So, a level 3+, but not quite 4, that gives just enough wriggle room for Mr and Mrs Ladidah Fuckwit to bolt to a holiday home before level 4 resumes? But with the possibility that Mr and/or Mrs Ladidah Fuckwit have packed the virus along with their carry bag or suitcase?
Easy enough to see how this might end somewhat "less than well".
Aye well, 'the rules' are one thing, but then there are the likes of students flying out of Auckland to the South Island on level 4 (still beyond me why there were any fcken domestic passenger flights out of Auckland). Peeps in private chartered planes and sons of judges running here and there at level 4.
And now …?
But still. As long as huge numbers of 'not very vulnerable' people get vaccinated with these leaky vaccines and drive the evolution of the virus such that erstwhile somewhat protected people are that much less protected. And as long as society is successfully encouraged to slate the cause for any rise in seriously ill peeps back to the dirty unvaccinated and vilify them accordingly…
The LaDiDahs ain't moving a muscle until we can change our freaking flights.
Soon as we can we will be straight to Dunedin to sort out mother-in-law's transition to rest home hospital care at Yvette Williams. Terrifying separation.
My ma passed away from cancer last April, after I had to help move her in to a nearby Rest Home & Hospital when she became too frail & unable to look after herself at home, & needed specialist trained end-of-life nursing care I couldn’t provide.
Moved her in Feb 2020, then L4 lockdown arrived for the whole motu. I was unable to visit her. We spoke on the phone for as long as she could manage it, but she passed away while still in L4.
I was fortunately phoned by a male nurse one Friday to say in his estimation she would go any day, & I could come up, masked, & visit with her for 10 minutes. She was by then unable to speak. Died two days later. The same nurse rang me the minute she passed away, & I was allowed to go up to her room & say good-bye, for which I was very grateful.
Her funeral (cremation) was completely no frills, with no attendees. Still in L4.
I was fortunate that even at 94 she’d been sharp as a knife & all her affairs were completely in order. It made executing her will & finalising all other matters very easy, & gave me the satisfaction of knowing that I’d carried out all her wishes & instructions to the letter. She would be proud of me, I know, and that’s what counted the most!
Hope when you do get to Dunners that all goes well for your wife’s mum, Ad.
When I married my late wife, an only child, I had the good fortune to pick up an extra set of parents. They treated me like their son. It was easy to reciprocate their care & affection.
I promised my wife that if anything happened to her, I’d stay in Tawa & look after them. My mum & dad approved. I had other siblings who could look to their welfare.
Aye. The nation's sleeves probably fair bulge with self-justifying laudable exceptions that would profess to be all about the humanity (and the ability to afford same).
Good that Auckland region will go down to L3, but the rest of the nation remains in L2 with the exception of the Mangatangi community, which will be in a quasi-L4 environment for 5 days.
Steady as she goes, with the effective but crude tools; staying the same course and not even moving the deckchairs.
Why jab? Serious question that. Unless you are vulnerable, all you will be doing is 'forcing' the evolution of the virus in a direction that evades vaccination.
There's a medical term for the phenomenon, but it escapes me at the moment.
Anyway. The vaccines are leaky. And given that fact, the best way to endanger vulnerable people is to insist that only mutations capable of sidestepping vaccinations thrive. I believe it's one reason why flu jabs (also leaky) are administered before the flu season and not rolled out to all and sundry during flu's seasonal outbreaks.
The term you’re looking for is selection pressure.
The older you are, the more ‘vulnerable’ you are; you don’t become ‘vulnerable’ overnight the day you turn 65 or whatever age you pick from the Excel stats tables that suits the narrative.
No vaccine is 100% effective and immune responses tend to drop over time, some slower than others. This is normal.
There will be newer (generations of) vaccines for Covid-19, quite possibly targeting more than one (dominant) strain each year.
Indeed, better to vaccine before the infectious season is upon us, which is what we’re doing now thanks to the artificial ‘pre-season’ conditions stemming from the elimination strategy. Problem is that evolution takes place virtually unabated in the rest of the world.
The mutation rate of Covid-19 is relatively (s)low.
As long as NZ sticks to the proven elimination strategy very few will catch Covid-19, even fewer will become seriously ill, and only rarely will a patient succumb to it – 27 in over 18 months.
Meanwhile, get as many preventative measures in place, including building as much population immunity as possible against current variants, which in reality is Delta. It is the best we can do under these shitty circumstances, unless you have a better suggestion.
Vaccination is, however, not a silver bullet.
PS despite annual multi-strain flu vaccinations, each year quite a few die of the disease. However, measures aimed at Covid-19 seem to have influenced those numbers. Gives you food for thought, doesn’t it?
That's true. The bit you're missing is "leaky". It is not generally the case that being vaccinated leaves you with around a 50/50 chance of being infected by a virus that will still replicate within you even though you're vaccinated and result in you being a spreader of infection.
There will be newer (generations of) vaccines for Covid-19, quite possibly targeting more than one (dominant) strain each year.
Maybe. And the development of a vaccine would generally take ten years or so. The fact we have a clutch of vaccines that we don't know the medium or long term risks of, should maybe be reason enough to pause for thought.
Indeed, better to vaccine before the infectious season is upon us, which is what we’re doing now thanks to the artificial ‘pre-season’ conditions stemming from the elimination strategy. Problem is that evolution takes place virtually unabated in the rest of the world.
It's a global pandemic. NZ's very low rates of infection doesn't mean that NZ is in some kind of "pre-flu season" situation. As you wrote, the virus is mutating all around us. That means we are slap bang in the high season.
The mutation rate of Covid-19 is relatively (s)low.
I'm not sure what you're basing that on. Regardless. There's an ever emerging list of VOIs VOCs (variations of interest and variations of concern). And since viruses replicate in 'silly numbers' and (to my point about mass vaccination exposing vulnerable sections of society) we are skewing the environment such that only mutations capable of avoiding the current leaky vaccinations spread and multiply…
A better move would be, as with flu, vaccinate the vulnerable, or those who consider themselves vulnerable. Do not create an environment, by vaccinating all and sundry, that decreases the already imperfect protection for the vulnerable amongst us.
For those who would not think themselves vulnerable, I guess attaining or maintaining a broadly healthy state wouldn't be a bad idea.
So Auckland spent about the same amount in level 4 this time as NZ did the first time around, but started this time with a lower number of cases.
This seems to have saved a few more people from being infected at the peak of the current outbreak (speed saves lives and illnesses!), but this outbreak is slightly wider at the ~20 per day mark. Which we probably all kinda knew.
So, factors that can affect the curve (off the top of my head):
Contagiousness: yes, but wouldn't we expect a wider pattern for the full height of the current curve, rather than this little step at the bottom? The delta of doom should have been more difficult to confront at the peak as well as near the base if projected R0 was the main factor affecting our ability to control it.
Specific communities affected: A community with less exposure to, access to, or trust in government organisations and providers being impacted this time around could be the bulk of the "long tail", true. This could be our longstanding and oft-lamented (or denied by the privileged) inequities in access to healthcare could be biting us in the covid response.
Lockdown fatigue: No idea of the stats on this, but maybe people have let their definitions of "essential" and "bubble" slip. Not just the high-profile cases, but the daily grind of distancing on store runs, not chatting with friends or neighbours face to face, that sort of thing. The top gets knocked off the outbreak, but folks fall into silly habits and keep covid ticking over.
I think the curve indicates that the middle and last possibilities are the main drivers for the shape of the curve, rather than delta being significantly more difficult to stamp out than covd mk1.
Based on what I've seen, people are less inclined to follow the 'rules' to the letter this time around… partly because there are less unknowns this time… ie we know outdoor transmission is rare so chatting in the garden, park, beach etc is very low risk. .. you can also add to that vaccination, once you've had a jab or two it's very clear the risks you face are very small so rather than have the mental health struggle, cabin fever etc you expand your bubble… you add those cohorts to non belivers it makes a significant number of people.
the vaxxed thinking they're all good is a concern. I saw this play out with people I knew in the US who once they were vaccinated started travelling. Seemed mad even then, but now it's clear that vaccinated people can still transmit, we need more emphasis on hand washing, masks, appropriate distancing.
Statistically unless you have significant comorbidities once you are double vaxxed an even single vaxxed you are 'all good' very hard to tell someone who has done their bit in getting vaxxed that actually you still have to maintain distance etc… as the vaxxed percentage grows lockdowns are going to become less and less politically feasible.
Basically from todays decision onwards I suspect things get alot harder for the govt… in that acceptance of returning to a level 4 lockdown isnt going to be there but at the same time our health system will not cope with an outbreak even amongst the 25 percent or so people who haven’t been vaxxed
The study shows that vaccinated people who become infected with the Delta variant carry high peak levels of virus. When the Alpha variant was dominant in the United Kingdom, vaccinated people who became infected had much lower peak viral loads.
The implications of this aren’t clear, Walker says. “Most of our tests are monthly; we can’t really say very much at all about how long people are infectious for and particularly whether that’s different with Delta,” she says. “Anyone who thinks that if they get infected having been vaccinated, they can’t transmit — that isn’t likely to be true.”
Part of the problem here is that much of the discussion about vaccines last year didn't make it clear that the covid vaccine gives partial not full immunity.
What I'm hearing from the government is that going forward we will need all the tools. Vaccination, hygiene practices, periodic probably localised lockdowns. The vaccine on its own won't be enough even if we get to very high rates.
The results, published in a preprint on 19 August1, suggest that both vaccines are effective against Delta after two doses, but that the protection they offer wanes with time. The vaccine made by Pfizer in New York City and BioNTech in Mainz, Germany, was 92% effective at keeping people from developing a high viral load — a high concentration of the virus in their test samples — 14 days after the second dose. But the vaccine’s effectiveness fell to 90%, 85% and 78% after 30, 60 and 90 days, respectively.
We're not going back to normal once everyone is vaccinated, we will have to create a new society. I don't think having to use multiple tools is a bad thing eg it's dropped the flu and cold rates too. I'd like to see us address poverty as a driver of respiratory illness, and also look at wellbeing more broadly. Lots of people I know (South Island) feel that there are benefits to lockdown beyond elimination of covid eg slowing down, time to reflect on what matters, better work/life balance. Obviously that's not been possible for everyone, and it's a perspective probably more outside of Auckland that's done the heavy lifting in the past year. But we don't need to be afraid of the uncertainty given we still have a very good public health response across the tools.
Thing is that hasnt really been the messaging… and its very clear from the stats and backed up but what we're told by govt that if double vaxxed your chances of getting seriously ill are extremely small so restrictions are going to be a hard sell. It seems at this point the best immunity comes from catching covid then having a single shot afterwards… and as Bill mentions above, leaky vaccines (as these are) come with their own potential issues.
Its going to be a long and difficult road and personally I feel that we haven't actually advanced our preparedness that much even though we bought ourselves alot of time with the first lockdown.
That belief is based on a few things, such as rushing builders into hospitals once we were in level 4 to commision more negative pressure rooms, running out of quarantine capacity very quickly, having to train more contact tracers mid out outbreak, nurses not fitted to N95 mask… all things we should have had ready to roll in the time we had… it's almost like there was great confidence that our border strategy would keep delta, imagine the fallout if it had arrived 8 weeks earlier before we had sufficient vaccine in the country…
It seems at this point the best immunity comes from catching covid then having a single shot afterwards…
Please, do tell us more. This is a major issue debated by experts and far from settled, AFAIK. However, nobody is actually arguing that one should deliberately catch Covid-19 first and then take a “single shot” (of which vaccine?) to build the “best immunity”. I look forward to being educated on this topic further.
but what we're told by govt that if double vaxxed your chances of getting seriously ill are extremely small so restrictions are going to be a hard sell.
The issue isn't only who gets ill, it's who passes covid on to others. Delta won't be the last variant, the current vaccines don't last that long. We are acting as if the vaccine is a silver bullet.
The government is between a rock and a hard place in terms of messaging. They have to balance hope with reality and uncertainty. No-one knows how this is going to play out, we're still in the novel part of the novel virus.
There are definitely holes in our covid response, some avoidable, some not. Each wave of pressure brings new learning and new adaptation. This is the world we live in, and even if covid passes, there will be future challenges and climate change means that everyone now lives an uncertain life. The more resiliency and adaptability we build now as a society, the better off we will be.
The idea that’s slowly growing, in Government and then the seed is planted in the public, is that lockdowns will hopefully be a thing of the past, but this doesn’t necessarily rule out Level 3 measures.
what's the current thinking on object transmission. Drinks at 2m on the drive might be fine until someone has to handle the wine glasses. Or is it all air and direct contact risk now?
Pretty sure I heard at least one of the TV station “Go To” virology experts say recently that surface transmission wasn’t really all that much of a concern these days. It’s airborne transmission that’s the primary vector.
Doesn’t mean the other usual experts agree with him. (Can’t remember who it was – a male though.)
We tend to be able to detect the more rare "elevator button" exposures simply because there are so few other connections and our contact tracing and genome sequencing are so on ball.
Try that in Texas, who the heck knows precisely who gave someone the covid.
But most hospo workers I've encountered are masked up and gloved/sanitisered up pretty well, so the contamination is minimal as long as you use sanitiser when using any eftpos keypads (if your cards aren't yet contactless).
When we were briefly in L4 in Welly this year, I noticed that the local supermarket staff didn’t seem to be assiduously wiping down all the trolley handles & wire cage tops after each use, as they were during L4 last year.
They were running a very clear system in 2020. You were only permitted to select a trolley from the disinfected trolley racks. Used trolleys went into a separate rack, further away from the doorkeepers, until they’d been sprayed & handles wiped down.
This last time, they were more into encouraging shoppers to use the gels & handsprays before selecting a trolley
Well, a lot of that is covered by basic food hygiene in most places. Controls against rotovirus or what have you also work against coronavirus.
I suspect covid means a lot more small places are now actually wearing gloves as often as they should have been all along (years ago friend of mine overheard her new deli counter boss saying so many more disposable gloves were being used since friend started – she was using the gloves to spec, nobody else was lol).
I commented elsewhere that it seems like people down south are taking precautions more seriously since the Auckland/Wanaka couple thing. Good.
Re wine glasses, I was thinking about the flux of the fuzzy boundaries in different levels. Does socialising on the driveway with a 2m distance increase the spread of the virus or decrease it because it enables people to do the other, more important measures better and for longer (someone might have already said this).
No, I think you are right. A more infectious virus just means that some types of interpersonal contact that would be relatively harmless with a less infectious pathogen, become more risky. Your lockdown therefore needs to limit contact somewhat more strictly to be as successful. But in the real world, this strictness has natural limits – it hits boundaries beyond which people will not or cannot comply. And those limits are not uniform across a population but are influenced by people's circumstances, knowledge, expectations, habits, etc.
Good to see some heat being put on at last. There has to be a deterrent. Their own community, now under L4 will be the judge. Hopefully the support, too.
That article is interesting raises a few questions though, ie if he caught it from the driver who was a family member do the live in the town he was bailed to or did they drive him from Auckland and they returned once he was dropped off… has the driver been tested? and where did they catch it from?
Then the accomodation was no longer available which reads like the family kicked him back out… you have to ask why… were unwelcome 'vistors' coming to the house? If thats the case there's going to be a sting in the tail… worrying really…
Living alone, I’d probably soon expire without a good stock of frozen Tomorrow’s Meals. One soon gets sick of cooking & doing pots, pans & other dishes for one most of the time.
“Three senior staff have departed the National Party’s Parliamentary office in recent weeks as the party’s poll ratings have plummeted.
Digital director Francis Till, press secretary Julia Stewart, and head of data and insights Sophie Lloyd have all departed. All have years of experience in Parliament.
“National leader Judith Collins has admitted she made a mistake after she was caught on video over the weekend ordering icecream at the counter of a Queenstown café without wearing a mask.
People living in Mangatangi or having visited/worked there are being told to stay home. If there's any outward transmission, new cases will be picked up and managed as per normal. They've had a few days to do contact and location tracing of the known cases, and I would guess they're also looking forward in time to surrounding areas. I also assume we're further ahead of the curve than we were with the original Auckland case that set of this outbreak.
Not sure about that if one of the kids was at school while infectious last week its very possible.it could have been passed on again and with the very short incubation Delta has its very possible someone else has picked it up, become infectious between Thursday last week and todays announcement and travelled into Hamilton for example
But, if the virus is in Hamilton it will spread fast because they are only in Level 2? Isn't it basically impossible to contain Delta with contract tracing in Level 2?
You can't contract trace ahead of time though? I agree with the last part, the source appears to be one of the people who drove him to the bail address.
If delta cases turn up in Hamilton, it won't stay at L2.
I don't know how they manage this, but Mangatangi has a population of 400 ish people. It's different than a city of a million.
I would expect increased public health messaging in those areas eg if you have symptoms stay home and get tested.
They're also doing a huge test drive in the area, which should pick up cases, and those people will then give their movements, which generates close contacts and locations of interest, and those people will isolate and so on.
But, it could already have been circulating in Hamilton for 2 days and there could be x number of cases? But, then you are always behind, when you pick up cases they have already passed it on?
As for contact tracing ahead of time, not sure what that would do to the tracers' workload or the impact on compliance. Or even what models they would use to predict it without swamping tracers and contacters with thousands more people who don't really have a realistic chance of being infected, and half of Auckland being traced for every positive case.
I was saying contract tracing cannot control Delta at Level 2, but your comment made me think about doing it 'ahead of time'. The government should have used something like the United States' Defense Production Act to force companies to become contract tracers.
I also think they should have had a large facility/facilities for isolation or used monitoring. The tracers could isolate what they call 'very close contacts' 2 days ahead.
Oh, I thought that's what you meant by "ahead of time" at 9.1.2.
I think they already use MIQ slots for isolation – like that was why they suspended MIQ during L4?
The thing about predicting close contacts is that most won't actually have been close contacts.The flipside is to up the community testing – saw this morning that everyone in an entire suburb is asked to get tested?
If it's spreading between unknown contacts at L2, there's trouble, sure. But if it is focused in known family or social groups, and we pretty well know the limits of that group, then should be ok even at 2.
Yes, but MIQ capacity is limited. They only quarantine cases and sometimes their household.
Yes, they have been doing that over the past week. I am not sure what the uptake is though. Most people do not stay just stay in their family and social groups in Level 2 though?
We-ell people are creatures of habit. Usual supermarket, usual workplace, usual home. Sure, you might pass someone in the supermarket, but they're far more likely to live a few blocks away than go to Wellington the next day.
So you have problems with individuals who have many, many contacts – salespeople, "essential" politicians trying to keep their jobs, that sort of thing. Then there are the mixing events, like rugby matches and rock gigs.
There's a lot of crossover with network theory – most people only have a few nodes of connection and those are pretty short distance edges. Then there are a few people with a lot of connections, and a few people with "long string" connections so that they have the usual flatmate/work connections but also have say a connect with someone in a different town – e.g. truckies.
So limiting the size of gatherings deals to the nodes with lots of connections, and things like contactless deliveries helps limit the likelihood of the long strings infecting unconnected subnetworks.
But it also illustrates why predictive isolation might be functionally impossible to implement: say I am a close contact of a colleague who went to a supermarket between 4 and 5 pm. So I go into isolation, even though my colleague probably hasn't infected me. But then I went to a supermarket between 7 and 8 pm. The might be an extra 400 people who need to be tracked down and isolated and tested, when their transmission node (me) probably didn't have it anyway. Then there are all my other colleagues as close contacts (and the people they were on the bus with being "close contacts once removed"), etc. The numbers pretty quickly become unmanagable.
Whereas we'd probably all be better off doing it as we are now.
sure, but there's a balance to be had between the negative social realities of lockdown and the necessity to get ahead of transmission.
Someone who understands it better than me can maybe talk about the R value of delta at the start of transmission in the community. I thought it was the low R value that enabled Auckland to go from L4 to L3 this week, the value being low because most people getting covid at the moment are already in isolation.
It's not like Hamilton is in L1. L2 does have measures in place to prevent spread of unknown covid in the community, that's the whole point of all of us staying in L2 until the transmission chains are broken.
I'm also guessing that the MoH/government wants to know more before putting Waikato into a higher level, they want to know what they are dealing with.
What do you classify as negative social impacts of lockdown? Yes, they cited the low R-value. However, some of the daily cases are infectious in the community and in Level 3 the chances of passing it on are higher so the R-value may increase.
The main NZ Covid modelling software can now predict likely areas of spread from very localised Stats NZ data, so I imagine they would have run that to set the size of this latest L4 pocket. Nothing is foolproof when humans are involved, however. Excellent contact tracing is essential.
I was very surprised the initial modelling predicted 50-100 and then 100-200 cases given it was Delta with an unknown source and many large exposure events.
However, he [Hendy] warns the outbreak will continue to grow.
"I would say a best case scenario would be something like what we saw in August last year – probably, higher than that. Maybe 200 [cases] might be the best case scenario but it could go as high as 1000 [cases]. That's still a possibility.
"But we will see later this week how alert level four is working and it's alert level four which will actually determine the number of cases in this cluster."
NZ moved Level 4 lockdown on midnight Tuesday 17th of August, so in all reality on Wednesday 18th of August. The date stamp on the linked piece is 23th of August.
Do you know how modelling works? Do you know what it can and cannot do? Do you know how it depends on boundary settings, initial parameterisation, and overall model assumptions? Do you know that useful predictive models include probabilities and confidence intervals?
Yes. I am at university and have done Statistics papers at Stage 1, 2 and 3. What I am saying is you should not take modelling as what is going to happen.
I ran across a recent essay from The Brothers Krynn, which attempts to map common horror monsters onto the Seven Deadly Sins: https://canadianculturecorner.substack.com/p/horror-monsters-and-vice My interest, however, is not in the meat of the piece, but rather the opening paragraph: It is an interesting fact that in recent decades, Vampires have ...
Buzz from the Beehive Transport Minister Simeon Brown dutifully issued advice to all road users to keep safe on our roads during the Easter weekend. He encouraged them to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. ...
Oliver Hartwich writes – New Zealanders recently learned about a new feature film. It will be about former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – and taxpayers will subsidise it to the tune of NZ$800,000. Ardern had nothing personally to do with either the film or the subsidy. But her government’s ...
TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above that was recorded yesterday afternoon above between and The Kākā’s climate correspondent : An independent review panel into the emergency response to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawkes Bayconcluded “that ...
There are now only a few days left to give feedback on the Draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport 2024-34 (see our earlier post this week on GPS submission guides). As we’ve reported, the GPS is a disaster for Local Government, so we were particularly interested to hear ...
Willis has pledged to go ahead with the debt-funded tax cuts, despite growing opposition from her own supporters worried about appearing fiscally irresponsible. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for ...
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
COMMENTARY:By Ronny Kareni Since the atrocious footage of the suffering of an indigenous Papuan man reverberates in the heart of Puncak by the brute force of Indonesia’s army in early February, shocking tactics deployed by those in power to silence critics has been unfolding. Nowhere is this more evident ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
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 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 29 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
Brutal government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40% will hit Pasifika communities hard, the PSA says. The Ministry has told staff that it is seeking voluntary redundancies, and to redeploy and reassign ...
I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education, Deakin University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney Massachusetts General Hospital In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tombs, Howard Paterson Chair of Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago The 5th-century Maskell panel showing Jesus in a loincloth.British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA When Jesus is shown on the cross, he is almost always depicted wearing a loincloth around ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University Shutterstock When you think about a red object, you might picture a red carpet, or the massive ruby in the Queen’s crown. Indeed, Western monarchies and marketing from brands such ...
COMMENTARY:Jewish Voice for Peace The UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday — and for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians, the United States abstained rather than vetoing it. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, ...
Asia Pacific Report A New Zealand investigative journalist and author says the US spy system hosted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) appears to be a controversial intelligence system used in global capture-kill operations. Writing a commentary for RNZ News today, Nicky Hager, author of Secret Power, a 1996 ...
While Nicola Willis wouldn’t give any details on its size, she said a package of tax cuts is definitely still coming in this year’s budget, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the investigation into the Department of Internal Affairs after it was revealed that the Department’s Chief Executive personally reached out to expedite a DJs passport application. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns ...
Finance minister Nicola Willis delivers her first budget statement, and unwittingly helps Joel MacManus save his relationship. Nicola Willis strode into the Beehive Theatrette. Around me, on the green foldout seats, were the country’s top business and political journalists. They were all here to see her announce the Budget Policy ...
Twenty years ago today, Māori Television launched after much controversy. Jamie Tahana looks back on its survival and impact across two decades. Chad Chambers stepped onto the stage, the brim of his cap casting a shadow across his face. His smile beamed as bright as his white freezing works gumboots, ...
On a Thursday in February, at Wellington’s Conservation House, the Conservation Authority, a statutory body advising the eponymous department and minister, Tama Potaka, opened its 195th meeting. Under consideration that afternoon was an agenda item written by Tim Bamford, chief advisor in the Department of Conservation’s biodiversity, heritage and visitors ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Thursday 28 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
A lengthy response to the recently released draft Government policy statement on transport will soon be delivered from Auckland Council to Minister of Transport Simeon Brown. A submission raising concerns about funding distribution and the plan’s treatment of Auckland passed through the council’s transport committee on Wednesday, despite some councillors ...
Just saw this on TV1:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fhsay1plEfg
Cute & clever
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/451909/live-the-pm-on-cabinet-s-alert-level-decision
As a "rule breaker" I can go on breaking the rules – PLAYING MY PART.
So, a level 3+, but not quite 4, that gives just enough wriggle room for Mr and Mrs Ladidah Fuckwit to bolt to a holiday home before level 4 resumes? But with the possibility that Mr and/or Mrs Ladidah Fuckwit have packed the virus along with their carry bag or suitcase?
Easy enough to see how this might end somewhat "less than well".
Mr. and Mrs. LF are only allowed take-aways. No holidays Bill. Good to see you back.
Aye well, 'the rules' are one thing, but then there are the likes of students flying out of Auckland to the South Island on level 4 (still beyond me why there were any fcken domestic passenger flights out of Auckland). Peeps in private chartered planes and sons of judges running here and there at level 4.
And now …?
But still. As long as huge numbers of 'not very vulnerable' people get vaccinated with these leaky vaccines and drive the evolution of the virus such that erstwhile somewhat protected people are that much less protected. And as long as society is successfully encouraged to slate the cause for any rise in seriously ill peeps back to the dirty unvaccinated and vilify them accordingly…
Long time no see and haere mai.
The LaDiDahs ain't moving a muscle until we can change our freaking flights.
Soon as we can we will be straight to Dunedin to sort out mother-in-law's transition to rest home hospital care at Yvette Williams. Terrifying separation.
Sympathies.
My ma passed away from cancer last April, after I had to help move her in to a nearby Rest Home & Hospital when she became too frail & unable to look after herself at home, & needed specialist trained end-of-life nursing care I couldn’t provide.
Moved her in Feb 2020, then L4 lockdown arrived for the whole motu. I was unable to visit her. We spoke on the phone for as long as she could manage it, but she passed away while still in L4.
I was fortunately phoned by a male nurse one Friday to say in his estimation she would go any day, & I could come up, masked, & visit with her for 10 minutes. She was by then unable to speak. Died two days later. The same nurse rang me the minute she passed away, & I was allowed to go up to her room & say good-bye, for which I was very grateful.
Her funeral (cremation) was completely no frills, with no attendees. Still in L4.
I was fortunate that even at 94 she’d been sharp as a knife & all her affairs were completely in order. It made executing her will & finalising all other matters very easy, & gave me the satisfaction of knowing that I’d carried out all her wishes & instructions to the letter. She would be proud of me, I know, and that’s what counted the most!
Hope when you do get to Dunners that all goes well for your wife’s mum, Ad.
OMG that is freaking terrible Gezza.
Well done for staying organised to the end.
Cheers for the best wishes. Will report back.
Ma was my mother-in-law, Ad.
When I married my late wife, an only child, I had the good fortune to pick up an extra set of parents. They treated me like their son. It was easy to reciprocate their care & affection.
I promised my wife that if anything happened to her, I’d stay in Tawa & look after them. My mum & dad approved. I had other siblings who could look to their welfare.
And it was some consolation, when ma passed away, that I wasn’t the only one in that situation.
There were many of us who shared that stressful time. For some reason, knowing that helped, somehow.
Aye.
Aye. The nation's sleeves probably fair bulge with self-justifying laudable exceptions that would profess to be all about the humanity (and the ability to afford same).
Good that Auckland region will go down to L3, but the rest of the nation remains in L2 with the exception of the Mangatangi community, which will be in a quasi-L4 environment for 5 days.
Steady as she goes, with the effective but crude tools; staying the same course and not even moving the deckchairs.
Let's keep on jabbing!
“Let’s keep on jabbing”
Speaking of which – a bit late coming to the party, but good to see nevertheless. Let’s hope it helps:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/451905/maori-king-and-other-leaders-endorse-pfizer-vaccine
Let's keep on jabbing!
Why jab? Serious question that. Unless you are vulnerable, all you will be doing is 'forcing' the evolution of the virus in a direction that evades vaccination.
There's a medical term for the phenomenon, but it escapes me at the moment.
Anyway. The vaccines are leaky. And given that fact, the best way to endanger vulnerable people is to insist that only mutations capable of sidestepping vaccinations thrive. I believe it's one reason why flu jabs (also leaky) are administered before the flu season and not rolled out to all and sundry during flu's seasonal outbreaks.
That's very true… some here are very intolerante to that message.
We must mandate vaccination. \sarc
The term you’re looking for is selection pressure.
The older you are, the more ‘vulnerable’ you are; you don’t become ‘vulnerable’ overnight the day you turn 65 or whatever age you pick from the Excel stats tables that suits the narrative.
No vaccine is 100% effective and immune responses tend to drop over time, some slower than others. This is normal.
There will be newer (generations of) vaccines for Covid-19, quite possibly targeting more than one (dominant) strain each year.
Indeed, better to vaccine before the infectious season is upon us, which is what we’re doing now thanks to the artificial ‘pre-season’ conditions stemming from the elimination strategy. Problem is that evolution takes place virtually unabated in the rest of the world.
The mutation rate of Covid-19 is relatively (s)low.
As long as NZ sticks to the proven elimination strategy very few will catch Covid-19, even fewer will become seriously ill, and only rarely will a patient succumb to it – 27 in over 18 months.
Meanwhile, get as many preventative measures in place, including building as much population immunity as possible against current variants, which in reality is Delta. It is the best we can do under these shitty circumstances, unless you have a better suggestion.
Vaccination is, however, not a silver bullet.
PS despite annual multi-strain flu vaccinations, each year quite a few die of the disease. However, measures aimed at Covid-19 seem to have influenced those numbers. Gives you food for thought, doesn’t it?
No vaccine is 100% effective …
That's true. The bit you're missing is "leaky". It is not generally the case that being vaccinated leaves you with around a 50/50 chance of being infected by a virus that will still replicate within you even though you're vaccinated and result in you being a spreader of infection.
There will be newer (generations of) vaccines for Covid-19, quite possibly targeting more than one (dominant) strain each year.
Maybe. And the development of a vaccine would generally take ten years or so. The fact we have a clutch of vaccines that we don't know the medium or long term risks of, should maybe be reason enough to pause for thought.
Indeed, better to vaccine before the infectious season is upon us, which is what we’re doing now thanks to the artificial ‘pre-season’ conditions stemming from the elimination strategy. Problem is that evolution takes place virtually unabated in the rest of the world.
It's a global pandemic. NZ's very low rates of infection doesn't mean that NZ is in some kind of "pre-flu season" situation. As you wrote, the virus is mutating all around us. That means we are slap bang in the high season.
The mutation rate of Covid-19 is relatively (s)low.
I'm not sure what you're basing that on. Regardless. There's an ever emerging list of VOIs VOCs (variations of interest and variations of concern). And since viruses replicate in 'silly numbers' and (to my point about mass vaccination exposing vulnerable sections of society) we are skewing the environment such that only mutations capable of avoiding the current leaky vaccinations spread and multiply…
A better move would be, as with flu, vaccinate the vulnerable, or those who consider themselves vulnerable. Do not create an environment, by vaccinating all and sundry, that decreases the already imperfect protection for the vulnerable amongst us.
For those who would not think themselves vulnerable, I guess attaining or maintaining a broadly healthy state wouldn't be a bad idea.
So a couple of things come up about this lockdown vs the first one, using ourworldindata stringency index and daily new case rolling 7 day average.
So Auckland spent about the same amount in level 4 this time as NZ did the first time around, but started this time with a lower number of cases.
This seems to have saved a few more people from being infected at the peak of the current outbreak (speed saves lives and illnesses!), but this outbreak is slightly wider at the ~20 per day mark. Which we probably all kinda knew.
So, factors that can affect the curve (off the top of my head):
I think the curve indicates that the middle and last possibilities are the main drivers for the shape of the curve, rather than delta being significantly more difficult to stamp out than covd mk1.
Anyone have any other ideas?
Based on what I've seen, people are less inclined to follow the 'rules' to the letter this time around… partly because there are less unknowns this time… ie we know outdoor transmission is rare so chatting in the garden, park, beach etc is very low risk. .. you can also add to that vaccination, once you've had a jab or two it's very clear the risks you face are very small so rather than have the mental health struggle, cabin fever etc you expand your bubble… you add those cohorts to non belivers it makes a significant number of people.
the vaxxed thinking they're all good is a concern. I saw this play out with people I knew in the US who once they were vaccinated started travelling. Seemed mad even then, but now it's clear that vaccinated people can still transmit, we need more emphasis on hand washing, masks, appropriate distancing.
Statistically unless you have significant comorbidities once you are double vaxxed an even single vaxxed you are 'all good' very hard to tell someone who has done their bit in getting vaxxed that actually you still have to maintain distance etc… as the vaxxed percentage grows lockdowns are going to become less and less politically feasible.
Basically from todays decision onwards I suspect things get alot harder for the govt… in that acceptance of returning to a level 4 lockdown isnt going to be there but at the same time our health system will not cope with an outbreak even amongst the 25 percent or so people who haven’t been vaxxed
Preprint from August,
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02261-8
Part of the problem here is that much of the discussion about vaccines last year didn't make it clear that the covid vaccine gives partial not full immunity.
What I'm hearing from the government is that going forward we will need all the tools. Vaccination, hygiene practices, periodic probably localised lockdowns. The vaccine on its own won't be enough even if we get to very high rates.
We're not going back to normal once everyone is vaccinated, we will have to create a new society. I don't think having to use multiple tools is a bad thing eg it's dropped the flu and cold rates too. I'd like to see us address poverty as a driver of respiratory illness, and also look at wellbeing more broadly. Lots of people I know (South Island) feel that there are benefits to lockdown beyond elimination of covid eg slowing down, time to reflect on what matters, better work/life balance. Obviously that's not been possible for everyone, and it's a perspective probably more outside of Auckland that's done the heavy lifting in the past year. But we don't need to be afraid of the uncertainty given we still have a very good public health response across the tools.
Thing is that hasnt really been the messaging… and its very clear from the stats and backed up but what we're told by govt that if double vaxxed your chances of getting seriously ill are extremely small so restrictions are going to be a hard sell. It seems at this point the best immunity comes from catching covid then having a single shot afterwards… and as Bill mentions above, leaky vaccines (as these are) come with their own potential issues.
Its going to be a long and difficult road and personally I feel that we haven't actually advanced our preparedness that much even though we bought ourselves alot of time with the first lockdown.
That belief is based on a few things, such as rushing builders into hospitals once we were in level 4 to commision more negative pressure rooms, running out of quarantine capacity very quickly, having to train more contact tracers mid out outbreak, nurses not fitted to N95 mask… all things we should have had ready to roll in the time we had… it's almost like there was great confidence that our border strategy would keep delta, imagine the fallout if it had arrived 8 weeks earlier before we had sufficient vaccine in the country…
Please, do tell us more. This is a major issue debated by experts and far from settled, AFAIK. However, nobody is actually arguing that one should deliberately catch Covid-19 first and then take a “single shot” (of which vaccine?) to build the “best immunity”. I look forward to being educated on this topic further.
The issue isn't only who gets ill, it's who passes covid on to others. Delta won't be the last variant, the current vaccines don't last that long. We are acting as if the vaccine is a silver bullet.
The government is between a rock and a hard place in terms of messaging. They have to balance hope with reality and uncertainty. No-one knows how this is going to play out, we're still in the novel part of the novel virus.
There are definitely holes in our covid response, some avoidable, some not. Each wave of pressure brings new learning and new adaptation. This is the world we live in, and even if covid passes, there will be future challenges and climate change means that everyone now lives an uncertain life. The more resiliency and adaptability we build now as a society, the better off we will be.
I like your thinking
The idea that’s slowly growing, in Government and then the seed is planted in the public, is that lockdowns will hopefully be a thing of the past, but this doesn’t necessarily rule out Level 3 measures.
Time will tell.
what's the current thinking on object transmission. Drinks at 2m on the drive might be fine until someone has to handle the wine glasses. Or is it all air and direct contact risk now?
Pretty sure I heard at least one of the TV station “Go To” virology experts say recently that surface transmission wasn’t really all that much of a concern these days. It’s airborne transmission that’s the primary vector.
Doesn’t mean the other usual experts agree with him. (Can’t remember who it was – a male though.)
We tend to be able to detect the more rare "elevator button" exposures simply because there are so few other connections and our contact tracing and genome sequencing are so on ball.
Try that in Texas, who the heck knows precisely who gave someone the covid.
But most hospo workers I've encountered are masked up and gloved/sanitisered up pretty well, so the contamination is minimal as long as you use sanitiser when using any eftpos keypads (if your cards aren't yet contactless).
When we were briefly in L4 in Welly this year, I noticed that the local supermarket staff didn’t seem to be assiduously wiping down all the trolley handles & wire cage tops after each use, as they were during L4 last year.
They were running a very clear system in 2020. You were only permitted to select a trolley from the disinfected trolley racks. Used trolleys went into a separate rack, further away from the doorkeepers, until they’d been sprayed & handles wiped down.
This last time, they were more into encouraging shoppers to use the gels & handsprays before selecting a trolley
Presumably then so long as you take the wine glasses inside and wash them, both your hands and the glasses are then free of the virus.
We could probably do with some reminders about not rubbing our eyes or touching our faces.
Well, a lot of that is covered by basic food hygiene in most places. Controls against rotovirus or what have you also work against coronavirus.
I suspect covid means a lot more small places are now actually wearing gloves as often as they should have been all along (years ago friend of mine overheard her new deli counter boss saying so many more disposable gloves were being used since friend started – she was using the gloves to spec, nobody else was lol).
I commented elsewhere that it seems like people down south are taking precautions more seriously since the Auckland/Wanaka couple thing. Good.
Re wine glasses, I was thinking about the flux of the fuzzy boundaries in different levels. Does socialising on the driveway with a 2m distance increase the spread of the virus or decrease it because it enables people to do the other, more important measures better and for longer (someone might have already said this).
Seems to be that biggest risks sit with indok3r areas with poor ventilation
I suppose what interests me is where the risks are lower and people get slack.
"Anyone have any other ideas?"
No, I think you are right. A more infectious virus just means that some types of interpersonal contact that would be relatively harmless with a less infectious pathogen, become more risky. Your lockdown therefore needs to limit contact somewhat more strictly to be as successful. But in the real world, this strictness has natural limits – it hits boundaries beyond which people will not or cannot comply. And those limits are not uniform across a population but are influenced by people's circumstances, knowledge, expectations, habits, etc.
Good to see some heat being put on at last. There has to be a deterrent. Their own community, now under L4 will be the judge. Hopefully the support, too.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-infected-prisoner-made-four-stops-before-arriving-at-bail-address/HSJ7MZBHHFZOHQ6YYYYIABSVJM/
That article is interesting raises a few questions though, ie if he caught it from the driver who was a family member do the live in the town he was bailed to or did they drive him from Auckland and they returned once he was dropped off… has the driver been tested? and where did they catch it from?
Then the accomodation was no longer available which reads like the family kicked him back out… you have to ask why… were unwelcome 'vistors' coming to the house? If thats the case there's going to be a sting in the tail… worrying really…
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees! I picked it right! KFC from Wednesday morning in Auckland.
I get confused by the KFC reference. Takeaways is merely a means to largely deliver profit to corporate food barons.
Level 3 means nothing different to me and my family. We might be able to walk in a different place, but that is it.
some of us rely on takeaways for nutrition and meals.
Living alone, I’d probably soon expire without a good stock of frozen Tomorrow’s Meals. One soon gets sick of cooking & doing pots, pans & other dishes for one most of the time.
"Level 4 but with KFC " was the meme that was the sum total of national parties contribution to the fight against covid in the first lockdown
Sorry but your KFC got apprehended by the police and destroyed. 🚔😜
“Three senior staff have departed the National Party’s Parliamentary office in recent weeks as the party’s poll ratings have plummeted.
Digital director Francis Till, press secretary Julia Stewart, and head of data and insights Sophie Lloyd have all departed. All have years of experience in Parliament.
A comment on Till’s Instagram suggests he was dismissed rather than leaving the role voluntarily however.”
…
“Till declined to comment, but wrote on his Instagram that he had been dismissed, writing that he had drank from a “poisoned chalice” despite being warned not to.”
…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300411266/national-party-three-senior-staffers-departing-judith-collins-office
… … … …
The Collins Drama continues to play out ….
Oh Gawd !
“National leader Judith Collins has admitted she made a mistake after she was caught on video over the weekend ordering icecream at the counter of a Queenstown café without wearing a mask.
The National leader, who has been quick to point out when others have run afoul of Covid-19 regulations, was joined by deputy leader Shane Reti and local MP Joseph Mooney – both of whom were also maskless – at Patagonia Chocolates on Saturday evening.”
…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-judith-collins-filmed-without-mask-at-queenstown-business/Q4IFBI5SQ2B7UBUVRCIU3QRIPA/
… … … …
Would calling her a “big fat hypocrite” be, umm…just cruel, really, now?
Judith sure seems to have the Reverse Midas touch. 😬
Ice cream wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
So she kicks a storm up do get to Wellington because opposition is important, then fucks off to queenstown for icecream, unfucking believable.!!
look, this is essential work. It's why she left the people in Auckland to face L4 without her.
Shades of National's next full caucus meeting under Collins' command?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V7NlFWh7Sz8
Dreadful grammar, but agree entirely with the sentiment 😀 👍🏼
Whoops ! Too many degrees of separation there.
That’s in relation to bwaghorn’s “unfucking believable.!!”
'Group 3 unvaxxed advised to stay home', Localized lockdown – Suppression?
Wouldn't people around Mangatangi have travelled into Hamilton for work? For elimination, shouldn't the whole of Waikato be in Level 4?
Experts were calling for Auckland to stay in Level 4.
People living in Mangatangi or having visited/worked there are being told to stay home. If there's any outward transmission, new cases will be picked up and managed as per normal. They've had a few days to do contact and location tracing of the known cases, and I would guess they're also looking forward in time to surrounding areas. I also assume we're further ahead of the curve than we were with the original Auckland case that set of this outbreak.
Not sure about that if one of the kids was at school while infectious last week its very possible.it could have been passed on again and with the very short incubation Delta has its very possible someone else has picked it up, become infectious between Thursday last week and todays announcement and travelled into Hamilton for example
But, if the virus is in Hamilton it will spread fast because they are only in Level 2? Isn't it basically impossible to contain Delta with contract tracing in Level 2?
You can't contract trace ahead of time though? I agree with the last part, the source appears to be one of the people who drove him to the bail address.
If delta cases turn up in Hamilton, it won't stay at L2.
I don't know how they manage this, but Mangatangi has a population of 400 ish people. It's different than a city of a million.
I would expect increased public health messaging in those areas eg if you have symptoms stay home and get tested.
They're also doing a huge test drive in the area, which should pick up cases, and those people will then give their movements, which generates close contacts and locations of interest, and those people will isolate and so on.
But, it could already have been circulating in Hamilton for 2 days and there could be x number of cases? But, then you are always behind, when you pick up cases they have already passed it on?
As for contact tracing ahead of time, not sure what that would do to the tracers' workload or the impact on compliance. Or even what models they would use to predict it without swamping tracers and contacters with thousands more people who don't really have a realistic chance of being infected, and half of Auckland being traced for every positive case.
I was saying contract tracing cannot control Delta at Level 2, but your comment made me think about doing it 'ahead of time'. The government should have used something like the United States' Defense Production Act to force companies to become contract tracers.
I also think they should have had a large facility/facilities for isolation or used monitoring. The tracers could isolate what they call 'very close contacts' 2 days ahead.
Oh, I thought that's what you meant by "ahead of time" at 9.1.2.
I think they already use MIQ slots for isolation – like that was why they suspended MIQ during L4?
The thing about predicting close contacts is that most won't actually have been close contacts.The flipside is to up the community testing – saw this morning that everyone in an entire suburb is asked to get tested?
If it's spreading between unknown contacts at L2, there's trouble, sure. But if it is focused in known family or social groups, and we pretty well know the limits of that group, then should be ok even at 2.
Yes, but MIQ capacity is limited. They only quarantine cases and sometimes their household.
Yes, they have been doing that over the past week. I am not sure what the uptake is though. Most people do not stay just stay in their family and social groups in Level 2 though?
We-ell people are creatures of habit. Usual supermarket, usual workplace, usual home. Sure, you might pass someone in the supermarket, but they're far more likely to live a few blocks away than go to Wellington the next day.
So you have problems with individuals who have many, many contacts – salespeople, "essential" politicians trying to keep their jobs, that sort of thing. Then there are the mixing events, like rugby matches and rock gigs.
There's a lot of crossover with network theory – most people only have a few nodes of connection and those are pretty short distance edges. Then there are a few people with a lot of connections, and a few people with "long string" connections so that they have the usual flatmate/work connections but also have say a connect with someone in a different town – e.g. truckies.
So limiting the size of gatherings deals to the nodes with lots of connections, and things like contactless deliveries helps limit the likelihood of the long strings infecting unconnected subnetworks.
But it also illustrates why predictive isolation might be functionally impossible to implement: say I am a close contact of a colleague who went to a supermarket between 4 and 5 pm. So I go into isolation, even though my colleague probably hasn't infected me. But then I went to a supermarket between 7 and 8 pm. The might be an extra 400 people who need to be tracked down and isolated and tested, when their transmission node (me) probably didn't have it anyway. Then there are all my other colleagues as close contacts (and the people they were on the bus with being "close contacts once removed"), etc. The numbers pretty quickly become unmanagable.
Whereas we'd probably all be better off doing it as we are now.
Sorry for my short reply to your detailed post. I was more referring to places like bars, restaurants, shops e.t.c.
sure, but there's a balance to be had between the negative social realities of lockdown and the necessity to get ahead of transmission.
Someone who understands it better than me can maybe talk about the R value of delta at the start of transmission in the community. I thought it was the low R value that enabled Auckland to go from L4 to L3 this week, the value being low because most people getting covid at the moment are already in isolation.
It's not like Hamilton is in L1. L2 does have measures in place to prevent spread of unknown covid in the community, that's the whole point of all of us staying in L2 until the transmission chains are broken.
I'm also guessing that the MoH/government wants to know more before putting Waikato into a higher level, they want to know what they are dealing with.
Distancing is only really followed in hospitality and I suspect masks are only being worn in shops and healthcare.
What do you classify as negative social impacts of lockdown? Yes, they cited the low R-value. However, some of the daily cases are infectious in the community and in Level 3 the chances of passing it on are higher so the R-value may increase.
The main NZ Covid modelling software can now predict likely areas of spread from very localised Stats NZ data, so I imagine they would have run that to set the size of this latest L4 pocket. Nothing is foolproof when humans are involved, however. Excellent contact tracing is essential.
I was very surprised the initial modelling predicted 50-100 and then 100-200 cases given it was Delta with an unknown source and many large exposure events.
Shaun Hendy said this on Monday 23 Aug:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/08/covid-19-disease-modelling-expert-shaun-hendy-warns-nz-outbreak-could-grow-to-1000-cases.html
That was the 'worst-case scenario' a week into lockdown. What I was referring to was the predictions during the first week.
First week of what??
NZ moved Level 4 lockdown on midnight Tuesday 17th of August, so in all reality on Wednesday 18th of August. The date stamp on the linked piece is 23th of August.
Do you know how modelling works? Do you know what it can and cannot do? Do you know how it depends on boundary settings, initial parameterisation, and overall model assumptions? Do you know that useful predictive models include probabilities and confidence intervals?
Yes. I am at university and have done Statistics papers at Stage 1, 2 and 3. What I am saying is you should not take modelling as what is going to happen.
oh that is cool.
Living their best lives.
https://twitter.com/Jake_Hanrahan/status/1439304675514273800
In Indiana USA more people died in 2020 than were born, according to Nightly News (Sept 19).