Social issues

Categories under Social issues

Pandemics and our privacy

Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, April 22nd, 2020 - 43 comments

The Ministry of Health is checking with the GCSB to enable full tracing of people to slow further outbreaks. Should we be afraid?

Eat the rich

Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, April 22nd, 2020 - 47 comments

Richard Branson, who has arranged his affairs so that he pays tax to no government, is upset that Governments are not bailing his empire out. And an idea has been floated to allow billionaires to set up boltholes in New Zealand.

Running for cover

Written By: - Date published: 9:38 pm, April 21st, 2020 - 41 comments

More 1% Americans are heading our way, according to Bloomberg. The Texas company building underground bunkers is getting more enquiries. They’re not running from the virus but fear the aftermath when the breadlines turn.

When Bridges’ social media goes wrong

Written By: - Date published: 8:09 am, April 21st, 2020 - 77 comments

Simon Bridges’s Facebook post criticising the extension of lockdown level 4 has been met with overwhelming opposition, including from people who are clearly National Party supporters.

New electorate boundaries

Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, April 20th, 2020 - 37 comments

I missed it, but we got the new electorate boundaries on Friday. Now electorate boundaries simply don’t matter as much as they used to because of MMP. These days mostly the only people who notice them are electorate MPs, political parties that are too close to the 5% list party boundary, and of course sock-puppet parties like Act and their National party hand. Plus of course political blog sites.

Covid-19 decision day

Written By: - Date published: 8:42 am, April 20th, 2020 - 172 comments

Decision day for the Covid-19 lockdown and my personal view is that although the country has done well it is not quite in a position to ease the lockdown.

Greens push for large intercity rail infrastructure to ensure sustainable post-COVID-19 rebuild

Written By: - Date published: 10:26 am, April 19th, 2020 - 122 comments

“The Greens are highlighting fast intercity rail improvements as the type of climate-friendly, job-creating project that should be prioritised for post-COVID-19 economic stimulus investment.”

Don’t plan on a vaccine or persistent natural immunity.

Written By: - Date published: 3:42 pm, April 18th, 2020 - 93 comments

Don’t plan on a vaccine or persistent natural immunity. Unless we’re incredibly lucky, neither are very likely for much of the coming decade. We don’t have the bat immunity systems. Learn to embrace the bets of the future rather than the clinging to the comfy blanket of the past that has now gone.

Time to Pivot?

Written By: - Date published: 12:42 pm, April 18th, 2020 - 11 comments

It would appear NZ and much of the rest of the world has made a first rather coincidental step on the AGW front.

The plan for Monday

Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, April 18th, 2020 - 30 comments

Even if New Zealand gets out of the immediate Covid-19 infection better than most other countries, the result is still a wrecked world and a slow recovery. What we face is something like an Australian firefighter with a hose and a tanker facing an onrushing wall of flame: they successfully dampen down a defined circle […]

A little relief.

Written By: - Date published: 2:56 pm, April 16th, 2020 - 66 comments

Level 3 restrictions

Matthew’s Magic Numbers

Written By: - Date published: 7:15 pm, April 15th, 2020 - 43 comments

Matthew Hooton has tweeted a series of numbers. They add up to good news for the Government.

UPDATE: Curia Polling reckons it’s even better for Labour!

A response from the Rosa Luxemburg wing of the Labour Party

Written By: - Date published: 3:55 pm, April 15th, 2020 - 60 comments

According to Stephen Mills on Nine to Noon yesterday, Jeremy Corbyn’s resignation as Labour leader will only be mourned by “the microscopic Rosa Luxemburg-worshipping far left sect in New Zealand.” His outburst was deliberate, gratuitous and way over the top.

Lockdown 4 – do we stay or do we go?

Written By: - Date published: 8:37 am, April 15th, 2020 - 147 comments

Over the next few days there will be an intense public debate about whether the lockdown should be continued or loosened.

How Not to Engage in Public Debate

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 15th, 2020 - 95 comments

The best way to engage in public debate on the lockdown is to be open, clear, and transparent and show the facts. A press release full of beliefs and reckons is unhelpful and irresponsible.

What Is This Moment Teaching Us?

Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, April 14th, 2020 - 53 comments

What is Covid-19 telling us about our response as a nation?

Better footpaths and cycleways are a socialist inspired plot?

Written By: - Date published: 8:06 am, April 14th, 2020 - 65 comments

National MP Simon O’Connor thinks that making under used streets safer for walkers and cyclers is a Socialist inspired plan for world domination.

Are the Vultures Already Circling Above?

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 14th, 2020 - 116 comments

We cannot go back to business as usual after the lockdown but can we shape the way things will be for the greater good?

Please sort this out MoH

Written By: - Date published: 1:18 pm, April 12th, 2020 - 85 comments

Frontline home care workers and their clients still don’t have adequate protection from covid. 

Greenpeace’s Green Covid Response

Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, April 12th, 2020 - 77 comments

Oil giant OMV finally leave New Zealand, and Greenpeace releases its Green Covid Response plan to the government.

New Zealand’s poor in this new crisis

Written By: - Date published: 9:16 am, April 11th, 2020 - 126 comments

Covid 19 is not some great leveller. To succeed the state has to completely redirect the economy to so that ordinary workers and working families are supported.

Has the EU failed during COVID-19?

Written By: - Date published: 5:16 am, April 10th, 2020 - 20 comments

Originally posted on Nick Kelly’s blog 

For global governance organisations, this is an important moment. This is the chance for them to demonstrate their worth and coordinate the response. In many ways how these structures respond becomes more important than the response of nation-states. This also is where the deficiencies and shortcomings of such organisations become very apparent. The noise coming from the EU in the last 48 hours is far from reassuring.

National’s Petition is Cynical Populism

Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, April 9th, 2020 - 124 comments

National is trying to steal show political leadership and relevance by launching a petition.

Addendum added

National seeks delay to election

Written By: - Date published: 7:38 am, April 9th, 2020 - 120 comments

Hot on the news that National’s polling has plunged to 35% Paula Bennett has publicly suggested that the election should be delayed. I wonder if they are related?

Tourism is the elephant in the living room

Written By: - Date published: 7:10 am, April 9th, 2020 - 148 comments

Rather than saving an industry that has multiple sustainability and resiliency failures, how about we regenerate local economies and set them to serve our communities?

Pandemics are no a time for inward-looking nationalism

Written By: - Date published: 4:37 am, April 9th, 2020 - 41 comments

Originally posted on Nick Kelly’s Blog

Trump is focused on the November US Presidential Election. His anti-Chinese, nationalist, America First rhetoric is his go-to response to keep his political base onside. He is placing his political ambition ahead of millions of lives both in the US and globally. Trump has placed electoral politics ahead of leadership that could save millions of lives.

From the inside out

Written By: - Date published: 10:32 am, April 8th, 2020 - 62 comments

I feel that many kiwis are quite unaware exactly how exceptional our plague performance has been so far. It is interesting reading the perspective published in the Washington Post by a recently returned kiwi. Less interesting was the mathematical illiteracy on the MP David Seymour who managed to ignore all medical facts while advising on how to bulk kill our citizens.

The end of partisan politics?

Written By: - Date published: 7:58 am, April 8th, 2020 - 71 comments

Throughout the world there is an increasing consensus emerging that the free market approach is failing and principled intelligent leadership from governments provide the optimum result.

Clark’s calamity

Written By: - Date published: 7:48 am, April 7th, 2020 - 131 comments

Health Minister David Clark has been demoted but has kept his Health portfolio after he revealed that he had driven 20 kilometers with his family to visit a beach during the lock down.

Beyond mere rescue

Written By: - Date published: 8:49 am, April 6th, 2020 - 78 comments

It’s time to plan the re-launch the very idea of New Zealand.

Bill Gates – lets prevent the next inevitable epidemic!

Written By: - Date published: 9:56 pm, April 5th, 2020 - 37 comments

Bill and Melinda Gates have been plowing wealth into mitigating and preventing epidemics over the last decade. Like the World Health Organisation and just about anyone with any sense of medical history, he predicted very accurately the type of epidemic we are now facing – a worldwide respiratory pandemic. He talks about the current pandemic, and how to prevent the next one.