So, the government has jumped the shark with respect to RATs by 'consolidating' 'confiscating' tests from private businesses. However it is described the effect is the same to the businesses affected.
In this post I am not going to go into the spooky Orwellian feel of this, the doublespeak and spin used by the government and Bloomfield to justify this move, or how the government has been exposed as hopelessly unprepared.
Rather, I want to discuss the logistics of what the government intends to do.
Listening to Bloomfield on ZB last night, and the reporting on TV1, the government intends to distribute the tests based on a criteria they still haven't determined. Apparently it is going to take about two weeks to do this.
Once the criteria is established, I assume businesses are going to be able to apply to the government for tests. I think businesses are going to try and shoe-horn themselves into the criteria, often by embellishing what they do in order to get some desperately needed tests. So, the government could be inundated with many thousands of applications.
Someone is going to have to work through the applications and weed out the wheat from the chaff. This is going to take a long time, and won't be a perfect science. So, I think it is highly likely that by the time tests actually reach businesses they won't be needed.
The other silly thing is that many of those private businesses that were importing directly themselves are probably going to businesses that meet the government criteria once they get that decided. So the effect is going to be that deserving businesses get their tests a lot later than they otherwise would have.
The media outrage over this highlights how narrow and uninformed the world view of the great bulk of our MSM journalists is. Thomas Coughlan at the Herald has gone completely off the deep end for example.
It is hard to blame them. For the last twenty years at least journalism as a career has mainly been seen as a stepping stone into more lucrative marketing and PR gigs, and those who take the vocationally focused journalism qualifications on offer in our neoliberal degree factories are subject to a narrow curriculum. A liberal education is deeply out of fashion and one of the victims of that is history, an endangered topic in deep peril of vanishing completely (along with most other humanities) at our university and functionally extinct at our polytechs.
So it is most unlikely that MSM journalists are aware that completely laissez-faire markets and narcissistic hyper-individualism as an organising principle is simple one way of running an economy and a society and that the state, in times of emergency, has enormous – and legitimate – powers it can exercise.
Media hyperbole is as often as not a result of journalists existing in a context free zone informed entirely by business lobbyists and the paradigms of the existing order.
So, the government has jumped the shark with respect to RATs by 'consolidating' 'confiscating' tests from private businesses. However it is described the effect is the same to the businesses affected.
In this post I am not going to go into the spooky Orwellian feel of this, the doublespeak and spin used by the government and Bloomfield to justify this move, or how the government has been exposed as hopelessly unprepared.
This is rather meaningless. Unless there is actual evidence that the government confiscated test, I'll accept that what they in fact did was to say to their international suppliers that they want priority on orders from now on. And the international suppliers agreed.
Misrepresenting that as 'confiscation' is just bullshit. Confiscation would mean going and taking tests from businesses.
And seriously, why do some people think that in the kind of market economy we have globally, that a large buyer shouldn't out bid smaller buyers? Or that a business has an entitlement to buy something that they don't have a contract for?
The point I was making that so far as the businesses that were expecting the orders is concerned, the effect is the same however it is described. But it is what it is.
The main issue I raised, which you haven't responded to, is the logistical problems the government will likely have in trying to administer the RATs and distribute them best to where needed in a timely fashion.
The problem I see is that by adding layers of bureaucracy to the process, the supply of tests will basically stall, and no-one will end up getting them in a timely fashion.
The point I was making that so far as the businesses that were expecting the orders is concerned, the effect is the same however it is described. But it is what it is.
Yes, and I'm saying that basically lying about the situation as well isn't helpful.
The main issue I raised, which you haven't responded to, is the logistical problems the government will likely have in trying to administer the RATs and distribute them best to where needed in a timely fashion.
I didn't respond because it sounded like supposition based on not a lot. Sure, there might be logistical delays, but I can't see an alternate plan being offered other than saying that businesses should be allowed to have priority over the government in purchasing tests.
… we will be engaging directly with those businesses, just to see what their needs might be, and if they need rapid antigen tests at the moment, to support the plan, then of course we will be working with them to supply those.
My emphasis. ie businesses generally cannot use RATs now off piste. My understanding of that is that there is a global shortage of tests, and that we need to keep them for when we actually need them, and there are public health reasons to be mostly using PCR tests at this phase of omicron response.
Basically Bloomfield is saying that it's better for the government to distribute test to get them to where they are most needed, as opposed to letting the market determine that. He wants the government to have enough supply to be able to make sure tests go where they are needed.
Yes, it's a pandemic and the government wants to control supply of testing, but not absolutely. Bloomfield also says that he expects in a few weeks the orders to businesses from suppliers will resume.
The government should never have got to this situation.
They have known for months that RATs are going to be needed, since businesses started lobbying them last year and the government eventually agreed to a pilot program that was implemented in October last year that allowed a small number of large businesses to start bringing them in, as I pointed out yesterday.
So, the government has been aware for a long time that RATs are going to be an important tool in a Covid outbreak.
The fact that there is a global shortage of these tests now is no excuse for government inaction. We could be the best stocked nation in the world for these tests if the government had pulled finger a lot earlier.
We are looking at this pre-emptively because we expect many of our larger customers are going to require evidence that our staff are likely Covid-free, and also to ensure that staff are covid free when interacting with other staff in our business..
Since we can't get RATs we are considering the RAKO saliva tests as an option. My understanding is that saliva tests are more accurate. But they are also quite expensive. We have been quoted $75 per test. And it takes 10 hours to get a result back. And it is not clear we will qualify to get RATS from the government.
Our company supplies and services compressed air equipment. We have a number of hospitals on our books, and a lot of major food producers.
We would probably consider ourselves critical, especially in the case of hospitals, where compressed air is essential for hospitals to function.
But will we qualify for RATs from the government? Who knows.
The company complaining that they can’t fulfil some orders and saying govt should have stockpiled earlier don’t explain why they didn’t stockpile earlier themselves ??
We are looking at this pre-emptively because we expect many of our larger customers are going to require evidence that our staff are likely Covid-free, and also to ensure that staff are covid free when interacting with other staff in our business..
Since we can't get RATs we are considering the RAKO saliva tests as an option. My understanding is that saliva tests are more accurate. But they are also quite expensive. We have been quoted $75 per test. And it takes 10 hours to get a result back. And it is not clear we will qualify to get RATS from the government.
Our company supplies and services compressed air equipment. We have a number of hospitals on our books, and a lot of major food producers.
We would probably consider ourselves critical, especially in the case of hospitals, where compressed air is essential for hospitals to function.
But will we qualify for RATs from the government? Who knows.
RAT's are not very accurate. The problem is they only get it right 79% of the time-that is they produce 21% false negatives, which means these 21% will wander around the community while infected.
"home tests correctly identified 78.9 percent of people who did have the virus and correctly identified 97.1 percent of people who didn’t have the virus."
Hopefully all your staff are vaccinated and had or having the boosters. That is the minimum that other businesses would expect I am thinking together with constant mask wearing..
Good on you for thinking ahead and noting that you may have to wait a little bit longer for your order to be fulfilled.
RATs are not a substitute for not wearing a mask or not being vaccinated in my view.
We didn't need them until Omicron arrived, and they have a limited shelf-life, so ordering a bunch of tests with 2 month expiry only for them to expire before Omicron got here would have been unhelpful.
The fact the criteria has not yet been established is beyond comprehension. I can not see how the MoH didn't think before this week that they might need to prioritise the distribution of RATs and how they would assess that.
I have huge sympathy for the businesses who had the foresight and did the right thing by ordering millions of these tests last year. As an employer you have legal and moral duties to protect the health and well being of your workers. A key way to satisfy that duty is by minimising the risk of people bringing COVID into the workplace. The only real way to do that is regular testing. That will be very difficult to do if your business does not meet the still to be defined criteria.
A lot of small businesses are going to be wiped out through this.
The isolation rules mean that some smaller companies might not be able to function for a month or more.
We are lucky in that most of our staff can work from home, and so we can spread our risk. For those companies that require all their staff in one location, and don't have sufficient staff to run separate shifts, it is going to be a major problem.
I have just spoken to someone who is is a live example of how this will play out.
She has a catering business, and 3/4 of her staff worked at Soundsplash over the weekend. Despite the MoH providing next to no information on the exposure yet, all of her staff are today being tested and self isolating.
Business is closed until all of those test results are provided which will likely be at least 48 hours.
A critical worker is identified by their employer as a role within a critical industry as broadly defined by government that requires a person with particular skills who:
is required to undertake their role in person at the workplace; and
is in a role that must continue to be performed to either prevent an immediate risk of death or serious injury to a person or animal, orprevent serious harm (social, economic or physical) to significant numbers in the community.
This approach will mean that critical workers who are close contacts will be able to return to work early, provided they return a negative RAT every day that they are at work throughout their required isolation period or as otherwise appropriate to their work setting.
They will only be able to go to work, not anywhere else – this protocol allows for return to work only. It does not mean that it ends isolation periods early.
yes, some businesses are going to be badly affected by omicron. As far as I can tell the government is doing a balancing act between public health response and damage limitation on the economy including businesses.
Yep, and owners of of those high risk businesses, and employers of people who depend on that business operating, will have no tools available to them to protect their workers. It is safe to assume that they will all be affected at some point in the coming months.
I accept choices have to be made, but I am very uncomfortable about this.
Uncomfortable yes, and very stressful. It's a whole new covid ballgame now.
…will have no tools available to them to protect their workers…
We all have tools, lots of them. Vaccination and boosting, good mask tech and technique, hand washing and sanitising, social distancing, good ventilation, working from home where possible and taking appropriate precautions there, people not going out to close contact events, paying attention to symptoms, getting tested, self isolation and so on. As well as the government controlled mandates and choices individual businesses are making.
(and for those that this works for, vitamin D, getting good sleep, making sure one's diet is healthy and not overloaded with sugar and so on).
And everyone is in the same boat really. RATs don't stop someone from getting omicron.
Just to clarify, my opinion is framed from a worker's perspective. Some business (and therefore many jobs) will not survie the closures that result from half their workforce having to self isolate.
Getting COVID is inevtiable for most of us. But keeping those infected people away from the workplace so that a business can continue is going to be a very difficult thing to do.
Ad lord haw haw would be proud of your description.
No confiscations taking place.
Foward orders are being commandeered for a coordinated approach so supply lines and health professionals police essential services can be maintained.
We have seen overseas where supermarket shelves are empty hospitals are running out of staff. Aged care facilities struggling with no staff and outbreaks of covid.
Ad get real this is a real emergency political point scoring is undermining our health response .
Brian Tamaki style outrage is what you are projecting.
We all need to work together to defeat the Pandemic.
In war time those who undermined our war effort were treated as outcasts .Because a disease doesn't look like an enemy its easy to be anti everything to health iniatives.
Those undermining the health iniatives are right up there with the antvaxxers.
Rubbish. They want them so they can quickly test staff so the business can actually carry on operating which is pretty sensible and good planning (unlike the govt that has dropped the ball).
Perhaps essential services would have the RAT tests (like some businesses do) if our government had actually got off their ass and ordered them back when they were advised to instead of now having to "consolidate" as Ashley says other businesses orders!
They are a bit like having milk in the fridge. You normally use before it expires.
But of course, the govt would of have to have actually ordered them earlier.
Stockpiling hundreds of millions of RATs requires knowing when we'll go from a low-covid environment (where we need the sensitivity of pcrs to stamp out covid) to a higher-covid environment (where pcrs are overloaded and we need the speed of RATs to slow the spread of covid through individual institutions).
Now, we might get a year's supply at usual levels (i.e. regular testing for border staff etc), depending on the brand, but then we'd still be massively understocked in a high-covid situation.
Or we could hold onto them for a bit, and then ship them somewhere else in the hope we're supplying people who need them with tests that are still good, being close to their use-by and having had unknown conditions during transit.
Or we could have a small stock and order the extras in when it looks like we'll need them, which is the current situation.
This is an incredibly naive comment. The businesses buying RATs prior to the governments moves to centralise the purchasing and distribution of them are generally involved in providing essential services to NZ communities.
By buying these tests employers are meeting their health and safety obligations to their employees and their customers.
Further they have set up systems to manage their use efficiently. Involving MoH in their purchase and distribution will inevitably be disruptive, clumsy, slow and inefficient.
The government has moved decisively to cut off the opportunistic arseholes who have tried to make extreme profits from importing RATs and bloody good job too.
It is already happening with masks according to a Stuff article.
When I did an economics paper we studied the effects of price controls and the hurricane Hugo disaster.
The upshot was that governments invariably make emergency situations worse by trying to control prices, supply etc. Plenty of information on this online. But here for an example.
Below is a link to something a bit more substantial on the topic if you want.
One of commodities that was affected was ice. Due to power being knocked out, there was a sudden demand for ice so people could keep freezers of meat cold and the like.
The price of ice shot up and price controls were brought in to cap the price due to the public outcry.
The effect was that there were shortages as there was no price incentive to keep up the supply of ice. Thus, it became a case of first in first served so far as ice was concerned.
People who wanted ice for frivilous things such as keeping alcohol cool in parties would get their ice if they got in first. But then the ice ran out for people who really needed it and would have been happy to pay the inflated prices.
The same sort of thing occurred with equipment such as chainsaws etc. When price controls were bought in, shortages occurred which hindered the recovery.
The lesson from all this was that price controls make things worse, especially in a crisis.
Once again irrelevant this is nothing but economic propaganda .
GWBush president at the time Republican governor.
I read another article on hurricane hugo.The Republicans don't help in disasters ,they want Individual responsibility that means you have to insure your self up to the eyeballs with a separate disaster insurance which only the wealthy can afford.Republicans hands off approach.Republicans don't want any form of welfare for all and want insurance companies to prosper .
So trying to bring price controls in a state that doesn't have the capacity or desire to have govt involved in any aspect of their lives is futile and a false equivalency.
Looking at NZ price controls on doctors visits and prescriptions has worked relatively well.
Where in the US no such mechanism that's why so many in the US can't get access to healthcare or the medicines they require.Tsmithfield
So entrepreneurial price gouging has an unfortunate effect that puts poorer people at a special disadvantage but people with entrepreneurial spirits who see an opportunity to reap large rewards wouldn't gouge prices, right?
Would these opportunistic arseholes be the ones that have signed a charter last year and together with the government started to import tests, which these opportunistic arseholes paid for themselves, to test out their use as a tool in the fight against Covid?
The trial begins this week with 29 businesses across a range of sectors, after the 300,000 tests arrived in Auckland late last week from Australia. As Associate Minister of Health and Research, Science and Innovation Ayesha Verrall announced last week, the initial focus of the trial will be on large businesses, including airports, energy producers, food manufacturers and retirement homes. The Government, MBIE, the Ministry of Health and the trial businesses are working at pace to determine how this testing can be used more widely across other New Zealand businesses.
MBIE Deputy Chief Executive Te Whakatairanga Service Delivery Suzanne Stew said the trial will allow participating businesses to roll out rapid antigen testing in the workplace to help them meet their health and safety obligations, to give their staff confidence they’re working in a safe environment, and to support the COVID-19 economic recovery.
Earlier this month, 29 businesses came together as a collective to ask the Government if they could import rapid antigen tests. MBIE and the Ministry of Health then worked at pace with the trial businesses to find a way to make testing available that was relevant for New Zealand businesses. The 29 businesses have signed up to a charter, which will be the foundation for this trial.
…………
Procured by Auckland Airport via medical supplies wholesaler and distributor EBOS Healthcare, the 300,000 Abbott PanBio COVID-19 Ag Rapid tests are being funded by the 29 participating businesses.
here is what you can find at MBIE after the trial ended……
Overall the businesses involved in the trial learned a lot, adapted as they saw fit and kept communicating with their staff. They shared their experiences openly, and often took ideas from the other businesses. While there were a few bumps along the way, all of the businesses reported that they adapted quickly and reviewed processes as they needed to. They were all happy with the outcome of the trial, and have committed to continuing to share their experience with MoH for the coming month or so. At the end of the trial, 23,285 tests had been administered, with 14 positive results and 96 invalid results.
“We thank the Government, MBIE and the Ministry of Health for their quick response to our request to import rapid antigen tests and we look forward to working with them as our essential workforces start using the tests in the days ahead,” Mr Littlewood said.
Or maybe you are talking about these opportunistic arseholes here? From August 2021 – which also is a long long time ago.
and they have a point here, but then nothing could be done about that point since it was raised, obviously,
Pedants might argue that this does not constitute a ban, but banning anything that has not been approved while deciding not to approve any options sounds an awful lot like a ban. It is unclear whether MedSafe has even evaluated any options.
The most plausible justification for the ban is that the government feared people would fail to report positive results, or would take undue comfort in early negative results before viral load increased, and contribute to outbreaks.
A medical supplies company is calling on the Ministry of Health to let it distribute 10,000 rapid Covid-19 antigen tests – tests that are currently "gathering dust" in a Wellington warehouse.
Surgical Supplies Director Leigh Thornton said various different companies – including the likes of Fletchers and Vector– are lining up to buy the kits to be used by their workforce.
The Covifind self-testing kits – produced by multi-billion dollar Indian medical device manufacture Meril Life – are 98.7 per cent effective and, through an app, provide Covid-19 tests results in 15 minutes.
I really would enjoy if so called lefties would actually try to remember more then just yesterday. The government has shot itself twice in the foot in regards to these testing kits, and now is found wanting and scrambling, and 'consolidating' the orders others have placed in order to prevent looking severely out of step, out of touch, and even a few weeks behind.
Omicron was a slow wave across the ocean, everyone could see it arrive, and like good kiwis instead of getting away from the shore, they flock there to watch the tsunami arrive. Maybe we should have Covid parties and just get over with it. s/
fucks sake. Gathering dust? Or being held until we actually need them. Which we don't this week.
I'd like someone to explain how businesses intend to use RATs if they were given them this week. Are they going to wait for the MoH's say so on using them, or are they going to start now? How specifically would that work?
Virgil my partner goes into high risk areas every day of the week, every day of the year. And you and everyone else here on this board want Virgil to do that as it makes your life so much easier when the machines that everyone expects to work actually work.
At the moment, end of every day Virgil sits there and compares the site that were visited to those that may be an issue, i.e. contact. If a site shows as a 'contact' site, Virgil will get a nasal test, i will get a nasal test. I have had quite a few of these now since Covid showed its face, in fact we have had so many that the guys at the testing station know us know.
We would really be happy for Virgils company to distribute these tests to us directly, so that instead of going clogging up the govt site, we can do a simply test at home and only have a nasal swap if a test comes up unclear or positive, or really the site visited was more then just a blib. I guess you could call that personal responsibility in managing ones own life and livelihood.
I can see a company like Food Stuffs do what is done elsewhere, provide these rapid tests for people that come to offices, or warehouses, to protect its work force there.
I can see a company like Silver Fern demand the same, negative test before arriving at work. Btw, these are some really sensitive industries here, as not everyone in NZ lives on a nice property with food growing and a few hens for eggs.
What we have now, is nothing other then the tests via government, which btw, are not compulsory, and thus the same people that would not divulge a positive test will simply not get tested at all. What have we won?
Nothing. People will simply not get tested at all. Well done Labour!
What it does show me though is the fact that since the 'ban' in 2020, not one risk analyst at the Government has come up with the idea that maybe these tools are just that, tools, and that they should be made available to businesses that can distribute these across its own work force and thus remove some of the pressure on the nasal swap teams and lab teams.
To recap, since April 2020 Medsafe has had the option of making these kits 'legal' and it failed to do so. The question remains why. The question remains, Qui bono? And last for hte Labour Party the question remains, Quo Vadis? Where do you go from there. The damage is done.
Bloomfield just clarified that the ban was on individual's importing tests from overseas, and the rationale was that there are a lot of dodgy tests out there. Businesses were still able to order approved tests.
Tell me, if RATs were in widespread use today, how would the government contact trace? How would it know which people with positive tests were omicron vs delta? How would it know where omicron outbreaks were happening? Information critical to the public health response (as opposed to workplace processes).
Tell me, how would your partner's workplace use RATs today, in the context of the public health response and three phase plan? I actually think this could be done, and listening to Bloomfield above he seems to think so too, so tell us the how.
Did you see where I am ONLY talking about 'businesses' odering, paying and distributing these tests to their own employees and business partners/visitors etc?
That is not the same as people importing it on their own.
The reason we are scrambling here is not because businesses did something that was not approved – as above i posted ample links to point out that this disucssion with Businesses and Govt is / was an ongoing thing, it is because the Government did not think we would need these tests in large numbers, despite the world showing that they have a place in the tool box against covid.
Fact is that the businesses that have their order consolidated and pushed ot the back of the queue are businesses like Food Stuffs, Silver Fern, Mitre Tens etc etc etc, but i guess all these workers can just suck it up and play russian roulette with their health a, and b. have their brains tickled every other day, lest the government looks foolish and without a ball in their hand/court.
And frankly Weka, i don't need to tell you this, its been told many times by others with better words and the Government fucked up, and it is continuing to fuck up in this regards. They got cought out by their own hubris and self importance.
Maybe not all businesses are 'opportunistic arseholes' as called by Adrian? Maybe in this case the opportunist is the Government that failed to procure a "tool" in large enough numbers to distribute it across the nation. But then, maybe this Government can not be allowed to fail, as Covid is the only thing they got to some extend going for them.
I am done having this discussion Weka. The Government had since April 2020 to be forward thinking with regards to these Self tests, which btw are no more then a standard pregnancy test – get properly tested if it comes back unclear or positive – and they really thought that they don't need them, or could do with out. Well, i guess Covid don't give a fuck as to what the Government thinks.
And also please stop pretending that the public is just out there waiting to get to piss on one of these tests and then pretend it did not happen. Right now, people simply don't get tested at all.
honestly, I'm having trouble following your points.
Here's the MoH page explaining the ordering ban. Which wasn't a ban exactly, it was just that you has to go through the MoH to get approval. This was to stop the importation of useless tests. Hence businesses were still allowed to import, individuals weren't. If you are saying that businesses weren't allowed, please explain.
That's different from the issue this week of the government outbidding the NZ resellers.
You didn't answer my questions. I don't think all businesses or even most are arseholes. I do think that there is a clear conflict between the needs of individual businesses and the public health response. I have no problem accepting that this might be a result of the MoH being slow to move on RATs.
But here we are. Do people honestly want businesses to take priority over the MoH?
My partner is also an essential worker, and was part of those when the elimination strategy that had an employer who had foreseen the necessity for individual workers to have a quick way to test so as reduce the likelihood of the entire workforce being infected or isolated.'
They had purchased RAT tests pre-emptively with the understanding that elimination at some point would be abandoned.
I consider his employer, and those like them to be businesses that provided unforced support to their employees, and should get kudos for doing so. They are now unable to use this strategy at the moment, as they go through the process with government.
It's just another example of a mish-mash world and times. Dennis Frank (below) gets into the Hickey-Bradbury notions about capitalism and socialism.
Socialist approaches are wonderful and welcomed by capitalists when they're in the shit or see some advantage in it for themselves. And loathed the rest of the time especially when there's direct advantage to be gained for themselves.
Listening to Bloomfield on ZB (above) this was the conclusion I came to. Some companies throwing their toys out of the cot because they got caught up in a public health issue and probably weren't paying attention to the collective good and are so used to neoliberal rules applying.
The businesses that have worked with the government on a trial have not been paying attention and are throwing out their toys?
No, the small handful of businesses that decided this week to use the National Party and MSM to stamp their feet about not getting what they want during a global health crisis.
Instead of going ‘wah, wah confiscation’, they could have talked about the actual issues and how they need to be resolved.
Seriously, it is the fault of businesses that in 2022 – 2 full years into the Covid mess, we don't have a simple tool as a self tests?
Fuck off Sabine. If you're not going to listen to what I am saying, at least don't make shit up about my argument.
One of your other complainers posted the efficacy of RATS some where between 40% and 70% efficacy varying with each individual averaging 55% for the best brand 45% for the worst.That was for the original variant not Delta or omricon or the more evasive omricon b-2 variant.
So these RATS are only going to slow down the spread.
One person who came out of isolation had numerous negative tests yet 2 days out of isolation he tested positive after feeling sick.
Yes Incognito. If people listened to Assoc Min of Health yesterday, the PM over the weekend and actually read the policies/processes they will find out about the staging.
Much heat but not much light here on TS, obviously based on those beacons of unbiased reporting, the media. Surely 2 years in we know better than to try to get best info from the media? Especially when we have dedicated ways of getting information
The priority for RATs is for essential workers and especially useful for a test the day of proposing starting work after having had Covid. Surely the use for essential workers is the best use in our staged process especially if there is a shortage and a timing issuing for how long the RATs last for.
Thank you Weka for so patiently explaining this situation, which shouldn't be too hard if people have been listening.
As usual the govt can do no right here. If they had left RAT totally in the hands of private enterprise, god forbid, they would be getting hammered from the other angle.
Governments and opposition should change their views as circumstances change. This is good and hardly an embarassing backdown.
When the petition was launched there were hundreds of kiwis self isolating at home with delta, while vaxxed kiwis abroard with negative tests were being denied the ability to do the same thing.
Economist & entrepreneur Bernard Hickey pays a compliment to the left:
“The Labour Government, supported by the Greens, presided over policies that accidentally on purpose engineered the biggest transfer of wealth to asset owners from current and future renters in the history of New Zealand.”
Although, to be fair, he probably didn't intend it to be interpreted as a compliment. Bomber has a surprisingly sober view:
In a nutshell, what Mr Hickey seems to be saying is that in an unabashedly capitalist nation, a government elected on the strength of middle-class (i.e. homeowners) votes, made sure that the massive transfers of cash required to keep the economy afloat in the midst of a global pandemic went to capitalists, and the people whose votes they really, really, really didn’t want to lose
He then makes a subtle point via a survey of the capitalist parties in parliament:
Labour, an unabashedly capitalist party, holds 65 seats. National, another unabashedly capitalist party, holds 35 seats. Act, a fanatically capitalist party, holds 10 seats. The Greens, supposedly not a capitalist party, but one which has, to date, done nothing to suggest that it is an anti-capitalist party, also holds 10 seats. Which leaves the Māori Party, an ethno-nationalist party which appears to be okay with capitalism – but only if it’s Māori capitalism – with just 2 seats.
The point being that no parties in parliament have declared themselves anti-capitalist.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Pragmatism rules. No party wants to present itself as anti-Roman. Socialists ran away to hide in the 1980s & haven't been seen since. The victims of the inequality-producing system conspicuously continue to avoid the challenge of becoming politically active and leveraging their numbers. No surprise that capitalism wins by default. Winners take all when losers can't be bothered playing the game…
That Daily Blog article is by Chris Trotter, Dennis. Not Bomber.
The problem any anti-capitalist party would have in NZ is selling itself as able to successfully deconstruct the current economic structure & successfully manage an economy without capitalism.
Maybe rather than trying to deconstruct the whole system, anti-capitalists should start organising to solve the intractable existential problems that capitalism just cannot solve.
maybe that's why we don't see anti capitalists? either they can't organise as well as capitalists can or they can't agree what their anti-ness then isn't anti..
Obviously I was in a passing phase of brain fog, but that does explain why it was a sober analysis! And I agree with your delineation of the problem.
Except that the stance I adopted 30 years ago in the Greens economic policy working group was a synthesis rather than a negation or opposition and I still feel that's the best alternative. It uses a conciliatory basis. Efficiency & progress then derive from applying a suitable method. The method I advocated was to identify key principles on the left & right that seem essential (equity & enterprise being primary) and eliminate the shit parts of the left & right.
Do that and you get something new that is resilient by design. Included in the synthesis were Green principles such as true-cost accounting (to eliminate the socialisation of business costs) and the financial transactions cost tax to harvest the process of capitalism (which I viewed as socialism worth supporting)…
The RBNZ, government and business have been given the largest of serves by Bernard Hickey's research…..any response from those served is likely to be awkward.
He has just been interviewed on RNZ…the link should be available soon.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told lawmakers on Tuesday that his government was discussing the possibility of banning Russia from SWIFT with the United States.
"There is no doubt that that would be a very potent weapon [against Russia]. I'm afraid it can only really be deployed with the assistance of the United States though. We are in discussions about that," Johnson said.
What is SWIFT?
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication was founded in 1973 to replace the telex and is now used by over 11,000 financial institutions to send secure messages and payment orders. With no globally accepted alternative, it is essential plumbing for global finance… Excluding Russia from SWIFT would cause its economy to shrink by 5%, former finance minister Alexei Kudrin estimated in 2014.
SWIFT unplugged Iranian banks in 2012 after they were sanctioned by the European Union over the country's nuclear program. Iran lost almost half of its oil export revenue and 30% of foreign trade following the disconnection
Russia does have an alternative if the top gun swivels at them:
Moscow established its own payment system, SPFS, after it was hit by Western sanctions in 2014 following its annexation of Crimea early that year. SPFS now has around 400 users, according to Russia's central bank. Twenty percent of domestic transfers are currently done through SPFS
The Germans will welcome that expensive freedom LNG gas courtesy of the US
German industrialists are gagging to pay the extra cost and the extra carbon miles to get it
But umm, there's a problem
The White House's plan is complicated by the fact that the world's LNG producers are already churning out as much as they possibly can. Reuters reported that the companies contacted told the U.S. government officials that global gas supplies are tight and that there is little available to substitute large volumes from Russia
Why the fuck is it so hard to give Russia some security guarantees, cheaper in the long run, as the German commander said before he was in effect sacked for offering unwelcome advice.(An apology was not enough to save his job)
Back in 2014 , after Crimea voted to rejoin Russia (as it had in previous referendums)and this time Russia accepted, Russia was threatened with being banned from SWIFT by the US
Which wasn't greeted with a greta deal of clapping from Brussels
But to Swift managers, the move looks dangerously capricious and partisan. And they fear it would prompt non-western countries to create rival systems, to protect themselves against any future US threats.
A pretty strong encouragement for Russia, China et al to form al alternative to SWIFT.
Both China and Russia have independent settlement programs at various stages of implementation. China launched the Cross-border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) in 2015, an independent clearing system with the RMB as the quote currency. Similarly, Russia has been developing its own financial messaging System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS).
Both systems are now in position, making it relatively easy to build an independent Russian-Chinese financial system by linking the two.
RW commentators ranting from a place of ignorance. FFS, NZ isn't pursuing an elimination model. Why bother even listening to this if they can't get basic facts right?
Are we becoming an international joke? No. The international joke is that individuals with severe intellectual capacity see themselves as founts of knowledge.
"New Zealand is spiralling out of control" with its '"totalitarian" PM?
The tragedy is that the ravings of lunatics like Wootton suck in and pander to cretins amongst us.
Yeah, one time I got so drunk I got in a fight, puked all over someone's lawn and on my shoes, took my shirt off and started dancing and screaming in the flowerbed! When the cops came and got me I had passed out under the walnut tree and pissed my pants!
The people who owned that garden must have looked like idiots – just "pathetic" and obviously "nasty human beings" – absolute jokes.
This will hurt Labour (and be an increased source of questioning by the Greens) I expect the public pressure will build as things get harder for more and more…pressure to claw back, pressure to denounce, and pressure to provide alternatives.
Hickey has put numbers to and laid bare responsibility for the reality many are experiencing….mainly those who have till now supported Labour and the Greens.
Here is where the system is going to collapse and become meaningless:
"Beyond this, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) will develop an online portal – similar to that used for the Business Travel Registration system – to allow individual business to apply for critical worker status. This system will be called the Critical Services Register and more information will be made available to businesses shortly about this."
So the portal still needs to be developed. Firms need to apply for critical worker status. Decisions need to be made who qualifies. Then tests need to be distributed. I expect thousands of firms will be applying.
Given the speed of the Omicron wave, I doubt any of this will be happening until after the crisis is over.
Didn't the government say yesterday they think phase two will probably start in two weeks?
That MBIE page looks clear to me.
the government is engaging this week with businesses "to ensure that critical workforces have been identified and registered, and that there are sufficient supplies of RATs for those workers when needed."
the portal is being developed for registering
they're asking businesses to self assess in the first place.
If I were in your situation I would phone MBIE and ask for a timeline on the register, and further guidelines on whether your business is likely to qualify (I would guess yes, but I'd check because you need to plan)
I agree with him that the harsh isolation rules will put people off getting tested at all. Especially if they have to sit at home for weeks trying to survive on the meagre offering from the government when their sick leave runs out.
So far as critical workers go, he makes the point that we might not see the refuse collection people as essential at the moment. And I doubt they would meet the criteria in the first instance, anyway.
But if they all get sick and can't collect rubbish for three weeks, we may change our minds. And, uncollected rubbish could become a health hazard as well.
I would be surprise if rubbish collection isn't considered essential, a la "prevent serious harm (social, economic or physical) to significant numbers in the community."
Yes, phoning MBIE or many government departments often takes a long time to get through. Phoning WINZ requires waits of up to an hour. I usually arrange to be doing something compatible while on hold.
Speaking of which, remember March 2020 when the government first started rolling out the initial pandemic response, and prioritising funding for businesses? Beneficiaries had to wait for any financial assistance, which meant that going into lockdown many couldn't buy masks, extra hand washing supplies, or extra food so they could stay home and not have to be exposed to covid in places like supermarkets.
What managers and business owners are experiencing is stressful. Really stressful in fact. This is the nature of shitty situations.
My own view is that we should be adapting and preparing for another round of this this year past this wave of omicron. We might get really lucky and omicron settles into a pattern that is more manageable. But we actually get better at crisis management if we adapt rather than holding on as if its going to be over soon.
Teaching resiliency skills would be a really good move right now, maybe this is something someone could look at helping businesses with.
I fear for the viability of many small businesses in this.
I agree with the stressful aspect. Perhaps there could be some help provided for businesses through the EAP?
A lot of small businesses don't have sufficient staff to run several shifts, and have no choice but to intermingle in their operations. Mass sickness and isolation rules could leave them without income for a month or two.
I don't know if the government is looking at the wage subsidy program again. So, they may be left to their own devices.
Also, when a lot of these businesses are forced to shut for a period of time it is going to have a huge knock on effect for the economy.
For instance, my son owns a powder coating business that is one of the busiest in Christchurch. Luckily he has plenty of cash reserves to see himself through this. But if he is forced to close down for a month or two, there will be a huge backlog of work that other businesses can’t get finished and charged out.
The effects of this are going to be far greater than many realise.
So if a worker in Mitre10 gets covid all the staff have to self isolate? I don't think so.
Looking at the MBIE and MoH links, it's not clear what they consider a close contact, but I doubt very much that it's every person the case talked to or walked past.
I think you will find most of your Mitre 10 workers will want to get tested and self-isolate, regardless of what the MoH says. If someone is at work while transmissible, then the prudent and responsible thing for any employer to do is stand down the workers who were on the same shift until they have returned a negative test. Which will likely take days.
People will do what they feel needs to be done to look after themselves and their whanau. They won’t be scrolling through the MoH website to find out what to do.
If you look to overseas jurisdictions the peak infections rise rapidly then fall away.
But if you think this pandemic is finished it won't be over till variants stop mutating.
What happens if another variant pops up Omricon b-2 is already in circulation its not known how serious it is yet but it looks more transmissible than omricon.
Belly aching ain't going to fix it.
Businesses may have to close we might go into a recession .We may have another wave of a more virulent covid.
Expecting the govt to fix everything when the Ministry of Health has been cut to shreads so we can have tax cuts and small govt.Then when things go wrong blame the govt is ironic.
Do we need to follow highly educated health professionals? or highly educated anyones?
I saw a newspaper heading this morning: "If only Jacinda Ardern was more like Scott Morrison."
Who needs highly educated health professionals or anyone here? Let's just be Scott Morrison.
I didn't read the opinion piece. It was by someone called Mike Hosking. Reminded me of pulling the petals off daisies, "He loves me, he loves me not," etc., ad infinitum, Hosking and his love affair with Morrison, Gladys Berejiklian, anything Australian, anything not New Zealand or Ardern.
I guess he doesn't see it as the country of "milk and honey", otherwise he would have gone a long time ago. Probably would be back after a couple of years like Paul Henry.
And is non-invasive it gives a relatively quick result which would be fine for returning to work, which the government is intending for the RAT tests.
If they had done that, then private industry would have been able to get their tests and use them as intended, for screening workers. As it is, the government in trying to solve one problem has just created another.
It's never that simple tsmith, though this is from 4 months ago:
Meta-analyses of recent studies suggest that saliva is useful for detecting SARS-CoV-2; however, differences in disease prevalence, sample collection, and analysis methods still confound strong conclusions on the utility of saliva compared to nasopharyngeal samples.
A RAT is a lot quicker. For this reason it is ideal as a screening tool for keeping infected people away from the workplace as much as possible, which is what a lot of companies are wanting them for. The government are now intending these be used for return to work tests, taking them away from the intended purpose industries were bringing them in for.
But when the consideration is someone returning to work, then the extra time for a saliva test probably isn't such an issue given they have been off work for quite awhile anyway.
Yes I am aware of that. With the screening test it is just one of the requirements generally, not the only one. For instance, when our techs go to Silver Fern Farms they have to pass a RAT test, plus be double vaxxed, wear a mask etc. So there is a whole suite of requirements.
So they've developed a vaccine, lab tested it, and did FDA paperwork to get authorisation to start human use, decided the study scope and population, and are ready to begin trials at… 8 weeks from the new variant being identified, and over the holiday period as well.
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Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
The Government Communications Security Bureau denies hosting a foreign spying capability flagged by the watchdog, differentiating it from the system recently criticised. ...
RNZ News A group of academic staff at New Zealand’s largest university have expressed concern at the administration’s move to block a protest encampment that was planned to take place on campus calling for support for the rights of Palestinians. This week, the University of Auckland warned that while it ...
Genterwocky After a hard days marching, Sir Doocey calls in at the Village Tavern For a pint of ale and a pork pie. The grim villagers stare at him. “Do not be travelling on the forest road,” warns a crusty old beak. “And why is that, antique peasant?” Grins Sir ...
Political conferences after a party returns to power are usually a chance for some healthy, even unhealthy backslapping. Yet National Party president Sylvia Wood’s address to its mainland representatives on Saturday hardly contained the unalloyed delight that one might have expected following National’s escape from the wilderness of opposition. Yes, ...
Comment: Almost half the world is voting in national elections this year and artificial intelligence is the elephant in the room. There are genuine fears AI-generated or AI-edited deepfakes will potentially manipulate election outcomes not just in the US and UK, but critically in countries such as India. For that ...
Ahead of the reality franchise’s return to New Zealand, allow us to introduce the eight brides and grooms. Chuck on a veil and tie back your man bun, because it’s time to say “I do” to a new season of Married at First Sight NZ. The reality TV “social experiment” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University Every year on June 1, student debt in Australia is indexed to inflation. In 2023, high inflation pushed the indexation rate to 7.1%, the highest since 1990. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
Dame Susan Devoy takes us through her life in television, including late night ER debriefs, her proudest CTI moment and the show she watches in secret. Quite aside from her four world champion squash titles, Dame Susan Devoy will likely go down in history as one of the best Celebrity ...
Hera Lindsay Bird reveals the best places in Ōtepoti to score more for your apocalypse-prep book hoard.Sometimes I get the feeling I’ve been killed in a car crash, and this second half of my life is just the brain unspooling itself, like one of those episodes of a hospital ...
ThreeNow’s new murder mystery series takes us on a dark, damp journey into the Australian wilderness.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. High Country is ThreeNow’s new Australian eight-part crime drama, set in a remote part of the Victorian highlands. It tells ...
Introducing a new way to read The Spinoff every weekend. After nearly 10 years of being an online magazine, we’re finally embracing the weekend liftout. Despite our best efforts to convince you otherwise, writers and editors at The Spinoff don’t work weekend. It is through the sheer power of technology ...
Tip one: let yourself be nurtured by this big old man. Tip two: don’t ask him to adopt you. So, you’ve arrived at your first session with a new therapist. He tells you to make yourself comfortable and you opt for the tweed armchair, hoping it makes you look like ...
I didn’t know books could open you back up; that there were books that stayed with you, where reading was like a chemical event. I knew nothing.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Not too long ago, I was listening to the American ...
Former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen has already started training for the Enhanced games, though says he won’t start taking performance enhancing substances until about nine months out from the competition. The Australian world champion was the first athlete to be announced by Enhanced, but he says the organisation has had ...
Everyone thinks he’s dead. Every day they expect his body to be washed up along the coast. Most likely up Karitane way, the way the tide’s running. But nobody’ll be too surprised if his body’s never found. Even in death he wouldn’t have wished for such attention. He would have ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions — the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan O’Dean, Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney After several highly publicised alleged murders of women in Australia, the Albanese government this week pledged more than A$925 million over five years ...
Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
A Pacific regionalism expert has called out New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS military pact. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University Bruno Scramgnon/Pexels All systems are “go” for tonight’s launch of China’s next step in a carefully planned lunar exploration program. Placed on top of a powerful Long March 5 rocket, the Chang’e 6 ...
National returned a massive donation the day after a Newsroom story linked the donors to a property being investigated for operating unlawfully as a migrant workers’ hostel. The party’s 2023 donation filings, released on Friday, show it returned a $200,000 donation from Buen Holdings on August 23. That was the ...
Pacific Media Watch New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day — May 3. This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Political Historian and Administrator Officer, Australian Historical Association, Australian National University Australia has had its fair share of public record-keeping controversies in recent years. Some have been mere farce, as in the case of two formerly government-owned filing cabinets (containing ...
Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), a United Nations-affiliated organization dedicated to fostering peace through civilian-led initiatives, has issued a statement in response to the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. ...
A poem by Tessa Keenan, from AUP New Poets 10. Mātou These days we are a photograph; one of a farm strewn with cows that used to be bright harakeke or swamp. The kids point at it and say the sun sits behind a smudge (left by someone at Christmas); ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber & Faber, $25)The masterful Irish writer ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. Key facts Marriages and civil unions In ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lennon Y.C. Chang, Associate Professor of Cyber Risk and Policy, Deakin University Taiwan stands out as a beacon of democracy, innovation and resilience in an increasingly autocratic region. But this is under growing threat. In recent years, China has used a variety ...
In this excerpt from her new memoir, Dame Susan Devoy remembers her turn as star contestant on the 2022 season of Celebrity Treasure Island. The most anxious time of every day was pre-elimination, when you knew this could be your final day on the show. I felt such contradictory emotions, ...
A week that began in triumph ended in an all-too-familiar disaster for the Green Party. Duncan Greive asks if there’s something in the mission that breaks its best and brightest. A long, strange week for the Green party began with a fantastic poll result. On one level this is hardly ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Vanuatu’s former prime minister and opposition MP Ishmael Kalsakau has stepped down — just two days after he confirmed he was the rightful opposition leader. Kalsakau, MP for Port Vila, confirmed to ABC’s Pacific Beat, and the Vanuatu Daily Post on Thursday that he ...
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The striking report goes far beyond the proposed repeal of the Oranga Tamariki Act’s Treaty of Waitangi provision, and its impact should be felt far beyond the unique circumstances of the claim it addresses. Earlier this week, the Waitangi Tribunal released an interim report on the government’s proposed repeal of ...
The world has been experiencing a productivity slowdown, from which New Zealand has not been exempt. COVID-19 temporarily boosted labour productivity, but more recently, productivity has retreated. The overall trend since 2007 has been one of slow productivity ...
What’s more wasteful than spending $315k on syrup and machine maintenance? Trying to drum up a controversy about it.Cast your mind back to the pre-pandemic idylls of 2019. A “rat” was a disgusting rodent and not a self-administered plague test; the sixth Labour government was in power; and the ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Rose, Professor of Sustainable Future Transport, University of Sydney LanaElcova/Shutterstock Electric vehicles are often seen as the panacea to cutting emissions – and air pollution – from transport. Is this view correct? Yes – but only once uptake accelerates. Despite the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giselle Natassia Woodley, Researcher and Phd Candidate, Edith Cowan University There is widespread agreement Australia needs to do better when it comes to gender-based violence. Anger and frustration at the numbers of women being killed saw national rallies over the weekend and ...
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Bob Carr intends to launch legal action against Winston Peters and Julie Anne Genter is facing a second allegation of bullying. Both sucked the air out of an announcement on education, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in ...
So, the government has jumped the shark with respect to RATs by 'consolidating' 'confiscating' tests from private businesses. However it is described the effect is the same to the businesses affected.
In this post I am not going to go into the spooky Orwellian feel of this, the doublespeak and spin used by the government and Bloomfield to justify this move, or how the government has been exposed as hopelessly unprepared.
Rather, I want to discuss the logistics of what the government intends to do.
Listening to Bloomfield on ZB last night, and the reporting on TV1, the government intends to distribute the tests based on a criteria they still haven't determined. Apparently it is going to take about two weeks to do this.
Once the criteria is established, I assume businesses are going to be able to apply to the government for tests. I think businesses are going to try and shoe-horn themselves into the criteria, often by embellishing what they do in order to get some desperately needed tests. So, the government could be inundated with many thousands of applications.
Someone is going to have to work through the applications and weed out the wheat from the chaff. This is going to take a long time, and won't be a perfect science. So, I think it is highly likely that by the time tests actually reach businesses they won't be needed.
The other silly thing is that many of those private businesses that were importing directly themselves are probably going to businesses that meet the government criteria once they get that decided. So the effect is going to be that deserving businesses get their tests a lot later than they otherwise would have.
The media outrage over this highlights how narrow and uninformed the world view of the great bulk of our MSM journalists is. Thomas Coughlan at the Herald has gone completely off the deep end for example.
It is hard to blame them. For the last twenty years at least journalism as a career has mainly been seen as a stepping stone into more lucrative marketing and PR gigs, and those who take the vocationally focused journalism qualifications on offer in our neoliberal degree factories are subject to a narrow curriculum. A liberal education is deeply out of fashion and one of the victims of that is history, an endangered topic in deep peril of vanishing completely (along with most other humanities) at our university and functionally extinct at our polytechs.
So it is most unlikely that MSM journalists are aware that completely laissez-faire markets and narcissistic hyper-individualism as an organising principle is simple one way of running an economy and a society and that the state, in times of emergency, has enormous – and legitimate – powers it can exercise.
Media hyperbole is as often as not a result of journalists existing in a context free zone informed entirely by business lobbyists and the paradigms of the existing order.
How is the media reporting this an excuse for the governments failure to act sooner?
This is rather meaningless. Unless there is actual evidence that the government confiscated test, I'll accept that what they in fact did was to say to their international suppliers that they want priority on orders from now on. And the international suppliers agreed.
Misrepresenting that as 'confiscation' is just bullshit. Confiscation would mean going and taking tests from businesses.
And seriously, why do some people think that in the kind of market economy we have globally, that a large buyer shouldn't out bid smaller buyers? Or that a business has an entitlement to buy something that they don't have a contract for?
The point I was making that so far as the businesses that were expecting the orders is concerned, the effect is the same however it is described. But it is what it is.
The main issue I raised, which you haven't responded to, is the logistical problems the government will likely have in trying to administer the RATs and distribute them best to where needed in a timely fashion.
The problem I see is that by adding layers of bureaucracy to the process, the supply of tests will basically stall, and no-one will end up getting them in a timely fashion.
Yes, and I'm saying that basically lying about the situation as well isn't helpful.
I didn't respond because it sounded like supposition based on not a lot. Sure, there might be logistical delays, but I can't see an alternate plan being offered other than saying that businesses should be allowed to have priority over the government in purchasing tests.
You really do need to study up the effect of government interventions in disasters. Meddling tends to make things worse not better. Eg:
https://mises.org/library/government-and-hurricane-hugo-deadly-combination
tsmithfield…it's called "for the common good" mate. A concept little understood by the Right, especially Mr. Seymour.
Just take a look across the Tasman at the shambles that ensued when the market was allowed to dominate the RAT market.
(The silver lining here is that this has probably sealed ScoMo's fate at the upcoming federal election.)
Businesses will small orders weren't able to jump the que.
Manufacturing Delays from being inundated by orders .
So faux outrage.
Confiscating none have been confiscated.
But the brothel on the northshore stockpiled while nurses doctors ,police,emergency services truck drivers,supermarket workers,meat processors.
All missed out.
Ashley Bloomfield,
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/audio/dr-ashley-bloomfield-maori-input-has-fed-into-omicron-plan/
RATs are discussed from start of audio.
Re companies that had orders in as well,
My emphasis. ie businesses generally cannot use RATs now off piste. My understanding of that is that there is a global shortage of tests, and that we need to keep them for when we actually need them, and there are public health reasons to be mostly using PCR tests at this phase of omicron response.
Basically Bloomfield is saying that it's better for the government to distribute test to get them to where they are most needed, as opposed to letting the market determine that. He wants the government to have enough supply to be able to make sure tests go where they are needed.
Yes, it's a pandemic and the government wants to control supply of testing, but not absolutely. Bloomfield also says that he expects in a few weeks the orders to businesses from suppliers will resume.
The government should never have got to this situation.
They have known for months that RATs are going to be needed, since businesses started lobbying them last year and the government eventually agreed to a pilot program that was implemented in October last year that allowed a small number of large businesses to start bringing them in, as I pointed out yesterday.
So, the government has been aware for a long time that RATs are going to be an important tool in a Covid outbreak.
The fact that there is a global shortage of these tests now is no excuse for government inaction. We could be the best stocked nation in the world for these tests if the government had pulled finger a lot earlier.
That may very well be true. I wasn't following that issue last year.
Did the Australians do the same thing? They seem to have a shortage.
We are looking at this pre-emptively because we expect many of our larger customers are going to require evidence that our staff are likely Covid-free, and also to ensure that staff are covid free when interacting with other staff in our business..
Since we can't get RATs we are considering the RAKO saliva tests as an option. My understanding is that saliva tests are more accurate. But they are also quite expensive. We have been quoted $75 per test. And it takes 10 hours to get a result back. And it is not clear we will qualify to get RATS from the government.
Our company supplies and services compressed air equipment. We have a number of hospitals on our books, and a lot of major food producers.
We would probably consider ourselves critical, especially in the case of hospitals, where compressed air is essential for hospitals to function.
But will we qualify for RATs from the government? Who knows.
Goes to my point. Governments generally are useless at this sort of stuff. They should have been well stocked up also.
The company complaining that they can’t fulfil some orders and saying govt should have stockpiled earlier don’t explain why they didn’t stockpile earlier themselves ??
would you mind explaining how your business will use RATs once available?
We are looking at this pre-emptively because we expect many of our larger customers are going to require evidence that our staff are likely Covid-free, and also to ensure that staff are covid free when interacting with other staff in our business..
Since we can't get RATs we are considering the RAKO saliva tests as an option. My understanding is that saliva tests are more accurate. But they are also quite expensive. We have been quoted $75 per test. And it takes 10 hours to get a result back. And it is not clear we will qualify to get RATS from the government.
Our company supplies and services compressed air equipment. We have a number of hospitals on our books, and a lot of major food producers.
We would probably consider ourselves critical, especially in the case of hospitals, where compressed air is essential for hospitals to function.
But will we qualify for RATs from the government? Who knows.
RAT's are not very accurate. The problem is they only get it right 79% of the time-that is they produce 21% false negatives, which means these 21% will wander around the community while infected.
"home tests correctly identified 78.9 percent of people who did have the virus and correctly identified 97.1 percent of people who didn’t have the virus."
https://www.healthline.com/health/how-accurate-are-rapid-covid-tests#at-home-tests
RadioNZ keeps reporting the pro-business line that that false positives are the problem; this is not the case; only 2.9%.
Bearded Git your clickbait headline only 2.9% false positives doesn't match up to the figures you provide.
RATs don't pick up asymptomatic early infections and this link has no relavency to Delta or even harder to detect Omricon
Read your link it doesn't back your claims.
Read a little further into your link it shows a list of rapid antigen test manufacturers and each efficacy.
The 4 manufacturers tests compared the worst providing 45% accuracy the best55% accuracy of infection.
Bare in mind these are an average with some people tested only 40% of infections were picked up.
Also these figures are for the alpha variant not delta or Omricon.
Facts pleases just cherry picking the 2.9% out of the complete set of figures is disappointing.
Fair enough Tricledown I didn't read it in enough detail, but what you say is backing up my point in spades-that RAT tests are semi useless- isn't it?
how would you use the RATs if they were available? Would you be testing all staff daily? or what?
Hopefully all your staff are vaccinated and had or having the boosters. That is the minimum that other businesses would expect I am thinking together with constant mask wearing..
Good on you for thinking ahead and noting that you may have to wait a little bit longer for your order to be fulfilled.
RATs are not a substitute for not wearing a mask or not being vaccinated in my view.
Look at the Newstalk ZB article yesterday on how Mainfreight Australia are using them.
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/mike-hosking-breakfast/audio/don-braid-mainfreight-chief-executives-says-rapid-antigen-tests-are-working-well-for-colleagues-over-the-tasman/
Australia is quite different from here though.
We didn't need them until Omicron arrived, and they have a limited shelf-life, so ordering a bunch of tests with 2 month expiry only for them to expire before Omicron got here would have been unhelpful.
Rats tests have only a 2 month shelf life.
Then every country and business in the world are chasing after them.
The govt ordered RAT last year still waiting for delivery.
It's easy to be critical but what would have National done .
Cut health funding more for tax cuts prior to elections.
Charge people for tests and vaccinations.
ie increasing prescription charges from $2 to $5.
National and ACT with ACT'S large tail wagging National would have opened the borders and let it rip.like Boris,Trump,Macron etc.
The fact the criteria has not yet been established is beyond comprehension. I can not see how the MoH didn't think before this week that they might need to prioritise the distribution of RATs and how they would assess that.
I have huge sympathy for the businesses who had the foresight and did the right thing by ordering millions of these tests last year. As an employer you have legal and moral duties to protect the health and well being of your workers. A key way to satisfy that duty is by minimising the risk of people bringing COVID into the workplace. The only real way to do that is regular testing. That will be very difficult to do if your business does not meet the still to be defined criteria.
A lot of small businesses are going to be wiped out through this.
The isolation rules mean that some smaller companies might not be able to function for a month or more.
We are lucky in that most of our staff can work from home, and so we can spread our risk. For those companies that require all their staff in one location, and don't have sufficient staff to run separate shifts, it is going to be a major problem.
I have just spoken to someone who is is a live example of how this will play out.
She has a catering business, and 3/4 of her staff worked at Soundsplash over the weekend. Despite the MoH providing next to no information on the exposure yet, all of her staff are today being tested and self isolating.
Business is closed until all of those test results are provided which will likely be at least 48 hours.
wait, are you suggesting that we shouldn't be trying to limit spread of omicron by using self-isolation and testing?
No
Here is the initial criteria,
https://www.business.govt.nz/covid-19/testing-and-returning-to-work-during-omicron
That makes way more sense to me than testing every employee in NZ every day.
And if you are not a critical worker?
Hospitality for example which is going to be one of the very high risk industries but can hardly be considered critical.
yes, some businesses are going to be badly affected by omicron. As far as I can tell the government is doing a balancing act between public health response and damage limitation on the economy including businesses.
Yep, and owners of of those high risk businesses, and employers of people who depend on that business operating, will have no tools available to them to protect their workers. It is safe to assume that they will all be affected at some point in the coming months.
I accept choices have to be made, but I am very uncomfortable about this.
Uncomfortable yes, and very stressful. It's a whole new covid ballgame now.
We all have tools, lots of them. Vaccination and boosting, good mask tech and technique, hand washing and sanitising, social distancing, good ventilation, working from home where possible and taking appropriate precautions there, people not going out to close contact events, paying attention to symptoms, getting tested, self isolation and so on. As well as the government controlled mandates and choices individual businesses are making.
(and for those that this works for, vitamin D, getting good sleep, making sure one's diet is healthy and not overloaded with sugar and so on).
And everyone is in the same boat really. RATs don't stop someone from getting omicron.
Just to clarify, my opinion is framed from a worker's perspective. Some business (and therefore many jobs) will not survie the closures that result from half their workforce having to self isolate.
Getting COVID is inevtiable for most of us. But keeping those infected people away from the workplace so that a business can continue is going to be a very difficult thing to do.
How we get covid matters. How fast and where it spreads matters. Timing matters. That's why some workers have to stay home.
Yes we are in total agreement on that point. Workers with COVID must remain at home away from healthy workers.
The issue we are going to face is we won't know those infected people are in the workforce transmitting the diesease because we won't be testing them.
Ad lord haw haw would be proud of your description.
No confiscations taking place.
Foward orders are being commandeered for a coordinated approach so supply lines and health professionals police essential services can be maintained.
We have seen overseas where supermarket shelves are empty hospitals are running out of staff. Aged care facilities struggling with no staff and outbreaks of covid.
Ad get real this is a real emergency political point scoring is undermining our health response .
Brian Tamaki style outrage is what you are projecting.
We all need to work together to defeat the Pandemic.
In war time those who undermined our war effort were treated as outcasts .Because a disease doesn't look like an enemy its easy to be anti everything to health iniatives.
Those undermining the health iniatives are right up there with the antvaxxers.
don't you realize these businesses only want these tests so they can on sell them & make some money.
you have a link to support your claim here?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/covid-19/460254/govt-commandeered-100k-rat-order-company
All of them is a rather long stretch, but the order in this particular article was to a private business to provide to other businesses.
Nah most are used for staff testing as a safety measure. I had to have one and wait before entering a large business premise in Auckland last week.
Basically with the huge business cost of a shutdown due to quarantining staff Rapid Tests are a very cheap extra layer of protection.
Rubbish. They want them so they can quickly test staff so the business can actually carry on operating which is pretty sensible and good planning (unlike the govt that has dropped the ball).
Jester While our hospitals are overun and most of the staff isolating at home.because essential services don't have tests.
Jester your are blind to the consequences of selfishness.
Perhaps essential services would have the RAT tests (like some businesses do) if our government had actually got off their ass and ordered them back when they were advised to instead of now having to "consolidate" as Ashley says other businesses orders!
What's the expiry date on the RATs?
Don't know the expiry date but the test have a shelf life of 12 to 15 months normally.
Normally?
One brand of test seems to meet that ballpark when left forgotten in a warehouse. Others – maybe not so much.
They are a bit like having milk in the fridge. You normally use before it expires.
But of course, the govt would of have to have actually ordered them earlier.
lols. An unlinked "normally", again.
Stockpiling hundreds of millions of RATs requires knowing when we'll go from a low-covid environment (where we need the sensitivity of pcrs to stamp out covid) to a higher-covid environment (where pcrs are overloaded and we need the speed of RATs to slow the spread of covid through individual institutions).
Now, we might get a year's supply at usual levels (i.e. regular testing for border staff etc), depending on the brand, but then we'd still be massively understocked in a high-covid situation.
Or we could hold onto them for a bit, and then ship them somewhere else in the hope we're supplying people who need them with tests that are still good, being close to their use-by and having had unknown conditions during transit.
Or we could have a small stock and order the extras in when it looks like we'll need them, which is the current situation.
"Or we could have a small stock and order the extras in when it looks like we'll need them, which is the current situation."
Or we could just requisition other peoples (companies) orders which is the current situation (as we forgot or were too slow).
see, no worries.
Essential services would have tests if the government had ordered them earlier.
This is an incredibly naive comment. The businesses buying RATs prior to the governments moves to centralise the purchasing and distribution of them are generally involved in providing essential services to NZ communities.
By buying these tests employers are meeting their health and safety obligations to their employees and their customers.
Further they have set up systems to manage their use efficiently. Involving MoH in their purchase and distribution will inevitably be disruptive, clumsy, slow and inefficient.
The government has moved decisively to cut off the opportunistic arseholes who have tried to make extreme profits from importing RATs and bloody good job too.
It is already happening with masks according to a Stuff article.
When I did an economics paper we studied the effects of price controls and the hurricane Hugo disaster.
The upshot was that governments invariably make emergency situations worse by trying to control prices, supply etc. Plenty of information on this online. But here for an example.
https://fee.org/articles/hurricane-hugo-price-controls-hinder-recovery/
Tsm Where did you dig up that dodgy bit of bs.
NZ is nothing like the US let alone a Republican state with a minimalist bearaucracy and private health insurance etc.
Below is a link to something a bit more substantial on the topic if you want.
One of commodities that was affected was ice. Due to power being knocked out, there was a sudden demand for ice so people could keep freezers of meat cold and the like.
The price of ice shot up and price controls were brought in to cap the price due to the public outcry.
The effect was that there were shortages as there was no price incentive to keep up the supply of ice. Thus, it became a case of first in first served so far as ice was concerned.
People who wanted ice for frivilous things such as keeping alcohol cool in parties would get their ice if they got in first. But then the ice ran out for people who really needed it and would have been happy to pay the inflated prices.
The same sort of thing occurred with equipment such as chainsaws etc. When price controls were bought in, shortages occurred which hindered the recovery.
The lesson from all this was that price controls make things worse, especially in a crisis.
https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=Vui5DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA72&lpg=PA72&dq=price+controls+hurricane+hugo&source=bl&ots=ZxvhNXsZx8&sig=ACfU3U2VR6FKaUI8L0aihp9hE-HtUhVP9Q&hl=en&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwiCjaynvdD1AhXzldgFHawHDYMQ6AF6BAgeEAM#v=onepage&q=price%20controls%20hurricane%20hugo&f=false
Once again irrelevant this is nothing but economic propaganda .
GWBush president at the time Republican governor.
I read another article on hurricane hugo.The Republicans don't help in disasters ,they want Individual responsibility that means you have to insure your self up to the eyeballs with a separate disaster insurance which only the wealthy can afford.Republicans hands off approach.Republicans don't want any form of welfare for all and want insurance companies to prosper .
So trying to bring price controls in a state that doesn't have the capacity or desire to have govt involved in any aspect of their lives is futile and a false equivalency.
Looking at NZ price controls on doctors visits and prescriptions has worked relatively well.
Where in the US no such mechanism that's why so many in the US can't get access to healthcare or the medicines they require.Tsmithfield
So entrepreneurial price gouging has an unfortunate effect that puts poorer people at a special disadvantage but people with entrepreneurial spirits who see an opportunity to reap large rewards wouldn't gouge prices, right?
And therein you suggest another angle in a complicated scenario – a "there is more to this than meets the eye" – angle.
Would these opportunistic arseholes be the ones that have signed a charter last year and together with the government started to import tests, which these opportunistic arseholes paid for themselves, to test out their use as a tool in the fight against Covid?
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/about/news/rapid-antigen-tests-now-being-trialled-by-new-zealand-businesses/
here is what you can find at MBIE after the trial ended……
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/about/news/lessons-learnt-from-rapid-antigen-testing-trial/
Here is a heartfelt thank you letter from Food Stuffs to the government for allowing them this 'trial'. Very arseholish of them.
https://www.foodstuffs.co.nz/news-room/new-zealand-businesses-get-the-green-light-to-import-rapid-covid-19-tests
Or maybe you are talking about these opportunistic arseholes here? From August 2021 – which also is a long long time ago.
and they have a point here, but then nothing could be done about that point since it was raised, obviously,
https://www.nzinitiative.org.nz/reports-and-media/opinion/new-opinion-81/
but this also happened last year…….
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/10k-rapid-antigen-covid-tests-gathering-dust-after-the-government-withholds-its-approval/UC3QNDYCTV5DXUQM2QCTZC4KT4/
I really would enjoy if so called lefties would actually try to remember more then just yesterday. The government has shot itself twice in the foot in regards to these testing kits, and now is found wanting and scrambling, and 'consolidating' the orders others have placed in order to prevent looking severely out of step, out of touch, and even a few weeks behind.
Omicron was a slow wave across the ocean, everyone could see it arrive, and like good kiwis instead of getting away from the shore, they flock there to watch the tsunami arrive. Maybe we should have Covid parties and just get over with it. s/
fucks sake. Gathering dust? Or being held until we actually need them. Which we don't this week.
I'd like someone to explain how businesses intend to use RATs if they were given them this week. Are they going to wait for the MoH's say so on using them, or are they going to start now? How specifically would that work?
Virgil my partner goes into high risk areas every day of the week, every day of the year. And you and everyone else here on this board want Virgil to do that as it makes your life so much easier when the machines that everyone expects to work actually work.
At the moment, end of every day Virgil sits there and compares the site that were visited to those that may be an issue, i.e. contact. If a site shows as a 'contact' site, Virgil will get a nasal test, i will get a nasal test. I have had quite a few of these now since Covid showed its face, in fact we have had so many that the guys at the testing station know us know.
We would really be happy for Virgils company to distribute these tests to us directly, so that instead of going clogging up the govt site, we can do a simply test at home and only have a nasal swap if a test comes up unclear or positive, or really the site visited was more then just a blib. I guess you could call that personal responsibility in managing ones own life and livelihood.
I can see a company like Food Stuffs do what is done elsewhere, provide these rapid tests for people that come to offices, or warehouses, to protect its work force there.
I can see a company like Silver Fern demand the same, negative test before arriving at work. Btw, these are some really sensitive industries here, as not everyone in NZ lives on a nice property with food growing and a few hens for eggs.
What we have now, is nothing other then the tests via government, which btw, are not compulsory, and thus the same people that would not divulge a positive test will simply not get tested at all. What have we won?
Nothing. People will simply not get tested at all. Well done Labour!
What it does show me though is the fact that since the 'ban' in 2020, not one risk analyst at the Government has come up with the idea that maybe these tools are just that, tools, and that they should be made available to businesses that can distribute these across its own work force and thus remove some of the pressure on the nasal swap teams and lab teams.
To recap, since April 2020 Medsafe has had the option of making these kits 'legal' and it failed to do so. The question remains why. The question remains, Qui bono? And last for hte Labour Party the question remains, Quo Vadis? Where do you go from there. The damage is done.
Bloomfield just clarified that the ban was on individual's importing tests from overseas, and the rationale was that there are a lot of dodgy tests out there. Businesses were still able to order approved tests.
Tell me, if RATs were in widespread use today, how would the government contact trace? How would it know which people with positive tests were omicron vs delta? How would it know where omicron outbreaks were happening? Information critical to the public health response (as opposed to workplace processes).
Tell me, how would your partner's workplace use RATs today, in the context of the public health response and three phase plan? I actually think this could be done, and listening to Bloomfield above he seems to think so too, so tell us the how.
Did you see where I am ONLY talking about 'businesses' odering, paying and distributing these tests to their own employees and business partners/visitors etc?
That is not the same as people importing it on their own.
The reason we are scrambling here is not because businesses did something that was not approved – as above i posted ample links to point out that this disucssion with Businesses and Govt is / was an ongoing thing, it is because the Government did not think we would need these tests in large numbers, despite the world showing that they have a place in the tool box against covid.
Fact is that the businesses that have their order consolidated and pushed ot the back of the queue are businesses like Food Stuffs, Silver Fern, Mitre Tens etc etc etc, but i guess all these workers can just suck it up and play russian roulette with their health a, and b. have their brains tickled every other day, lest the government looks foolish and without a ball in their hand/court.
And frankly Weka, i don't need to tell you this, its been told many times by others with better words and the Government fucked up, and it is continuing to fuck up in this regards. They got cought out by their own hubris and self importance.
Maybe not all businesses are 'opportunistic arseholes' as called by Adrian? Maybe in this case the opportunist is the Government that failed to procure a "tool" in large enough numbers to distribute it across the nation. But then, maybe this Government can not be allowed to fail, as Covid is the only thing they got to some extend going for them.
I am done having this discussion Weka. The Government had since April 2020 to be forward thinking with regards to these Self tests, which btw are no more then a standard pregnancy test – get properly tested if it comes back unclear or positive – and they really thought that they don't need them, or could do with out. Well, i guess Covid don't give a fuck as to what the Government thinks.
And also please stop pretending that the public is just out there waiting to get to piss on one of these tests and then pretend it did not happen. Right now, people simply don't get tested at all.
honestly, I'm having trouble following your points.
Here's the MoH page explaining the ordering ban. Which wasn't a ban exactly, it was just that you has to go through the MoH to get approval. This was to stop the importation of useless tests. Hence businesses were still allowed to import, individuals weren't. If you are saying that businesses weren't allowed, please explain.
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-health-advice-public/assessment-and-testing-covid-19/rapid-antigen-testing#business
That's different from the issue this week of the government outbidding the NZ resellers.
You didn't answer my questions. I don't think all businesses or even most are arseholes. I do think that there is a clear conflict between the needs of individual businesses and the public health response. I have no problem accepting that this might be a result of the MoH being slow to move on RATs.
But here we are. Do people honestly want businesses to take priority over the MoH?
My partner is also an essential worker, and was part of those when the elimination strategy that had an employer who had foreseen the necessity for individual workers to have a quick way to test so as reduce the likelihood of the entire workforce being infected or isolated.'
They had purchased RAT tests pre-emptively with the understanding that elimination at some point would be abandoned.
I consider his employer, and those like them to be businesses that provided unforced support to their employees, and should get kudos for doing so. They are now unable to use this strategy at the moment, as they go through the process with government.
It's just another example of a mish-mash world and times. Dennis Frank (below) gets into the Hickey-Bradbury notions about capitalism and socialism.
Socialist approaches are wonderful and welcomed by capitalists when they're in the shit or see some advantage in it for themselves. And loathed the rest of the time especially when there's direct advantage to be gained for themselves.
Listening to Bloomfield on ZB (above) this was the conclusion I came to. Some companies throwing their toys out of the cot because they got caught up in a public health issue and probably weren't paying attention to the collective good and are so used to neoliberal rules applying.
The businesses that have worked with the government on a trial have not been paying attention and are throwing out their toys?
Seriously, it is the fault of businesses that in 2022 – 2 full years into the Covid mess, we don't have a simple tool as a self tests?
Yeah, Right. Tui. Must be the businesses, can't be anything else.
No, the small handful of businesses that decided this week to use the National Party and MSM to stamp their feet about not getting what they want during a global health crisis.
Instead of going ‘wah, wah confiscation’, they could have talked about the actual issues and how they need to be resolved.
Fuck off Sabine. If you're not going to listen to what I am saying, at least don't make shit up about my argument.
Tests for omricon are not very accurate .
One of your other complainers posted the efficacy of RATS some where between 40% and 70% efficacy varying with each individual averaging 55% for the best brand 45% for the worst.That was for the original variant not Delta or omricon or the more evasive omricon b-2 variant.
So these RATS are only going to slow down the spread.
One person who came out of isolation had numerous negative tests yet 2 days out of isolation he tested positive after feeling sick.
RATs do not do such a thing. They get phased in progressively as we move to Phase 3, as per yesterday’s announcement.
Yes Incognito. If people listened to Assoc Min of Health yesterday, the PM over the weekend and actually read the policies/processes they will find out about the staging.
Much heat but not much light here on TS, obviously based on those beacons of unbiased reporting, the media. Surely 2 years in we know better than to try to get best info from the media? Especially when we have dedicated ways of getting information
https://covid19.govt.nz/
The priority for RATs is for essential workers and especially useful for a test the day of proposing starting work after having had Covid. Surely the use for essential workers is the best use in our staged process especially if there is a shortage and a timing issuing for how long the RATs last for.
Thank you Weka for so patiently explaining this situation, which shouldn't be too hard if people have been listening.
As usual the govt can do no right here. If they had left RAT totally in the hands of private enterprise, god forbid, they would be getting hammered from the other angle.
It's all politics.
Politics, but also people under stress. And too much neoliberal socialisation.
Sabine NZ initiative is a right wing think tank formally the business round table.
The Indian made rats you have posted in your link claim to have a 95% efficacy which is bs.
This cheap political point scoring is undermining the govts initiatives.
'
Fail:
National Party in another embarrassing backdown.
Ironic really, in that the whole purpose of the petition was to embarrass the government.
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/omicron-backdown-national-drops-now-from-end-miq-petition-says-govt-s-home-isolation-pause-justified/ar-AAT8Cmm?
Governments and opposition should change their views as circumstances change. This is good and hardly an embarassing backdown.
When the petition was launched there were hundreds of kiwis self isolating at home with delta, while vaxxed kiwis abroard with negative tests were being denied the ability to do the same thing.
Then omicron hit and things changed.
Dunno about changing the wording of petitions mid-campaign, though.
Stop one, start another.
"When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind. What Do You Do, Sir?" Winston Churchill
Nothing wrong with that.
However…..
I would be incensed if I put my name to a petition, and then found out that what I had signed up to had been altered before it was handed in.
Changing the wording of a petition after people have already signed up to it crosses a moral line.
I agree with McFlock. If the original wording is no longer fit for purpose, if the situation has changed, best to abandon it and start again.
Embarrassing? Lazy? Immoral? Opportunistic?
Much
Economist & entrepreneur Bernard Hickey pays a compliment to the left:
Although, to be fair, he probably didn't intend it to be interpreted as a compliment. Bomber has a surprisingly sober view:
He then makes a subtle point via a survey of the capitalist parties in parliament:
The point being that no parties in parliament have declared themselves anti-capitalist.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Pragmatism rules. No party wants to present itself as anti-Roman. Socialists ran away to hide in the 1980s & haven't been seen since. The victims of the inequality-producing system conspicuously continue to avoid the challenge of becoming politically active and leveraging their numbers. No surprise that capitalism wins by default. Winners take all when losers can't be bothered playing the game…
That Daily Blog article is by Chris Trotter, Dennis. Not Bomber.
The problem any anti-capitalist party would have in NZ is selling itself as able to successfully deconstruct the current economic structure & successfully manage an economy without capitalism.
Maybe rather than trying to deconstruct the whole system, anti-capitalists should start organising to solve the intractable existential problems that capitalism just cannot solve.
maybe that's why we don't see anti capitalists? either they can't organise as well as capitalists can or they can't agree what their anti-ness then isn't anti..
New Zealanders don't vote for negativity
I am sure the electorate will take that on board in '23.
Nothing but negativity from the Natz!
Obviously I was in a passing phase of brain fog, but that does explain why it was a sober analysis! And I agree with your delineation of the problem.
Except that the stance I adopted 30 years ago in the Greens economic policy working group was a synthesis rather than a negation or opposition and I still feel that's the best alternative. It uses a conciliatory basis. Efficiency & progress then derive from applying a suitable method. The method I advocated was to identify key principles on the left & right that seem essential (equity & enterprise being primary) and eliminate the shit parts of the left & right.
Do that and you get something new that is resilient by design. Included in the synthesis were Green principles such as true-cost accounting (to eliminate the socialisation of business costs) and the financial transactions cost tax to harvest the process of capitalism (which I viewed as socialism worth supporting)…
No compliments anywhere…indeed the opposite.
The RBNZ, government and business have been given the largest of serves by Bernard Hickey's research…..any response from those served is likely to be awkward.
He has just been interviewed on RNZ…the link should be available soon.
The top global gun may get pointed at Russia; https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/26/investing/swift-russia-ukraine/index.html
What is SWIFT?
Russia does have an alternative if the top gun swivels at them:
Boris is grandstanding.
As 40% of european energy relies on Russian supply,cutting off SWIFT would mean the Cold War would become …a war of frozen corpses.
There is no ready substitute for Russian energy …supply.
Oh but Blazer
The Germans will welcome that expensive freedom LNG gas courtesy of the US
German industrialists are gagging to pay the extra cost and the extra carbon miles to get it
But umm, there's a problem
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-talks-with-energy-producers-supply-europe-if-russia-invades-ukraine-2022-01-25/
Why the fuck is it so hard to give Russia some security guarantees, cheaper in the long run, as the German commander said before he was in effect sacked for offering unwelcome advice.(An apology was not enough to save his job)
Germany and Europe will just stop shutting down their nuclear reactors if gas supplies are cut.
Back in 2014 , after Crimea voted to rejoin Russia (as it had in previous referendums)and this time Russia accepted, Russia was threatened with being banned from SWIFT by the US
Which wasn't greeted with a greta deal of clapping from Brussels
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2014/10/03/sanctions-on-russia-could-backfire/
An international neutral banking facility becomes a US weapon, thus undermining it's credibility and usefulness
A pretty strong encouragement for Russia, China et al to form al alternative to SWIFT.
Both China and Russia have independent settlement programs at various stages of implementation. China launched the Cross-border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) in 2015, an independent clearing system with the RMB as the quote currency. Similarly, Russia has been developing its own financial messaging System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS).
Both systems are now in position, making it relatively easy to build an independent Russian-Chinese financial system by linking the two.
A great step for mankind that will meet with approval…everywhere.
Let's face it ,we all abhor….monopolies!
The Russian invasion is not quite as imminent and not quite as full scale as we thought
Western intelligence seems to be a little slow to cotton on
(Even though the Ukrainians themselves have been pointing it out for weeks)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/26/focused-russian-attack-on-ukraine-seen-as-more-likely-than-full-scale-invasion
Gwynne Dyer nails it here. Don't hold your breath for a Russian invasion or any kind of war additional to that already going on in Ukraine.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/300497162/russias-posturing-over-ukraine-is-being-taken-much-too-seriously
Jacinda Ardern is a “nasty human being” and the media here is “pathetic” and “gutless”. Are we becoming an international joke?
https://m.facebook.com/GBNewsOnline/videos/rita-panahi-we-are-not-immortal-everybody-dies/2070682556430296/?__so__=permalink&__rv__=related_videos&locale=ne_NP&_rdr
RW commentators ranting from a place of ignorance. FFS, NZ isn't pursuing an elimination model. Why bother even listening to this if they can't get basic facts right?
You wish, Ross.
Seen the photo on the mask-wearing post?
Perhaps there's something in what you say…
GB News? Seriously?
Sure. Jacinda became an international joke when she was ambushed by a birthday cake.
Are we becoming an international joke? No. The international joke is that individuals with severe intellectual capacity see themselves as founts of knowledge.
"New Zealand is spiralling out of control" with its '"totalitarian" PM?
The tragedy is that the ravings of lunatics like Wootton suck in and pander to cretins amongst us.
Ross….that sort of rubbish should come come with a warning.
ScoMo, Boris or Jacinda. Tough choice that one-give me the woman with the soft voice any time.
Ross the far right news gb news .
Jealous of Jacinda .
A bunch of old white incell males wanting to go back to the days of British empire.
Yeah, one time I got so drunk I got in a fight, puked all over someone's lawn and on my shoes, took my shirt off and started dancing and screaming in the flowerbed! When the cops came and got me I had passed out under the walnut tree and pissed my pants!
The people who owned that garden must have looked like idiots – just "pathetic" and obviously "nasty human beings" – absolute jokes.
Bernard Hickey eviscerates the Government and RBNZ
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018828257/the-cost-of-the-pandemic-the-financial-winners-and-losers
This is going to hurt.
What an indictment on this Govt.
'Tony Blair in …high heels'….indeed.
This will hurt Labour (and be an increased source of questioning by the Greens) I expect the public pressure will build as things get harder for more and more…pressure to claw back, pressure to denounce, and pressure to provide alternatives.
Hickey has put numbers to and laid bare responsibility for the reality many are experiencing….mainly those who have till now supported Labour and the Greens.
Here is a link on the critical worker situation just forwarded through to me.
https://www.business.govt.nz/covid-19/testing-and-returning-to-work-during-omicron
Here is where the system is going to collapse and become meaningless:
"Beyond this, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) will develop an online portal – similar to that used for the Business Travel Registration system – to allow individual business to apply for critical worker status. This system will be called the Critical Services Register and more information will be made available to businesses shortly about this."
So the portal still needs to be developed. Firms need to apply for critical worker status. Decisions need to be made who qualifies. Then tests need to be distributed. I expect thousands of firms will be applying.
Given the speed of the Omicron wave, I doubt any of this will be happening until after the crisis is over.
Didn't the government say yesterday they think phase two will probably start in two weeks?
That MBIE page looks clear to me.
If I were in your situation I would phone MBIE and ask for a timeline on the register, and further guidelines on whether your business is likely to qualify (I would guess yes, but I'd check because you need to plan)
I will try that. But I expect it could be a bit difficult getting through.
Here is an interesting interview with David Seymour. I realise it is from the wrong side of the fence here, but he makes some really good points.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018828168/act-leader-david-seymour-on-govt-s-omicron-response
I agree with him that the harsh isolation rules will put people off getting tested at all. Especially if they have to sit at home for weeks trying to survive on the meagre offering from the government when their sick leave runs out.
So far as critical workers go, he makes the point that we might not see the refuse collection people as essential at the moment. And I doubt they would meet the criteria in the first instance, anyway.
But if they all get sick and can't collect rubbish for three weeks, we may change our minds. And, uncollected rubbish could become a health hazard as well.
I would be surprise if rubbish collection isn't considered essential, a la "prevent serious harm (social, economic or physical) to significant numbers in the community."
Yes, phoning MBIE or many government departments often takes a long time to get through. Phoning WINZ requires waits of up to an hour. I usually arrange to be doing something compatible while on hold.
Speaking of which, remember March 2020 when the government first started rolling out the initial pandemic response, and prioritising funding for businesses? Beneficiaries had to wait for any financial assistance, which meant that going into lockdown many couldn't buy masks, extra hand washing supplies, or extra food so they could stay home and not have to be exposed to covid in places like supermarkets.
What managers and business owners are experiencing is stressful. Really stressful in fact. This is the nature of shitty situations.
My own view is that we should be adapting and preparing for another round of this this year past this wave of omicron. We might get really lucky and omicron settles into a pattern that is more manageable. But we actually get better at crisis management if we adapt rather than holding on as if its going to be over soon.
Teaching resiliency skills would be a really good move right now, maybe this is something someone could look at helping businesses with.
I fear for the viability of many small businesses in this.
I agree with the stressful aspect. Perhaps there could be some help provided for businesses through the EAP?
A lot of small businesses don't have sufficient staff to run several shifts, and have no choice but to intermingle in their operations. Mass sickness and isolation rules could leave them without income for a month or two.
I don't know if the government is looking at the wage subsidy program again. So, they may be left to their own devices.
Also, when a lot of these businesses are forced to shut for a period of time it is going to have a huge knock on effect for the economy.
For instance, my son owns a powder coating business that is one of the busiest in Christchurch. Luckily he has plenty of cash reserves to see himself through this. But if he is forced to close down for a month or two, there will be a huge backlog of work that other businesses can’t get finished and charged out.
The effects of this are going to be far greater than many realise.
where are you getting the month or two thing from?
One person gets sick. Everyone has to isolate. Another person gets sick. Everyone has to isolate etc etc.
Where contact is unavoidable then this could impact businesses for a long time.
So if a worker in Mitre10 gets covid all the staff have to self isolate? I don't think so.
Looking at the MBIE and MoH links, it's not clear what they consider a close contact, but I doubt very much that it's every person the case talked to or walked past.
https://www.business.govt.nz/covid-19/testing-and-returning-to-work-during-omicron
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-response-planning/omicron-community-what-means-you
https://covid19.govt.nz/traffic-lights/life-at-red/
I think you will find most of your Mitre 10 workers will want to get tested and self-isolate, regardless of what the MoH says. If someone is at work while transmissible, then the prudent and responsible thing for any employer to do is stand down the workers who were on the same shift until they have returned a negative test. Which will likely take days.
People will do what they feel needs to be done to look after themselves and their whanau. They won’t be scrolling through the MoH website to find out what to do.
I am talking about small businesses with unavoidable close contact.
If you look to overseas jurisdictions the peak infections rise rapidly then fall away.
But if you think this pandemic is finished it won't be over till variants stop mutating.
What happens if another variant pops up Omricon b-2 is already in circulation its not known how serious it is yet but it looks more transmissible than omricon.
Belly aching ain't going to fix it.
Businesses may have to close we might go into a recession .We may have another wave of a more virulent covid.
Expecting the govt to fix everything when the Ministry of Health has been cut to shreads so we can have tax cuts and small govt.Then when things go wrong blame the govt is ironic.
In WW2 everybody was on the same page all working to defeat a common enemy.
Most are on board but the few who aren't are making the loudest noises.
Who do we follow those extremists who want to score cheap political points.
Or our highly educated health professionals.
Do we need to follow highly educated health professionals? or highly educated anyones?
I saw a newspaper heading this morning: "If only Jacinda Ardern was more like Scott Morrison."
Who needs highly educated health professionals or anyone here? Let's just be Scott Morrison.
I didn't read the opinion piece. It was by someone called Mike Hosking. Reminded me of pulling the petals off daisies, "He loves me, he loves me not," etc., ad infinitum, Hosking and his love affair with Morrison, Gladys Berejiklian, anything Australian, anything not New Zealand or Ardern.
When is he moving to Australia?
I guess he doesn't see it as the country of "milk and honey", otherwise he would have gone a long time ago. Probably would be back after a couple of years like Paul Henry.
All just empty slogans.
Read this and thought nah, someone's taking the piss. But it's 'Murica.
https://twitter.com/FruitKace/status/1486083494681919490
https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/teachers-paying-their-own-substitutes-believe-it-or-not-it
Ridiculous country.
I think the government would have been better to use saliva tests as from Rako for return to work testing.
https://www.rakoscience.com/
Saliva testing may be more accurate than PCR testing for Omicron anyway.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/health/saliva-testing-coronavirus-omicron.html
And is non-invasive it gives a relatively quick result which would be fine for returning to work, which the government is intending for the RAT tests.
If they had done that, then private industry would have been able to get their tests and use them as intended, for screening workers. As it is, the government in trying to solve one problem has just created another.
It's never that simple tsmith, though this is from 4 months ago:
Meta-analyses of recent studies suggest that saliva is useful for detecting SARS-CoV-2; however, differences in disease prevalence, sample collection, and analysis methods still confound strong conclusions on the utility of saliva compared to nasopharyngeal samples.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34259552/
Probably still more accurate than RAT tests though, especially with Omicron which is located more in the upper respiratory track.
And it depends what you read:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.22.21268246v1
You’ve set off my ignorance detector.
You do know that Rako’s saliva test is actually a PCR test and not a RAT, don’t you?
You do know that, as such, the saliva sample has to be analysed at an accredited lab with the same turn around as for a nasal sample, don’t you?
Do you know what the “R” in RAT stands for?
Fair enough. I should have qualified the type of PCR: e/g saliva vs nasal.
The turn around is quicker than nasal PCRs according to what we have been quoted by Rako: They are saying average time of 10 hours for a result.
How do you know that that is “quicker”?
A RAT is much quicker, isn’t it?
A RAT is a lot quicker. For this reason it is ideal as a screening tool for keeping infected people away from the workplace as much as possible, which is what a lot of companies are wanting them for. The government are now intending these be used for return to work tests, taking them away from the intended purpose industries were bringing them in for.
But when the consideration is someone returning to work, then the extra time for a saliva test probably isn't such an issue given they have been off work for quite awhile anyway.
They are quicker, but they are less reliable, so there’s a trade-off.
The standard remains PCR tests until the system (i.e. testing capacity) gets overwhelmed in Phase 3 or somewhere between Phases 2 and 3.
If you had informed yourself then you’d have known that in Phase 3 RATs may be used for diagnosis.
https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/omicron-in-the-community-what-this-means-for-you-26jan2022.pdf
Yes I am aware of that. With the screening test it is just one of the requirements generally, not the only one. For instance, when our techs go to Silver Fern Farms they have to pass a RAT test, plus be double vaxxed, wear a mask etc. So there is a whole suite of requirements.
Good news. People like this woman deserve jail.
Napier woman who hid her daughter's injuries behind face paint on flight jailed – NZ Herald
Pfizer has announced the start of trials to assess their omicron-targeted vaccine.
So they've developed a vaccine, lab tested it, and did FDA paperwork to get authorisation to start human use, decided the study scope and population, and are ready to begin trials at… 8 weeks from the new variant being identified, and over the holiday period as well.
Someone ought to nominate their team for a Nobel Prize. They'd be a shoo-in.
Depends where the genius was – developing the vaccine, or working with the FDA…
TOP have a new leader
https://twitter.com/rafmanji/status/1486479706459631618?s=21
Big topics for we mortals to just read and wonder
TV Poll out at 6pm tonight.
thanks for the reminder. Which TV?