Posts Tagged ‘covid-19’

The International investigation into Covid-19

Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, May 20th, 2020 - 81 comments

More than 110 nations have backed a call for the World Health Organisation to investigate the origins of the Covid-19 virus outbreak.

Should Parents and Teachers Defy the Government?

Written By: - Date published: 4:02 pm, May 16th, 2020 - 66 comments

School’s back on Monday, but the medical community is still struggling to understand covid 19

Budget 2020: biggest and best from PM Ardern

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, May 14th, 2020 - 88 comments

Text of a pre budget speech given yesterday by Jacinda Ardern.

Jacinda is not like Muldoon

Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, May 13th, 2020 - 97 comments

National has decided to play politics with Covid 19 and is opposing the Government’s attempt to pass legislation to secure level 2 arrangements. And has made the extraordinary claim that Jacinda Ardern is just like Rob Muldoon but with slogans.

Covid19 and the Stock Markets

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, May 12th, 2020 - 33 comments

In this time of uncertainty when mass unemployment beckons you would expect that stock exchanges would be plummeting. But think again. Because they seem to be doing fine.

UK: Too soon to end the lockdown

Written By: - Date published: 12:18 pm, May 9th, 2020 - 17 comments

First Secretary of State Dominic Raab has said that lockdown changes being announced this coming Sunday will be ‘modest’ and ‘small’. This is hardly surprising when earlier in the week the national statistician Professor Ian Diamond said that COVID-19 infection rates could be increasing. In particular, the number of cases being reported in care-homes appears to be increasing. Adding to the pressure both the Scottish and Welsh ruled out any significant relaxation of the lockdown rules.

Parker gives Bridges a lesson in constitutional law

Written By: - Date published: 10:01 am, May 9th, 2020 - 175 comments

In a Facebook Live event David Parker has schooled Simon Bridges on basic principles of constitutional law. And it appears that Bridges demand that legally privileged advice be handed over is heading to the Privileges Committee.

Bridges pulls a stunt

Written By: - Date published: 7:46 am, May 7th, 2020 - 93 comments

Simon Bridges threw two stunts yesterday, firstly threatening to try and summons senior Public Servants to publicise confidential legal advice and then by attacking Dr Ashley Blomfield for not answering emails quickly enough despite the existence of a pandemic which the country appears to be handling pretty well.

Top ten things we have learned already

Written By: - Date published: 7:49 am, May 6th, 2020 - 53 comments

The top ten things that the Covid pandemic has taught us as a country.

Roger Douglas attacks economic privilege and inequality

Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, May 5th, 2020 - 261 comments

Roger Douglas has reverted to his socialist roots by going back on his pro market mantra and criticising the economic privilege and inequality that he helped create.

Covid-19 and climate change

Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, May 3rd, 2020 - 55 comments

The International Energy Agency is forecasting that disruptions caused by Covid-19 will reduce CO2 output this year by 8%. To avoid the worst excesses of climate change the world has a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 7.6% for the next decade. How are we going to keep repeating the reductions that we achieved this year for the next decade?

The class politics of the Covid-19 pandemic response

Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, April 28th, 2020 - 59 comments

National economics spokesperson Paul Goldsmith has advanced a plan to address the Covid 19 pandemic which includes union bashing and privatisation.

How Covid-19 is smashing councils

Written By: - Date published: 9:23 am, April 26th, 2020 - 69 comments

Just as most industries in New Zealand are firing thousands of people to cut costs, local government is getting ready to do the same.

Guest post – Bridges is done, who can save National?

Written By: - Date published: 7:58 am, April 24th, 2020 - 115 comments

Guest post from former Labour Staffer Clint Smith on the similarities between National’s current predicament and what happened to Labour in 2011 and 2014.

Will National roll Bridges before or after the election?

Written By: - Date published: 7:57 am, April 23rd, 2020 - 241 comments

It appears that the National Party is engaged in a bitter discussion of when Simon Bridges should be rolled, not if. Will it be before or after the election?

Pandemics and our privacy

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

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

Eat the rich

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

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

When Bridges’ social media goes wrong

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

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

Guest post – is it safe to lower the lockdown level?

Written By: - Date published: 10:41 am, April 20th, 2020 - 58 comments

Guest post by Karl Sinclair on what needs to be addressed before the country can be safely lifted out of lockdown.

Covid-19 decision day

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

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

The plan for Monday

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

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

Lockdown 4 – do we stay or do we go?

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

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

What Is This Moment Teaching Us?

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

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

New Zealand’s poor in this new crisis

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

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

Has the EU failed during COVID-19?

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

Originally posted on Nick Kelly’s blog 

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

Pandemics are no a time for inward-looking nationalism

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

Originally posted on Nick Kelly’s Blog

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

Beyond mere rescue

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

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

What not to do in a pandemic

Written By: - Date published: 8:51 am, April 5th, 2020 - 100 comments

The Trump regime has this week plunged new depths in the handling of the Covid-19 Pandemic in the United States

David Clark

Written By: - Date published: 12:16 pm, April 4th, 2020 - 152 comments

He should have been immediately fired.

The kind of imagination we’re going to need

Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, April 2nd, 2020 - 29 comments

More was achieved by and for Americas throughout the Franklin D. Roosevelt era than ever before or since in American history. This may provide us with a model for how we get things back on track.

No Right Turn: A new Ministry of Works

Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, April 2nd, 2020 - 22 comments

Idiot/Savant writes: “While the economy is on pause under lockdown, the government is beginning to plan how to cope with the post-lockdown, post-tourism, post-export education world we will eventually find ourselves in”

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