health

Categories under health

Covid-19 and a digital democracy

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 pm, March 15th, 2020 - 20 comments

Government has for the last decade been pushing for as many government services as possible to be primarily accessed digitally rather than face-to face. Funnily enough, the one public service they forgot to push to digital is themselves. Now’s the time Trevor.

Covid-19 – a political problem

Written By: - Date published: 11:08 pm, March 14th, 2020 - 103 comments

Juice Media on the essential facts about the spread of Covid-19. It concentrates on the United States, where personally I’m picking the US, by the end of the year, as being the biggest medico-political screw up world wide after Iran. Early wishful thinking and a lack of transparency cost lives. Pathetic bullshitting simply doesn’t help.

Coronavirus and the State

Written By: - Date published: 2:52 pm, March 11th, 2020 - 37 comments

A few weeks ago I slagged off the Chinese government for its response to the Corona virus and presumed that authoritarian states could never be as good as democratic states in responding to a pandemic. I want to revisit my opinion.

The politics of hand washing

Written By: - Date published: 1:35 pm, March 6th, 2020 - 25 comments

Simon Bridges thinks that getting people to wash their hands and removing unemployment stand down periods is tinkering but that National’s still unreleased economic policy will solve the crisis.

The Herald creates a panic and Trump says Coronavirus is a hoax

Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, March 1st, 2020 - 65 comments

If a society ever wanted to set out how to handle a pandemic the Herald’s media response and Donald Trump’s handling of the situation provide perfect examples of what not to do.

Chinese New Year

Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, January 27th, 2020 - 15 comments

With China’s New Year arriving, and a terrible flu virus struggling to be contained within it at the same time, it’s time to reflect again on China’s future and impact for New Zealand.

Guest Post – What is wrong with the left?

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, January 10th, 2020 - 168 comments

Guest post from old maaaaate cans about recent Stuff guest columns attacking the left for not civilised enough and wondering if it is because of right wing insecurity.

 

Crash ‘n Burn

Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, December 10th, 2019 - 17 comments

A chuttering PM and…well, I guess being left speechless.

ACC are bankrolling the climate crisis

Written By: - Date published: 10:35 am, December 9th, 2019 - 18 comments

Why is ACC dragging the chain on fossil fuel divestment, and why is Labour letting them?

Common-wealth Government

Written By: - Date published: 8:14 am, November 18th, 2019 - 16 comments

Advantage is testing an idea out. What will a common accountability framework for the government look like?

Simon – only good at the bottom of a cliff

Written By: - Date published: 8:03 am, July 31st, 2019 - 78 comments

The interview between Jack Tame and  Simon Bridges was revealing. Circumlocutions and the wheedling of a conniving prosecutor around the National party hypocrisy over cancer drugs. Making a token amount towards funding super-expensive cancer drugs – but don’t want to deal with root causes or prevention of cancer? It beggars belief that this fool is a politician.

National’s cynical cancer policy announcement

Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, July 30th, 2019 - 104 comments

National has announced a new Cancer Agency to replace the agency it closed four years ago to be funded from within already overstretched Health budgets.

Support Tax Fairness Reform

Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, April 9th, 2019 - 16 comments

The Tax Justice Network has started a campaign to gain support for taxing capital as income to support and improve our public services. If you would like to support the campaign, you can sign the petition here or donate here. All funds donated will go to the campaign advertising.

Spare a thought for our poor impoverished landlords

Written By: - Date published: 8:17 am, February 25th, 2019 - 225 comments

Spare a thought for poor landlords who are aghast at the thought that they should have to share capital gains on properties they have purchased with no intent of making a capital gain.

The Big Operation

Written By: - Date published: 12:26 pm, February 23rd, 2019 - 19 comments

A life changing operation is a big decision and there are no easy answers.

Ross taunts Bridges about mental health system

Written By: - Date published: 8:19 am, February 10th, 2019 - 119 comments

Jami-Lee Ross has implied that Simon Bridges is being hypocritical in criticising a Government review into mental health.

The Meathead tax

Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, February 2nd, 2019 - 85 comments

National’s claim that the Government wants to impose a meat tax suffers from the reality that the Government has done no such thing and the proposal comes from an International collective of academics.

TERFed Out: UPDATED

Written By: - Date published: 10:56 pm, November 29th, 2018 - 327 comments

Labour MP Louisa Wall has written an opinion piece in response to Herald columnist Rachel Stewart’s attack earlier in the week on the trans community and their LGBTIQ+ allies. It’s very good.

UPDATE: Rachel Stewart, as predicted, has blocked me on twitter. But not before going full on racist.

KiwiBuild doesn’t fly.

Written By: - Date published: 10:29 am, November 2nd, 2018 - 215 comments

More than that, it needs to be torn down before it makes a serious bid at flight.

Bigot’s Billboard

Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, October 2nd, 2018 - 284 comments

Anti-Vaxxers are targeting South Auckland families in their latest bid to spread the virus of ignorance. You can help needle the pricks. The Standard shows you how.

UPDATE: The billboard is coming down!

How Patriarchy Works; A Newshub Special Investigation

Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, September 25th, 2018 - 80 comments

A schoolgirl correctly identified exactly what caused the stink at Carterton South school. Why wasn’t she listened to?

Period. End. Done.

Written By: - Date published: 12:12 pm, August 26th, 2018 - 42 comments

The Scottish government has just taken a massive step to eradicate period poverty. Why not here?

Nurses.

Written By: - Date published: 12:31 pm, July 27th, 2018 - 76 comments

There’s a sickness affecting our health system.

Nurses deserve our support

Written By: - Date published: 6:30 am, July 12th, 2018 - 101 comments

Perhaps the Labour-led coalition might choose to reflect on it priorities – the sufficient funding of essential public services or buying billion-dollar war machines from the Donald Trump regime.

Shouty Simon’s strange budget claim

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, May 19th, 2018 - 64 comments

National’s claims about Labour’s health spend suffer from the not insignificant problem that they do not make any sense when analysed.

Dunedin Hospital

Written By: - Date published: 10:02 am, May 8th, 2018 - 22 comments

Yes, Dunedin needs a new hospital, but…

We did not know it would be this bad

Written By: - Date published: 9:10 am, April 11th, 2018 - 173 comments

Marama Davidson’s question to Jacinda Ardern in Parliament yesterday allowed Jacinda to outline the enormous mess the last National Government has left the country in.

The hidden infrastructure fiscal crisis gets real

Written By: - Date published: 8:19 am, April 10th, 2018 - 245 comments

Steven Joyce’s $11.7 billion fiscal hole is becoming more and more of a reality although it is in hidden infrastructure costs that National had suppressed in search of the elusive surplus.

Doofus of the week Easter 2018 edition

Written By: - Date published: 12:24 pm, April 1st, 2018 - 55 comments

This week the award goes to a Fairfax reporter for writing as fawning a review of a political career as you can imagine.

The manufacturing of a narrative

Written By: - Date published: 1:27 pm, March 31st, 2018 - 606 comments

The past week has seen the Herald focus on issues concerning Clare Curran to the almost exclusion of anything else, including the perilous state of our Health system and Kim Dotcom’s successful appeal against the last Government’s breach of his rights of privacy.

Joyce may have been right about the Fiscal hole

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, March 28th, 2018 - 100 comments

Steven Joyce’s prediction of a $11.7 billion deficit in the Government’s finances may be true.  But this is because the last Government has underfunded health and hidden problems.