Jacinda finally gets it and steps up to protect NZ from pandemic

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
63
1793

For the first time since the danger of this pandemic started to become glaringly apparent, I am feeling hopeful that this Government have urgently reset the safety parameters of this virus and are finally appreciating the enormity of what we are facing.

This is Jacinda at her most definitive…

Coronavirus: Everyone coming to New Zealand must isolate for 14 days, Prime Minister Ardern says

From midnight Sunday, every person arriving in New Zealand will have to isolate themselves for 14 days, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced.

The prime minister gave an update on New Zealand’s response to the Covid-19 outbreak on Saturday afternoon. She said it is not realistic for New Zealand to only have a handful of coronavirus cases.

However, “New Zealand has today relative to other countries a small number of cases,” Ardern said. 

The new measures mean New Zealand will have the strongest restrictions in the Pacific Islands.

…politically the activist base of Labour & the Greens have attempted to belittle and downplay the pandemic because they felt criticism was really xenophobia and racism and micro aggression equates to macro violence.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

Those activists are who social distancing is really for.

Now Labour have shrugged off that cultural funk and started going beyond best international practice rules that don’t seem to be particularly useful with this unique virus and we buy ourselves more time to prepare for the pandemic getting here.

To date the Government have been cautious but too slow to overreact in case their actions sparks a crash, with the Dow in meltdown, Italy infected and American incompetence feeding the spread of their pandemic, the reality of what we face has spurned action.

This is just the first wave of outbreaks and we will be in a  constant state of these until a vaccine is available (which will be a year away) so the planning necessary to prop up the country for the next 18months needs to be rapidly upscaled immediately.

Jacinda has bough herself a couple of weeks, we need to urgently be planning on what happens next now.

 

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63 COMMENTS

  1. Quite frankly a bit late. A lot of Chinese Nationals came to NZ by just bypassing the travel restrictions by flying to another country then using that to fly into NZ, often via OZ. So we are likely to have a lot more cases soon.

    This is made even worse by not bothering to test anyone properly!

    Coronavirus: Auckland mum’s request to be tested for virus rejected
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120277695/coronavirus-auckland-mums-request-to-be-tested-for-virus-rejected

    Coronavirus: Tracey Martin will not be tested, despite meeting with infected politician
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120281722/coronavirus-tracey-martin-will-not-be-tested-despite-meeting-with-infected-politician?rm=a

    Usual, lets save some money from government!

    If Tom Hanks has coronavirus in OZ, then obviously anybody can get it!

    • “A lot of Chinese Nationals came to NZ by just bypassing the travel restrictions by flying to another country then using that to fly into NZ, often via OZ”.

      Were they allowed into Oz?

  2. There is no reason, given our isolation, why these border controls will not be effective. It is not inevitable that we have widespread community based infection as opposed to the family based infections that we have now.
    During the Black Death some villages in Britain were able to establish and maintain borders at which people did not cross but goods and produce did. These villages escaped the huge death tolls others faced.
    The question is how big will the economic cost be and how will the government act to provide for people’s financial well being.
    The other question is since it is an election year how will National respond. I suspect that there is nothing they won’t stoop to in order to smear and deride our governments efforts over the coming months

    • Any “Economic” costs are very short term and not a product of actions to protect the population but a consequence of the disease and travel. Lets not get confused by the economic short term argument bandied about.

    • OZ has 281 coronavirus cases, many people came out from China via other countries to bypass the travel ‘ban’ from China and went through OZ, which is probably why OZ are getting a lot of cases. (Apparently cleaning the planes is not the best practise either https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/health-safety/safework-nsw-says-qantas-cleaning-standard-is-a-virus-risk/news-story/2e8fe1a9c3febec83ea4946b29733fda)

      NZ then left their travel open from OZ to here for Chinese nationals when it first broke and let them come in for a long time with just pamphlets, so they only reason we don’t have the same number of cases confirmed in NZ, is that NZ seems to be refusing to test people so it’s possible we could have just as many but don’t know it.

      That ultimately might prove to be a bigger disaster, aka underestimating how easily the the border control from China was breached, slow action on everything, and now not testing people who might be carriers who never went overseas but became in contact with people who did.

      Funny enough, all we heard from MSM when it first broke, was how racist it all was!

      No morons! disease control is not racist, it could have come from anywhere and just because it came from China with all their economic might, did not make early precautions not necessary.

      Now people will die because of woke thinking and not wanting to upset Chinese economic money, (think how many international politicians seem to have it) all around the world.

  3. She’s had a few brickbats for the relative inaction, but now a bouquet is well deserved.
    Well done Jacinda. You’ve bought us valuable time. And you’ve stood up & put people first. I cannot imagine our psychopathic ex-PM being even capable of thinking this way without the overwhelming pressure of multiple focus groups and the promise of some flowing locks to fondle.

    Some random thoughts on planning and organisation. Identify halls in population centres of greater than say 10,000 that can be requisitioned for providing medical treatment to those people requiring it. Mobilise oxygen, saline etc etc and distribute where possible. Involve the armed forces. Think about quarantine measures and food distribution services for those in isolation. Announce some form of emergency UBI for folk.
    This will require an unfathomly complex and multi-level response. Any thoughts TDB readers/contributers?

    BTW: the petty sniping and political gainsaying emanating from the Nat Opposition has disgusted me. Their supporters have been starkly shown how utterly unfit for any public service role most of those vile people are.
    Perhaps they can all have their petty tax cuts and go permanently self isolate. Lets see how they fare then.

    • Good one Jase.
      The bankster johnky could not have given the stately speech Jacinda so clearly delivered on the changes to address the risk imposed by the virus.
      Voluntary isolation needs some register and enforcement as well as stickering premises where isolation is occurring.

      • Agree John W – there should be a standard notice/sticker on the front and back doors of any premises where residents are in self-isolation – signed by a Public Health or Police Officer. This will signal at a distance that others are not to enter and will remind the residents inside. Not TOO Draconian?

    • Just heard a Doctor on the Radio – Breather thru your nose, much better than mask and mouth breathing.

      • When in the supermarket, I’m keeping my mouth closed as a precaution. Less obvious than wearing a mask, but nearly as effective

  4. The New Zealand government is actually taking a laissez faire approach to the crisis in contrast to those other states which are taking effective measures to contain and put an end to the Covid-19 epidemic.
    Ironically, New Zealand has only imposed a travel ban on two states which are already dealing effectively with the virus.
    It is claimed that travellers from other states are will be “self-isolating” on arrival in New Zealand. Yet there is no place for them to self-isolate and no way for them to move safely to a place of isolation if one existed. Consequently they will enter the New Zealand community and some of them will transmit Covid-19 to New Zealand residents.
    So the government has no serious intention to stop Covid-19 at the border. Their assumption is that New Zealand will experience a Covid-19 epidemic and the intention is merely to slow or flatten its rate of progress through the population.
    Consistently with the laissez faire economic policy it initiated in the nineteen eighties, the government assumes that there will be a period of suffering for some from which will emerge a stronger healthier society with fewer chronically ill and elderly infirm people.
    That may be the case but to the individual New Zealander the statistical projections are irrelevant. If the nation as a whole is not isolated and protected, then individuals and families will need to protect themselves, as they did in response to economic deregulation.
    What slips through the border will have to be stopped at the front gate, remembering that the fatality rate with Covid-19 seems to range between 5% and 12%.
    We are working now to protect our people from an impending epidemic which will only be averted through a miracle, but after it has passed we will have to ask the question “How much longer can we tolerate the existence of a colonial regime which has through its own stupid or immoral acts and omissions so often brought such calamity upon our people?”
    The Covid-19 epidemic is a direct consequence of global capitalism, imperialism and colonialism. Despite our best efforts to contain the outbreak it will do immense damage. Yet it is the capitalists who still have the ear of the colonial government, urging it to limit itself to ineffective measures in the supposed interests of tourism and educational institutes – the very sectors which have done most to propagate the virus worldwide.

    • Agreed Geoff.
      China has set a milestone in handling the local population and virus. The would have been more effective if they had moved sooner.
      We can but learn from that.
      Stalling for time and hoping for an early vaccine is a strategy that is but a hope. It may happen if drug companies see a bonanza.
      Are we leaving this to market forces and private decisions made for maximising profit or should be insist on a multi govt facility to expedite preparation for vaccines of many shades.

    • You raise a very valid point re the inability of the government to actually enforce this ‘self isolation’. It will be near impossible to ensure that this is happening in every case. The casual attitude of many Kiwis will add to the problem.

      What is certain though, that is, that tourists will be turned off from coming here, as they will not spend their holiday or retirement trip for two weeks in an isolated hotel or motel room.

      As NZ Inc has created an over dependence on tourism, a low wage and high risk industry, it deserves the punishment it now gets. We should never have gone down that track, also does the world now know about this place, hence the rich and not so rich try to come here, buy or build their homes and bunkers, while places they already rubbished and escaped from go to the dogs.

      Less proninence and publicity can serve as great protection from the ills of the rest of humanity and the world.

  5. yes we agree Martyn, now she needs to be as defensive about climate change aslo equally here since climate change was her signature event she identified as “her generations nuclear moment”.

    She must begin to dial back the highly aggessive truck industry of transport of truck freight and use much more rail freight, to balance the ‘freight demand’ because trucks are “poisoning our air and land environment with tyre dust and exhust emissions” five to eight times greater than the same amount carried by road compared to rail.

    http://www.freightonrail.org.uk/FactsFigures-environmental.htm

    Quote;
    Freight is a big CO2 emitter

    There is a significant opportunity to reduce transport emissions by shifting freight from road vehicles to rail.

    As rail freight produces 76% less CO2 emissions than the equivalent HGV journey, increasing rail freight is an important part of the DfT’s policy to reduce freight’s emissions and help the UK meet its legally binding Climate Change targets. Source DfT Rail Freight Strategy September 2016
    The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) stated in July 2017 that the Department for Transport (DfT) Freight Carbon Review identified ‘little concrete action’ and that the Government should reduce emissions from freight by shifting freight from road to rail.
    end.

    • Rail is a no brainer and organising food production to be distributed by rail is future proofing.
      Not too long ago most distance transport was organised via rail.
      Stuff the oil and road transport pimps who lobby govts and councils.

    • Have you and John thought through the distribution of goods from the rail heads. You are just taking trucks off the open road and concentrating them in built up areas. Sure some may be electric, but start to imagine the log jam of trucks every time a freight train pulls in. Or am I missing something.

      • Road transport currently sees bulk delivery to distribution centres. From there couriers and trucks deliver to consumers or retail outlets.
        That system of local delivery from distribution points exists and mimicks what happened from rail heads.
        Sure local deliveries can be made more efficient if some intelligent oversight of that planning is adopted by govt rather than leaving it to private for profit marketeers.

        Rail head distributions centres worked efficiently as present distribution but that can be improved by deliberate design to minimise GHG emissions, conservation of energy and natural resources

  6. Pacific was cancelled at the last minute causing a huge lose to those stall holders that had organised food and goods. Why was this not done a week ago when first mooted by you and others.It smacks at a government uncertainty which is the last think we need at this time.

    • In the growing situation stall holders surely ran a risk they were prepared to take.
      What is the priority here.

      • I am not saying it should not have been cancelled it should have happened earlier to prevent unnecessary lose. Your comment would make me think you have never run a business venture and lost a large amount of money when the plug was pulled after being assured the event was going to happen. I have and it stinks. Those that make these calls still get their pay check no matter what.

  7. we need to urgently be planning on what happens next now.

    Hopefully we can get everyone housed before winter. Whatever it takes to achieve that. This year more than ever before, warm and safe housing will save lives. Exponentially.

  9. Arderns Viagra solution is the CoronaVirus19’s kryptonite and is ultimately why we must go hard and …

  10. Usual trollop from uninformed commentators throughout the sick mainstream media. The Herald has been more than its usual dumb reactionary scare mongering drag out the closet numbskulls self (that ridiculous excuse for a journalist du plessis-allan, failed ex nat finance minister and dildo king Steven Joyce to name a couple today). Seems the PM is damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t.

  12. Have we heard from National’s spinners about ttheir “fix-all solutions ???????
    Yah this is to hard for them to figure out so they will skirt around this and just call “the government is weak”

  14. Extremely sad how it is turning out in Italy, the second worst hit country.

    It seems worst than China who at least seem to be trying to save people by putting people in hospitals, although who knows with the lack of journalistic freedom in China, if they too are just abandoning people to their fate like Italy.

    Sad that they are only going to try and save those who they can because they do not have enough resources to help their nationals.

    Italy may abandon over-80s and sick to their fate as crisis grows
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120292050/italy-may-abandon-over80s–and-sick-to-their-fate-as-crisis-grows

  15. Save NZ and Geoff Fischer are spot on. Superficially Jacinda’s measures look as if we’ll stop the spread of this contagious disease. But they don’t stand up against countries like Taiwan and Singapore.The Asian countries who put stringent measures in place did it right because they’d experienced Sars. Unlike A/NZ their border controls happened immediately, and they tested/are testing everyone at the border for COVID-19. As Save NZ said we’re late and neither are we doing the testing sufficiently.
    Michael Baker (Professor of Public Health at Otago) has been pushing for testing and containment since the first alarms rang. Be good to have a government that took notice of our experts. Instead the government has taken a relaxed approach. Self-isolation hasn’t worked. Asian students returning to their Auckland schools early February were reported by complaining principals as being out and about during their “isolation” fortnight. Fortunately there were no health problems with the breaches.
    Yet Ardern and Clark remain complacent that self-isolation is our best bet. It’s part of the new measures with a few checks. How effective will those be with the hundreds about to be detained? Despite breaches, Ardern is confident people will be responsible. But just as we have reckless drivers who don’t consider the effect of their driving on others, we have people with symptoms who aren’t bothered they may infect others. Two glaring examples; the woman from Italy who arrived at Auckland airport unwell. Italy wasn’t on the danger list then, and she wasn’t checked or stopped taking a return flight to Palmerston North. She is now in hospital with the virus, and authorities are trying to track down those she was in contact with. Another infected person left Australia without getting his test results. He’s now in Wellington hospital.
    Prof. Baker suggested separate measures for the aged sick. What about that Jacinda? Your new policy is unrealistic. It seems as if you’re playing politics with our lives.

    • Update on the 2 idiots who wandered around sick. Both are now in self-isolation, no longer hospital. The newest patient, a Danish woman went from Auckland to Queenstown, didn’t let illness stop her living in a camp with shared facilities and dining out. The most irresponsible share another sicko habit. They don’t ring ahead to a doctor or clinic, just go in and share the virus with groups of other patients.
      They’re not all aliens, some are kiwis like the woman who flew to PN. She’s had lots of angry messages from the public. Unpleasant but I think she earned them.

  16. Much fanfare about the supposedly ‘toughest travel rules’ in the world, yeah right. I thought North Korea qualified well for that kind of rules system.

    While it may be an overdue step in the right direction, it is somewhat meaningless, unless the government actually has the means to enforce what it announced. Are they really going to apply the instruments and steps available under the law and force people into secluded residential treatment or quarantine? Are they really going to do what Jacinda Arderns said on Q+A?

    I doubt it, as that would require police and other resources that are often over stretched with their ordinary duties.

    I welcome the ban of cruise ships, I wish it would go well beyond the 30 June date, as those high pollution vessels are not a good show for a supposedly ‘clean green NZ’.

    Also welcome is the requirement for incoming passengers on airplanes to isolate themselves for 14 days, no matter whether they have symptoms or not. But how practical is this really?

    What is certain, that is that it will push the tourism sector into a major crisis, also the travel industry, in general that is.

    The various business lobbyists are now working in overdrive to push the government to spend billions on rescuing their usual activities, which have a large carbon footprint. Having the millions of tourists fly in every year comes with massive greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes, and then they tend to travel around in rental camper vans and cars, also polluting the air and thus the atmosphere of the planet.

    Other industries are not much better, as New Zealand is years behind of what it should have been doing.

    So my greatest concern is what the government will spend the money on, that will be announced on Tuesday, as ‘targeted’ assistance and subsidies.

    Are they going to rescue the CO2 intensive industries like tourism, so they can carry on as per usual? I would hope not. Instead they should use the opportunity and force business, to change their way of operating and to become at least carbon neutral by say 2030 or 2040 the latest, so to honour the reputation of this God forsaken place, that has been so overrated as a ‘clean green’ place.

    This could be the opportunity to bring about real change, and put investment in alternative, regenerative power generation, to create the energy that could power electric cars and other alternative forms of transport and even manufacturing and service plants.

    My fear is, and it is already happening, that the government spends more billions to maintain the status quo, i.e. more roads and highways, for fossil fuel powered cars, and to support a very polluting tourism industry and other industries, not making any demands on industries to sign up for overdue change.

    Subsidising tour operators and so to keep staff maintaining and cleaning camper vans and rental cars that will not be on the road for weeks that cannot be productive, same could it not be productive and constructive to simply subsidise other jobs, that are anything but clean and green.

    I fear that BILLIONS will be sunk into the status quo and dinosaur technology and services. Money that is well needed in truly future proof and innovative industries and infrastructure.

    • The opportunity is there and longer term priorities should be aimed at.
      Tourism should be a dead duck but local employment for citizen workers be prioritised with activities appropriate to long term goals.
      During the depression NZ established the largest man planted forest in the world.
      Planting hill country with exotic and natives as well as propagating facilities for plants would make sense.
      Intensive dairy where river and ground water pollution is affected should be assessed and reduction of herds regulated and can in many cases be offset by planting.
      But we don’t need imported labour as local labour will be freed up with the down turn.

      • They don’t need the billions of dollars for roads for a start as they are clear and mostly built by foreign labour so does not help the NZ economy or business.

        Instead they can use the money to build public transport using local people and businesses, sort out the environment degradation with all the unemployed labour that wants to work and use high tech workers in IT and manufacturing to start to sort out all our growing problems in government IT and our export raw materials, import same materials back but at triple the price! Hopefully wood and food becomes cheaper for housing and living!

        This is a chance to reset NZ to a more normal position away from the low wage imported worker mentality to actually create local wealth again outside of sunset polluting industries that have become the mantra of NZ!

  17. It’s a good move that Pasifika Festival and several sporting fixtures like Super Rugby are cancelled. I imagine Samoans support their festival being banned. They know a lot about contagious diseases with their recent experiences with the measles outbreak when so many children died. A terrible time. Some families lost two and three little ones. A/NZ is recognised as responsible for not protecting them from measles.
    Given that tragedy, I think the government excluding them from the new measures is wrong. I am interested in the Samoan government’s reaction and also the reaction from ordinary Samoans that Samoan travellers to A/NZ will not be tested.

    • Most probably too late, the attendees have arrived in NZ, been exposed here as it is surely in the community and just masked by non testing, the only save will be testing and health checking them before they go home. Hopefully the post of the incoming traveller on vic deals today exposing border incompetency will mean this gets sorted pronto.

  18. You have to wonder whether self-isolation as opposed to border shut-down (except for returning citizens and supply of good) goes far enough. A person who has to self-isolate presumably wanders through the airport, may catch public transport, then hopefully they self-isolate. Even then, they are going to come into contact with people they share accommodation with. Such a crazy situation. Taiwan monitor phones to ensure compliance with self-isolation.

    There also needs to be a big increase in efforts to test people. The requirement that people with symptoms had been in contact with someone who had it/or a known hotspot could mean that there are cases we don’t know about yet.

  20. Edit: There also needs to be a big increase in efforts to test people. The requirement that people with symptoms had been in contact with someone who had it/or a known hotspot could mean that there are cases we don’t know about yet.

  21. What a load of bollocks many of you have written your just scaremongering and blaming and at a time like this we don’t need this rubbish. There will always be selfish pricks no matter what. If we look at our cases they came from overseas and my understanding is anyone coming through Oz to NZ are already being checked and so are some coming from some other responsible countries. It is the countries that are allowing too much freedom of movement putting pressure on countries acting responsible. The people coming from the countries deemed higher risk is the problem and will be for some time. And its some of the countries like America that are letting us down as they are too busy denying it and finger pointing. We can’t stop people from travelling but we have to ensure everyone is aware and knows what they need to do whether they self isolate or don’t bloody travel or delay travel till they know it is and they are safe to do so. Also I see businesses have their hands out. I hope any monies given to businesses undergoes the same targeting and entitlement checks we have if we want any assistance from our government. The one big lesson is we all need to plan for epidemics, disasters, wars etc and we need to ensure we don’t rely too much on one source of income/business cause when it is taken away we are stuffed.

    • How have you achieved your business knowledge.Easy to point the finger from the side line. If business fails then workers become unemployed and suppliers are hit so in turn they fold.So as was the case in Chch after the earthquake they need support so when times get better they are not starting from scratch . Business owners are not the enemy

      • No one alive has seen the markets jump from all time highs to wipe out 5000 points in 5 days. That created a lot of opportunity but you’ve got to be in the correct positions to take advantage of them and Michele has been on the correct side.

        We’re you not singing the praises of the National Lead economy?

        So when you see markets back at all time highs pumped up by the flimsiest of reasons write it down and look at it objectively. If you don’t know ask questions.., is the economy pumped up by immigration, property speculation or other none productive bullshit? And what might happen to these companies if 5000 points was removed in 5 days?

        Now your your big consumer staples like toilet paper, Coca Cola and utilities don’t move around that much it’s the small to medium sized businesses that you’ve got to watch out for. A lot of small to medium sized business will get beat up and some may not survive the down turn.

        But there are companies like Flight Centre that I like who will get beaten up but they’ve got good management and good reserves and good people to weather the storm and so what ever they lose today, the potential upsides is orders of magnitude. And there are other small to medium sized companies with massive outsized potential like that to numerous to mention.

        So people and business can reduce there exposure and reduce operating costs and be patient, you just wait, just keep waiting because the upside of corona virus is massive and you don’t want to get caught on the wrong side of the trade again.

  22. Trev I thought the bulk of our hospitality workers are casual workers on low insecure pay and many are foreigners making ends meet. Also the business can’t have it all. They cant have a huge pool of cheap workers on tap and government assistance without opening their books to see how much help they actually need and whether they need help and how much profit or reserves they have. And then they need to see how much they actually pay their workers and they need to look at their worker employment conditions/contracts. Funds will need to be heavily targeted to ensure only those that really need help get it and it has to be fair to us tax payers. The way the national party are talking they sound like they seem to think we have an open cheque book when in fact there will be limited money to go around therefore any money spent has to be wisely spent not just handed out willy nilly.

    • You are right about the workers and many of these will need to go on the benefit and some will be better off . This could lead to an increase in the benefit level as more will be relying on it for some time to come . This could be seen as a plus. The help,to businesses would be to delay tax dues and rent relief and council may need to delay rates and licence fee for a time.
      I also agree with you any help needs to stand up to scrutiny to weed out the bad eggs but help needs to be given quickly as many are struggling now .
      The government needs to utilize the local work force to get projects off the ground that up till now would not have been possible due to the shortage of workers

  23. The public education is not fit for purpose and the most important measures have not been instituted – which incidentally require public education not miseducation to modify behaviour. Failure to promote social distancing when in public ie 1-2 metres elbow room, given all we know about the high transmissibility (asymptomatics, long incubation, 3 weeks potential infectious period without symptoms, possibly not just droplets but aerosol transmission suspected etc)… will mean we are left with no choice than to enforce quarantine on all old people once shit hits fan. The media has been atrocious in not holding the dangerous advice emanating from official sources up for scrutiny. Every health professional I know is working overtime to replace govt nonsense with the necessary facts ppl need to protect their communities.

  25. Hosking thinks that the economic fallout is more important than taking effective steps to stop a pandemic. Can he please be jailed to protect NZ from toxic stupidity?

    • Toxic stupidity is working out how the economy and Trump’s share market would look with everyone dead from the virus.
      Compared to a lot of well people being alive to get things up and running and back to ‘normal’ after the virus has been marginalised. Including the economy and Trump’s share market.

      Exaggeration, but anyone with half a brain will get the point.

  27. This new government puts the powerful second to the people. Good start. It is the logic of these times of climate change. War-time mobilisation.

    But we do need an unbalanced talker like the 30s. And that level of desperation has gone with this middle class Labour Party with no membership. Hence her and Robertson.

  28. Much fanfare about the supposedly ‘toughest travel rules’ in the world, yeah right. I thought North Korea qualified well for that kind of rules system.

    While it may be an overdue step in the right direction, it is somewhat meaningless, unless the government actually has the means to enforce what it announced. Are they really going to apply the instruments and steps available under the law and force people into secluded residential treatment or quarantine? Are they really going to do what Jacinda Arderns said on Q+A?

    I doubt it, as that would require police and other resources that are often over stretched with their ordinary duties.

    I welcome the ban of cruise ships, I wish it would go well beyond the 30 June date, as those high pollution vessels are not a good show for a supposedly ‘clean green NZ’.

    Also welcome is the requirement for incoming passengers on airplanes to isolate themselves for 14 days, no matter whether they have symptoms or not. But how practical is this really?

    What is certain, that is that it will push the tourism sector into a major crisis, also the travel industry, in general that is.

    The various business lobbyists are now working in overdrive to push the government to spend billions on rescuing their usual activities, which have a large carbon footprint. Having the millions of tourists fly in every year comes with massive greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes, and then they tend to travel around in rental camper vans and cars, also polluting the air and thus the atmosphere of the planet.

    Other industries are not much better, as New Zealand is years behind of what it should have been doing.

    So my greatest concern is what the government will spend the money on, that will be announced on Tuesday, as ‘targeted’ assistance and subsidies.

    Are they going to rescue the CO2 intensive industries like tourism, so they can carry on as per usual? I would hope not. Instead they should use the opportunity and force business, to change their way of operating and to become at least carbon neutral by say 2030 or 2040 the latest, so to honour the reputation of this God forsaken place, that has been so overrated as a ‘clean green’ place.

    This could be the opportunity to bring about real change, and put investment in alternative, regenerative power generation, to create the energy that could power electric cars and other alternative forms of transport and even manufacturing and service plants.

    My fear is, and it is already happening, that the government spends more billions to maintain the status quo, i.e. more roads and highways, for fossil fuel powered cars, and to support a very polluting tourism industry and other industries, not making any demands on industries to sign up for overdue change.

    Subsidising tour operators and so to keep staff maintaining and cleaning camper vans and rental cars that will not be on the road for weeks that cannot be productive, same could it not be productive and constructive to simply subsidise other jobs, that are anything but clean and green.

    I fear that BILLIONS will be sunk into the status quo and dinosaur technology and services. Money that is well needed in truly future proof and innovative industries and infrastructure.

    NOTE: This was NOT published, so Censorship continues here, ideas get stolen and BS bias rules, all hooray Jacinda, I note.

    • +1 Marc

      Forget billions on roads and sunset industries like tourism and restaurants and fake degrees that are Ponzis, carbon creating industries with fossil fuels and small cash businesses with vans everywhere clogging up the roads, diabetes galore with poor quality food becoming the norm, and an economic strategy of importing in poverty to sustain the above, is more economically crippling than sensible.

      Get rid of all the cash & low cost labourers, and Ponzi work and student schemes everywhere. Other countries like Canada are closing the borders to any non citizens. NZ has circa 800,000 extra people, who never paid any taxes or minimal amounts in the mix, poor quality skills and a strong sense of entitlement often off the back of a fraudulently obtained visa, to support when the Ponzi falls over.

      The wheels were already coming off before coronavirus as our hospitals, roads, education, infrastructure were increasingly becoming overwhelmed when tourists and temp residents had accidents/misadventure and requiring health care in NZ that was never properly planned and paid for with more doctors, hospitals, medicines, equipment, likewise roads, schools, wastewater and everything else.

      When 92% of Chorus workers earn under minimum wages, and whenever the labour inspectorate goes around they find cash workers everywhere then something is very wrong with our immigration system and how NZ thinks about workers https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/120308679/illegal-workers-caught-at-hastings-orchard-and-pukekohe-farms https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118004926/family-of-migrant-worker-who-died-on-the-job-seeks-compensationhttps://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12014023

      Governments have deliberately let mass immigration to happen to lower wages even more and have cash workers to get exported products cheaper (while domestic products seem to somehow be more expensive) and never deported people who should have been.
      Immigration New Zealand budget blowout kept overstayers in NZ
      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12111595

      The country is full of people who should never have been allowed to here as their ‘funds’ to support themselves are bogus and their ability to complete the course is also bogus! Now not only does NZ has the problem of people who should not be here with visas, we also have the problem of when they complete a fraudulent degree they can’t actually do the job in the workforce and we have people working who are ok with fraudulent documents and schemes going forward. They have known about the problem for years!

      Student visa fraud: ‘It’s not about education’
      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11759352

      Immigration NZ uncovers “significant, organised” agent fraud in India
      https://thepienews.com/news/immigration-nz-uncovers-significant-organised-agent-fraud-in-india/

      Student visa scam: Company provided info for five years
      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/363084/student-visa-scam-company-provided-info-for-five-years

      If someone is coming to NZ on false visas, clearly they won’t be the honest citizens who take government messages seriously about containment either in a crisis.

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