New climate change polling shows people are becoming less tolerant of those who build in harm's way, with the overwhelming majority expecting extreme flooding to increase.
It was also when shocking new data came out showing the sea level is rising twice as fast as previously thought in some parts of Aotearoa, making once-in-a century floods likely in some places every year in just 18 years.
Victoria University climate scientist Professor James Renwick said there was "a lot of confusion, and a need for education and clear messages about actions we can all take".
National's Climate Spokesperson Scott Simpson said it was a conversation New Zealand needed to be having, and it was better having it late than not at all.
Buller mayor Jamie Cleine said the region was already seeing the effects of climate change, and the approach to mitigating those needed to be multi-pronged.
"We've seen multiple serious floods now, tidal surge inundations, and two ex-tropical cyclone wind events all within the last, say, 10 years, so it's quite clear that the climate is changing and the intensity of the events is getting greater.
Nats Scott Simpson……the unaware Irony.! How many years….have critical thinkers…been trying to red flag this? Were his Nats EVER interested ? Mind boggling.
Birchfield was elected chairman of the West Coast Regional Council in 2019, after six terms as a councillor.
Birchfield denies human-caused climate change and sea-level rise, calling it "a gigantic fraud" and "the biggest rort in the history of human civilisation".He refused to accept a report to the regional council about future hazards to the region from sea-level rise, calling it "bullshit".When Kiwibank announced it would no longer do business with the fossil fuel industry, he accused them of "trying to destroy the economy."
He won't be happy until Westport is washed into the Tasman sea and it's former site a low lying lagoon, at which point he'll write a column for the Daily Blog blaming "wokism".
Power and roading infrastructure in the South Island takes a serious hit. Those sitting trapped in the dark can be sure, (though it may take a few days in some cases), that they will reconnected to the grid and the roads will be cleared.
As weather extremes get worse and closer together that certainty will disappear. As more and more of us get to sit in cold dark homes, for longer periods, cut off from our neighbours by floods and slips. and power outages.
There must come a realisation that there will be a time where the hits to power and roading infrastructure cannot be rebuilt.
When we reach that point, will BAU still continue?
Will we still allow our transportation system to be dominated by fossil fueled vehicles?
Will we still allow valuable crop lands to be ploughed under for intensive dairying conversions?
Will still be mining and importing coal?
Will Huntly coal fired power station still be operating?
When that time comes, will we try to mend our ways?
When that time comes, will it be far too late to make any difference what we do, will we find that the changes to the climate will be irreversible?
You know, if this was the Soviet Union you'd almost suspect the usually sycophantic media had got the memo that the Politburo thinks comrade Fosters inability to consistently hit his tractor production quotas is now a problem…
He refused to say what mask rules he would introduce however, only that he would listen to the experts. It was put to him that New Zealand could not move on from the virus while case numbers were rising.
Health problems accumulated as you grew older and there were many seniors with compromised immune systems who were worried they would be affected badly by the virus.
Indeed, there is increasing concern that with the likely more transmissible BA.5 variant on the rise and the surge in the number of daily cases reported last week, we are at the start of the second Omicron wave which could have a big impact on the over-60s.
Masks work and we need to think about how best to use this vital public health protection and how to ensure that mask policies are working well for everyone."
Has any NZ politician ever been given such a big platform to say nothing at all so as to remain as politically beige as possible? First he says he won't criminalize abortions despite the fact he also considers them to be murder, and now the guy can't even take a position that masks are useful protection against airborne viruses.
Luxon and the previous three Nat leaders have called for looser restrictions at every stage. They have now made tighter restrictions politically impossible and there is only one possible direction of travel – stay the same or loosen further. They have what they wanted all along, and as the consequences of that become clear, only the most brazen of liars and opportunists among them will reverse course and call for a tightening.
Also "not giving a shit" is different from "moving on". 300 people still dying from Covid daily in the UK (almost 50% worse than NZ's 17 average deathsper day on a per capita basis) in addition to the 182,000 who have already died. If Luxon thinks that's the model to follow then that says more about him than it does about the current government.
Now this is a global supply chain shortage issue which I can live with!
RTDs are one of the entry points into alcohol abuse (sweet mixers hiding the taste of alcohol) – having them off the shelves (because of a shortage of bourbon) seems to be a win for health.
yes, exactly. A wealthy industrialised country like NZ should totally take the opportunity of lowering art fert supplies and turn it into an umitigated disaster that collapses the economy.
What do you think will happen to NZ if we blithely try to keep BAU and art fert supplies don't recover? At the same time as we have crop failures globally and locally from increased frequency, climate induced, extreme weather events. Writing is on the wall for those that are paying attention. We have a window in which to transition well and by choice, before that choice is taken from us.
There is no evidence that fertiliser supplies won't recover when supply chains open up again and we do, in fact, produce our own at Kāpuni and Ravensdown among other places.
You do have this tendency to make sweeping statements about agriculture and power generation without demonstrating much understanding the technical or geographical practicalities.
This is pretty compelling stuff Nicky. Especially the part about lobby groups fighting change:
The thing I want to emphasise with climate and environment is that the main problem stopping change is not a lack of facts about the issues. The main thing stopping change is the continuous organised obstruction, delay and watering down of environment policy by well funded industry lobby groups. It is the fake community groups – Mothers for More Motorways-type groups – the paid spokespeople and publicity campaigns, the funding of biased experts, the full-time lobbyists, the corporate election donations, the law firms threatening to sue governments for introducing needed regulations and the rest of the mercenaries who help companies fight desperately needed change…..
Being investigative journalists in times of trouble By Nicky Hager
New Zealand author Nicky Hager was keynote speaker at Dataharvest, the European Investigative Journalism Conference, and highlighted the big issues needing urgent and lasting media attention.
I have admired and supported Hager's work for years, but like others on the Old Left have been disappointed to see him join (seemingly unquestioningly) the Team of Mainstream Media Personalities Standing Against (what we have reliably been informed is ) The Far Right.
…a US-inspired protest against covid policies that was used as movement building for the far right.
The protest was in February this year, when New Zealand anti-vaccine groups staged an action imitating the Canadian “freedom convoy” truck protest. Hundreds of people took over the Parliament sector of the city for four weeks, with effigies of people in nooses and being guillotined, and slogans about executing the Prime Minister. It had an ugly ending with protesters pelting the police with rocks and setting their tents on fire.
The most chilling part was the social media statistics. They revealed that more people were getting news about the parliament protest from right-wing and conspiracy social media than from all the mainstream news media combined.
(my bold)
It's concerning that Hager refers to the US as inspiring the Freedom Village protest, then also refers to the Canadian Trucker protest. Which is it? Or has Hager blindly accepted the line that the Canadian Truckers were also inspired and funded by 'US Far Right White Supremacist Misogynist whatevers…' ?
As yet I have seen no actual evidence, no paper trail (for which Hager is rightfully respected) to support these claims.
It was not "hundreds" of protestors in Wellington, it was thousands. But what is an order of magnitude or two between professional investigative journos?
I did not see the "effigies of people being guillotined" in the Wellington protest…I'd be grateful if someone could provide a photo or two to verify this…perhaps Hager is a tad confused and is remembering the 2012 Anti Asset Sales protest?
And no, Hager…the Wellington protest was overwhelmingly peaceful until the heavily armed and armoured police squad moved in with their super pepper spray and crowd control tech and provoked a riot. The rock throwing and the burning only began after the cops began their purge of what a sitting MP desribed as a "river of filth".
An honest investigative journalist would have also shown pictures of the unprovoked police brutality of the 10th of February, and how the riot cops on the 2nd March forced peaceful protestors from their tents and the common cops moved in behind to destroy and lay waste what had been carefully and lovingly built over the previous three plus weeks.
An honest investigative journalist would have shared with us his interviews with the Freedom Villagers, and how he realised that far from being generic "anti-vaxxers", many of them had willingly taken the Pfizer Product and been seriously negatively impacted.
An honest journalist would have noted that it was the total denial by the Ministry of Health, the Government and the "mainstream news" of these injuries that drove many to Wellington. And a professional investigative journalist would have commented that how it is totally bizarre the insistence that those who suffered heart injuries from the first or second shot (or anaphylaxis) had to have a second or third shot in order to keep their jobs.
Or perhaps, a good investigative journalist would have gone out there into the world and found out why so many of us have turned away years ago from the "mainstream news" providers (that he clearly believes should be our only source of truth) and prefer to find our own sources of information such as established scientific journals and Covid data sites.
Such a pity there are so few investigative journalists with the integrity to step outside the mainstream and actually speak kanohi ki te kanohi with those they seem happy to accuse.
"An honest journalist would have noted that it was the total denial by the Ministry of Health, the Government and the "mainstream news"…" Rosemary McDonald
Are you inferring Rosemary, that Nikki Hagar is not an honest journalist?
The supporters of Russia's war against Ukraine, also spread the same smear against our journalists, that they are all corrupt hacks toeing the Western MSM line.
…has Hager blindly accepted the line that the Canadian Truckers were also inspired and funded by 'US Far Right White Supremacist Misogynist whatevers… Rosemary McDonald
No, but my fear is that you have.
Nazi Hippies: When the New Age and Far Right Overlap
Both the New Age and the far right are drawn to conspiracy theories
Health Minister responds to doctors' claim 'catastrophic collapse' coming.
Health Minister Andrew Little spoke to Morning Report.
Corin Dann doesn't understand what Little says and keeps insisting it's a 'crisis'. Little describes the situation using words similar too, or meaning virtually the same, but Dann won't be happy until the word crisis is used.
This is starting up again; though probably too late now for this year's local body elections, and likely next year's general election too:
A youth-led campaign to lower the voting age to 16 is being heard in the Supreme Court today.
Make it 16 will have its case heard at the Supreme Court after failing in the group's efforts in the High Court and Court of Appeal in 2020 and last year…
Attorney General David Parker's position is that the earlier High Court decision was correct for declining the declaration Make it 16 seeks.
He said section 12 of the NZ Bill of Rights Act, which provides that every New Zealand citizen over the age of 18 can vote in parliamentary elections, settles any limitation in respect of the voting age.
However, that does rather ignore the Court of Appeal's statement from last year:
the Court of Appeal judgement found the Attorney-General had failed to “discharge the burden of proof” to justify the existing age limit.
Looking at the justification of limiting the rights of 16 and 17 year olds was required, the judgement found.
“The matter is intensely and quintessentially political involving the democratic process itself,” the judgement said.
“Further the matter is very much in the public arena already including being part of a recently announced review of electoral law. We choose to exercise restraint and decline the application for declarations.”
In a new judgement of the court, released on the Supreme Court's website on Wednesday, along with the granting of leave of appeal, it said "the approved question is whether the Court of Appeal was correct to dismiss the appeal".
The more relevant part of the BORA would seem to be Section (4), which is why Make It 16 are going for a declaration of inconsistency rather than a nullification. Though it seems more likely that it'll be kicked back down to the Court of Appeal given the wording of the Supreme Court's approved question. Everyone appears to recognize the inconsistency, but no one seems to want to do anything about it:
No court shall, in relation to any enactment (whether passed or made before or after the commencement of this Bill of Rights),—
(a) hold any provision of the enactment to be impliedly repealed or revoked, or to be in any way invalid or ineffective; or
(b) decline to apply any provision of the enactment—
by reason only that the provision is inconsistent with any provision of this Bill of Rights.
He'll either buy it at a cheaper price (probably won't use any of his own money to do it) or it'll be revealed just how over priced twitter is and the shareholders will be asking questions of the veracity of the boards statements
There are valid reasons why someone doesn't want/need/require all the shots and boosters and I'd rather have an unvaccinated or unboosted nurse looking after me than no nurse at all or nurses that are so burnt out that they might make mistakes
Apparently because nurses not staying in nursing once they get residency is an issue, but GPs don't do that enough for it to be a problem. My guess is they looked at some data from a Ministry and made the decision based on advice based on what's happening the real world. It's stupid politics given everything else that is going on, but is it a bad policy?
I mean, if you were a nurse in the UK, burnt out, hating living there, and you got the opportunity to immigrate to NZ and quit nursing and go work in a less stressful job, what's not to love?
So lets throw some figures around (the numbers don't matter so much as the gist of it)
Lets say100 nurses come in and 10% of nurses don't hang around so 10 nurses leave early meaning 90 nurses stay
Is it better to make it less desirable for nurses to work here in the hopes that those who do stay longer or is it better to make it easier and more desirable for nurses to come here
For example 150 nurses arrive, 20% leave early (just a figure I plucked since Ardern wouldn't tell us) but that still leaves 120 nurses
If nurses are in hot demand globally and we can't match other countries wages then surely it makes sense to do whatever else we can to attract nurses here?
The National Party used a recognisable part of a popular song by Eminem without the creator's permission to further their own political ambitions. They thought they could get away with it because it was "pretty legal". Got into big trouble and they have form.
One time I worked hard to create visual content for a project only to have it appropriated and used thereafter as their own by a certain taxpayer funded organisation beginning with T and ending in NZ. Still unhappy about it.
The future National government's coalition partner, ACT, does not respect culture in any form. While Baldrick (Chris Luxon) speaks of trading NZ to the world, Rimmer (David Seymour) is determined to halt our film and TV trade with the world. Fireworks to come.
Puckish Rogue continues a long line of chancers abusing other's content for their own means.
you could have riffed that of PR's casual, throw away joke, but instead you made it personal. Remember how mods don't like having their time wasted, and how flaming tends to irritate them?
I wanted to point out that PR had used someone else's specific joke written on another forum without attribution. Despite your assertion, it was not PR’s joke at all.
Here’s the quote:
All the nurses who want to come and live and work in New Zealand should simply declare they are really DJs, who just do nursing as a side gig.
The second comment explained why I took that position.
How is that wasting moderator's time?
[what you appear to be missing is that I was giving both you and PR a headsup to not start in on each other. Now I will make my point in BOLD.
Had you made the point you did in your last comment (your view, quote, link) there would have been no problem. The comment explains really clearly what you are on about and thus everyone reading and wanting to take part knows. Your FB-esque original comment looked like taking a pot shot at PR and it wasn’t possible to know what you were on about.
The wasting mod time is that here you are yet again arguing about moderation, something you have a history of. You could have asked early on where the boundaries are, but instead you expect me as a mod to do the extra mahi and explain ad nauseum.
It’s actually really simple: use your words to explain the political point you are making, do this at the start. Avoid taking pot shots at commenters. Stop arguing with the mods – weka]
Are DJs on the Green List and do they have to DJ for 2 years here before they can apply for Residency? And after that they can go into property development?
"you may want a fool responsible for your medical treatment, I don't"
I just want someone who is trained and competent to carry out whatever medical procedure I need. I know if I go into a hospital or medical practice right now, there is a big chance I will get covid from either other patients or medical staff (vacinated or unvacinated).
Do you not relize that the health system is on the brink of collapse? Everyday there are articles in Stuff about Drs and nurses on the brink. We are 4000 nurse down. If these nurses/drs were unvacinated and we had a war zone with sick people dying would you say I don't want these fools looking after these people?
If this was a war zone, all field medics would have had mandatory vaccinations by command order, so really not the best analogy. You really don't want infection roaring unchecked through territory with no sanitation or infrastructure.
Conchies that refused to join the medical corps, Merchant Navy or other options were put in jail. Where many were treated worse by the guards, than actual criminals.
Refusing to shoot people for moral reasons, and taking the consequences, is a commendable moral choice. Refusing to take sensible precautions to protect the health of your patients……. Is something that most of the conchies wouldn’t have agreed with.
One would have to question the General that as casualties stack up, keeps 700 nurses in a POW camp at home, because there was a question mark over the last item of their medical.
Sure then because I think the risk of covid has been massively overblown and I support those that don't want to/have objections to/are unable to have the injections I should also not go to the hospital if I break an arm or something, because its equivalent
The statistics from countries that didn't have as comprehensive a covid response as ours, prove that anyone who claims " risk of covid has been massively overblown" is divorced from reality.
How many of those deaths were actually caused by covid?
So yeah overblown.
But it made incredible profits for Big Pharma, the MSM had everyone glued to the screens (if it bleeds it leads) and it got Labour an overwhelming victory in the election
I think the arguement is relevant. It is about people who deny science, i.e. that its not posible to change your sex and that the evidence for puberty blockers is experimental at best.
Getting steadily worse over decades is hardly a sudden crisis.
In fact most of us were predicting it, for our proffesions for decades.
My own trades/Proffesions have an over thirty year training gap, since it was decided that bringing in already trained "skilled migrants" was cheaper than training our own kids.
I admit to a degree of shadenfraude, as those who cheer leaded the whole "reforms" and profited by the whole shemozzle, get bitten on the arse, as we predicted, so long ago.
"Getting steadily worse over decades is hardly a sudden crisis."
Yes, the point I was making was about the scale. The situation is far worse than 10 years ago.
"since it was decided that bringing in already trained "skilled migrants" was cheaper than training our own kids."
Training our own is preferable, but it takes time and we still may not have enough to allow for population growth. Bringing in trained migrants will likely always be part of the solution. Right now it needs to be a big part.
No. It doesn't, because it will just carry on the addiction. And the problem of adding more people when the infrastructure cannot possibly be expanded fast enough to keep up.
Unless we have willing trainees, and can train them in sufficient numbers, there is no option. Besides, having foreign trained nurses helps with cultural and professional diversity. It's a good thing.
Yes its been a problem for years. I posted recently an article by Dr Ian Powell who met with David Clark 5 and a half years ago and said there are three problems for the workforce……staff shortages, staff shortages and staff shortages.
I wish the media instead of harping on and on about the need for immigrant nurses would check out the requirements for Registration with the NZ Nursing Council. basically an applicant from a country where the education is in English, UK, Ireland, Singapore and USA and Canada where all conditions are met registration will be granted in 30 or so days. All other countries will have to prove scope and competencies and pass an IELTS exam, most don't. To grant immediate residency without registration would be foolhardy as all we would have is a number of Nurse Aides who like most immigrant Nurses be gone to Australia as soon as able.
Is it that you fear they will be more likely to pass covid on? Or you think they shouldn't be practicing if they don't agree with all medical procedures?
As psych nurse mentioned @ 13.2.1 no health care worker has died yet from attracting Covid-19 at work in NZ. To mandate a vaccinated workforce is helping a lot to keep it this way.
Anecdotally I've seen it spread through all different groups of people, vaccination status doesn't seem to be a deciding factor, but I'd be interested to know if we have evidence of only the unvaccinated being the superspreaders?? Highly vaccinated countries are getting high case numbers are they not?
Your second sentence is a slur on these health workers, as their job everyday requires sensible decision making.
USA. 67% vaccinated. Death rate 308/100k.
NZ 94% vaccinated. Death rate 31/100k.
It is even more striking if you compare highly vaccinated US states, with the Republican idiotvilles.
But surely masking up is all thats needed to protect us from the virus, especially if we're vaccinated, therefore the nurses just need to wear ppe and we're all good to go
Please tell us what happened in MIQ before there was a vaccine and how that compares with working in a healthcare setting. Just for good measure you may want to include a comparison of transmissibility of the current variants vs. the earlier ones that are relevant to MIQ.
My point is Incognito that prior to vaccines nurses worked MIQ. There are many health care settings but in MIQ and and at the Jet Park where covid cases went, nurses interacted with people,taking swabs, temparatures monitoring symptoms etc, with great care. They were also tested regularly.
Having attended an ED in the last few weeks where we were not asked if we were vacinnated, nor were we particularly isolated, nor tested for covid, I am unsure that there is that much difference
You know perfectly well why nurses (and doctors) who are not vaccinated (and masked) can't work in their profession …
We do?
Vaccine effectiveness studies have conclusively demonstrated the benefit of COVID-19 vaccines in reducing individual symptomatic and severe disease, resulting in reduced hospitalisations and intensive care unit admissions. However, the impact of vaccination on transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 needs to be elucidated.
This study showed that the impact of vaccination on community transmission of circulating variants of SARS-CoV-2 appeared to be not significantly different from the impact among unvaccinated people.
The scientific rationale for mandatory vaccination in the USA relies on the premise that vaccination prevents transmission to others, resulting in a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”.
Yet, the demonstration of COVID-19 breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated health-care workers (HCW) in Israel, who in turn may transmit this infection to their patients, requires a reassessment of compulsory vaccination policies leading to the job dismissal of unvaccinated HCW in the USA. Indeed, there is growing evidence that peak viral titres in the upper airways of the lungs and culturable virus are similar in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.2,3
According to WHO some 180,000 Health Care workers worldwide died of Covid, contacted in the course of their work. In the UK some 900, NZ zilch. You should be eternally grateful to the NZ government for their response to the pandemic, I am. You can reference these figures on Google when you next find evidence to back up your conspiracies.
What conspiracies? I provided a link to a letter in The Lancet which suggests that Covid vaccine mandates for healthworkers are unjustified because studies show that it makes no difference whether the worker is vaccinated or not with respect to transmission or viral load. The writer provides references.
The Franco-Peredes Lancet letter from which you quote is not scientific research: Rosemary McDonald. Rather it is a comment on a study by Singanayaman et al (2021): Community transmission and viral load kinetics of the SARS-CoV-2 delta (B.1.617.2) variant in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in the UK: a prospective, longitudinal, cohort study. Who are not at all impressed with him in their response, given their pointed line about misinterpretation, in the paragraph immediately preceding their brief discussion of Franco-Peredes' comment:
Ultimately, one has to consider the totality of data on SAR estimates, which are generated using different methods and populations, each with their own particular strengths and limitations. The public health messages of our paper and media briefing (Science Media Centre, London, Oct 28, 2021) are thus complementary to the findings of Knol and colleagues. First, despite vaccination, the delta variant readily transmits in households, and unvaccinated people cannot therefore rely on the immunity of the vaccinated population for protection as they remain susceptible to infection, severe illness, and death. Second, increasing population immunity via booster programmes and vaccination of teenagers will help to increase the population-level protective effect of vaccination on delta-variant transmission. Third, direct protection of those at risk of severe outcomes, via vaccination and non-pharmacological interventions, remain necessary to contain the burden of disease. Fortunately, the vast majority of media coverage of our paper, comprising over 360 news stories to date, has conveyed these important messages without misinterpretation.
Although our findings support Franco-Peredes’ conclusion that vaccination status should not replace social and physical public health mitigation practices, the above clarifications explain why our findings do not support his assertion that mandatory vaccination of health-care workers would not reduce nosocomial SARS-CoV-2 transmission.
The Franco-Peredes Lancet letter from which you quote is not scientific research: Rosemary McDonald. Rather it is a comment …
Yes. I did state that it was a letter I was quoting from in my comment. In your rush to prove me a fool, did you not read what I wrote?
Can you provide scientific proof that the Pfizer Product prevents infection and transmission of the Omicron variants? Or at least reduces infection and transmission sufficiently to justify exclusion of much needed health and disability workers?
And I'd like to see those scientific papers that show that the mRNA injections are safe and there will be no long term adverse effects from continual boosting?
(Full disclosure here…I was the paid carer of my tetraplegic partner from April 2020 when this payment was allowed because of home care worker shortage and fear of infection with carers going into multiple homes. This payment of course was stopped when both my partner and I chose not to partake of the Pfizer product. Stopped because…paying for the work I do would somehow increase the risk of infection? Who knows.? The properly triple jabbed carer sent out to merely sit with my man so I could do the shopping came to our home a day before testing positive and after a weekend partying out of town. She was symptomatic. Despite having already had Omicron in March…I too also developed a sore throat etc for a few days. I'm not sure what country you are living in, but around these parts its generally accepted that vaccination status means nothing in terms of getting infected, and those already vulnerable are still sadly falling off their perches despite being multiply jabbed. )
USA. 67% vaccinated. Death rate 308/100k.
NZ 94% vaccinated. Death rate 31/100k.
It is even more striking if you compare highly vaccinated US states, with the Republican idiotvilles.
Sigh. Have you not been following what has been happening in the US regarding healthcare? As much as healthcare might exist for the millions who cannot afford it in that obscene jealously protected private profit driven system. Compare apple with apples.
Japan has been doing quite well.
But what truly sets it apart from many places, particularly Asian neighbors like China, is it’s managed to limit deaths without mandates and with few restrictions. The constitution prevents imposing lockdowns backed by police actions, meaning that even during a state of emergency the government puts the onus on businesses and individuals to change their behavior.
Considering our much lower population density (a factor with an airborne disease) Japan has done much better than NZ…without the stick waving and vicious mandates.
And treating the population like helpless, mewling infants.
It is the anti vaccers and their apologists, like you who ignore complexity. Who cannot comprehend that sciencentific evidence is a jigsaw of many pieces. Not just one, or a few datapoints! or "aneqdotes".
And, of course you prefer you ignore the differences in neighbouring US States, where "other variables" have less effect than between NZ and the USA.
We all know why India has less deaths. If you do not have an excellent immune system in India, you won't survive to adulthood.
I point out that your simplistic comparison is flawed and show one example of how reality is much more complex – and you accuse me of ignoring complexity.
I don't know how you expect a constructive conversation on that basis.
Thank you for the link. I think you are seeing things that don't actually exist in this letter to the Lancet.
Yes, there was no difference in viral load or nasopharangeal levels of Covid19, between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. I think you then imply that it's ok for doctors to be unvaccinated when seeing patients.
This is overly simplistic in that viral load doesn’t necessarily equate with transmissibility.
This is one letter in a medical journal versus a large body of evidence backing vaccination for medical professionals to protect their patients.
Sorry out running right now can't easily do a decent search for you in the rain, but lots of clear evidence out there.
Sorry out running right now can't easily do a decent search for you in the rain, but lots of clear evidence out there.
And there's a lot of real world evidence that despite complying with mandates multiply 'vaccinated' medical staff are being infected with Covid and becoming symptomatic. And needing time off work.
Somewhere there will be data showing the % of folks who became infected, were symptomatic, needed hospitalisation and sadly died of/from/with Covid before the Magic Jabs were deployed.
It would be very interesting to compare those data with the data collected recently.
A pity RNZ has now removed the comparisons between unvaccinated, fully vaccinated and boosted with respect to new cases, hospitalisations and deaths…because before they were removed…the graphics were showing sweet f/a difference.
But Anne, I understand the only Dr in Muripara who refused the vacinne has been allowed bcak to work. Maybe the powers that be thought it was better to have a Dr rather than no Dr at all.
While I didn't provide a link for my brief comment about the Dr at Murupara, it is more or less as Rosemary said. Another reason to bring back unvaxed nurses is indeed if they have had covid in the last three months (likely if they are unvaxxed) as they will have natural immunity.
We are due to get a booster soon, which we will do, although I haven't taken the time to read how effective it is in providing immunity. I imagine it must provide some.
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For obvious reasons, people feel uneasy when the right to be a citizen is sold off to wealthy foreigners. Even selling the right to residency seems a bit dubious, when so many migrants who are not millionaires get turned away or are made to jump through innumerable hoops – simply ...
A new season of White Lotus is nearly upon us: more murder mystery, more sumptuous surroundings, more rich people behaving badly.Once more we get to identify with the experience of the pampered tourist or perhaps the poorly paid help; there's something in White Lotus for all New Zealanders.And unlike the ...
In 2016, Aotearoa shockingly plunged to fourth place in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. Nine years later, and we're back there again: New Zealand has seen a further slip in its global ranking in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). [...] In the latest CPI New Zealand's score ...
1. You’ve started ranking your politicians on how much they respect the rule of law2. You’ve stopped paying attention to those news publications3. You’ve developed a sudden interest in a particular period of history4. More and more people are sounding like your racist, conspiracist uncle.5. Someone just pulled a Nazi ...
Transforming New Zealand: Brian EastonBrian Easton will discuss the above topic at 2/57 Willis Street, Wellington at 5:30pm on Tuesday 26 February at 2/57 Willis Street, WellingtonThe sub-title to the above is "Why is the Left failing?" Brian Easton's analysis is based on his view that while the ...
Salvation Army’s State of the Nation 2025 report highlights falling living standards, the highest unemployment rates since the 1990s and half of all Pacific children going without food. There are reports of hundreds if not thousands of people are applying for the same jobs in the wake of last year’s ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Correction: On the article The Condundrum of David Seymour, Luke Malpass conducted joint reviews with Bryce Wilkinson, the architect of the Regulatory Standards Bill - not Bryce Edwards. The article ...
Tomorrow the council’s Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee meet and agenda has a few interesting papers. Council’s Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport Every year the council provide a Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport which is part of the process for informing AT of the council’s priorities and ...
All around in my home townThey're trying to track me down, yeahThey say they want to bring me in guiltyFor the killing of a deputyFor the life of a deputySongwriter: Robert Nesta Marley.Support Nick’s Kōrero today with a 20% discount on a paid subscription to receive all my newsletters directly ...
Hi,I think all of us have probably experienced the power of music — that strange, transformative thing that gets under our skin and helps us experience this whole life thing with some kind of sanity.Listening and experiencing music has always been such a huge part of my life, and has ...
Business frustration over the stalled economy is growing, and only 34% of voters are confidentNicola Willis can deliver. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 12 are:Business frustration is growing about a ...
I have now lived long enough to see a cabinet minister go both barrels on their Prime Minister and not get sacked.It used to be that the PM would have a drawer full of resignations signed by ministers on the day of their appointment, ready for such an occasion. But ...
This session will feature Simon McCallum, Senior Lecturer in Engineering and Computer Science (VUW) and recent Labour Party candidate in the Southland Electorate talking about some of the issues around AI and how this should inform Labour Party policy. Simon is an excellent speaker with a comprehensive command of AI ...
The proposed Waimate garbage incinerator is dead: The company behind a highly-controversial proposal to build a waste-to-energy plant in the Waimate District no longer has the land. [...] However, SIRRL director Paul Taylor said the sales and purchase agreement to purchase land from Murphy Farms, near Glenavy, lapsed at ...
The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been a vital tool in combatting international corruption. It forbids US companies and citizens from bribing foreign public officials anywhere in the world. And its actually enforced: some of the world's biggest companies - Siemens, Hewlett Packard, and Bristol Myers Squibb - have ...
December 2024 photo - with UK Tory Boris Johnson (Source: Facebook)Those PollsFor hours, political poll results have resounded across political hallways and commentary.According to the 1News Verizon poll, 50% of the country believe we are heading in the “wrong direction”, while 39% believe we are “on the right track”.The left ...
A Tai Rāwhiti mill that ran for 30 years before it was shut down in late 2023 is set to re-open in the coming months, which will eventually see nearly 300 new jobs in the region. A new report from Massey University shows that pensioners are struggling with rising costs. ...
As support continues to fall, Luxon also now faces his biggest internal ructions within the coalition since the election, with David Seymour reacting badly to being criticised by the PM. File photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Not since 1988 when Richard Prebble openly criticised David Lange have we seen such a challenge to a Prime Minister as that of David Seymour to Christopher Luxon last night. Prebble suggested Lange had mental health issues during a TV interview and was almost immediately fired. Seymour hasn’t gone quite ...
Three weeks in, and the 24/7 news cycle is not helping anyone feel calm and informed about the second Trump presidency. One day, the US is threatening 25% trade tariffs on its friends and neighbours. The reasons offered by the White House are absurd, such as stopping fentanyl coming in ...
This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Wherever you look, you'll hear headlines claiming we've passed 1.5 degrees of global warming. And while 2024 saw ...
Photo by Heather M. Edwards on UnsplashHere’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s politics and economy in the week to Feb 10 below. That’s ahead of live chats on the Substack App and The Kākā’s front page on Substack at 5pm with: on his column in The ...
Is there anyone in the world the National Party loves more than a campaign donor? Why yes, there is! They will always have the warmest hello and would you like to slip into something more comfortable for that great god of our age, the High Net Worth Individual.The words the ...
Waste and fraud certainly exist in foreign aid programs, but rightwing celebration of USAID’s dismantling shows profound ignorance of the value of soft power (as opposed to hard power) in projecting US influence and interests abroad by non-military/coercive means (think of “hearts and minds,” “hugs, not bullets,” “honey versus vinegar,” ...
Health New Zealand is proposing to cut almost half of its data and digital positions – more than 1000 of them. The PSA has called on the Privacy Commissioner to urgently investigate the cuts due to the potential for serious consequences for patients. NZNO is calling for an urgent increase ...
We may see a few more luxury cars on Queen Street, but a loosening of rules to entice rich foreigners to invest more here is unlikely to “turbocharge our economic growth”. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Let us not dance daintily around the elephant in the room. Our politicians who serve us in the present are not honest, certainly not as honest as they should be, and while the right are taking out most of the trophies for warping narratives and literally redefining “facts”, the kiwi ...
A few weeks ago I took a look at public transport ridership in 2024. In today’s post I’m going to be looking a bit deeper at bus ridership. Buses make up the vast majority of ridership in Auckland with 70 million boardings last year out of a total of 89.4 ...
Oh, you know I did itIt's over and I feel fineNothing you could say is gonna change my mindWaited and I waited the longest nightNothing like the taste of sweet declineSongwriters: Chris Shiflett / David Eric Grohl / Nate Mendel / Taylor Hawkins.Hindsight is good, eh?The clarity when the pieces ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 16 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 10The Kākā’s weekly wrap-up of news about politics and the economy is due at midday, followed by webinar for paying subscribers in Substack’s ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 2, 2025 thru Sat, February 8, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
Today, I stumbled across a Twitter Meme: the ending of The Lord of the Rings as a Chess scenario: https://x.com/mellon_heads/status/1887983845917564991 It gets across the basic gist. Aragorn and Gandalf offering up ‘material’ at the Morannon allows Frodo and Samwise to catch Sauron unawares – fair enough. But there are a ...
Last week, Kieran McAnulty called out Chris Bishop and Nicola Willis for their claims that Kāinga Ora’s costs were too high.They had claimed Kāinga Ora’s cost were 12% higher than market i.e. private devlopersBut Kāinga Ora’s Chair had already explained why last year:"We're not building to sell, so we'll be ...
Stuff’s Political Editor Luke Malpass - A Fellow at New Zealand IniativeLast week I half-joked that Stuff / The Post’s Luke Malpass1 always sounded like he was auditioning for a job at the New Zealand Initiative.Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. For a limited time, subscriptions are 20% off. Thanks ...
At a funeral on Friday, there were A4-sized photos covering every wall of the Dil’s reception lounge. There must have been 200 of them, telling the story in the usual way of the video reel but also, by enlargement, making it more possible to linger and step in.Our friend Nicky ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is methane the ...
The Government’s idea is that the private sector and Community Housing Providers will fund, build and operate new affordable housing to address our housing crisis. Meanwhile, the Government does not know where almost half of the 1,700 children who left emergency housing actually went. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong ...
Oh, home, let me come homeHome is wherever I'm with youOh, home, let me come homeHome is wherever I'm with youSongwriters: Alexander Ebert / Jade Allyson CastrinosMorena,I’m on a tight time frame this morning. In about an hour and a half, I’ll need to pack up and hit the road ...
This is a post about the Mountain Tui substack, and small tweaks - further to the poll and request post the other day. Please don’t read if you aren’t interested in my personal matters. Thank you all.After oohing-and-aahing about how to structure the Substack model since November, including obtaining ...
This transcript of a recent conversation between the Prime Minister and his chief economic adviser has not been verified.We’ve announced we are the ‘Yes Government’. Do you like it?Yes, Prime Minister.Dreamed up by the PR team. It’s about being committed to growth. Not that the PR team know anything about ...
The other day, Australian Senator Nick McKim issued a warning in the Australian Parliement about the US’s descent into fascim.And of course it’s true, but I lament - that was true as soon as Trump won.What we see is now simply the reification of the intention, planning, and forces behind ...
Among the many other problems associated with Musk/DOGE sending a fleet of teenage and twenty-something cultists to remove, copy and appropriate federal records like social security, medicaid and other supposedly protected data is the fact that the youngsters doing the data-removal, copying and security protocol and filter code over-writing have ...
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tuneBird fly high by the light of the moonOh, oh, oh, JokermanSong by Bob Dylan.Morena folks, I hope this fine morning of the 7th of February finds you well. We're still close to Paihia, just a short drive out of town. Below is the view ...
It’s been an eventful week as always, so here’s a few things that we have found interesting. We also hope everyone had a happy and relaxing Waitangi Day! This week in Greater Auckland We’re still running on summer time, but provided two chewy posts: On Tuesday, a guest ...
Queuing on Queen St: the Government is set to announce another apparently splashy growth policy on Sunday of offering residence visas to wealthy migrants. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, February 7:PM Christopher ...
The fact that Waitangi ended up being such a low-key affair may mark it out as one of the most significant Waitangi Days in recent years. A group of women draped in “Toitu Te Tiriti” banners who turned their backs on the politicians’ powhiri was about as rough as it ...
Hi,This week’s Flightless Bird episode was about “fake seizure guy” — a Melbourne man who fakes seizures in order to get members of the public to sit on him.The audio documentary (which I have included in this newsletter in case you don’t listen to Flightless Bird) built on reporting first ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk The 119th Congress comes with a price tag. The oil and gas industry gave about $24 million in campaign contributions to the members of the U.S. House and Senate expected to be sworn in January 3, 2025, according to a ...
Early morning, the shadows still long, but you can already feel the warmth building. Our motel was across the road from the historic homestead where Henry Williams' family lived. The evening before, we wandered around the gardens, reading the plaques and enjoying the close proximity to the history of the ...
Thanks folks for your feedback, votes and comments this week. I’ll be making the changes soon. Appreciate all your emails, comments and subscriptions too. I know your time is valuable - muchas gracias.A lot is happening both here and around the world - so I want to provide a snippets ...
Data released today by Statistics NZ shows that unemployment rose to 5.1%, with 33,000 more people out of work than last year said NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Economist Craig Renney. “The latest data shows that employment fell in Aotearoa at its fastest rate since the GFC. Unemployment rose in 8 ...
The December labour market statistics have been released, showing yet another increase in unemployment. There are now 156,000 unemployed - 34,000 more than when National took office. And having thrown all these people out of work, National is doubling down on cruelty. Because being vicious will somehow magically create the ...
Boarded up homes in Kilbirnie, where work on a planned development was halted. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 5 are;Housing Minister Chris Bishop yesterday announcedKāinga Ora would be stripped of ...
This week Kiwirail and Auckland Transport were celebrating the completion of the summer rail works that had the network shut or for over a month and the start of electric trains to Pukekohe. First up, here’s parts of the press release about the shutdown works. Passengers boarding trains in Auckland ...
Through its austerity measures, the coalition government has engineered a rise in unemployment in order to reduce inflation while – simultaneously – cracking down harder and harder on the people thrown out of work by its own policies. To that end, Social Development Minister Louise Upston this week added two ...
This year, we've seen a radical, white supremacist government ignoring its Tiriti obligations, refusing to consult with Māori, and even trying to legislatively abrogate te Tiriti o Waitangi. When it was criticised by the Waitangi Tribunal, the government sabotaged that body, replacing its legal and historical experts with corporate shills, ...
Poor old democracy, it really is in a sorry state. It would be easy to put all the blame on the vandals and tyrants presently trashing the White House, but this has been years in the making. It begins with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and the spirit of Gordon ...
The new school lunches came in this week, and they were absolutely scrumptious.I had some, and even though Connor said his tasted like “stodge” and gave him a sore tummy, I myself loved it!Look at the photos - I knew Mr Seymour wouldn’t lie when he told us last year:"It ...
The tighter sanctions are modelled on ones used in Britain, which did push people off ‘the dole’, but didn’t increase the number of workers, and which evidence has repeatedly shown don’t work. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, ...
Catching you up on the morning’s global news and a quick look at the parallels -GLOBALTariffs are backSharemarkets in the US, UK and Europe have “plunged” in response to Trump’s tariffs. And while Mexico has won a one month reprieve, Canada and China will see their respective 25% and 10% ...
This post by Nicolas Reid was originally published on Linked in. It is republished here with permission. Gondolas are often in the news, with manufacturers of ropeway systems proposing them as a modern option for mass transit systems in New Zealand. However, like every next big thing in transport, it’s hard ...
This is a re-post from The Climate BrinkBoth 2023 and 2024 were exceptionally warm years, at just below and above 1.5C relative to preindustrial in the WMO composite of surface temperature records, respectively. While we are still working to assess the full set of drivers of this warmth, it is clear that ...
Hi,I woke up feeling nervous this morning, realising that this weekend Flightless Bird is going to do it’s first ever live show. We’re heading to a sold out (!) show in Seattle to test the format out in front of an audience. If it works, we’ll do more. I want ...
The Whangarei District Council being forced to fluoridate their local water supply is facing a despotic Soviet-era disgrace. This is not a matter of being pro-fluoride or anti-fluoride. It is a matter of what New Zealanders see and value as democracy in our country. Individual democratically elected Councillors are not ...
Nicola Willis’ latest supermarket announcement is painfully weak with no new ideas, no real plan, and no relief for Kiwis struggling with rising grocery costs. ...
Half of Pacific children sometimes going without food is just one of many heartbreaking lowlights in the Salvation Army’s annual State of the Nation report. ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report is a bleak indictment on the failure of Government to take steps to end poverty, with those on benefits, including their children, hit hardest. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s move to increase speed limits substantially on dozens of stretches of rural and often undivided highways will result in more serious harm. ...
In her first announcement as Economic Growth Minister, Nicola Willis chose to loosen restrictions for digital nomads from other countries, rather than focus on everyday Kiwis. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
The Government is relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while visiting New Zealand, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism Minister Louise Upston say. “The change is part of the Government’s plan to unlock New Zealand’s potential by shifting the country onto ...
The opening of Kāinga Ora’s development of 134 homes in Epuni, Lower Hutt will provide much-needed social housing for Hutt families, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I’ve been a strong advocate for social housing on Kāinga Ora’s Epuni site ever since the old earthquake-prone housing was demolished in 2015. I ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay will travel to Australia today for meetings with Australian Trade Minister, Senator Don Farrell, and the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF). Mr McClay recently hosted Minister Farrell in Rotorua for the annual Closer Economic Relations (CER) Trade Ministers’ meeting, where ANZLF presented on ...
A new monthly podiatry clinic has been launched today in Wairoa and will bring a much-needed service closer to home for the Wairoa community, Health Minister Simeon Brown says.“Health New Zealand has been successful in securing a podiatrist until the end of June this year to meet the needs of ...
After two years of major damage from storms, a key government unit has made an abrupt change to focus on cyber security over and above natural disasters. ...
Pacific Media Watch Papua New Guinea’s civic space has been rated as “obstructed” by the Civicus Monitor and the country has been criticised for pushing forward with a controversial media law in spite of strong opposition. Among concerns previously documented by the civil rights watchdog are harassment and threats against ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Younger, Lecturer in Southern Ocean Vertebrate Ecology, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania Australia’s Antarctic territory represents the largest sliver of the ice continent. For decades, Australian scientists have headed to one of our three bases – Mawson, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scott Dwyer, Research Director, Energy Futures, University of Technology Sydney 24K-Productions Our cars sit unused most of the time. If you have an electric vehicle, you might leave it charging at home or work after driving it. But there’s another step ...
Everything you missed from day four of the Treaty principles bill hearings, when the Justice Committee heard two hours of submissions.Read our recaps of the previous hearings here.Parliament’s Room 3 was the same old, same old on Thursday morning for the fourth Treaty principles bill hearing – brown ...
By Melina Etches of the Cook Islands News A motion of no confidence has been filed against the Prime Minister and his Cabinet following the recent fiasco involving the now-abandoned Cook Islands passport proposal and the comprehensive strategic partnership the country will sign with China this week. Cook Islands United ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scott Dwyer, Research Director, Energy Futures, University of Technology Sydney 24K-Productions Our cars sit unused most of the time. If you have an electric vehicle, you might leave it charging at home or work after driving it. But there’s another step ...
The December results are reported against forecasts based on the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update 2024 (HYEFU 2024), published on 17 December 2024, and the results for the same period for the previous year. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ajay Narendra, Associate Professor of Insect Neuroethology, Macquarie University Pranav Joshi Jumping spiders – one of the largest spider families – get their name from the extraordinary jumps they make to hunt prey, to navigate and also to evade predators. Male ...
Both ministers have confirm they shared a phone call on Thursday morning, with the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement due to expire next month. ...
The final designs for the long-awaited Courtenay Place revamp have been released. Joel MacManus takes a closer look at the details. At an embargoed media briefing on Wednesday, Wellington mayor Tory Whanau and a team of council staff showed journalists a 3D-printed model of Courtenay Place. For about an hour, ...
The Economic Growth Minister is targeting increasing competition in the banking, grocery, and electricity sectors for the government to address this year. ...
Ecomatters Bike Hub has helped 30,000 Aucklanders start cycling. Shanti Mathias rides over to understand the impact of these community bike workshops.When An Na moved with her husband and two kids to Auckland in 2022, it took a while to start learning their way around. “We started taking our ...
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Nats Scott Simpson……the unaware Irony.! How many years….have critical thinkers…been trying to red flag this? Were his Nats EVER interested ? Mind boggling.
Birchfield and his like….somehow retain a following. Of similar dinosaurs. Reminds of a King Cnut.!
Or similar : ) ….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut#The_story_of_Cnut_and_the_waves
He won't be happy until Westport is washed into the Tasman sea and it's former site a low lying lagoon, at which point he'll write a column for the Daily Blog blaming "wokism".
Well…that was a lol. : ) And maybe some gold be washed to the top ? A cunning plan !
Power and roading infrastructure in the South Island takes a serious hit. Those sitting trapped in the dark can be sure, (though it may take a few days in some cases), that they will reconnected to the grid and the roads will be cleared.
As weather extremes get worse and closer together that certainty will disappear. As more and more of us get to sit in cold dark homes, for longer periods, cut off from our neighbours by floods and slips. and power outages.
There must come a realisation that there will be a time where the hits to power and roading infrastructure cannot be rebuilt.
When we reach that point, will BAU still continue?
Will we still allow our transportation system to be dominated by fossil fueled vehicles?
Will we still allow valuable crop lands to be ploughed under for intensive dairying conversions?
Will still be mining and importing coal?
Will Huntly coal fired power station still be operating?
When that time comes, will we try to mend our ways?
When that time comes, will it be far too late to make any difference what we do, will we find that the changes to the climate will be irreversible?
What then?
Re Sri Lanka
First thing done by the 'current ' admin a couple of years ago was
CUT TAXES
Sound familiar.
You know, if this was the Soviet Union you'd almost suspect the usually sycophantic media had got the memo that the Politburo thinks comrade Fosters inability to consistently hit his tractor production quotas is now a problem…
Clustopher Luxon…saying how he thinks…well…maybe.
Experts…..
Has any NZ politician ever been given such a big platform to say nothing at all so as to remain as politically beige as possible? First he says he won't criminalize abortions despite the fact he also considers them to be murder, and now the guy can't even take a position that masks are useful protection against airborne viruses.
Luxon and the previous three Nat leaders have called for looser restrictions at every stage. They have now made tighter restrictions politically impossible and there is only one possible direction of travel – stay the same or loosen further. They have what they wanted all along, and as the consequences of that become clear, only the most brazen of liars and opportunists among them will reverse course and call for a tightening.
Yep. Clustopher (tip o' the hat..Blazer ! ) Luxon could be quite a dangerous man. Doesnt "quite" say….where he really is on these and other vitals.
That, and the rest of these Nact types…has indeed focused me. On doing my best to make sure they never get power in NZ.
Hence. Colours. Nailed. : )
Also "not giving a shit" is different from "moving on". 300 people still dying from Covid daily in the UK (almost 50% worse than NZ's 17 average deathsper day on a per capita basis) in addition to the 182,000 who have already died. If Luxon thinks that's the model to follow then that says more about him than it does about the current government.
Now this is a global supply chain shortage issue which I can live with!
RTDs are one of the entry points into alcohol abuse (sweet mixers hiding the taste of alcohol) – having them off the shelves (because of a shortage of bourbon) seems to be a win for health.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/129239817/global-bourbon-shortage-creates-lack-of-supply-of-cheap-rtds
excellent.
The fertiliser shortages might finally push us towards getting off that shit as well and into regenag.
You mean like Sri Lanka?
yes, exactly. A wealthy industrialised country like NZ should totally take the opportunity of lowering art fert supplies and turn it into an umitigated disaster that collapses the economy.
What do you think will happen to NZ if we blithely try to keep BAU and art fert supplies don't recover? At the same time as we have crop failures globally and locally from increased frequency, climate induced, extreme weather events. Writing is on the wall for those that are paying attention. We have a window in which to transition well and by choice, before that choice is taken from us.
There is no evidence that fertiliser supplies won't recover when supply chains open up again and we do, in fact, produce our own at Kāpuni and Ravensdown among other places.
You do have this tendency to make sweeping statements about agriculture and power generation without demonstrating much understanding the technical or geographical practicalities.
Agree Belladonna. They are addictive with all the sugar and alcohol.![yes yes](https://cdn2.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/thumbs_up.png?x42494)
RIP Monty Norman
Monty Norman, composer of iconic James Bond theme, dies at 94 (msn.com)
And from that great philosopher himself:
"Governments change. The lies stay the same."
-James Bond, 'GoldenEye'.
This is pretty compelling stuff Nicky. Especially the part about lobby groups fighting change:
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/nicky-hager-being-investigative-journalists-in-times-of-trouble
Being investigative journalists in times of trouble
By Nicky Hager
I have admired and supported Hager's work for years, but like others on the Old Left have been disappointed to see him join (seemingly unquestioningly) the Team of Mainstream Media Personalities Standing Against (what we have reliably been informed is ) The Far Right.
…a US-inspired protest against covid policies that was used as movement building for the far right.
The protest was in February this year, when New Zealand anti-vaccine groups staged an action imitating the Canadian “freedom convoy” truck protest. Hundreds of people took over the Parliament sector of the city for four weeks, with effigies of people in nooses and being guillotined, and slogans about executing the Prime Minister. It had an ugly ending with protesters pelting the police with rocks and setting their tents on fire.
The most chilling part was the social media statistics. They revealed that more people were getting news about the parliament protest from right-wing and conspiracy social media than from all the mainstream news media combined.
(my bold)
It's concerning that Hager refers to the US as inspiring the Freedom Village protest, then also refers to the Canadian Trucker protest. Which is it? Or has Hager blindly accepted the line that the Canadian Truckers were also inspired and funded by 'US Far Right White Supremacist Misogynist whatevers…' ?
As yet I have seen no actual evidence, no paper trail (for which Hager is rightfully respected) to support these claims.
It was not "hundreds" of protestors in Wellington, it was thousands. But what is an order of magnitude or two between professional investigative journos?
I did not see the "effigies of people being guillotined" in the Wellington protest…I'd be grateful if someone could provide a photo or two to verify this…perhaps Hager is a tad confused and is remembering the 2012 Anti Asset Sales protest?
And no, Hager…the Wellington protest was overwhelmingly peaceful until the heavily armed and armoured police squad moved in with their super pepper spray and crowd control tech and provoked a riot. The rock throwing and the burning only began after the cops began their purge of what a sitting MP desribed as a "river of filth".
An honest investigative journalist would have also shown pictures of the unprovoked police brutality of the 10th of February, and how the riot cops on the 2nd March forced peaceful protestors from their tents and the common cops moved in behind to destroy and lay waste what had been carefully and lovingly built over the previous three plus weeks.
An honest investigative journalist would have shared with us his interviews with the Freedom Villagers, and how he realised that far from being generic "anti-vaxxers", many of them had willingly taken the Pfizer Product and been seriously negatively impacted.
An honest journalist would have noted that it was the total denial by the Ministry of Health, the Government and the "mainstream news" of these injuries that drove many to Wellington. And a professional investigative journalist would have commented that how it is totally bizarre the insistence that those who suffered heart injuries from the first or second shot (or anaphylaxis) had to have a second or third shot in order to keep their jobs.
Or perhaps, a good investigative journalist would have gone out there into the world and found out why so many of us have turned away years ago from the "mainstream news" providers (that he clearly believes should be our only source of truth) and prefer to find our own sources of information such as established scientific journals and Covid data sites.
Such a pity there are so few investigative journalists with the integrity to step outside the mainstream and actually speak kanohi ki te kanohi with those they seem happy to accuse.
"An honest journalist would have noted that it was the total denial by the Ministry of Health, the Government and the "mainstream news"…" Rosemary McDonald
Are you inferring Rosemary, that Nikki Hagar is not an honest journalist?
The supporters of Russia's war against Ukraine, also spread the same smear against our journalists, that they are all corrupt hacks toeing the Western MSM line.
…has Hager blindly accepted the line that the Canadian Truckers were also inspired and funded by 'US Far Right White Supremacist Misogynist whatevers… Rosemary McDonald
No, but my fear is that you have.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131857.2022.2061948
Europe reaches equality,
Euro/us$ parity,The Euro has now depreciated 14% TY and imported energy costs have increased by both demand inflation,and currency depreciation.
Lagarde and the ECB showing the risks with continued QE when inflation shock was not only a war levy.
https://twitter.com/RobinBrooksIIF/status/1546598034104098822?cxt=HHwWjIC9kfitz_YqAAAA
Health Minister responds to doctors' claim 'catastrophic collapse' coming.
Health Minister Andrew Little spoke to Morning Report.
Corin Dann doesn't understand what Little says and keeps insisting it's a 'crisis'. Little describes the situation using words similar too, or meaning virtually the same, but Dann won't be happy until the word crisis is used.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018849118/health-minister-responds-to-doctors-claim-catastrophic-collapse-coming
Corin Dann is just another right wing poodle imho
This is starting up again; though probably too late now for this year's local body elections, and likely next year's general election too:
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/voting-age-appeal-be-heard-supreme-court-today
However, that does rather ignore the Court of Appeal's statement from last year:
https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/04/13/fight-to-lower-voting-age-to-16-will-head-to-supreme-court/
The AG taking refuge in section 12 of the BORA also seems to contradict Section 21 (1) (i) of the Human Rights Act:
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0082/latest/DLM304475.html
The more relevant part of the BORA would seem to be Section (4), which is why Make It 16 are going for a declaration of inconsistency rather than a nullification. Though it seems more likely that it'll be kicked back down to the Court of Appeal given the wording of the Supreme Court's approved question. Everyone appears to recognize the inconsistency, but no one seems to want to do anything about it:
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0109/latest/whole.html
This is fantastic:
https://fortune.com/2022/07/11/elon-musk-twitter-meme-mocks-bots-court-delaware-showdown/
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FXW4J4xXgAAXFKs?format=jpg&name=small
He'll either buy it at a cheaper price (probably won't use any of his own money to do it) or it'll be revealed just how over priced twitter is and the shareholders will be asking questions of the veracity of the boards statements
Win-win all round
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TWTR/
The old "don't talk about the bots let them pad the numbers trick" goes boom
Something about chickens and roosts springs to mind
Let them work:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/129197272/plea-by-unvaccinated-nurses-to-return-to-work#comments
Why would you want medical staff who don't comprehend, or refuse to follow, medical science, to be responsible for your health?
Apart from the added risk to patients that have immune issues.
There are valid reasons why someone doesn't want/need/require all the shots and boosters and I'd rather have an unvaccinated or unboosted nurse looking after me than no nurse at all or nurses that are so burnt out that they might make mistakes
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/nursing-shortage-nurses-broken-while-sector-faces-thousands-of-vacancies/L7NUXOPG4AB472OKXOH5QJSUMU/
Time for Ardern to support the nurses
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2022/07/pm-jacinda-ardern-suggests-migrant-nurses-put-off-by-needing-to-stay-in-role-for-two-years-perhaps-don-t-want-to-be-a-nurse-in-nz.html
You may want to have a fool responsible for your medical treatment. I don't!
Adern is correct.
Why bring in Nurses to help with the shortages, that don’t work as nurses for a couple of years. No point.
If this keeps up then you won't have either!
'Why bring in Nurses to help with the shortages, that don’t work as nurses for a couple of years. No point.'
A couple of years is better than no years or at all because, unless you've failed to notice, we're in a crisis
Maybe the nurses could claim to be DJs instead then they'd have no problems getting in![laugh laugh](https://cdn2.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/teeth_smile.png?x42494)
"No years at all" is the point.
If they won't even commit to two years, what is the point of bringing them in.
So why only nurses then, why not do the same for GPs
(Apart from sexism of course)
Apparently because nurses not staying in nursing once they get residency is an issue, but GPs don't do that enough for it to be a problem. My guess is they looked at some data from a Ministry and made the decision based on advice based on what's happening the real world. It's stupid politics given everything else that is going on, but is it a bad policy?
I mean, if you were a nurse in the UK, burnt out, hating living there, and you got the opportunity to immigrate to NZ and quit nursing and go work in a less stressful job, what's not to love?
So lets throw some figures around (the numbers don't matter so much as the gist of it)
Lets say100 nurses come in and 10% of nurses don't hang around so 10 nurses leave early meaning 90 nurses stay
Is it better to make it less desirable for nurses to work here in the hopes that those who do stay longer or is it better to make it easier and more desirable for nurses to come here
For example 150 nurses arrive, 20% leave early (just a figure I plucked since Ardern wouldn't tell us) but that still leaves 120 nurses
If nurses are in hot demand globally and we can't match other countries wages then surely it makes sense to do whatever else we can to attract nurses here?
I'd guess that 10% is quite a large shortfall for the health planners.
I thought the issue wasn't that nurses leaving NZ, but getting residency and not staying in nursing.
I also think NZ is a reasonably attractive place to try and get residency. I'm in favour of bonding and think we should use it more.
You ripped that joke off Farrar. What's the deal with RWNJs stealing other people's material?!
I'm surprised you actually recognize a joke
shall we take bets on who gets banned next if you two start having another go?
I'm pretty hot on this for three reasons:
Puckish Rogue continues a long line of chancers abusing other's content for their own means.
I guess some people create, and some incarcerate!
you could have riffed that of PR's casual, throw away joke, but instead you made it personal. Remember how mods don't like having their time wasted, and how flaming tends to irritate them?
I wanted to point out that PR had used someone else's specific joke written on another forum without attribution. Despite your assertion, it was not PR’s joke at all.
Here’s the quote:
– David Farrar
and link:
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2022/07/pm_says_migrant_nurses_may_not_want_to_be_nurses.html
The second comment explained why I took that position.
How is that wasting moderator's time?
[what you appear to be missing is that I was giving both you and PR a headsup to not start in on each other. Now I will make my point in BOLD.
Had you made the point you did in your last comment (your view, quote, link) there would have been no problem. The comment explains really clearly what you are on about and thus everyone reading and wanting to take part knows. Your FB-esque original comment looked like taking a pot shot at PR and it wasn’t possible to know what you were on about.
The wasting mod time is that here you are yet again arguing about moderation, something you have a history of. You could have asked early on where the boundaries are, but instead you expect me as a mod to do the extra mahi and explain ad nauseum.
It’s actually really simple: use your words to explain the political point you are making, do this at the start. Avoid taking pot shots at commenters. Stop arguing with the mods – weka]
mod note.
Are DJs on the Green List and do they have to DJ for 2 years here before they can apply for Residency? And after that they can go into property development?
"you may want a fool responsible for your medical treatment, I don't"
I just want someone who is trained and competent to carry out whatever medical procedure I need. I know if I go into a hospital or medical practice right now, there is a big chance I will get covid from either other patients or medical staff (vacinated or unvacinated).
Do you not relize that the health system is on the brink of collapse? Everyday there are articles in Stuff about Drs and nurses on the brink. We are 4000 nurse down. If these nurses/drs were unvacinated and we had a war zone with sick people dying would you say I don't want these fools looking after these people?
'If these nurses/drs were unvacinated and we had a war zone with sick people dying would you say I don't want these fools looking after these people?'
This right here is what its all about
If this was a war zone, all field medics would have had mandatory vaccinations by command order, so really not the best analogy. You really don't want infection roaring unchecked through territory with no sanitation or infrastructure.
Not if they were hard up for medical personal
They would be drafted, and fully vaccinated when they were kitted out.
Ever heard of conscientious objectors?
Conchies that refused to join the medical corps, Merchant Navy or other options were put in jail. Where many were treated worse by the guards, than actual criminals.
10 March 2016, Families of NZ conscientious objectors sought to share and preserve stories, News, University of Otago, New Zealand
Refusing to shoot people for moral reasons, and taking the consequences, is a commendable moral choice. Refusing to take sensible precautions to protect the health of your patients……. Is something that most of the conchies wouldn’t have agreed with.
One would have to question the General that as casualties stack up, keeps 700 nurses in a POW camp at home, because there was a question mark over the last item of their medical.
Conscientious objectors don't get sent to front lines
Why would you go to a hospital if you don't believe what the doctors and scientists tell you?
Some doctors think boys can become girls.
Its not a accept everything or accept nothing situation.
It's impossible to take seriously anyone who insists on dragging any argument back to a single and not really equivalent issue.
Seriously?
Sure then because I think the risk of covid has been massively overblown and I support those that don't want to/have objections to/are unable to have the injections I should also not go to the hospital if I break an arm or something, because its equivalent
Labours on the wrong side of this, deal with it
The statistics from countries that didn't have as comprehensive a covid response as ours, prove that anyone who claims " risk of covid has been massively overblown" is divorced from reality.
Well you're on the wrong side of the science and evidence, so you deal with it
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
How many of those deaths were actually caused by covid?
So yeah overblown.
But it made incredible profits for Big Pharma, the MSM had everyone glued to the screens (if it bleeds it leads) and it got Labour an overwhelming victory in the election
Yeah right. All those people I know overseas whose family and friends died of covid, are just being "overblown".
Nope, not overblown, but severely underestimated.
https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid
I think the arguement is relevant. It is about people who deny science, i.e. that its not posible to change your sex and that the evidence for puberty blockers is experimental at best.
All these people talking about a shortage of medical staff, a "crises" as if it has suddenly happened.
The shortage of GP' s, Nurses and other staff has been apparent for years.
Our local medical centre hasn't been fully staffed for over a decade.
"The shortage of GP' s, Nurses and other staff has been apparent for years."
Yes, of course, but the scale has changed significantly.
For example, according to the NZNO in 2012 the ADHB was short about 120 nurses. "NZNO organiser Craig Muir says, “These shortages are shocking."" In March 2022, the ADHB was short by 428 nurses.
I acknowledge these are two different sources, but if the data comparison is valid, that's a big change over the 10 years.
Getting steadily worse over decades is hardly a sudden crisis.
In fact most of us were predicting it, for our proffesions for decades.
My own trades/Proffesions have an over thirty year training gap, since it was decided that bringing in already trained "skilled migrants" was cheaper than training our own kids.
I admit to a degree of shadenfraude, as those who cheer leaded the whole "reforms" and profited by the whole shemozzle, get bitten on the arse, as we predicted, so long ago.
"Getting steadily worse over decades is hardly a sudden crisis."
Yes, the point I was making was about the scale. The situation is far worse than 10 years ago.
"since it was decided that bringing in already trained "skilled migrants" was cheaper than training our own kids."
Training our own is preferable, but it takes time and we still may not have enough to allow for population growth. Bringing in trained migrants will likely always be part of the solution. Right now it needs to be a big part.
No. It doesn't, because it will just carry on the addiction. And the problem of adding more people when the infrastructure cannot possibly be expanded fast enough to keep up.
"because it will just carry on the addiction."
Unless we have willing trainees, and can train them in sufficient numbers, there is no option. Besides, having foreign trained nurses helps with cultural and professional diversity. It's a good thing.
And your point is KJT.?
Yes its been a problem for years. I posted recently an article by Dr Ian Powell who met with David Clark 5 and a half years ago and said there are three problems for the workforce……staff shortages, staff shortages and staff shortages.
2009. Though I could look up almost any other year.
On solutions to the shortage of doctors in Australia and New Zealand | The Medical Journal of Australia (mja.com.au)
I wish the media instead of harping on and on about the need for immigrant nurses would check out the requirements for Registration with the NZ Nursing Council. basically an applicant from a country where the education is in English, UK, Ireland, Singapore and USA and Canada where all conditions are met registration will be granted in 30 or so days. All other countries will have to prove scope and competencies and pass an IELTS exam, most don't. To grant immediate residency without registration would be foolhardy as all we would have is a number of Nurse Aides who like most immigrant Nurses be gone to Australia as soon as able.
Absolutely. I want to know that the nurses looking after me are properly trained and qualified to NZ standards.
FFS yes lets bring these nurses back! It's desperate.
C'mon get real, its only desperate for plebs like us, the ruling class don't have to worry about it
Be kind
Aroha
Why would you want every layer of the public service staffed by people who don't have the wits or the fortitude to refuse to follow stupid orders?
So much stupidity all around!
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-high-court-rules-vaccination-mandates-for-educators-healthcare-workers-justified-dismisses-challenge/Q4NCC26OS7VOPOP72AR7TSYRJU/
Let them work?
NO!
Let them work?
Done it.
Why not let them work Anne?
Is it that you fear they will be more likely to pass covid on? Or you think they shouldn't be practicing if they don't agree with all medical procedures?
They are more likely to pass covid on.
As well as being less likely to take other sensible precautions to protect their patients.
As psych nurse mentioned @ 13.2.1 no health care worker has died yet from attracting Covid-19 at work in NZ. To mandate a vaccinated workforce is helping a lot to keep it this way.
Anecdotally I've seen it spread through all different groups of people, vaccination status doesn't seem to be a deciding factor, but I'd be interested to know if we have evidence of only the unvaccinated being the superspreaders?? Highly vaccinated countries are getting high case numbers are they not?
Your second sentence is a slur on these health workers, as their job everyday requires sensible decision making.
"Anecdotally"???
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51235105
USA. 67% vaccinated. Death rate 308/100k.
NZ 94% vaccinated. Death rate 31/100k.
It is even more striking if you compare highly vaccinated US states, with the Republican idiotvilles.
"job everyday requires sensible decision making".
Which is why we don't need idiots, in medical care.
They did enough damage in parliament grounds.
You know perfectly well why nurses (and doctors) who are not vaccinated (and masked) can't work in their profession so don't pretend otherwise.
But surely masking up is all thats needed to protect us from the virus, especially if we're vaccinated, therefore the nurses just need to wear ppe and we're all good to go
Unless…
Masking up and regular testing. You know like what happened in MIQ before there was a vaccine
Please tell us what happened in MIQ before there was a vaccine and how that compares with working in a healthcare setting. Just for good measure you may want to include a comparison of transmissibility of the current variants vs. the earlier ones that are relevant to MIQ.
My point is Incognito that prior to vaccines nurses worked MIQ. There are many health care settings but in MIQ and and at the Jet Park where covid cases went, nurses interacted with people,taking swabs, temparatures monitoring symptoms etc, with great care. They were also tested regularly.
Having attended an ED in the last few weeks where we were not asked if we were vacinnated, nor were we particularly isolated, nor tested for covid, I am unsure that there is that much difference
You know perfectly well why nurses (and doctors) who are not vaccinated (and masked) can't work in their profession …
We do?
Vaccine effectiveness studies have conclusively demonstrated the benefit of COVID-19 vaccines in reducing individual symptomatic and severe disease, resulting in reduced hospitalisations and intensive care unit admissions. However, the impact of vaccination on transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 needs to be elucidated.
This study showed that the impact of vaccination on community transmission of circulating variants of SARS-CoV-2 appeared to be not significantly different from the impact among unvaccinated people.
The scientific rationale for mandatory vaccination in the USA relies on the premise that vaccination prevents transmission to others, resulting in a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”.
Yet, the demonstration of COVID-19 breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated health-care workers (HCW) in Israel, who in turn may transmit this infection to their patients, requires a reassessment of compulsory vaccination policies leading to the job dismissal of unvaccinated HCW in the USA. Indeed, there is growing evidence that peak viral titres in the upper airways of the lungs and culturable virus are similar in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.2,3
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00768-4/fulltext
According to WHO some 180,000 Health Care workers worldwide died of Covid, contacted in the course of their work. In the UK some 900, NZ zilch. You should be eternally grateful to the NZ government for their response to the pandemic, I am. You can reference these figures on Google when you next find evidence to back up your conspiracies.
Of or with?
of/from
…find evidence to back up your conspiracies.
What conspiracies? I provided a link to a letter in The Lancet which suggests that Covid vaccine mandates for healthworkers are unjustified because studies show that it makes no difference whether the worker is vaccinated or not with respect to transmission or viral load. The writer provides references.
You offer un- referenced figures and slurs.
The Franco-Peredes Lancet letter from which you quote is not scientific research: Rosemary McDonald. Rather it is a comment on a study by Singanayaman et al (2021): Community transmission and viral load kinetics of the SARS-CoV-2 delta (B.1.617.2) variant in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in the UK: a prospective, longitudinal, cohort study. Who are not at all impressed with him in their response, given their pointed line about misinterpretation, in the paragraph immediately preceding their brief discussion of Franco-Peredes' comment:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00761-1/fulltext
Original study (a bit dated now because; delta, rather than; omicron, SARS-CoV-2 variant):
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext
The Franco-Peredes Lancet letter from which you quote is not scientific research: Rosemary McDonald. Rather it is a comment …
Yes. I did state that it was a letter I was quoting from in my comment. In your rush to prove me a fool, did you not read what I wrote?
Can you provide scientific proof that the Pfizer Product prevents infection and transmission of the Omicron variants? Or at least reduces infection and transmission sufficiently to justify exclusion of much needed health and disability workers?
And I'd like to see those scientific papers that show that the mRNA injections are safe and there will be no long term adverse effects from continual boosting?
(Full disclosure here…I was the paid carer of my tetraplegic partner from April 2020 when this payment was allowed because of home care worker shortage and fear of infection with carers going into multiple homes. This payment of course was stopped when both my partner and I chose not to partake of the Pfizer product. Stopped because…paying for the work I do would somehow increase the risk of infection? Who knows.? The properly triple jabbed carer sent out to merely sit with my man so I could do the shopping came to our home a day before testing positive and after a weekend partying out of town. She was symptomatic. Despite having already had Omicron in March…I too also developed a sore throat etc for a few days. I'm not sure what country you are living in, but around these parts its generally accepted that vaccination status means nothing in terms of getting infected, and those already vulnerable are still sadly falling off their perches despite being multiply jabbed. )
USA. 67% vaccinated. Death rate 308/100k.
NZ 94% vaccinated. Death rate 31/100k.
It is even more striking if you compare highly vaccinated US states, with the Republican idiotvilles.
Sigh. Have you not been following what has been happening in the US regarding healthcare? As much as healthcare might exist for the millions who cannot afford it in that obscene jealously protected private profit driven system. Compare apple with apples.
Japan has been doing quite well.
But what truly sets it apart from many places, particularly Asian neighbors like China, is it’s managed to limit deaths without mandates and with few restrictions. The constitution prevents imposing lockdowns backed by police actions, meaning that even during a state of emergency the government puts the onus on businesses and individuals to change their behavior.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-17/how-japan-achieved-one-of-the-world-s-lowest-covid-death-rates
Considering our much lower population density (a factor with an airborne disease) Japan has done much better than NZ…without the stick waving and vicious mandates.
And treating the population like helpless, mewling infants.
Japans population doesn't need "stick waving" because they follow sensible precautions without it.
Coronavirus manners in Japan (japan-guide.com)
Japanese do not have to be told not to make other people sick.
Unlike a proportion of our population. Who need to be treated like "mewling" moaning infants. Because they are!
That is deeply flawed comparison that pretends vaccination rate is the only variable that is different between the the US and NZ. In fact despite their relatively low total vaccination rate the US death data is not very different from many other similar developed nations.
The story is far more complex than you are pretending. For example India has a very similar vaccination rate to the US at 66%, but a far lower total death rate according to the OurWorldinData link above.
That is only one piece of evidence, of many.
It is the anti vaccers and their apologists, like you who ignore complexity. Who cannot comprehend that sciencentific evidence is a jigsaw of many pieces. Not just one, or a few datapoints! or "aneqdotes".
And, of course you prefer you ignore the differences in neighbouring US States, where "other variables" have less effect than between NZ and the USA.
We all know why India has less deaths. If you do not have an excellent immune system in India, you won't survive to adulthood.
I point out that your simplistic comparison is flawed and show one example of how reality is much more complex – and you accuse me of ignoring complexity.
I don't know how you expect a constructive conversation on that basis.
psych nurse that is a shocking statistic. Really shocking
Hi, Rosemary
Thank you for the link. I think you are seeing things that don't actually exist in this letter to the Lancet.
Yes, there was no difference in viral load or nasopharangeal levels of Covid19, between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. I think you then imply that it's ok for doctors to be unvaccinated when seeing patients.
This is overly simplistic in that viral load doesn’t necessarily equate with transmissibility.
This is one letter in a medical journal versus a large body of evidence backing vaccination for medical professionals to protect their patients.
Sorry out running right now can't easily do a decent search for you in the rain, but lots of clear evidence out there.
Sorry out running right now can't easily do a decent search for you in the rain, but lots of clear evidence out there.
And there's a lot of real world evidence that despite complying with mandates multiply 'vaccinated' medical staff are being infected with Covid and becoming symptomatic. And needing time off work.
Somewhere there will be data showing the % of folks who became infected, were symptomatic, needed hospitalisation and sadly died of/from/with Covid before the Magic Jabs were deployed.
From memory, 80% of those infected in 2020 had no symptoms…. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/08/more-than-80percent-of-people-with-coronavirus-had-no-symptoms-uk-study.html
It would be very interesting to compare those data with the data collected recently.
A pity RNZ has now removed the comparisons between unvaccinated, fully vaccinated and boosted with respect to new cases, hospitalisations and deaths…because before they were removed…the graphics were showing sweet f/a difference.
But Anne, I understand the only Dr in Muripara who refused the vacinne has been allowed bcak to work. Maybe the powers that be thought it was better to have a Dr rather than no Dr at all.
You seem to understand very little because you didn’t do any research, did you?
Why don’t you Google it and let us know what you find? BTW, it is Murupara.
Ouch! Are you ok Incognito? Did I touch a nerve?
While I didn't provide a link for my brief comment about the Dr at Murupara, it is more or less as Rosemary said. Another reason to bring back unvaxed nurses is indeed if they have had covid in the last three months (likely if they are unvaxxed) as they will have natural immunity.
We are due to get a booster soon, which we will do, although I haven't taken the time to read how effective it is in providing immunity. I imagine it must provide some.
Maybe the powers that be thought it was better to have a Dr rather than no Dr at all.
At the time he was suspended, he had been restricted to carrying out consultations via Telehealth due to not being immunised against Covid-19.
Because of his recent recovery from Covid-19, he has received a three-month exemption from the Covid-19 order and is able to practise
https://www.nzdoctor.co.nz/article/news/murupara-doctor-back-practice