Stuff reported:

The governor of the Reserve Bank upbraided the head of one of New Zealand’s largest think tanks last year in a clash that included claims by the governor of “ongoing character assassination” and a refused apology.

Governor Adrian Orr berated New Zealand Initiative chairman Roger Partridge by email for grievances including “stating I have a gambling problem,” and for “mocking [the Reserve Bank’s] use of a Māori mythology”.

In a meeting of happenstance in the Koru Lounge at Wellington Airport and again at Auckland Airport following a flight, Orr also volubly complained to NZ Initiative executive director Oliver Hartwich.

Hartwich described Orr as “agitated and clearly unhappy. He made his position very clear, he was deeply unhappy with any criticism he perceived he got from us [the NZ Initiative].”

This is not an isolated incident it seems.

Orr’s exchange with Partridge fits a broader pattern of hectoring his critics last year. Reacting to a May blog post by academic and bank capital expert Martien Lubberink, Orr penned a critical letter and then threatened to share it with Lubberink’s colleagues.

He also took to task journalist Jenny Ruth at a press conference over a news story he didn’t agree with.

Sources, who asked not to be named, described heated phone calls with Orr, some at odd hours, and a pattern of publicly belittling and berating those who disagreed with him at conferences and on the sidelines of industry events.

Orr’s behaviour, they said, coloured the submission process and chilled rather than facilitated participation by industry.

This behaviour would be alarming by any public servant, but especially by the Reserve Bank Governor.

The Reserve Bank Governor is without doubt the most powerful unelected public official in New Zealand. He is not just CEO of the Reserve Bank but he effectively determines the official cash rates and hence interest rates, which can have a massive impact on every household and business in NZ. His decisions on banking regulations also has massive impact, exponentially more than any other public servant.

My rule of thumb is the more powerful the position you hold, the more thick skinned you need to be about criticism.

Orr seems to think the criticism of him is so unprecedented that he has to respond aggressively to critics. Well I think he needs to study history. When Don Brash was Reserve Bank Governor, he also attracted huge amounts of criticism, some of it quite personal. Did he shout and threaten his critics? No. In fact what he did was tour up and down New Zealand speaking to scores of meetings to try and persuade and engage. He got a lot of abuse in those meetings but he was always unfailingly polite.

Here’s an article from 2002 about Brash, including a comment from Orr:

As he steps down there is widespread praise from money markets for being a pioneer in the battle against inflation.

“Because of that he’s been a very controversial figure and perceived internationally as the type of ‘Winston Churchill’ of inflation fighting,” jokes Adrian Orr, WestpacTrust chief economist.

But Brash has his critics, like the Employers and Manufacturer’s Association’s Alasdair Thompson who say the Reserve Bank kept interest rates too high.

“We think that it has restricted economic growth to some extent throughout that period, but he’s been hugely successful in bringing inflation under control,” Thompson says.

But Brash has never courted popularity.

“A popular central bank governor is almost certainly a bad one,” he once said.

Despite his apparent independence, left-wing politicians disliked the former Reserve Bank Governor’s anti-inflation tactics, sentiment voiced by Jim Anderton at the time of the 1999 election campaign.

“The person who really cares about his job is Don Brash and he’ll be the only one who’s got one left in New Zealand; everyone else would have left,” Anderson said.

So my advice to Governor Orr for the next time he feels someone has unfairly criticised him is to take a deep breath and ask “What would Don Brash do”.

Stuff reports:

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has opened formal investigations into Christchurch and Auckland mayors Lianne Dalziel and Phil Goff over their election expenses. …

Earlier on Wednesday Goff, who like Dalziel is a former Labour Cabinet minister, said he had “nothing to hide” and was not worried about the police referral.

“We’ve kept, to the best of our knowledge, within all of the rules,” Goff said. “The SFO haven’t contacted me – I’ve got no idea what it’s about.”

I find it difficult to believe he has no idea at all what it is about.

When John Banks was investigated for his local body donations, I recall many on the left demanding he resign (as an MP) even prior to any finding of guilt. So are they also demanding Goff and Dalziel resign or stand down?

The Herald reports:

National has joined the increasing chorus of voices urging the Government to defer the planned minimum wage increase in light of the economic uncertainty created by coronavirus.

He has called the current situation an “economic crisis” and even said that New Zealand was on the doorstep of a recession.

“Businesses are facing substantial cost increases when the minimum wage goes up on April 1,” party leader Simon Bridges said this morning.

He wants the Government to defer the increase by at least six months.

Deferring the increase should be a no brainer. Many businesses are having their income plummet. They are running out of money and they are having to decide how many staff to let go.

So it’s a terrible time to have the Government increase the cost of staffing.

Also the minimum wage is already basically the highest in the developed world relative to the average wage. In 2018 the ratio of minimum to mean wages was:

1. NZ 52%
2. France 50%
3. Slovenia 48%
4. Australia 47%
5. Canada 45%
6. Israel 45%
7. UK 45%
8. Luxembourg 44%
9. Poland 32%
10. Romania 43%

So we already have the most generous (and expensive) minimum wage in the developed world and the Government is going to increase it even more just as businesses are planning to start laying staff off.

Madness.

The results from the six states that just voted in the Democratic primary mean it is all over for Bernie. Take a look at his vote share in 2020 vs 2016:

• Idaho 42% vs 78%
• Michigan 37% vs 50%
• Mississippi 15% vs 17%
• Missouri 35% vs 49%
• North Dakota 49% vs 64%
• Washington 33% vs 73%

He won or effectively tied five of those states against Clinton in 2016 and in 2020 he will win one, maybe two of those states. And of course he lost against Clinton also.

Basically it is all over. I doubt he will win any more states after this.

The Herald reports:

Provincial Growth Fund staff spent an average of $8900 each on travel, food and accommodation in one year, new figures show.

The National Party wants Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones to explain why the fund’s 116 staff needed to spend that much money.

Figures supplied to National by the minister’s office show officials from the Provincial Development Unit, which oversees the fund, spent $1.03m on travel, accommodation, meals, and incidentals in the 2018/19 financial year.

An average $9,000 per staff member on travel expenses is massive, especially considering some staff won’t do any travel at all.

Once again so easy to spend money when it isn’t your own.

Stuff reports:

Justice Minister Andrew Little will not try to re-introduce “safe zones” into his abortion legalisation bill after a procedural snafu saw them removed on Tuesday night.

The proposed safe zones would set up a regime where protest and harassment of those seeking abortions could be barred within 150 metres of clinics. …

On a late night sitting on Tuesday night those against the safe zones actually lost their first attempt to remove them, when an amendment deleting the definition of safe zones lost 59 votes to 56.

But a second attempt by ACT leader David Seymour was more successful essentially by accident, when an amendment removing essential functions of the safe areas was passed by a simple voice vote. This means MPs simply yelled out their preference, and because nobody called for votes to be actually counted the amendment was passed based on whose voices sounded louder.

So Parliament basically accidentally deleted safe zones from the bill.

While it was an accident, I think it is the right outcome.

I think people who protest outside abortion clinics are terrible people. If you don’t like the law on abortion, then go protest outside Parliament, or an MP’s office. But leave alone the poor women who are exercising their legal rights under the law to have an abortion.

But having said that, just because I think protests outside abortion clinics are terrible, that doesn’t mean the law should ban them. I think many things are terrible.

People have a right to protest in public spaces, so long as they don’t block people going about their legal business. A law that bans protests in certain areas a a bad one and sets a bad precedent.

Existing law is more than adequate to deal with activity that goes beyond protest and becomes disruption.

So I think the outcome was the right one, despite the messy process.

The ODT reports:

The Government is investigating whether it should give the Minister of Energy power to “reallocate electricity or gas in situations of acute electricity or gas shortage.”

The move has alarmed the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand, which suggests it would be ironic if the Government’s 2018 ban on offshore oil and gas exploration were to cause ministers then to intervene and claim there had been “market failure” because of a shortage of natural gas supplies.

The proposal is buried deep in a paper taken to the Cabinet by the current energy minister, Megan Woods, on December 11 last year and released proactively late last week. It covers a wide range of recommended actions aimed at alleviating energy poverty and keeping an eye on how the fast-changing electricity market develops.

The one-line reference suggests ministerial intervention could be developed aa “low-impact option” in the event of “market failure”.

“A possible option is the provision of emergency powers to reallocate electricity or gas in situations of acute electricity or gas shortage.”

It’s beyond ironic. The Government bans offshore gas exploration and then says oh it is worried we may have gas shortages, so we need more powers in case of shortages.

Dumb meet dumber.

Radio NZ report:

Five years after the charity Quit Group ceased to function, it continues to pay board members tens of thousands of dollar a year from funds that were not invested in smokefree services.

Yep this so called charity is paying board members generous fees, despite the charity having ceased to function. And all with money sources from taxpayers.

One of the board members is Chris Cunningham, who recently left his role as chair of the Hepatitis Foundation, after RNZ revealed late last year that he had spent $128,000 on overseas travel on top of lavish dinners at expensive Auckland restaurants.

Seems not unfair to call him a professional trougher. He is also a professor at Massey University.

A trust under the same name was set up to hold more than $3 million of reserves, including more than $400,000 of surplus taxpayer funds it received from the Ministry of Health, which were never spent on smokefree initiatives.

Through an official information response to the Taxpayers’ Union, the Ministry of Health revealed it was aware of the reserves built up by the trust but chose not to recoup them.

So they built up $3,000,000 in reserves from taxpayer money that was meant to be used for smokefree initiatives.

While no staff work for the trust it continues to gain investment income and has paid out $702,296 since 2016.

That includes paying itself $72,000 per year – or $18,000 per board member – travel expenses, legal fees and IT costs and maintenance.

$18,000 a year each to govern an organisation with no staff and no activity. Sweet.

In its OIA response, the ministry said it has a work programme ready on reducing smoking among Māori and would be in discussion with the trust about how best to use the surplus funds.

It would not be referring the group to Charities Services – the regulator – because the ministry was in discussion with the charity.

Taxpayers’ Union campaign manager Louis Houlbrooke said “this beggars belief”.

“The ministry has already let this group off the hook for four years.

“It’s an insult to the ailing New Zealanders who desperately need anti-smoking support and other core health services,” he said.

The Charities Commission should definitely be investigating.

Sam Sachdeva at Newsroom writes:

If you tuned in to the Prime Minister’s latest post-Cabinet press conference in the hopes of being reassured about the Government’s coronavirus response, you may have been left with mixed emotions.

On the one hand, Jacinda Ardern’s announcement of greater quarantine powers, to cover not just people but ships and planes, fits with what has largely been regarded as a sound public health approach within New Zealand to the potential pandemic.

But on the less tangible yet also important issue of the financial fallout, there were nearly as many questions as answers.

Speaking alongside Ardern, Finance Minister Grant Robertson announced a “business continuity package” to support the economy, including a targeted wage subsidy scheme along with training and redeployment options.

But there was little detail on offer. “Policy options” around tax and household support were still being sketched out by officials, Robertson said, while the scale and scope of the package was also a work in progress.

Basically they didn’t announce a package of measures. They announced there would be a package, but not what it would be.

Businesses which are having their income plummet by the day need more than good intentions. They need details so they can make decisions about whether they can stay afloat and how many staff they can retain.

But it was a surprise not to have greater specificity about what would be done, given the impact of coronavirus is well and truly being felt already among a number of New Zealand businesses.

The decision to take a targeted approach to support for employers and employees also raises some obvious questions.

How will the Government ensure it captures all the industries and businesses being affected by the outbreak, and would it be easier (if more expensive) to develop some universal stimulus initiatives?

The problem with restricting it to certain industries is what happens in one industry affects another.

Radio NZ reports:

The founder of pressure group 5G-Free Nelson Joe Rifici said the technology enabled massive data communication via a system that posed “significant risk to public health”.

He acknowledged efforts by the council to “execute the basic steps of its job” by staging a public meeting. He said it was a matter of “critical urgency” that 5G roll-out was halted.

Rifici said it was a priority, even above the current raft of global emergencies.

A Nelson doctor said non industry-funded research was needed before the community should accept 5G technology was safe.

Mapua-based GP Caroline Wheeler told the meeting more science was emerging over the side-effects of 5G on humans and animals, and more needed to be done to prove it was safe or not.

“It’s a no-brainer to say, ‘let’s push pause’, and let’s use the precautionary principle here in Nelson to say that we as a city will not roll out 5G until, or unless non industry-funded research is done to prove whether 5G is safe or not.

“Industry has somehow managed to bypass this essential process of having to prove whether 5G is safe or not, before rolling it out on the whole planet.”

It’s depressing that the normal nutters even include a couple of GPs.

The nutters have been railing against cellphone towers, 3G, 4G and 5G for decades.

The claim there is no non industry funded research is false. There has been truckloads and the science has been reviewed by the International Commission for Non-Ionising Radiation Protection.

The luddites who cite (wrongly) the precautionary principle would have us all in horse and buggys as there’s no way cars should have been allowed to be rolled out until there was research they’re safe.

A good source of info is from the PM’s Chief Science Advisor.

Health clinician Clive James, who also spoke at today’s meeting, said pulsed energy, or “electro smog” of the sort created by smart technology was linked to stress and anxiety in increasing numbers of young people.

Electro smog. You can’t make this stuff up.

The Herald reports:

Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says it’s “disappointing” that a laboratory workers’ union is using the coronavirus outbreak as leverage in planned strike action.

But a senior Apex spokesman denies his union is using the outbreak as leverage and the timing was “just a coincidence”.

Coincidence sure. If it was a coincidence they’d delay it.

Apex, which represents DHB Medical Laboratory Workers and NZ Blood Service employees across New Zealand, announced plans to strike this Friday.

The industrial action is in support of achieving a fair offer to settle their multi-employer collective agreement (MECA).

Apex released a statement at 1pm this afternoon – the same time as Bloomfield’s daily Covid-19 updates.

Senior Apex spokesman David Munro said the industrial action was on top of ongoing partial strikes, which will be running until May.

They really are scum, aren’t they.

Stuff reports:

New Zealand cannot save the kiwi, kererū and thousands of other endangered species without gene editing, say experts.

And attempting to do so without the technology is likely to cost the country “a significant proportion of our national budget”.

New Zealand’s biodiversity crisis has been addressed by a new national Predator Free 2050 plan. 

But a number of academics and researchers claim it wrongly rejects the “most promising” new technology in pest management – gene editing.

If the Government was serious, then of course it would include gene editing as a tool.

In the past we have had a system of graduated suspensions – one week, then two weeks, then four weeks, then two months etc. That is from the days when comments appeared automatically.

Now that most comments have to be approved by a moderator before they appear, we can have a more flexible system of suspensions, as the bad comments generally are not getting through.

Basically the length of a suspension will depend on how bad the offending comment or comments were. The worse they are, the longer the suspension. Also if you are a repeat offender, that will probably mean a longer suspension, but not automatically double the length of your last one.

Individual moderators will have the power to impose a suspension of between one and four weeks.

If a moderator thinks a suspension of more than four weeks is justified, then it will be referred to me for a decision.

There won’t be any central list of strikes as they are no longer automatically cascading.

If someone is constantly getting suspended, they may be banned permanently.

Also remember if you wish to avoid a delay in having your comments appear you can apply for auto approve status. This generally requires you to post under your real name or have a link in your profile to your real identity.

You can lose auto-approve status if you constantly breach the moderation policy.

Oliver Hartwich writes:

When the euro crisis struck in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, Italy was one of the hardest hit countries in Europe. Indeed, it never properly recovered from that crisis. Per capita (and in constant prices), GDP is still lower than it was in 2011. Industrial output collapsed at that time and never returned to its previous levels.

On top of the problems in Italy’s real economy, there has long been a banking crisis. It is a banking crisis that has been simmering under the surface, mainly because the European Central Bank kept it there. …

The Italian government certainly benefited from the implicit ECB support. It is one of the most indebted governments in the world. Thanks to the ECB’s help, 10-year government bonds currently trade around 1 percent and thus much lower than a decade ago when they peaked at more than 7 percent. Even so, Italy’s debt-to-GDP ratio kept going up and has hovered around 135 percent since 2015. …

Despite Italy’s many, many problems, the country could always rely on its inherent appeal. There is only one David – and he stands in the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence. There is only one Venice in the world. There is no equivalent of Rome anywhere else.

No wonder that tourism had become one of Italy’s most important industries. It was practically the only industry still growing and accounted for about one seventh of Italian GDP. Just for comparison, agriculture accounts for not even half that in New Zealand.

Tourism collapses; Italy’s public finances collapse; its debt ratio jumps; the zombie firms fall over along with the banks to whom they owe money.

To say it clearly, Italy is too big to fail – in ordinary times. But it is definitely too big to be bailed out – in extraordinary times.

If Italy fails – and there is a temptation to write ‘When’ instead of ‘If’ – it will be a catastrophe not just for Italy. It will be the end of the Euro as Europe’s currency. It will be the return of the euro crisis on steroids.

I have been covering the euro crisis for a decade now for various publications. But I have never seen a situation as dramatic as Italy’s today. The only reason why you may not have read about the new coronavirus-induced Italian euro crisis just yet is that there are so many other coronavirus-induced crises around.

This will be morbidly fascinating to watch. Italy is in the G7. If Italy is pushed out of the Euro, that will be massive.

Stuff reports:

Winston Peters had dozed off during the meeting in 2001. He was woken by his advisor who handed him a $5000 cheque from fishing magnate Neil Penwarden and a report alleging corruption in the scampi quota system.

 After taking both, he left. 

This set the stage for the so-called “Scampi Inquiry”, which started after Peters alleged corruption in the industry during a speech inside the house, as outlined in Penwarden’s report, then failed to deliver any evidence after it began. 

So Winston took $5,000 from a donor who wanted an inquiry into the scampi quota system, and Winston then demanded said inquiry.

Consider that one fact alone, and then repeat after me 100 times “This Government is not corrupt” until you believe it.

Peters was asked direct questions by Stuff about this incident. His response was to call it “farcical”, belittling the sources contacted individually. Penwarden was able to recall the details. So too was his advisor Ross Meurant who helped broker such meetings. 

There were three people in the meeting and two of them confirm it while Winston denies it.

Peters started strong and made a rousing speech alleging corruption in the fishing industry.  On April 24, 2002 Peters claimed to have “voluminous evidence” to back up his claims, but when the inquiry started he provided no evidence. 

Who needs evidence!

The major scampi player, Simunovich Fisheries, was demanding an apology from Peters behind the scenes. “I suggested he give them one,” Meurant says. ” Peters was ropeable when it became public.”

When the inquiry began Peters moved from prosecutor to defender and needed to save face by targeting hoki.

Meurant prepared Peters a report, he called the ‘Exocet’ after a French anti-naval missile.

“This [Exocet] was a deliberate attempt to take the heat away,” he said.

“He was under pressure from the media saying, ‘You’ve been bought off’.”

Peters presented findings in the Exocet on May 7, 2003 but Penwarden simply called it a “smokescreen”.

Chair of the Scampi Inquiry, David Carter, labelled Peter’s presentation as “incoherent gibberish”. 

So Peters demanded an inquiry as one donor wanted, and then once he got one he then said there was nothing here to see, presumably due to other donors?

Penwarden never gave any more money to NZ First or to Peters. He says he had learned his lesson. Likewise, other donors to the NZ First Foundation shared this sentiment. Some even asked for the money back. 

“The point is: we learned a lot of Winston Peters and over time standing back and observing his behaviour we were not persuaded in any way about his credibility, honesty and decency and suitability to be involved in politics,” Penwarden says. 

Wise words indeed.

Stuff reports:

The Government has sought to reassure the Indian High Commissioner after Minister Shane Jones claimed “unfettered” immigration from “New Delhi” had ruined academic institutions in New Zealand.

High Commissioner Muktesh Pardeshi told Stuff the Government had again confirmed its position on immigration to him after Jones’ comments — which “hurt” the Indian community.

The comments have opened a rift within the Government this week. On Thursday, the Indian Weekender published an interview with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in which she suggested she would demote or further reprimand the NZ First MP if she could.

Pardeshi said Jones’ comments, which came as Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Trade Minister David Parker were touring India, were “not helpful” for New Zealand-India relations.

If the Government is having to reassure the a foreign Government because of what Shane Jones said, you can’t credibly say it is nothing to do with the Government because he was speaking as a NZ First MP, not a Minister.

So presumably the message from the Government is that officially the Government is not racist and bigoted towards Indians, only one or two individual Ministers are.

Damien Grant writes:

Last week, faced with a massive media backlash, well, a reporter phoned them, they deplatformed American philosopher Peter Singer.

They trotted out a spokesperson to announce; “Whilst SkyCity supports the right of free speech, some of the themes promoted by this speaker do not reflect our values of diversity and inclusivity.” …

None of this seems to be an issue. Nor his support of abortion. In fact, he thinks that not only should a woman be allowed to abort their child before they are born, he makes the logical extension that if the child isn’t viable there isn’t any moral prohibition to killing it post birth.

This is the thought crime that had someone on Facebook upset, caused a journalist to call the PR department of the Auckland equivalent of the Death Star and before a SkyCity executive could digest the contents of Peter Singer’s Wikipedia page the philosopher had his speaking gig cancelled.

Now, I’m not sure if I’m on board with killing babies. I have a few questions. But I’m willing to listen to his perspective and see if he can overturn my instinctive position that killing new born children is as morally abhorrent as killing unborn ones. 

What I’m not willing to do is accept at face value PR spin from a parasitic monopoly that preaches diversity and inclusivity while peddling addictive gaming technology and indulging our political class with free room and board in return for sweetheart deals.

SkyCity doesn’t have any idea what a moral compass is much less which way it is meant to be facing.

I used to be a fan of Sky City. I have stayed with them over a dozen times. I’ve attended many conferences there

But if they wish to be a cowardly pandering corporate that can’t even stand up to one person complaining about a guest speaker, then they’ve lost my support for good.

The only way we will stop venues pandering to cancel culture is if we make the price of cancelling more expensive than the price of capitulating.

One way we can do this is to stop staying at Sky City, and to remove them from the list of possible venues for your conferences. I mean who wants to trust them with your conference when they might cancel the booking at the last minute because one person has complained?

GP Joel Howe has a petition:

Let’s call for drive-through community-based assessment centres to be set up by our Labs (not GPs) with technicians equipped to do this efficiently. This is for public safety and for business continuity. It minimizes cross infection in a very public area like a GP clinic and does not cripple the rest of primary care. We should start preparing and GPs and Healthline can all refer to these centres, via an electronic BPAC referral.

The UK BMJ guidelines for GPs published on 6 March 2020 also do not recommend testing in primary care. Testing should take place at the hospital, the patient’s home, or in designated receiving units according to this guidance. …

We need to protect our doctor/nursing staff (who don’t do these swabs everyday) to look after other non-COVID-19 patients during an epidemic, rather than lose them to self-isolation or illnesses. GPs are perfectly capable of handling this but we really don’t need trained doctors or nurses to perform a swab or put the rest of our elderly and vulnerable patients at our practice in unnecessary danger. It is all about risk management.

To survive an outbreak , the Ministry of Health needs to protect its limited medical staff and reduce rampant absentism. This preserves our community healthcare team as an essential service because our patients do not just suffer from COVID-19 during an epidemic. Primary and tertiary care must both remain intact and continue to protect our most vulnerable. People must also feel safe visiting their GPs and the hospital. 

This is the sort of stuff the Government should be doing as a matter of urgency.

We’re already seeing high levels of staff absences in some DHBs and medical staff having to go into isolation.

The last place you want people going to get tested in a hospital or medical centre.

Drive through community assessment clinics means no sharing a waiting room with people who may or may not be infected.

I encourage people to sign the petition.

Stuff Political Editor Luke Malpass writes:

The Government’s approach to the disease’s spread, which seemed pretty well on track last week, has fallen woefully short this week. As Covid-19 has moved to a new phase in New Zealand, the Government has not adequately moved with it.  …

Incredibly, it even refused to even take a commonsense approach with the official number of cases. It admitted that one person had caught the disease off another who had been sick but was now better, and hadn’t been tested – so they would not count them.

Just silly to play games like that with the numbers.

Yet this issue – especially now that the virus is in the country – is not one of technocratic finessing: it is one of political and crisis management. That requires regular briefings from the Government and much better information flow. Telling people to go to a website doesn’t cut it.

I have been covering this issue for days now and, besides knowing which international travellers can’t come, which should self-isolate and that wearing a mask doesn’t help, I know little off the top of my head about symptoms and what I should expect if I were unlucky enough to catch corona. The Government should have been repeating these details so much that I – and everyone else – reflexively know the key points without thinking.

I suggested a few days ago that the Government should use the civil defence facility to message all cellphones in New Zealand and use that to provide updates, specifically referring them to a comprehensive up to date website.

An Utting Research poll run exclusively by Stuff on Thursday showed that less than half of the country thinks the Government is handling the crisis well, four in 10 are worried about catching the virus, and over 50 per cent think New Zealand should stop accepting visitors from countries that have coronavirus deaths.

I don’t think we can close the border with Australia.

National has already publicly called for the Government to move on wage subsidies for affected areas, and Stuff understands the Government has already been considering these. Under John Key, such subsidies were employed to good effect in Kaikōura and Christchurch after earthquakes, and they have the advantage of being relatively cheap and comparatively easy to administer.

They are also – perhaps unusually – sort of in keeping with both parties’ political philosophies. For Labour they are targeted, temporary interventions for those in need; for National it is giving individuals the ability to spend their own money, which will inevitably be better spent than if it were funnelled through some bureaucratic government programme.

Normally I’m against subsidies but if thousands of businesses face going under due to temporary circumstances outside their control, I think it is better to help out, then have tens of thousands more people on the dole.

The latest 538 forecast has:

• Biden 88%
• Contested convention 10%
• Sanders 2%

Also Sanders has said he won’t contest the convention if Biden has a plurality which 538 has 94% likely.

But as we have seen, events can change things. Sanders looked near unstoppable after Nevada. However the states still to come are not very fruitful for him.

The probabilities for the next few states are:

• Michigan: Biden 76%
• Washington: Sanders 62%
• Missouri: Biden 91%
• Mississippi: Biden 97%
• Idaho: Sanders 51%
• North Dakota: Biden 59%
• Democrats Aboard: Sanders 55%

The states in which Sanders leads are marginal. The ones Biden leads in are near in the bag.