Stuff reported:

New Zealand has had 18 months to prepare for endemic Covid-19, but many in the health sector feel their most important weapon has seemingly been left out of the equation. Both new and existing healthcare professionals are struggling to get into MIQ. Louisa Steyl reports.

They’re not as important as a Minister travelling with nine staff, or a sports team!

Dalton understands that 100 of the 250 requests made by DHBs in recent months have been rejected – including an application from one overseas ICU nurse who has been rejected six times.

This is beyond crazy. Anyone needed by a DHB in a pandemic should be given priority.

The situation hasn’t improved. Southland is at risk of losing its only secondary birthing facility because its clinical director has been shut out of the country.

Dr Jim Faherty went to the United States to support his dying father in August after already losing his mum in March.

He has been stonewalled by bureaucracy, with three failed applications and one appeal.

“The system of MIQ allocation seems broken, non-transparent, inequitable, overburdened and flawed,” he says.

So Southland families may lose their birthing facility because of the Government’s management of MIQ.

MIQ capacity can’t be increased without nurses, but nurses can’t get into the country.

This shows the lunacy of what the Government is doing. People have been saying for many months we must expand MIQ capacity, and the Government says it can’t as we don’t have enough nurses. So rather than let some nurses in as a priority, they leave the health system short staffed and MIQ without the necessary capacity.

A Ministry of Health spokesperson says it has informed MBIE that access to MIQ spaces is a barrier for critical health workers to entering New Zealand.

So even the Ministry of Health is frustrated. What this points to is a failure of leadership by Ministers. If your Ministry of Health is saying that MBIE is blocking health staff from coming to NZ, then a competent Minister would push through a solution.

Jo Moir has an interesting profile of National MP Matt Doocey on Newsroom. Well worth a read.

Martin van Beynen has a good article (as usual) on the Peter Ellis Supreme Court hearing. There’s one area I want to highlight:

The allegations followed a comment by the 4-year-old son of a former creche parent that he didn’t like “Peter’s black penis”. His mother had authored a handbook on child sexual abuse and had recovered memories of being sexually abused herself. She would go on to accuse another male worker at another creche. …

The children were very young and had been asked to recall intimate details of events that happened when most of them were between 3 and 5 years old.

One issue was whether the children’s memories or accounts had been contaminated even before they attended their specialist interviews. Many of the children’s parents had questioned their children about possible abuse before the interviews and swapped stories. Some children had met for play dates, and social workers who worked with a core group of parents had spread information.

The interviews themselves were also open to criticism. Many of the children were interviewed multiple times. If children said nothing happened, they were not believed. More probing would ensue.

One child was interviewed five times, another six. Few of the children showed any signs of distress in their revelations, and as a matter of principle were almost never challenged on inconsistencies, impossibilities and contradictions.

Their often disjointed accounts were regurgitated by the interviewers in neat summaries and the child was then asked to continue.

Even without all the obvious contamination in the Ellis case, a child’s memory can still be a mixture of real and imaginary.

My four year old son insists he had a sister. He says she died a long time ago. He often tells other people about his dead sister. She normally died from falling into a volcano it seems. Once she was killed by dinosaurs. I have told him many times he has never had a sister. Sometimes he thinks it might be a cousin. But normally it is a sister.

This has taught me how very dangerous it can be to take at face value what a three or four year old says. Of course they often tell the truth, but also they often do not know the difference between imagination and reality.

An interesting paper by Lindsay Mitchell that looks at how key economic and social indicators for Mapori have changed over the decades. The points the paper stresses is that there has been huge gains, even though outcomes are still generally less favourable than Europeans. Some key data points:

• Life expectancy increased from mid 50s in 1951 to 73 for Maori males and 77 for Maori females
• Child mortality dropped from 51% in 1886 to 1% today
• Infant mortality dropped from 9% in 1945 to 0.5% today
• TB rates has dropped from 13 per 100,000 in 1997 to 4 per 100,000
• Cardiovascular disease mortality rates dropped from 700 per 100,000 in 1997 to 400 for Maori males
• Heart failure mortality rates dropped from 22 per 100,000 in 1997 5 for Maori males
• Daily smoking rates for 15 year olds down from 25% in 1999 for Maori males to 5% and from 35% to 10% for Maori females
• Leaving school with no qualifications down from 40% in 2006 to 25%

The data brings up an interesting issue – what is more important – the absolute improvement in outcomes, or the gap between groups?

As I have observed before the Ministry of Education has gone full irony (retard) on their Mission Statement:

We shape an education system that delivers equitable and excellent outcomes.

Some examples of their in-joke:

• 10% of decile 1 leavers transition to degree courses – 60% of decile 10.
• 30% of decile 1 students have left at 16 or younger. Less that 10% of decile 10.
• 35% of decile 1 students attend school regularly. 70% of decile 10.
• 22% of Maori attain University Entrance. 69% of Asian leavers have it.
• 14 schools transition no students to degree study. 10 schools transition over 80%.
• 18 schools have lost 40% of their student before turning 17. 10 schools have over 99% left.
• 31 schools have less than 10% of leavers get UE. 16 schools have over 90%.
• Fully State administered schools get UE at 39% for leavers. Integrated and Character Schools at 69% and Private at 87%.
• International measures have NZ near the bottom of the English speaking world for Math, Science and Reading.

A Ministry contracted report (bet they are glad they did that!) by the Royal Society on NZ’s Mathematics teaching has concluded.

“That our maths education was in a “goddamn mess“. The system was widening the gap between rich and poor children and left Māori and Pasifika children falling behind at school – and ultimately at life.”

Does anyone remember that Charter Schools were not needed because we have a “world class education system”?

Does anyone remember that all that was needed to fix things was pay rises for teachers?

We are well on the way to further embedding a permanent underclass or lower decile taught Maori and Pasifika students. We are also well on the way to a permanently discouraged and disenfranchised group that contains the neuro-diverse, those who have been through trauma within the system (the world’s highest incidence of bullying), the anxious and school averse.

Who takes responsibility? Not Minister Hipkins – he is MIA on education and whenever you try and speak to someone with half a portfolio they refer you to him – it is like return Christmas cards. The Secretary of Education, Iona “$550k+” Holstead was appointed in 2016. Surely with this many losses and disasters she and her senior team must go.

The latest example of phenomenal stupidity is that they are doing such a poor job of oversight on three Special Schools are being funded at $890,000 per student per annum (read it twice – that IS the correct figure) – plus an $8m rebuild for one of them. It does not take a rocket scientist to know the new NZQA Board Chair Tracey Martin has to be involved somewhere.

When the Villa Education Trust applied to set up Charter Schools we were told by all of the usual suspects that we could always have set up as Designated Character Schools under Labour instead. Jacinda Ardern told me face-to-face that we had “shown them the inadequacy of their Designated Character School policy.” She told NZ in 2018 that work was being done on that policy.

In 2019 and 2020 we have applied (like Jacinda said to) for a Designated Character School, non-zoned and near an Auckland transport hub, for 480 students of the type (including neuro diverse and a high proportion of Maori and Pasifika students) that Cognition Education noted that:

“In summary we find and conclude that in both [Villa Education Trust] schools, the management and staff are actively involved in continuous development, and the delivery, of a unique programme of teaching and learning which is based on a comprehensive ‘local’ curriculum that is aligned with the New Zealand Curriculum, and which provides for the personalised needs of priority learners ‘many of whom have been failed by the current education system.”

What we didn’t know is that we were up against a new decision-making flow chart in keeping with other Ministry competencies and actions.

Please help and support!

Alwyn Poole
[email protected]

47 years ago today (10 October 1974 in the UK) Harold Wilson won a general election for UK Labour. This was the last time UK Labour won a general election without Tony Blair as leader. Today most in UK Labour despise Blair and they look likely to extend the non-Blair streak to a half century. Here’s their list of leaders in elections since 1974:

1. James Callaghan, lost 1979
2. Michael Foot, lost 1983
3. Neil Kinnock, lost 1987, 1992
4. John Smith died
5. Tony Blair won 1997, 2001, 2005
6. Gordon Brown lost 2010
7. Ed Miliband lost 2015
8. Jeremy Corbyn lost 2017, 2019

Luke Malpass writes:

Covid for Christmas. It was a line that Labour ministers Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins effectively deployed with glee last week when National released its Covid policy.

National, they said, with its policy to open the borders at an 85 per cent vaccination rate, would be virtually giving Kiwis the virus for Christmas.

It was a clever line from two men who have spent almost their entire adult and professional lives trying to destroy the National Party. They just couldn’t help themselves.

Both Ministers followed near identical paths of student presidents to ministerial staff to MP to Minister, having never had a job in the private sector.

Yet it is now something that both men – Hipkins in particular, as Covid-19 response minister – could well live to regret. There will most likely be Covid for Christmas, but it won’t have been via an open border or the National Party.

I’d say it is going to bite them big time, and deservedly so. National’s policy was a serious constructive document, and the response from Hipkins and Robertson was nasty politics at it lowest.

The biggest issue, and where the Government has clearly dropped the ball, is ICU capacity. After the first lockdown last year, it should have moved quickly to create a special visa class to get ICU specialists into the country. It did not.

This is an astonishing failure, given that the clear capacity constraint in the system – testing, contact tracing, isolation, hospital care – was always going to lie in providing and staffing ICU facilities.

Not only did they not bring in a special visa for ICU specialists, they have been actively turning them away. It is beyond madness.

The Herald reports:

A road rager who pursued a young family for 10 minutes before shooting at the family’s car has had his jail sentence thrown out.

Dekota Chase Simpson will instead serve a sentence of home detention after a jail sentence imposed at Manukau District Court was quashed.

On May 10 last year, Simpson and his brother were driving along South Auckland’s Roscommon Rd in Wiri.

A newly-published High Court decision showed Simpson was driving and his brother was in the front passenger seat.

An adult couple were in another car with two children, aged 12 and 13.

“They pulled out of a service station and on to a connecting road when Mr Simpson’s car sped up close behind them.” Justice Ian Gault said in the new High Court judgment.

“Annoyed at Mr Simpson’s driving, the adult male victim showed his middle finger to them and yelled ‘f*** you’ as Mr Simpson pulled into a service station on Roscommon Rd,” the judge added.

In response, Simpson pointed his hands at the victims and made gun gestures. His brother got a shotgun from the back seat and assembled it.

The couple with children drove away and got on the Southwestern Motorway (SH20), heading north.

Simpson and his brother changed seats and Simpson retrieved a guitar bag with another shotgun and ammunition.

Justice Gault said Simpson and his brother caught up to the victims about 10 minutes later, yelling as Simpson waved around the shotgun.

“He then leaned out of the front passenger window of the car with the shotgun all the way out of the window and pointed it at the adult victims.”

He fired a shot, striking the front bumper of the victims’ car. …

He said 19 months’ imprisonment was manifestly excessive.

“A sentence of home detention also better reflects parity between Mr Simpson and his brother.”

The jail term was quashed and replaced with a sentence of seven months’ home detention.

19 months manifestly excessive for firing a shotgun unprovoked at a family of four, including two kids.

Seven months home detention is laughable.

A guest post by Jeremy Callender:

According to media outlets, Te Pāti Māori (the Māori Party) would like all NZ place names to
be restored to their original Māori name by 2026 and ‘Aotearoa’ to officially replace ‘New
Zealand’. According to co-leader Rawiri Waititi, this is because “It’s well past time that te
reo Māori was restored to its rightful place as the first and official language of this country”
and “Tangata whenua are sick to death of our ancestral names being mangled, bastardised,
and ignored. It’s the 21st century, this must change.”
Let me start out by nailing a few of my colours, so to speak, to the mast:

1. The resurgence of te reo Maori in recent years is a positive development;
2. Basic courtesy demands that we try to pronounce te reo Maori words as they are
   pronounced in te reo Maori – e.g. Oamaru should not be pronounced Om-a-ru;
3. New Zealand maps, road signs, etc should identify locations by their te reo Maori
   name and non-te reo Maori names (if any); and
4. They can change NZ’s name to Landy McLandplace for all I care.
   But for all that, I will not be investing any time in learning to speak te reo Maori. Why? It’s
   quite simple really: because I have not the faintest interest in doing so.
   My time on this earth may end in 50 years or it may end tomorrow. Whatever my expiry
   date, human life is finite and I intend to spend as much of mine as possible doing things that
   I actually care about doing. Currently, I find that I like going bodyboarding and hunting and
   engaging in practical problem solving in my garage. I like reading and writing and music. I
   like playing with my dog. I like spending time with my wife and children, and with our wider
   family and friends.
   Conversely, I do not find myself feeling that I should get into aqua jogging or learn to pole
   vault. I don’t find within myself a desire to tinker with motorbikes or to become an amateur
   taxidermist. I don’t enjoy karaoke and I’ve never felt compelled to dress myself in a onesie.
   Nor do I wish to learn te reo Maori.
   What can I say? Perhaps I’m just quirky.
   As intimated earlier, I think it’s great that many New Zealanders are finding enjoyment or
   satisfaction or meaning (or whatever) through their discovery or re-discovery of te reo
   Maori. More power to them, I say!
   But, as it happens, I simply have no interest in taking a magical mystery tour on the te reo
   Maori Express. I have not found myself in need of te reo Maori during my 40+ years thus
   far, and I see no reason to suggest that I will need it during the time that I have left.
   I’m pretty sure that my kids aren’t going to need it either…
   And that’s okay.
   And maybe I’m wrong.
   That will be okay too.
   I have never been deprived of my native language, so I can only imagine how important te
   reo Maori must be to many Maori. Nobody should be deprived of their native tongue, and it
   is a national tragedy that for so long Maori were deprived of theirs. Perhaps this wrong can
   be made right.
   But I am not Maori and te reo Maori is not my language. And if, in the minds of the Initiated
   that reduces me to the status of an ignorant pakeha, palagi, honky or some other name,
   then so be it – having the approval of the Approved matters little to me. For I know who I
   am, and though sadly I know relatively little of my ancestors, I do know that like Maori, they
   came to New Zealand from far across the sea. I know that like Maori, they hacked out for
   themselves and their children, a new life in a rugged and often unforgiving land –
   sometimes by fair means and sometimes by foul. And I know that like Maori, the efforts of
   my ancestors have borne some fruit that is sweet……and some that is bitter.
   For such is the way of all people and the way of all things.
   So I, for one, will not spend my life as a hostage either to the perceived sins of the past, the
   fluctuating resentments of the present, or the certain uncertainty of the future.
   My land is Otago and my home is Dunedin; and while it may be Otepoti to Maori, to me it
   will always be Dunedin. Furthermore, it will be a meteorologically stable day in Dunedin (as
   opposed to a cold day in Hell…) before anyone from anywhere compels me to call it
   anything else.
   In any language.
   Kia kaha.

The Herald reports:

A Mongrel Mob leader accused of helping a Covid-positive sex worker obtain documentation to travel to Northland has lashed out at the allegations and threatened legal action.

In an interview with Te Ao Māori News this afternoon, Hawke’s Bay Mongrel Mob leader Harry Tam says the claims levelled by former Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters are not true.

“If Winston said it, he needs to prove it… If he’s not going to apologise, we will need to look at legal action,” Tam said.

Peters appeared on TV3’s Newshub on Saturday morning levelling the allegations which had been circulating on social media and encrypted messaging app ‘WhatsApp’ on Friday night.

Winston claimed to have impeccable sources, but basically his source appears to be a Facebook post that had circulated widely.

I have received it almost a dozen times, and was sceptical of the part that claimed Harry Tam was with the Northland case and arranged her travel. It was just far too convenient – the guy who had just been in the news. So I decided not to publish it, but Winston blurts it out on live TV as holy writ.

It is a shame Winston did, because it has allowed the Government to escape scrutiny over the rest of the issue. They have denied the aspects about Harry Tam, but are not denying all of it:

Speaking to media on Saturday afternoon, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said there was “no evidence” to support some of the claims around the Northland case and that the government was being transparent in their disclosures.

Note the carefully phrased use of “some of the claims”. If the Government was transparent it would share with the public what they know.

A long and interesting article at History Reclaimed pushing back on the notion that the US and Canada are countries stolen from the indigenous populations by colonisers. Some relevance to NZ.

The Guardian reports:

Trans women retain physique, stamina and strength advantages when competing in female sport, even when they reduce their testosterone levels, new guidelines for transgender participation in national and grassroots sport published by the UK sports councils will say on Thursday.

The long-awaited report argues there is no magic solution which balances the inclusion of trans women in female sport while guaranteeing competitive fairness and safety. 

It will be different in different sports. Rugby could well make a different decision to say bowls.

The guidelines state that because males and females do not often play competitive sports against each other, many people do not appreciate the differences, particularly in team sports.

“However, an understanding of the gap between the two sexes can be recognised by results of practice matches between national senior women’s football teams against underage boys’ teams in recent years,” it says. “The national teams from Australia, USA and Brazil were beaten comprehensively (7-0, 5-2, 6-0 respectively) by club teams of 14- and 15-year-old boys.”

That’s staggering.

In reviewing the latest science, the guidelines say adult male athletes have on average a 10-12% performance advantage over female competitors in swimming and running events, and that increases to a 20% advantage in jumping events, and 35% greater performance in strength-based sports such as weightlifting for similar-sized athletes.

The best male weightlifter in the world can lift 223 kgs in a snatch. The best female weightlifter can lift 155 kgs.

Sports are also given three potential paths they might consider. They are prioritising transgender inclusion; protecting the female category by having open and “female-only” categories; establishing new formats by adapting rules to include non-contact versions of team sports so that everyone can play.

So each sport can choose which path is most appropriate for them.

I put together this graph showing daily community covid cases and significant changes to alert levels. Red means a tightening and green a loosening.

So after the first infection, we went to Level 4. Cases peaked around 80 and then as they fell to 60 areas outside Auckland went to Level 2 and then to Level 2 as they were around 10.

Auckland cases stayed between 10 and 25 for a couple of weeks and the Government relaxed Auckland to Level 3. For the first week cases stayed around 20 but have been steadily increasing. Despite that, they did a further relaxation for Auckland this week.

It looks like going from L4 to L3 in Auckland did lead to an increase in cases and we will find out soon if the firtehr relaxing continues that trend.

Peter Goodfellow announced:

We have confirmed the appointment of Sir Graeme Harrison to the National Party Board of Directors.

Many of you will be familiar with Sir Graeme’s achievements. He brings an impressive and extensive range of personal, commercial, and community experience to the Board of the National Party, and we are excited to welcome him to the team.

Born and educated in Canterbury, Sir Graeme is best known as the founder of ANZCO Foods. He served as its Managing Director for 20 years, and Chairman for 14 years, leading the company to grow into one of New Zealand’s largest meat product exporters, with annual sales of around $1.5 billion and more than 3,000 employees.Sir Graeme is a passionate advocate for rural New Zealand and our primary industries sector, and his strong leadership over the last 30 years has been inspirational to so many Kiwis.

In 2010, Sir Graeme was winner of the Federated Farmers Agribusiness Person of the Year, and in 2011 was made a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to business.

Sir Graeme has also enjoyed a long history with Lincoln University as an adjunct professor, member of its Council, and in 2012 was conferred an honorary Doctor of Commerce degree. In 2015, he was also awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by The Emperor of Japan in recognition of his contribution to strengthening economic ties between New Zealand and Japan.

That is an impressive appointment. This is the benefit of now allowing the Board to co-opt members. Sir Graeme will bring a record of extremely astute judgement to the board.

The annual Herald Mood of the Boardroom has occurred and as usual I summarise the scores CEOs give to key politicians. While CEOs are not representative of all NZers it is interesting to see how their scores have changed from last year and which MPs are seen as better and worse performing. Scores are on a 1 to 5 scale so 3 is middle.

1. David Seymour 4.36 (+0.33)
2. Grant Robertson 3.68 (-0.50)
3. Kiri Allan 3.15
4. James Shaw 3.06
5. Jacinda Ardern 3.03 (-0.88)
6. Chris Hipkins 2.96
7. Andrew Bayly 2.86
8. Andrew Little 2.85
9. Ayesha Verrall 2.81
10. Nanaia Mahuta 2.76
11. Damien O’Connor 2.58
12. David Parker 2.57
13. Peeni Henare 2.51
14. Aupito William Sio 2.40
15. Megan Woods 2.38
16. Stuart Nash 2.34
17. Meka Whaitiri 2.33
18. Jan Tinetti 2.22
19. Willie Jackson 2.20
20. Priyanca Radhakrishnan
21. David Clark 2.17
22. Kris Faafoi 2.17 (-1.41 from 2019)
23. Michael Wood 2.15
24. Marama Davidson 2.14
25. Carmel Sepuloni 2.09
26. Judith Collins 2.06 (-1.46)
27. Poto Williams 1.98
28. Phil Twyford 1.79
29. Kelvin Davis 1.73

Phil Twyford will be glad he has Kelvin there to make him look good.

They also rate Ardern in a number of different areas:

1. Representing NZ overseas 4.0
2. Leverages personal brand 3.9
3. Stands up to US 3.42
4. Political performance 3.30
5. Stands up to China 3.28
6. Covid response 3.01
7. Climate change response 2.84
8. Security and intelligence 2.45
9. Transformative change 2.08
10. Build confidence with business 1,97

So Ardern gets high marks for international stuff, average for Covid and below average for the transformative change she promised.

Matt Burgess writes:

The government has introduced legislation which will allow the Minister of Health and the Director General to take over private companies doing COVID testing (further description is here). The likely target of this change is Rako, which has sought a commercial negotiation with the government for the last year. The amendment, which is before the Select Committee, will give the government the option of taking Rako’s property and unilaterally determine compensation.

This is potentially the most spiteful and malicious action by the Government.

Rako has spent around a year trying to convince the Government of the merits of saliva testing. After months of delay they finally agreed we should use it. But then they did a tender and gave the tender to a company that didn’t have a validated test. I suspect they did this, because Rako had so embarrassed them by not keeping quiet, but going public over how the Government should have been using saliva testing. The bottom line is a year later and the Government has yet to roll it out in a meaningful way.

So having made huge blunders in terms of not agreeing to it, and a flawed tender process, the Government is now sneaking a law change through Parliament under urgency that would allow them to simply confiscate the labs off Rako and unilaterally determine what the compensation will be. This is third world stuff.

Burgess also looks at the regulatory impact statement on the proposed law change and notes:

Focus on costs. Officials seem to operating with a cost model that threatening to take a company’s IP is costless, and costs crystalise only when property is actually taken.

I wonder what Rako’s investors and employees think about that view? In fact, I wonder what every owner of intellectual property in every sector thinks about the Ministry’s view.

Because the cost of taking companies’ property is not the administrative overhead, as officials suggest in the RIS.

The cost is all the investment in innovation that will not happen in the future.

Those costs are large, big enough to be measured in percentages of GDP. So it is laughable that officials could list administrative costs as the only real downside of their proposal.

Do officials at the Ministry of Health understand how investment in specific assets works? Do they understand that investment in intellectual property, and in all sunk assets, depends on the credibility of the government’s promise not to take the property once it is created? Do officials recognise that even threatening such opportunism in one sector could have wider ramifications about security of property elsewhere? That prospective investors in wind turbines or EV charging infrastructure won’t notice the government putting in place machinery to take the property of medical companies?

Could officials and the government be any more short-sighted?

Basically the Ministry of Health doesn’t think confiscating private labs has any costs to society or the economy except administrative ones.

Wow. Former Green Minister Julie-Anne Genter just freezes and then walks out of an interview about criticisms of a bill she actually introduced. Just totally unprepared it seems.

Labour has the largest number of Maori MPs ever in caucus and cabinet, yet none of them appear to have any actual influence on the Government. They can’t even convince the Ministers with the power to allow Maori community health groups do outreach to unvaccinated Maori.

Ind100 report:

Not only does the 110-page leaked report claim Biden did in fact win, but Trump actually received 261 fewer votes than the official figures initially suggested, and Biden scooped 99 more, according to Business Insider.

This was a so called recount by a Trump loving company that had no experience in elections, but even they couldn’t find any proof of fraud – in fact all they found was Trump lost by 360 more votes than the officiaL count!

The losing streak just carries on losing.

Geoffrey Miller writes:

China’s level of anger at the new Aukus defence pact between Australia, the UK and the US was only to be expected.

France’s was not, and Paris’s dramatic recall of its ambassadors to Canberra and Washington at the weekend may be just the start of the impact. …

That’s because New Zealand is poised to be the big winner of the Aukus partnership.

Trade is a big factor – but it’s not the only one.

The day after the Aukus announcement, the EU released its long-awaited Indo-Pacific strategy.

The strategy explicitly prioritises the need to sign free trade deals with Australia, Indonesia and New Zealand.

But France’s fury means that Australia’s agreement is now almost certainly going to be delayed.

When asked about the deal, France’s European affairs minister Clément Beaune said “I don’t see how we can trust our Australian partners”.

So we may get a trade deal with the EU because France is pissed at Australia. I’ll take that.