Radio NZ reports:

Workers at Covid-19 testing sites are copping abuse as frustrations boil over at the limited access to rapid antigen tests amid the growing Omicron outbreak, Dr Bryan Betty says.

The Porirua GP and medical director of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners said some members of the public were becoming verbally abusive to staff when denied access to tests.

The Capital and Coast District Health Board said yesterday their testing teams were experiencing an unacceptable level of abuse.

It came as the Ministry of Health reported 22,527 new community cases yesterday bringing the total of active community cases confirmed across the country to 152,358 – though experts expect it would actually be much higher.

Dr Betty said the supply of tests available for the public was tight at the moment, but about 20 million were in the country and being distributed to providers.

“This level of frustration and anxiety that some people are displaying, we just need to be a bit pragmatic about it and realise if you have symptoms just stay at home until you can access a RAT test,” he said.

The problem is that the distribution of RAT tests, at least in Wellington is a cluster f**k. It took us three days and four attempts to get some. The staff at collection points contradict the information given out on their websites. The queues can be up to three hours. Making sick people spend three hours in a car just to get hold of a test, is ridiculous, and it is no wonder so many people are stressed and lashing out.

Of course they should not lash out at the poor staffers on the front line. It isn’t their fault the Government didn’t order enough tests early enough, and that the local DHB has set up an incompetent distribution system for them. The anger should be saved for those in charge.

It should not be this hard to get a test. Yes some people are lucky and in their areas they can get a test quickly. But there are a hell of a lot of people who are spending hours and hours trying to do something that should take ten minutes.

I blogged previously on the ridiculous demand by the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation that vaping sales be banned within 1 km of every school. This would mean a ban of 314 hectares size around every school.

A reader has shown what this would mean in Wellington.

So I guess you might be able to buy some out in Cook Strait.

Incredibly sad that Shane Warne is dead. He was one of the greatest bowlers in the history of cricket.

He was a larger than life character, with scandals galore. But that did not take away from his greatness.

Good to see Victoria decide to rename the Great Southern Stand of the MCG after Warne. Very fitting.

The last decade or so has been fairly bleak for those who believe in liberalism and democracy. To name just a few issues we have seen:

• China change course from a liberalising country to a more authoritarian country
• Russia start invading other countries
• The rise of the Islamic State
• A rise of authoritarian leaders in countries like The Philippines and Brazil
• Increasing attacks on free speech from cancel culture and associated identity politics
• The first US President in history refusing to concede he lost an election
• Increasing boldness from authoritarian countries such as Saudi Arabia where their leaders assassinate dissident citizens overseas with few repercussions
• More and more countries self-censoring themselves to avoid angering China
• More countries retreating to protectionism

But the global response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has given me hope. Liberal democratic countries have shown that there is a point at which they will act.

The initial response to the Russian invasion was tepid, but due to a combination of social media footage, a slow Russian advance and heroic resistance from Ukraine, hundreds of millions of people have demanded that their governments do what they can to persuade Russia to end the invasion. And the response has been unprecedented – freezing of central bank assets, sanctions, expulsion from SWIFT, travel bans etc etc.

The only way you stop a bully is to stand up to them, and the age of appeasement may finally be at an end. The liberal democratic countries have always had huge power, should they choose to use it.

But it hasn’t just been the response from countries. Russia is out of football, Formula One, Skiing World Cup and the Paralympics. They are out of Eurovision, and are cut off from new films. Their cultural icons are being banned from venues. The giant tech countries are limiting access. Russian propaganda channels are being banned or dropped.

This stuff is important too, as it turns Russians against the war and Putin. It is not guaranteed to succeed, but it is going to act as a cautionary tale to other authoritarian countries. Even China may now be a bit more cautious about military action in the future against Taiwan.

The invasion is a tragedy for Ukraine. Thousands of them are dead and this is just the beginning. Almost a million are refugees. It would be better if Russia never invaded. But the silver lining is the response. It has been unprecedented, and it does give hope.

The longer Ukraine can hold out, the more likely it is the sanctions will force Russia to negotiate an end to the invasion. They were counting on sanctions they could withstand for years, but they have ended up with sanctions that could cripple them in months or even weeks.

Слава Україні!

The FT reports:

Of all the sanctions the west imposed on Russia last week, sanctioning Russia’s central bank is by far the most fateful. “We will cause the collapse of the Russian economy,” said the French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire. This is not hyperbole. And if managed smartly by the west, these sanctions can also stop the war in Ukraine and beyond.

This is the aim – to stop the war. The more sanctions pile on, the more the incentives shift for Putin to halt the invasion, and negotiate a peaceful outcome.

With 60 per cent of FX reserves out of commission, Russia has to rely on the remaining 40 per cent, but there is no freedom to operate there either. The central bank cannot sell gold for dollars and euros because all transactions with it are prohibited and foreign bankers and dealers do not want to invite western wrath. The IMF reserve position is untouchable. Some $84bn in Chinese securities could, hypothetically, have been sold back to China, with a discount, to be paid in dollars, cut to $50bn, but China’s state banks have already refused financial deals with Russia. Which leaves only $30bn in cash — too little to prevent financial and economic ruin. The rouble is already in freefall and the run on banks in full swing. Russian corporate and individual depositors have $280bn in dollar and euro denominated account balances with Russian commercial banks. Banks cannot have that much foreign cash on hand and the central bank doesn’t have cash to save them. Now people want to withdraw rouble deposits, not because they are afraid that next time the roubles won’t be there but because they expect that next time their bank won’t be there. The Russian people saw bank failures during the default of 1998 and expect no less. The final implosion will be over supply chains. Businesses will demand dollars for payments. The successful part of the economy, producers of natural resources and high-value goods, will operate in dollars. The rest will have to resort to barter and endure supply interruptions, work stoppages and unemployment. The government may ban foreign currency transactions and demand that businesses trade only in roubles. This is unenforceable. The economy will break and a GDP contraction follow.

The challenge is can Ukraine hold out long enough for the Russian economy to break.

A guest post by a reader:

Tonga has a population of about 100k. So there are probably 25-30 trashed dwellings. 

I won’t even try to think about how to provide drinking water for however long it takes to rebuild roofs and stuff. 100k people at 10l/day each is 1m litres/day …. Only until we rebuild houses of course. God knows where that comes from.

Food wise I understand there are a lot of subsistence farmers. There are also people who grow cash crops like vanilla for export. All of the crops have been trashed by ash and will probably not be back up for another 12 months.  Tourism of course will be trashed for 6-12 months.

Sanitation will be a problem – with toilets all trashed there is lots of scope for disease … think Haiti and cholera.

Also Tonga has $150m or so of debt to China … 

The royals who own the satellite slots should be relatively unaffected ….

The odd shipload/planeload of aid is all good stuff, but the big picture is pretty depressing. Charity is admirable, but this is huge. How much of it is our(NZ)problem?

FEE reports:

A Danish newspaper has apologized to its readers for not questioning the government’s data and narratives more throughout the first two years of the pandemic.

The Ekstra Bladet, founded in 1904, said it should have done more due diligence in examining the government’s data and conclusions before reporting them:

“For ALMOST two years, we – the press and the population – have been almost hypnotically preoccupied with the authorities’ daily coronatal,” wrote Bladet journalist Brian Weichardt. “THE CONSTANT mental alertness has worn out tremendously on all of us. That is why we – the press – must also take stock of our own efforts. And we have failed.”

Will we see something like that here?

“WE HAVE NOT been vigilant enough at the garden gate when the authorities were required to answer what it actually meant that people are hospitalized with corona and not because of corona. Because it makes a difference. A big difference. Exactly, the official hospitalization numbers have been shown to be 27 percent higher than the actual figure for how many there are in the hospital, simply because they have corona. We only know that now.

The data is similar in NZ. A large proportion of those in hospital were not admitted due to Covid-19 symptoms, but due to other issues and found to have Covid-19. I’ve seen only very little reporting of this.

Some NZ media have done good work, but not enough have dug beyond the press releases. Where are the in depth stories on the fact we won’t have any anti-viral drugs to fight Covid-19 until April?

The Restaurant & Cafe Hospitality Magazine e-mailed subscribers last week and said:

Strike 1: The Finance Minister can’t seem to do the math, with the criteria for the new Government support package making most hospitality businesses ineligible.

Strike 2: Mixed messages from Government and District Health Boards are driving business owners insane, because while Grant Robertson urged people to go to work to support surrounding hospitality and retail outlets, workers at New Zealand’s biggest businesses and government departments are being encouraged to work from home, decimating CBD based businesses.

Strike 3: No one seems to want to acknowledge that for every cafe, restaurant, bar or tourism business there is a swathe of businesses upstream that supply them, from ingredients, products, tech, packaging, services and many more. It’s only a matter of time before hospitality’s pressure pot boils over as mutterings of a no-confidence vote abound. Time to kick the inexperienced to the curb and let those who have experience in business take over.

I can’t recall a trade magazine before ever taking a stand and calling on a Government to go. They don’t tend to be political. I can only imagine they are reflecting the overwhelming view of their industry.

Curia did a poll for Hobson’s Pledge that asked if New Zealanders and New Zealand is less divided or more divided than a year ago. The results were that a huge 72% said more divided and only 10% less divided.

One can argue about why this is (Government policies, Covid-19, cancel culture etc) but regardless of cause, we should all be concerned that the vast majority of New Zealanders think we are a more divided country. This is not a trend we want to continue.

Political leaders should give serious consideration as to what they can do to turn this trend about, and bring New Zealanders together.

The Public Service Commissioner has announced:

The public housing agency, Kāinga Ora, fell short of the standards expected on political neutrality when it published an article about a political candidate, Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes has found.

The Commissioner said Kāinga Ora got it wrong when it considered the principle of political neutrality, which is fundamental in the New Zealand Public Service.

Concerns were raised last year about the conduct of Kāinga Ora officials regarding an article it sponsored on community spirit at its Hobsonville Point development. Kāinga Ora drafted the article in mid-May 2020, for publication on the oneroof.co.nz website on 27 May. The focus of the article was the Hobsonville Point Gets Ready Group, represented by Arena Williams (now a Member of Parliament). The article was published despite Ms Williams advising Kāinga Ora that she was not far away from announcing that she would be standing as a candidate in the 2020 general election. That announcement was made on 29 May.

I blogged on this issue in November. The summary was:

• Kainga Ora (Housing NZ) signed a contract with NZME to spent $25,000 a month for almost two years in return for stories they would write that would look like news stories.
• NZME failed to state that this was supplied content, and for many months they appeared without any disclaimer that they were paid for.
• The Minister of Housing, Megan Woods, denied in a written question that there was any agreement between NZME and Kainga Ora. This was false, and later blamed on a clerical error.
• One purchased article was in May 2020 and featured Arena Williams (now a Labour MP) and was full of details about what she had done for her community – it appeared three days before the Labour selection for Manurewa.
• Kainga Ora staff said that they would just pretend not to know she was about to announce her candidacy

The full PSC report is here, and the details show how badly Kainga Ora behaved. They include:

1. KO staff knew enough to know that continuing with the advertorial with Williams carried risk
2. KO misunderstood the principle of political neutrality
3. KO staff did not even consider whether it was ever appropriate for public funds to be used to give positive exposure to a political candidate
4. KO staff did not escalate to senior management team
5. KO did not take the advertorial down, after Williams was announced as a candidate
6. The KO SCA twice said they could pretend they didn’t know she was about to become a candidate and none of her managers or colleagues at the time thought this was inappropriate
7. Kāinga Ora did not immediately acknowledge and distance itself from the suggestions in the emails that the agency could act as if it didn’t know about the disclosure
8. Kāinga Ora’s media response to the OIA release ignored the central issues
9. Kāinga Ora misled in their media response when they said they only became aware of Williams intended candidacy in the latter stages of the writing process, when it was known from the very first conversation with Williams and before anything was written.
10. The Kāinga Ora media release also misled in attributing the decision to a staff member making a personal call, when it was discussed with four staff or contractors and escalated to a third level general manager.
11. The KO Chief Executive defended the decision to publish initially
12. The PSC found there was a pattern of minimisation within KO
13. The PSC concluded “the sponsored article provided publicity that favoured one political party, just before and during an election period.”
14. Kāinga Ora maintained a position that minimised the issues and contained some errors about key facts, demonstrated a misunderstanding of the principle of political neutrality at all levels within the organisation, and how it should have operated in this context.

So it is a very thorough and robust report by the Public Service Commission. The question that one has to ask though is how is it possible that no one has lost their job?

The New Zealand Association of Economists and the NZ Initiative have done a survey of leading economists, and found they do agree on certain issues. The economists surveyed are not cherry picked but are Distinguished Fellows, life members, and former Presidents of the New Zealand Association of Economists or recipients of the NZIER ‘Economist of the Year’ award.

The panel of 17 includes Brian Easton, Allan Bollard and Arthur Grimes. The three propositions they agreed on were:

• Rent controls for some rental housing units (such as in New York City) have had a positive
  impact on the amount and quality of affordable rental housing. 82% disagree and 6% agree for net disagreement of -76%.
• The average Kiwi would be better off if more highly educated foreign workers were allowed to migrate to New Zealand each year. 88% agree and no disagree for net agreement of +88%
• Countries that borrow in their own currency can finance as much real government spending as they want by creating money. 82% disagree and no agree for net disagreement of -82%

In the full results you can see how each economist answered the proposition, and also how confident they are in their answers.

Nine of the 17 economists said their confidence that housing controls won’t work was over 90%!

It will be interesting to see what other propositions will be surveyed in future, to see if there is a consensus.

I had read stories about how difficult it is to get RAT tests, but until you experience it yourself you don’t realise the level of incompetence involved.

A family member was sick earlier this week so they went to a testing station on Monday and got tested. The result was negative. But as they still have cold like symptoms, they wanted to get a RAT test before they head back into their office next week.

It looked really simple. You just go to the website, give your details and how many people live in your household, and they calculate how many tests you can pick up. Then they text you your order number and say they can be picked up at any of the community facilities on the website. I was impressed by how easy it appeared to be. Alas, I should have known better.

I drove half an hour to the community facility (a pharmacy). I walked in and said I had an order number so could I grab some RAT tests. They told me that I can’t just turn up, and that I needed to ring up and make an appointment in advance. They further told me I can only pick them up between 2 pm and 4 pm, despite their hours being listed as from 9 am. And that they need to have staff in full PPE supply me with the tests, even though I am not sick, and do not need to be tested there – all I needed was for them to give me some tests in a paper bag to take home. If the website had told me this was the case, then I would have rung up in advance and gone in at 2 pm, but it didn’t. I guess they expect people to have ESP.

So that is one hour wasted. I then decide to go to one of the mega testing centres having checked you don’t need an appointment for then. I drive there and there is no separate queue for picking up a test as opposed to getting tested. The queue is probably over a km long, and it would take me I estimate three hours to merely have someone hand over a bag full of tests to me to take home for my family member.

I gave up. We tried to do the right thing, but the system incentivises you not to. Most other countries allow you to just buy (or get for free) RATs in any supermarket or pharmacy. Here we have a Soviet style bureaucracy which actively works against allowing New Zealanders to get tested.

The Daily Mail reports:

The editor of the British Medical Journal has slammed Facebook for ‘censoring’ its report into allegations of malpractice during Pfizer’s Covid vaccine trials.   

Dr Kamran Abbasi accused the social media giant of suppressing ‘fully fact-checked’ journalism and ‘trying to control how people think’. 

A BMJ investigation in November warned that a contractor which ran a number of Pfizer‘s original jab studies may have falsified data and skewed findings. 

Its report was based on dozens of internal documents, photos, audio-recordings, videos and statements from three former employees. 

But when some users shared the journal entry on Facebook, their post was automatically given a ‘missing context’ label. 

This is the danger of elevating fact checkers to some sort of unimpeachable position on issues.

Last election we saw AAP do a fact check I labelled the worst ever. They labelled a statement from Simeon Brown as misleading for saying “When we were in government we increased renewable energy from 65.4 percent to 81.9 percent”. This is despite the fact the MBIE data shows in November 2008 it was 65.4% and in September 2017 it was 81.9%. AAP fact checkers said it was misleading because they decided this increase happened in spit of the Government, not because of it. Atrocious.

The behaviour of the mob of remaining protesters at Parliament is appalling. It doesn’t matter whether you agree or disagree with them on vaccine mandates. Some of them should be going to jail for what has become a violent riot. Their actions include:

• Setting the playground slide on fire
• Multiple fires elsewhere
• Throwing bricks at the Police
• Exploding LPG cannisters on the fires
• Attempts at molotov cocktails
• Ripping up paving stones to use as weapons

And don’t even try to peddle the conspiracy nonsense that those who did this are ANTIFA infiltrators. About as credible as the fake moon landings.

Protesting against vaccine mandates was a very valid cause. The refusal of the Government to set out criteria when the mandates will end, meant that many of those affected thought they had to protest and even occupy. But again no matter how much one might sympathise with their cause, can justify their actions.

The nature of the protest has changed over the three weeks, In the first day or two it was very confrontational. But then it did change into more of a hippie type occupation and there was a huge diversity of people there ranging from Green Party voters to Advance NZ voters. But in the last week it changed again and a lot of those remaining were the more confrontational ones, and today they basically rioted.

A number of police officers have been injured, and the Police have a tough enough job without having people throw bricks and stones at them. I hope those who did so are identified and charged.

Great news in the ASH survey of Year 10 students. The daily smoking rate is now down to 1.3%. At the turn of the century it was over 15%. The daily vaping rate is 9.6% which is somewhat concerning, but vaping is far less harmful than smoking.

But only 3% of students who have never smoked vape daily. While 80% of students who are daily smokers vape daily. This strongly indicates it is mainly turning smokers into vapers, rather than attracting non-smokers.

The daily smoking rate for Maori students is down to 3.4%. A year ago it was 5.8% and 20 years ago it was a massive 30%+.

It’s great to see such huge progress. If one can stop someone getting addicted to tobacco at age 14, that makes a real difference.

Newshub reports:

A Christchurch family is being forced to leave New Zealand because the parents can’t get residency for their four-year-old daughter.

Ruby O’Connor was born in New Zealand. Her mum Kerry Hayes, dad Bryan O’Connor, and baby brother Leon can all get residency, but she can’t because she has a disability and her medical bills run into the tens of thousands of dollars a year.

Her parents say their immigration experience has been demoralising and disgraceful, and want changes to the policy.

“She’s just not wanted, and it’s pretty much massive discrimination against someone with a disability even though she was born here,” Hayes tells Newshub.

“You just feel like you’re not good enough, you know.”

The family’s heartbreaking story began with such promise. O’Connor is a builder who moved to New Zealand at the end of 2013 to help with the rebuild in Christchurch after the earthquakes.

Hayes, a beauty therapist, arrived a month or so later, attracted to the lifestyle. Both are Irish and had working visas.

They met in Christchurch, fell in love, and in 2017 welcomed Ruby into their world. 

They key thing is the parents have been legally living and working in New Zealand for almost nine years. They are not overstayers. They are not illegal immigrants.

When Ruby was two, she started having seizures and soon after she was diagnosed with TBCK – a rare neuro-genetic syndrome. She’s the only person in New Zealand to have it and one of just 17 worldwide.

“It affects every aspect of her life. She can’t walk, talk, she has seizures, she’s peg-fed, so she can’t have anything orally,” Hayes says.

She’s also visually impaired, has osteoporosis, and is immune-compromised. She’s already been hospitalised, in ICU, with serious bouts of pneumonia.

“We nearly lost her on two occasions, it was quite close. They had no hope for her but she kept fighting,” Hayes says.

As Ruby fought for her life, her parents fought hard to keep her in the country, in the only home she’s known.

Poor little mite.

The family wanted residency since New Zealand has been their home for eight years, but they say they were told only mum, dad, and their healthy baby son Leon could stay. Ruby couldn’t because of her disability and medical needs. Even though she was born here, she’s included in her parent’s resident visa application as a dependent child. 

The family spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours to secure her residency – applications, lawyers, letters – but to no avail.

“We just get this block every time and she’s constantly refused because of her medical criteria,” Hayes says.

Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March says this is a disgrace and he wants the immigration disability policy changed.

A rare occasion when I agree with him.

It would be different if the parents were not already in New Zealand (legally). If a family resident overseas has a seriously disabled child and they apply to move to New Zealand, then the costs of healthcare for that child should be taken into account. Migration to New Zealand is a privilege, not a right.

But this is a couple who have lived here for almost nine years. Their child was legally born in New Zealand. The child has never lived elsewhere. The Government should so some kindness and give Ruby residency.

The Government declined on Tuesday to use urgency to introduce legislation to allow sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. I guess they think an invasion doesn’t require an urgent response.

Now contrast that to what they have used urgency for in the last four years, and what does that tell you about priorities. They include:

• introducing regional fuel taxes
• a levy on international visitors
• abolishing election for Waikato DHB
• reducing the amount a foreign person can donate to a party
• giving prisoners the vote
• classifying on demand videos
• abolishing the right of voters to decide on local Maori wards

So when the Government wants to give prisoners the vote or remove the vote from ratepayers it needs urgency. But to legislate for sanctions against Russia, no urgency at all.

if any designers out there want to create a graphic showing what Labour will and will not use urgency for, feel free to do so and post links to graphics. I’ll happily share them on social media.

And it has been done, thanks Andy.

NZ Doctor reports:

South Auckland doctors say two new anti-viral drugs to treat patients with COVID-19 are needed now in a bid to manage the country’s Omicron outbreak.

But according to drug buyer Pharmac, the drugs may not be available until April at the earliest.

Other countries have had these drugs for months. Once again we are last. These drugs can massively reduce the impact of Covid-19 on those infected. We needed the drugs in February, not April.

South Auckland GP Dr Api Talemaitoga, chairman of the Pasifika GP Network, said doctors on the front line in Counties Manukau need all the help they can get to manage the Omicron outbreak, and the anti-viral drugs are needed now.

“We’re expecting a peak in case numbers in March, so I can’t understand why we might have to wait until after April for these drugs?”

A good question.

In a statement, Pharmac’s chief medical officer Dr David Hughes said it expected the new medicines to arrive in the country between April and June.

This means we’ll probably get them on 29 June.