This Christmas will be an incredibly political one.
We will all universally canvas our experience of this year’s Christmas and judge Jacinda’s Delta strategy according to that experience and because Christmas is such a uniquely fixed feature of our lives in NZ, that expression of experience will be emotionally supercharged like a cocaine dealer on meth.
This Christmas we will face a cacophony of social wounds screaming for social media hierarchy as the Season of Good Will mutates into a political Season of Fuck, Marry, Kill.
For the double Vaxxed Aucklanders desperate to get out of 16 weeks of de facto house arrest, nothing short of a smooth ride to the batch will be a success.
For Maori setting up road blocks to stop those Aucklanders, every one through is a loss.
The unvaccinated who can’t travel will see a very Nazi Christmas.
The woke will see a ‘modern genocide’ that equates to the Squid Games.
For the Government, they pray to the little baby Jesus in the manger that their 90% vaccination strategy doesn’t overwhelm the hospital system.
Retailers close to financial collapse will only celebrate if a weary and Covid nervous consumer braves the malls.
Food shortages from panic buying will leave many hungry and mass Christmas events for the poor will be cancelled for fear of super spreader events.
If Christmas this year falls short of expectations, Jacinda will be blamed regardless.
Luckily Jacinda has the promise of the New Year and the fruits of her 90% vaccination harvest.
Until then expect the most challenging months of her Prime Ministership.
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An honest conversation, god forbid, is well overdue from our government.
The moment Auckland ceased elimination (which they pretended it wasn’t) was the time our PM should have said, Auckland is New Zealand and our goal of elimination is over. Get vaccinated and adjust to the new and very inevitable reality.
Sadly indecision and a lack of honesty ruled supreme. Now the day of reckoning for our government is upon them, that honest conversation they’ve kicked down the road repeatedly.
Rather than a few daily infections back then to make that honest announcement, it will now be with about 300-400 new daily infections in Auckland when the genie is let out of the bottle.
Should have been straight up all along.
Yup.
Sadly, she truly is Tony Blair’s Witch…
I just haven’t experienced the same confusion about the end of elimination.
After a prolonged time at level 4, Delta could not be completely eliminated in Auckland even with the harshest restrictions. The tail was likely to continue for many weeks. Compliance was understandably waning. The government pivoted to level 3, gave Aucklanders a little more freedom but tried to maintain some controls.And acknowledged that the health system would not be likely be able to stamp Delta out. And that for Auckland vaccination was the way out.
This all seemed very straightforward to me. And thrashed out over many press conferences. But then I wasn’t expecting a single second in time it was all made crystal clear. Elimination faded out and mitigation in. They overlapped. Because the patterns and processes involved are dynamic. I just don’t see the big betrayal here.
Hey, outside Auckland, cases are still run down with an elimination approach by MOH, because it is still feasible to do so.
I don’t think anyone has wrenched a straight admission from our PM that Auckland has been on suppression yet. The way they’re stringing us all along is there can be two New Zealands.
Hipkins musing only last week that Aucklanders can book travel time slots to pass through his border screamed the government will keep Auckland on an MIQ system, like the cluster he has overseen for overseas travellers, for the foreseeable future. He is telling me without saying so he thinks he can manage this disease from escaping Auckland indefinitely. That absolutely says the ellimination policy is alive and well in the rest of NZ, while Aucklanders remain locked down. I sure as shit cannot plan ahead with the current uncertainty!
So either tell Aucklanders they are locked down with no end date or reintegrate the country! Not have a dishonest dollar each way!
” An honest conversation, god forbid, is well overdue from our government ”
Honesty is not a prerequisite in neo liberal political agenda but clever marketing is and until good people like yourself realise that until there is a party that will take on the firepower of the neo liberals nothing will change including honest conversations.
The casual freedoms that represents NZ will not be here for this Xmas. As Martyn suggests there may be shopping but even that experience could end up being an unhappy search for items sold out or stacked up at some port. There will be travel but with it an anxiousness and fear for some, as although theyre vaxed the virus won’t be far away and could still affect them. The unvaxed will have the same feelings but will be at risk of serious illness. Not much to celebrate. Jacinda has been done by underestimating Delta. The slow vaccine roll out was manageable without delta, but because this government thought it could manage delta it allowed the Aus visitors back in. The MIQ was never any good but for some reason this government thought it was. A bit arrogant really. I don’t believe National would have done any better, but I believe any decisions made, right or wrong would have been made quicker. My opinion. This government has been slow to organise everyything and in part they are paying for that now. They can still save themselves. They’ve ordered boosters, and they are following the under twelve vax closely. They’ve also ordered the antivirus pills which may keep some of the unvaxed out of hospitals, all good. Then they go and fuck it up by deciding everyone can isolate at home but we won’t bother to check on them. They’re slow learners and they’re like an underpowered aeroplane running out of runway on takeoff.
Also screwing with the party’s rules for who can elect the leader of the party to tells you all is not well within the bowels of the party.
Caucus gets first call and the rank & file get to watch.
They will relax restrictions.
They need to have cases peaking in summer or autumn but before winter.
Complete disaster.
Demand on food banks highest in history.
It will all depend on how we are allowed to get out of Auckland. Fuck that up and kiss good bye to the suburban housewife vote so critical to electoral success in the last 25 years.
The neoliberal managerialist approach worked well for the government for over a year. But now they are trying to manage the messy developments generated by Delta, and the pressure from various factions in NZ.
It exposes the inequalities within NZ’s society, and the government’s failure to substantial improve our dire pubic health system, other than tinkering with more centralisation.
The top-down approach to vaccinations was clear in Auckland, with initially only vaccination centres in places that suited the DHBs. the only centres for central Auckland suburbs were in Mt Wellington and in the Elliot Stree complex, behind the Plaza Hotel MIQ (since they realised it was too close to the MIQ facility. that left seniors in the central suburbs and places like Mt Roskill not sure where to go for their vaccinations when they were first invited.
This poor sensitivity to local communities was further exposed with the failure to engage meaningfully with Maori and Pacific communities with the vaccination roll-out.
The government has been listening too much to the dominant voices in business, the tourist and hospitality industries, and well-off New Zealanders (eg the one who think it’s their god-given right to go to their baches every Christmas. They opened the Trans-Tasman bubble before it was wise to do so. Now they are struggling around what to do with Auckland’s boundary.
I am double-vaxed but continue to mostly act as if at Level 4. the only concession I’ll make to step 2 Level 3 is to go collect some books waiting for me at Auckland Libraries.
I never usually leave Auckland during the summer – happy to stay here this summer (though it’ll be more crowded than last summer). I did enjoy the open spaces in Auckland last summer after the middle classes had left, and while there were no masses of international tourists.
I can’t understand why Aucklanders don’t understand the importance of not spreading the virus into more vulnerable areas outside Auckland, and aren’t prepared to accept a more local holiday period.
It looks to me like the government, Labour Caucus is now more concerned about future votes than the well-being of the least powerful sections of NZ society. Middle class and wealthy Aucklanders make up a substantial voting block -plus as Denny mentions above, re-jigging leadership vote so Labour members don’t get much of a say, eg re-the true labour movement policies the Caucus should be promoting.
And of course there will be the National Party leadership Christmas execution barbecue. I can smell the bacon sizzling now!
Don’t know about that Bertie. No one is truely standing out – Bishop has put on his best Labourlite tone deaf Wellingtonan hat over the past month, Bridges appears to not give up fuck and Uncle Fester has been largely quiet. Middle of next year – depending on polls which, might be quite different than present.
Absolutely positive it will happen.
“Uncle Fester has been largely quiet”
Yes Frankie, the sleeping giant lays in waiting.
Seriously Bertie he is about as loved as Mitt Romney is with the masses. Key will have to polish a gigantic turd for Fester to get up.
The polls may well be different for the parties, just not for Collins. I believe N.Z. know’s to look forward, you can’t look to the past, particularly Collins and her history.
If Collins gets National to 33-34 and Act remain at 15% she will be the next PM. Don’t get too many Sunday nightmares over that
Nope won’t happen, more chance Seymour becoming P.M. and then god help us all!
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/national-party-leadership-simon-bridges-fails-to-give-definite-answer-on-whether-judith-collins-will-make-it-into-new-year/47RRC4BDCW5FFGEOXLCW7DQJ54/
Collins will be sitting in front of her TV this x-mas watching Home Alone.
Why would the anointed new leader need to say a word? He’s got uncle john having NZ’s sick joke of a news media follow him around, lapping up his specious drivel like it actually has meaning… As the great traitor likes to say himself. “Don’t you worry about that”.. He’s running the lines for them.. The only thing this should get from this is that NZ’s news media is as craven, and compromised as it ever was… Everything else can be discerned by going back into the archives to see how they’ve always done things, once The traitor Douglas opened the door for them..
” An honest conversation, god forbid, is well overdue from our government ”
Honesty is not a prerequisite in neo liberal political agenda but clever marketing is and until good people like yourself realise that until there is a party that will take on the firepower of the neo liberals nothing will change including honest conversations.
Wasn’t it neo liberals who herded people into the towns and city’s by decimating the rural sector and who went on to import cheap labour to fill the void?
Wasn’t it neo liberals who decided to try and privatize our hospitals and schools and gave tax breaks to big business so that now our working people pay a massively disproportionate amount of the tax bill while our health and education facility’s rot and decay and are inadequate?
Wasn’t it neo liberals who did nothing about an ever increasing housing crises because politically, it pandered to Australian banks and wealthy elites who were / are making a killing renting out substandard and humanly uninhabitable dwellings? And that seem to have an affinity for denying significant cases of individual / family homelessness?
And wasn’t it neo liberals who insanely pushed for a trans Tasman bubble with Australia despite the fact that Delta was ripping through Melbourne and NSW? And that they plainly KNEW that in all probability that it was going to be inevitable Delta was brought back to this country by an individual? And who also KNEW that if that occurred, the blame could easily be shifted to MIQs’ in an effort to smear this govt for being inept? And using Aucklanders natural rage as a useful tool?
Consistently, the neo liberal is found to be an economic, political and social parasite. Never trust them. Like the pathogen, they need a host. Don’t be that host. They are this :
“Silent Invaders” Sea Lamprey
https://youtu.be/9JQ6oHjpeqU?t=1
Wild Katipo. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Cheers.
Me and my son are putting up a shed to store all the stuff I brought down, tools mainly. We laugh and share and listen to rap, country and metal. And one song we chuckle over is this song.
So please don’t misunderstand, anybody.
Now soon we have another young fella who is part Maori coming to live here who is virtually a ‘brother’ to my son. I cant wait. Two young fellas to keep this old fella young. I don’t give a shit who you are if your a good sort. If your young and needing a place, your family.
And that’s country, and that’s New Zealand. And I’m a long hair too . 🙂
Enjoy:
Longhaired Redneck
https://youtu.be/H3OcOPDJeZk?t=9
It’ll be a great Christmas to moan and bitch about the Government’s handling of Covid.
And all the noisier for the voices of the many thousands who didn’t die from covid and the tens of thousands of their family, friends and colleagues. They’ll have plenty of energy to devote to their miserable chorus not distracted by thoughts of the dead not being around for the festive season.
Not for me. My mother’s died. I never need to talk to my four crackers siblings ever again. Bloody relief.
Since reason is right I recommend not being upset about not making headway with the crazos. That’s what a rational govt is for, which we have.
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