland.

Counsel for the Applicants are barristers Madeleine Flannagan and Graeme Edgeler.

The applicants are:

1. Orewa Community Church, an Interdenominational Church, assembling in Orewa as a single congregation ministering to about 200 people a week.
2. Al Hikmah Trust, a Registered Trust and Islamic Mosque, meeting in Auckland City as two student congregations serving a total of about 170 people a week.
3. St Anthony’s Catholic Church, a Catholic Church, assembling in Wanganui as a single congregation ministering to about 500 people a week.
4. Bridges Church, a non-denominational Christian Community Church, assembling in Cambridge as a single congregation ministering to about 200 people a week.
5. Three of the forty NZ Pentecostal C3 Churches, suing with the support of their National Organisation. The three C3 Churches assemble in Auckland, Taupo and Christchurch as six congregations ministering to about 1200 people a week.
6. Central Worship Centre Church, an internationally affiliated church, meeting in Avondale as a single congregation ministering to about 40 regular attendees.
7. City Impact Churches, a Pentecostal denominational church with nine campuses across New Zealand with gatherings of around 10,000 regular attendees across all locations.
8. Connect Church, an evangelical Pentecostal church meeting in Paraparaumu with weekly attendance of about 400 people.
9. Curate Churches, an Independent Christian church with congregations in Auckland, Tauranga, and Whakatane with about 1600 attendees.
10. Encounter Churches, an Independent Pentecostal church with locations in Auckland, Levin, and Bream Bay, with attendance of about 600 across all locations.
11. Equippers Auckland Trust, Pentecostal churches assembling in Auckland as four congregations ministering to about 2200 people a week.
12. LifeChurches, a non-denominational Christian congregation of about 400 regular attendees meeting over 5 locations across Auckland.
13. New Life Churches, a national evangelical Pentecostal collection of 73 churches serving all ethnicities and community types meeting from Auckland to Bluff, with weekly attendances of about 9000 people.
14. Papatoetoe Community Church, a non-denominational Christian Community Church congregating in Papatoetoe and serving about 60 people.
15. Reverend Johnathan Grant, the Vicar of St Paul’s Symonds Street, which is a parish within the Anglican Diocese of Auckland ministering

So this will be a fascinating case.

You have to wonder how gullible Labour thinks Aucklanders are. In 2017 they promised light rail to Mt Roskill would be complete by 2021. We are now in 2022 and having not managed anything beyond spending $50 million on failed plans, their latest plan is to spend $15 billion which is $8,000 per household on a light rail link which they claim may start construction in 2023. If you believe that, you should go buy a bridge.