Charlotte Bellis returning to New Zealand in March to give birth to her baby girl
Charlotte Bellis has confirmed she will return to New Zealand at the beginning of March to give birth to her baby girl, after accepting an emergency spot in MIQ.
Bellis – who has been stranded and pregnant in Afghanistan – was offered an MIQ voucher earlier today.
Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson earlier this afternoon revealed the place for Bellis, and flight arrangements alongside it, had been communicated to her today.
“There is a place in MIQ for Miss Bellis and I urge her to take it up,” Robertson said at today’s post-Cabinet press conference.
What Grant really said was…
“Please for the love of Christ, end this” Robertson begged.
“Clarke will personally carry you through the airport and you’ll get a job on TVNZ, please just make it stop”, he sobbed
Finally! The grandstanding has been successful and MIQ – a vital means to protecting us – has been denigrated!
Of course we have to keep MIQ restrictions in place, Christ they need to be tighter!
Just over 50% of us have a booster, if Omicron hits hard we will have enormous sickness and death, and opening up that MIQ to citizens carry’s enormous risk, ESPECIALLY when you consider one third of border cases in a week were unvaccinated!!!
Nobody points this out often but unvaccinated Kiwis returning home with Covid would seed clusters every day!
We can’t risk that!
Yes it’s awful, yes it’s painful, but our obligations are to protect NZ!
Of course Charlotte Bellis should return home immediately & I’m almost certain Clarke will be sent to bring her through MIQ – but don’t pretend a bureaucratic process is the story – the sanctions we’ve put on a country we occupied is causing 20m starving Afghans – that’s the story!
How the fuck is this petty MIQ issue eclipsing the fact that we’ve supported sanctions on Afghanistan that are seeing 23million starve – remember there’re 40 million of them, that’s over half are starving.
They are predicting over a million dead kids starving to death from famine.
A famine we’ve induced!
A famine we imposed upon a country we almost occupied for 2 decades!
A famine that hasn’t even been mentioned by the NZ mainstream media because they are all too busy chasing the low hanging fruit of identity politics by platforming a grandstanding you-go-girl feminist hero.
David Seymour’s comment that we are subcontracting our maternity leave out to the Taliban was easily the funniest.
This entire fiasco is a reminder that there is no power on earth that can compete with white middle class feminism. It’s so powerful it can eclipse 23 million starving people.
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So, you say you want the plight of the people in Afghanistan to given a voice,
but you don’t want the person who would be that voice?
ok…
(Will need to figure that one out…)
Well there are a number of western diplomats, trained experienced diplomats, advocating for the people of Afghanistan, and the Secretary General of the United Nations, and traditional reputable news outlets like Reuters are telling it like it is.
From Newsroom’s Marc Daalder:
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/letter-from-miq-its-imperfect-but-its-still-needed
Seriously good writing and perspective.
The article conveniently forget to mention she flew from Qutar to Belgium and then left for Afghanistan. She would have been perfectly safe in Belgium, could have gone to other EU countries on holiday visas or if her visa expired in Belgium she would have been deported to NZ anyway.
It glosses over how Charlotte left Qutar because she was pregnant and felt unsafe, but then chose to go as a pregnant unmarried mother to Afghanistan after being safe in Belgium.
Story never added up.
Author in the story was from the USA and in MIQ after visiting family so clearly thinks that visiting family during a pandemic is more important than keeping safe in NZ, and that it’s NZ’s responsibility to make sure that he can come home whenever he likes as of right.
Unfortunately nobody can see a global pandemic and predict when it will end, so it is up to people to forgo comfort and holidays and keep other people safe.
If they don’t like NZ policy, why on earth don’t they just stay out of NZ as they seem to believe all the countries with huge Covid deaths are better than NZ and it’s their right to be able to bring the virus into NZ and make everyone else pay for that risk.
A big thumbs up from me for your post @ saveNZ.
Apart from the Bellis case, now we are hearing about pensioners stuck overseas, complaining of hardship, through overstaying their superannuation payout time and now their pensions have been stopped and they have been asked to pay back what was owed!
People know the rules when they leave the country (or they should). When the bubble opened up between NZ/Aus last year, travellers were repeatedly told they must realise the risk involved, as the borders could close suddenly leaving them stranded. Now National MPs are becoming involved, blaming the government, when the problem lies with the people travelling outside the country. They need to sum up the situation and acknowledge the fact that their holiday and return home might go pear shape. Easy to do before travelling, deciding if it will be worth it. It’s called self responsibility.
Thanks Mary, A, have you also noticed how it is the upper class people most complaining about open borders and MIQ and their family holidays?
I can’t think of anybody from South Auckland or iwi campaigning for opening the NZ borders and how hard MIQ is for them, and all their precious holidays they need.
They seem grateful to still be alive and not in hospital, and not being worked to death under neoliberal policy while being told how lazy and useless they are as workers.
saveNZ. With due respect, I wouldn’t call well-heeled persons “ upper class”, they’re just rich, that’s all. John Key upper class ? Far from it.
People with class aren’t attention seekers, and are often almost invisible. Some have money and some have very little, and they are rarely whiners, entitled, or particularly loud- that’s the prerogative of the ill-bred or the plain damn hopeless.
I totally agree. Two of my Uncles died last year. The saddest thing was when my cousin and I, (neither of us being his children), cremated one of my uncles, a Vietnam veteran, having to hold onto his ashes, until family can return to NZ. He deserved better.
But if you dont get to go into MIQ when it suits you, just go to Afghanistan and emotionally blackmail the Government to get your way.
Fuck Ms Bellis.
saveNZ. The whiners may simply be the difference between the haves and the have-nots. The haves think that they can have everything, that the normal rules and customs don’t apply to them. By and large, it’s always been that way.
Yes, it’s me, myself and I. Self entitlement from the elite.
Re the caption above, if that’s the case, then I can’t understand why Ms Bellis wants to come back to NZ, when the Taliban has been so kind to her!
Agree 100% both of you. Yes, not too impressed with Charlotte B. whose identity politics wind right back to herself when push comes to shove, which in her case it did. Selling all sorts of people (not to mention countries) and situations short in the process and to boot there is something decidedly entitled and fishy about her position in Afghanistan compared to other women…her only gripe being the level of hospital care for her and her newborn. Hmmm…I have to say what about all the other Afghan pregnant women. Not a very fucking cool sympathy card. And be careful not to insult the hand that feeds, when you are still sitting in their palm. Especially when it is a capricious regime on whose favour they are letting you break their rules…because, why?
However I do feel empathetic to the complicated rigmarole of getting back to NZ when feeling desperate. But, well, she is not desperate.
Also …to those rich and entitled pensioners…we have been in a pandemic for quite some time, changes to border regulations have been happening on a dime these last two years….so don’t travel if you can’t cope with the drip of the pension…and how about cashing up your Ozzy pad to fund your privilege?
And now Charlotte’s lawyer has written an open letter to Chris Hipkins, and there are murmurs of legal action. Who do these people think they are ? Why an open letter ? Who do they want reading it, and why ?
Terrible things are happening everywhere, some of which, unlike baby Bellis’s dilemma, are insoluble. It would behove that fortunate child’s parent to count her blessings, which are considerable in global terms, and to stop trying to manipulate or impress others whose lives may have no easy answers and never will have.
Charlotte Bellis has enabled the British tabloids et al to label the New Zealand government worse than the Taliban.
She wishes to and is entitled to use the NZ hospital system to ensure safe passage for her baby. Now in come the lawyers “ sharing.” Why ?
This is starting to sound to me like Meghan Markle v The Brits, and it won’t help anyone back in Afghanistan, it just ties up more tax payer dollars.
Meghan working with the women of Afghanistan?
It’s more like Diana highlighting Cambodian landmines, or going out at night to visit people with AIDs.
Kheala I’m not talking about Charlotte in Afghanistan, I ‘m talking about her lawyer writing to Hipkins – which we all have the right to do – and publishing it as an open letter to all New Zealanders – who have all sorts of other things on their minds- and using up valuable ministerial time, and if intimated legal action follows, our tax dollars.
I may never see my ailing talented oldest child living in the UK again. I’ve been tempted to hop on a plane and do so, but have chosen not to.
Others have it much worse than me, including the women of Afghanistan, who not being helped one
iota by the very public aftermath of Charlotte’s successful personal outcome.
I am sorry to hear about your child in the UK, Snowy. I know what it’s like – one son, I may not see again.
My other son’s family in Sydney have just been hit with Covid. Fully vacc’d (parents), but …waiting to hear how it goes.
the govt could waive the pension cut off until they can get home…just a simple admin measure, why not? dunno search me…seems mean and petty to me
Fucken A+ on that. How the fuck are there NZers pissing off all over the world, then cry woe-is-me when they’re pregnant and can’t get back in?? ..And have the audacity they be given special treatment.
SNZ well said
The 23 million starving Afghanis aren’t the citizens of this country so are not the first priority of this government.
But as an individual you can donate to one of several charities that are sending food:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59651924#:~:text=The%20charities%20include%20Oxfam%2C%20Save%20the%20Children%20UK%2C,website%20provides%20more%20details%20of%20its%20current%20appeals
we occupied them
and then we left, cause there is not one suit in parliament that gives a flying fuck about these people.
We did worse than that then we washed our hands and we lied. We wrecked lives, terrified innocent kiddies and maybe killed the odd official toddler, and we, the SAS, burnt sacred books, and demolished poor farmers’ homes, and we helped create the Taliban, and while all that we did was starting to sink in, the little PM from Dipton showed his empathy by flying up to Auckland to watch Adele, the Pop Queen of Wail.
When we were involved in the occupation, they weren’t starving.
But like I said, if you feel guilty, open your own wallet but not mine.
It’s compassion, Andrew, part of being human, but it may be more of a female attribute – although funnily enough, the three great religions of the book attributed to male scribes, rate it more highly than the contents of wallets.
Fuck me, you have all the solutions…lets all not give a shit, and let someone else feel guilty instead of us..just beautiful
What would be the implications for MIQ if the judicial review on the 14th Feb determines that the system does in fact breach the Bill of Rights?
there is this from the wokest of the wokest – AUT from Jan 2021
https://news.aut.ac.nz/news/the-legal-rights-of-kiwis-coming-home
i think govt is hiding behind the frothy public that demands to be safe at the expense of others. And these others should shut the fuck up and not make this current lot in parliament look as bad as they look in this case.
It will need to be re-thought, and done better?
Totally. We can’t all have rights. s/
LOL. The precedent has been set. MIQ is functionally dead. Omnishambles is going to run over us just like everywhere else in the world and let’s be honest it’s not the sickness that the government is worried about it is the fear that our health system will be shown up for what it is – grossly underfunded and understaffed. At 4.5 years it is no longer National’s fault in the eyes of the masses.
If fear of Covid is the problem, maybe this is the solution:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajherrington/2022/01/11/study-finds-cannabis-compounds-prevent-infection-by-covid-19-virus/?sh=6d037c6e1753
New Zealand “helped thirteen Afghani to resettle here. Incredible queue jumping for a whole family. No resettlement or refugee camps for the defeated elites whilst waiting for political asylum.
Why worry about a pregnant New Zealander when we import elites by the bakers dozen. As opposed to the families of Afghani translators New Zealand left shamelessly behind.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300490811/former-afghan-vice-president-given-safe-haven-in-new-zealand
“An Afghan member of the New Zealand SAS unit based in Kabul from 2009-2012 said Afghans who worked with the NZDF should have been prioritised for resettlement – not people like Danish, who he said shared responsibility for the collapse of Afghanistan’s government.”
Yes. Exactly.
it can eclipse 23 million starving people
It is not an either/ or situation.
And, the journalist who lived there during the time of the great abandonment is the best person possible voice that we have, for those people.
Kheala that sounds so reasonable and fair in between the piled up emotions many quite negative and sneering.
People caring about people, not just striking attitudes citing their own tragedies. That seems to get in the way of rational thought in NZ.
Good on you @ Martyn Bradbury for calling this out.
Is our weak kneed capitalist U$A arse kisser MSM doing likewise?
Great press for the Taliban from a jouno who pretends to speak for woman and NZ government falls for it every time!
I’m not against that she wanted to get an MIQ place, but am against flying to Afghanistan (probably to hook up with Baby Daddy) and then pretending it was NZ government’s fault and stamping her foot all across the international media!
Also is it true that Boyfriend got the MIQ place before she did? If so, what a crock that people from all around the world are entering NZ MIQ before NZ citizens.
Anyway she has lost many people’s respect, especially those who actually care about real news, those who are rallying against right wing policy and those who are concerned about human rights in Afghanistan.
Note it is the right wingers and right wing mags, who love her most!
Bad move by the government to cave as they do to every front page news story full of holes.
And if it were Bill English who abandoned a pregnant NZer in Afghanistan you’d think exactly the same wouldn’t you?
Look an airborne Suidae!!!
Well we already know all about Bill English. When the Hager/ Stephenson 2017 report on what we did in Afghanistan was published, we who read it were deeply shocked. I read it then reread it again. It is meticulously referenced and documented. Finished early Saturday evening and went online to see others’ reactions.
To my astonishment Bill English had flown up to Auckland to go to an Adele concert. New Zealand PM’s really like their pop stars, don’t they. For some time I participated in a group which lobbied for an inquiry into NZ’s activities while the government proclaimed, “ Nothing to see here.”
The subsequent inquiry vindicated Hager and Stephenson, and did a bit of inevitable white washing, but it was due to two honourable men, not to any New Zealand politician, that this country was made to face the fact that we had breached international human rights and humanitarian law in Afghanistan, and for no good or palatable reason.
Ardern is no more personally responsible for this woman’s plight than English would have been were he PM. Charlotte made her own choices and from a very media savvy position. Expecting any PM to be be responsible for every individual wanting to get into New Zealand in the time of Covid is hopelessly unrealistic.
Comparing the Prime Minister of New Zealand to the Taliban is a ridiculously false equivalence, and designating the New Zealand PM inferior to the Taliban of Afghanistan because of Charlotte’s plight is dirty filthy politics.
And there were other journalists and other government officials on the ground right throughout the unravelling of Afghanistan and reported in UK and I daresay other media, but once again this has become a personality issue, and rather out of proportion compared to the heartbreakingly tragic situation so many desperate others are in, including the tangata whenua living up in the beautiful remote Hindu Kush whose lives we helped to wreck.
Yeah but, think it’s a Babirusa.
{flap, flap}
Bellis was not abandoned, just asked to jump through the bureaucratic hoops properly.
So leave her in Afghanistan because she didnt tick the BTM/342.34a/ds box correctly? Wow that’s Be Kind right there
It may be pedantic, but that is what they asked her do. It might have been all she had to do. Since Bellis decided to go public before changing her application, we won’t know if her approval was based on her correcting her application or because she had brought enough embarrassing attention onto her situation.
As it turns out, she was granted approval based on her safety not due to her pregnancy. It seems MIQ is trying to avoid making pregnancy a sole criteria for allowing emergency allocations.
If Bellis had been granted a spot on the grounds that other women had been denied, people would be wondering if she was yet another mate of Jacinda and Clarke.
How can that be when the MIQ hotels are half full? Oh that’s right they’re waiting for the 300 teachers to turn up, but only 8 made it.
Compared to Kiwibuild that’s a great success though
This entire fiasco is a reminder that there is no power on earth that can compete with white middle class feminism.
It only appears that way because if it had been Mike Roberts, eg (a good bloke and TOP journo, btw) in that situation, having stayed on a bit too long, to record what was happening at the time of the collapse, – then this present situation would not have happened!
And, if circumstances were just a little different, it could have been Mike. He used to be right there, reporting from the thick of it.
If it were Mike, eg, he would have been safely home on first possible flight out! – Which would have been absolutely the right and best thing to happen.
True that, Mike would never have fallen pregnant and thus in need of an emergency voucher for MIQ. Because that is the reason she came home. Otherwise she would have been perfectly safe to stay in europe – country hopping as quite a few kiwis atm do – or in Quatar. And that is true, irrespective of how long Mike would have stayed in Afghanistan.
McRoberts!!!!!
sorry
What am I missing here ? Why has Mike McRoberts suddenly become the fount of all wisdom ? Course he would have gotten home, because this is where he lives and is based.
The Government played their hand here VERY badly.
People trotting off to the media when they are unhappy with MIQ has become routine. The bureaucracy people are dealing with is extremely frustrating and way too often bereft of compassion. When their case is highlighted to the media we invariably see a sudden U-Turn made by the nameless / faceless / compassionless and unaccountable bureaucracy. Most of those seeking compassion are desperate and if going to the media is seen as the best option for a desperate person then what follows is fairly predictable. Main difference here is that Charlotte Bellis is the fucking media with a ready made platform and with a hot microphone. Not only that but a woman comfortable to show her baby bump to the world from a part of the world known for Neanderthalic attitudes toward females. Hello!
Yes, Bellis set our Government up but in truth, the Government set its self up. Instead of seeing the PR disaster on the world stage of the despicable Taliban offering her support but the NZ Government failing to do so. WTAF. Chris Hipkins decided to try and prove who was in the right and who was wrong. No Government on the planet will win that battle against a very pregnant females journalist in Afghanistan.
Charlotte Bellis played the NZ Government like a fiddle and Hipkins etc fell in a huge hole of their own making. Bellis is now the poster girl for everything that is wrong with the MIQ system. Can someone get some bandages please. The NZ Government has multiple self inflicted bullet bullet wounds in their own feet.
Watch this space.
Bellis set our Government up
Rubbish!! … Correction: Absolute rubbish.
Her case highlighted serious faults in the system.
When thinking man lays it all out like that, it would be remiss not to agree with his assessment. Thanks TM your comments are awesome.
Most people have absolutely no idea what it’s like to work as a journalist in a dangerous location. I do – and I don’t recommend it. I’ve been in the Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, much of East Africa, the Middle East, the remotest parts of China, Brazil, and – most dangerous of all – Chile in the wake of the 1973 Pinochet coup. We were shooting a doco for TVNZ , and the army and secret police (DINA) didn’t even try to hide their displeasure. Our tripod vanished. Our camera came off an internal flight with a smashed viewfinder. I was pushed into the commander’s office at the port of Valparaiso, ignored for the best part of an hour, then warned that we’d be shot if we filmed on the docks (so we filmed from a nearby church steeple instead). I therefore suggest you think twice before you attack Charlotte Bellis. She’s an incredibly brave woman, doubly so since she’s also pregnant. And when you’re a Kiwi in danger overseas you expect your government to have your back, no ifs or buts. In our case that was what happened – the NZ Ambassador sent our film home in the diplomatic bag so the Chilean army couldn’t grab it. Bottom line: Charlotte deserves our protection.
No you got it wrong, she went back there after leaving her job and from Belgium… not to work but because she was granted a visa by the Taliban, whom she apparently has a good relationship with. However I would be pretty suss about trusting that long-term… nevertheless it points to her being in a very previlged position there, especially compared to what the Taliban tolerate and do to Afghan women. It seems a strange option to risk considering the hospitals there so it looks a bit like a long game of some sort…she could have just jumped around Europe for Belgium visa protocols until she got the right NZ MIQ, but perhaps that is why she chose to go back to Afghanistan…. Anyway it’s a kind of unpleasant grandstanding on her part, not so honest and appears critical of a system that has kept NZ mostly safe and the prevention or delay anyway of an Omicron onslaught, which our health system isn’t up for.
Malcolm, Thank you for your insight and experience.
That is so much appreciated.
A documentary on something like that – on what it is really like for journos and photographers in such troubled areas, would be brilliant.
She’s an incredibly brave woman, doubly so since she’s also pregnant. And when you’re a Kiwi in danger overseas you expect your government to have your back, no ifs or buts. In our case that was what happened – the NZ Ambassador sent our film home in the diplomatic bag so the Chilean army couldn’t grab it. Bottom line: Charlotte deserves our protection.
I agree in that caving into her made a rod for their own backs.
Should have put her at the bottom of the list, I’m sure we could endure Ms High Maintenance for a while yet.
I agree with TDB in this one, white middle class feminism won the day.
My understanding is that she was pregnant for a while and now when she’s due to give birth she cries fowl…
Yay for Charlotte.
It wasn’t about her, never, absolutely not, oh no, it was about her fighting for those oppressed by that big meanie Jacinda and her silly MIQ.
You. Go. Girl.
Not!
The devastation of Afghanistan was caused by wars, by the war mentality, by that part of people’s brain that says war is ok. There’s a debate about this that’s soon to be taking place, in a free online public seminar, on 23rd February, 9.30am NZ time: “Can War Ever be Justified?”
One speaker is: Dr. Mark Welton is Professor Emeritus at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He is an expert in International and Comparative (U.S., European, and Islamic) Law, Jurisprudence and Legal Theory, and Constitutional Law. He has authored chapters and articles on Islamic law, European Union law, international law, and the rule of law. He was Past Deputy Legal Advisor, United States European Command; Chief, International Law Division, U.S. Army Europe.
The other is David Swanson, from World Beyond War.
Here is the link: https://actionnetwork.org/events/online-debate-can-war-ever-be-justified-mark-welton-vs-david-swanson
The next National MP for Ilam.
I would bet she voted Jacinda.
two very different issues bro
Yes.
I was going to say the same and the add that Martyn is however, right on both of them.
Exactly, in fact let’s closer the borders indefinitely until we as New Zealanders can bring peace to Afghanistan, and while we’re at it we might as well save Somalia, Yemen and the Sudan at the same time, because it’s so easy.
I say good on C Bellis and I hope her being able to bring the gov to heel will help other kiwis in similar situations.
The petty, small minded comments from others on here are frankly embarrassing to. read
Jacinda sycophantic misogynists out in force today
No Biggy,
Anyone who supported John Key saw themselves as being great judges. Key was a virtual God to them.
Anyone who supports Ardern is a sycophant who has been suckered in by her cool aid and a bias media.
Can you spot the difference?
Out of curiosity, how can a male sycophant of a female PM, also be a misogynist?
You confuse them with your logic Thinking man.
John Key is worse than Jacinda, just like the cancer is worse than aids . Misogyny does not apply to a god (your view of Jacinda) but applies to ordinary human women.
No Biggy,
Abraham Lincoln is a man I look up to and admire. He had hundreds of very memorable quotes. For some reason, this one springs to mind.
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt”
If you genuinely believed I view Jacinda Ardern as a God, then isn’t the word you’re reaching for “Goddess”? That aside, I feel I’ve been highly critical of the PM in areas I feel she has let the side down with. That would seem inconsistent of a person being accused of worshipping the PM.
Typical misogynist, not understanding that God could describe a male just as much as a female.
The Taliban played this one well!
At the Taliban HQ Strategy Meeting. How to get rid of foreign news influencers! “We’ll show ‘karen’ some understanding and kindness and then we’ll wait and see if Jacinda’s ego kicks in and she’ll trump our offer.”
A bit OTT. Yes, she was manipulative and disingenuous. But it’s Omicron ffs. Put Ivermectin back on the shelves and there’ll be nothing to worry about. Of course, then the drama will be over, and everyone loves a good drama. The starving Afghans is a disgrace of course, but not the first the world has turned a blind eye to.
Don’t mention ivermectin, you’ll be labelled a anti-vax right wing nut job, because the left absolutely love big Pharma, and have always loved big Pharma…Winston Smith is amending the history books right now
and ivermectin isn’t made by those nasty big pharma NWO soros puppets who hate ‘truth tellers’ oh my mistake
We are so accommodating to woman. Try asking president xi for a ride!
The idea that kiwis are misogynistic or what ever is plain old delusional.
Robertson isn’t the only one who wanted to pick her up. Chris Trotter wanted to pick her up and these are people who have been used by the woke to criminalise traditional kiwi values.
Satire..
In NZ 2021, one third of kiwis were obese and the highest number were maori and islanders. Does this affect virus deaths? My letter:-
Letters to the NZ Herald Editor
In the battle of wits over who decides what substances we kiwis should allow into our bodies, Bishop Brian Tamaki got a big putdown by the two NZ Herald happy chaps – cartoonist Rod Emmerson and comedian Steve Braunias. NZ Herald 22/01/2022) Braunias wrote the book “The Man Who Ate Lincoln Rd.” He was that very brave man.
Steve’s happy book stands in, as it were, for the absence of the happy exuberance of The Ronald Mcdonald clowns, whose “happy meals” got a lot of flak from doctors and some urgently needed restrictions. No wonder, since obesity has negative effects on the taking of medicines and vaccines.
Bishop Tamaki may yet lead his people and us all back to that ancestral maori version of the modern ketogenic diet, of mostly meat and minimal carbohydrates, like the pork and puha meal of the old “kiwi boil up”. Ah, the healthier foods of my youth.
This healthy regime actually increases our resistance to viruses – information which our government should trumpet as viruses proliferate.
Brian John Evans
Auckland…
.end of letter.
The NZ Herald would not publish this letter. Our so-called protest groups leave health well alone and yet it is prime! Why not look at this before starving Afghans?
It is amazing that so many people can look and read the same information and come up with completely different answers on either side of the political devidivide. In one camp Bellis is a saint in the other camp a sinner.
I do not like this government and the lottery that is MIQ but on the other hand they have made a good job at keeping us safe and the last 2 years most of us have had a far more normal exIstance than in many countries. Unfortunately the wheels seem to be falling off and now the government is floundering and the Bellis case exposes a weakness that should have been handled much better. The RATS muck up is another nail in Labours coffin .
In one camp Bellis is a saint in the other camp a sinner.
From one lot of responses she’s super-intelligent to the point where she “set up the government”; from the other she’s a blithering idiot who doesn’t know how to fill in forms correctly.
From one side she’s “selfish”, “a spoiled child”, “wants to make it all about herself”; – from the other she’s this gen’s Mother Theresa for the poorest women of Afghanistan.
etc.
“Division and disagreement isn’t inherently bad – but when it turns nasty, that’s a problem.” – Marc Daalder, link at top of page.
Very true Kheala
What polarized crap the internet degenerates in to.
Here is a NZ citizen, pregnant overseas denied access to her country because of some incoherent form filling definition, let’s vilify her.
This woman may be making the most of her platform to sell her situation and why not?
She is also far more brave than all of the keyboard warriors safe in hobbiton trying to tear her down.
This woman is one of the reasons we KNOW of the crap situation in Afghanistan.
As a woman, hitting up the taliban about their treatment of women straight after they took back the country was an act of courage far in excess of that which shut the border and hid behind MIQ rules.
Our country needs more people like her.
I propose she comes back and we swap her for the head of every government department.
Good to see you again, KC 🙂
To everyone out there, this wretched virus/ plague is making us all a bit too antsy I think, – Lets just get ourselves as ready as possible to go through it and move on. It’s been a long two years. Stay strong everyone.
Thanks Kheala .
I ask myself how can I genuinely like all the unique sometimes out-there people I see as clients every day yet the internet says we are split in to tribes who must hate each other.
Answer: we are being fed polarizing bullshit 24/7.
People are not 2 dimensional, we are frustrating, clever, obnoxious, happy, brave, fun, cautious, amazing and a million other things but overwhelmingly compassionate and decent.
With rare exception.
I see the hard farmers crying over their working dogs being put down, (those evil money grabbers polluting the environment) and I see the agony of the poor counting every penny for the care of their loved animals to do the best they can (those people who should just get a job).
This basic decency doesn’t change with skin color or political persuasion or income level.
I wish people knew what a huge pool of common ground we all miss by attacking each other.
The woman this thread is about is 3 dimensional human being like all of us – good, bad, clever, undeniably brave, and being used by the Taliban, anti NZ government and pro NZ government people all for their own ends.
Copied and pasted, as reminder for when I start feeling a bit dour about the world. 🙂
thx
The government uses people for its own needs, and the Greens have cynically practised identity politics for years, totally cavalier about the effects of creating a divisive society, because their own ignorant prejudices are their primary concern. Never ever forget Marama and co’s anti-white diatribes in the wake of the tragic Muslim massacres.
This woman is one of the reasons we KNOW of the crap situation in Afghanistan.
During all that chaos, fear, panic, when the US turned tail and ran for it, abandoning everyone – There was such terror, such despair.
It was ONLY Charlotte’s calm voice from the midst of it that brought some perspective, for me. I am truly thankful to her for the insight she brought at that time, for reminding us that these are real human beings, not just pawns in the military/ political game.
How many other pregnant NZ women has the NZ Government messed about with, over the MIQ….I am guessing that information will be hard to get out of the Government
Nathan, the figures have been released. Like all MIQ statistics they show how lucky we must be here as there are plenty who want to come and join us.
Thanks Peter
most transparent government ever. s/
So much division since Jacinda got in. Everyone hates everyone else.
No Biggy, maybe it’s a sign of ‘dirty politics’ re-emerging.
Obviously you have not read the facts of the story as the TalIban were made a were of her situation before she moved back there. They may treat their own people in this way but they are smart enough not to do ill to a foreign reporter. It seems the Taliban has more smarts than our government . This has been a PR disaster for Labour
Bellis, knowingly or unwittingly, was originally used by the Taliban leadership to portray their new regime as maintaining rights and freedoms for women, when the facts would appear to be quite the opposite. She failed to highlight this inconsistancy. Of course the Taliban promised her safety, she is an important part of their PR machine – and Seymour has let his political opportunistic
statement make him part of the PR machine also.
All this whilst ignoring the degrading of women and the pending humanitarian crisis.
A typical example of why the so-called “news” is so profoundly disgusting; more a middle class lifestyle programme composed of constant frivolous whinging. Makes the previous Taliban government’s ban of television look visionary.
.Andy K. Bless you. I am an imaginary foundation member of the Television Smashing Society. As such, and as a non-viewer, I had barely heard of this woman until suddenly she seems to be a greater source of knowledge than the oracle at Delphi. Even worse, the steady stream of other information and research and questions and and answers and analysis forthcoming from various other sources and means, is non-existent, while up in Molesworth Street the treacherous moles in the National Library scurry around burning books from abroad, and the daily newspapers are too insipid to even clean windows with.
But hey – It only costs one mill to get your face put on the front cover of Time Magazine ; remember Time ?
To all those who think that NZ Citizens overseas should be denied their automatic right off entry please tell me how you justify denying them immediate entry. It’s now is very obvious to me why so many Kiwis didnt object to apartheid in 81. Its “I’m all right Jack, and you don’t matter, go and catch Covid away from us and maybe die in childbirth, my lifes more precious than yours so f**k you!”
once again the deciding factor is being embarrassed into action by a white entitled female karen.
There is nothing to suggest Bellis would not have been given an MIQ slot if she had abided by the rules. Having significant PR experience and resources she chose to go public so as she could get around the rules. Now she wants to take legal action because the goverment put their side of the story. Often people go public with their ‘story’ knowing the government can’t/shouldn’t respond so we the public only get one side of the story, eagerly circulated by a ratings driven media. Privacy matters should not be a defence once one party had gone public.
This woman is a journalist. You know MB that your publications have brought the authorities down on you, and that it is important for journalists to get around and report and bring the world to us all. In the past in NZ we have had Robin Hyde, Margaret Moth, and now this woman.
I don’t understand why you should be so hard on her. Are you so single-minded that you can’t understand what being able to carry a child means to a woman. It is a burden but a wonder as well, and the human condition of childbirth has continued since the earliest times, until we have taken it for granted as a side-issue. I fear that women and their child-bearing role as things seem to proceed now, will result in condemnation from men and scant concern as you are showing, calling her a Karen.
Women should be receiving every encouragement and assistance to be good parents having less children but better integrated and integrated in society. Women would have the capability of choosing worthy, strong- minded, principled and loving men with a sense of humour (necessary in my opinion) to be partners, as part of a life that would be as well credited as a conqueror of Everest, or other adventurers more cast in the male model. Living a very full life, using all one’s gifts in a way that enhances humanity is the greatest adventure of all surely. So please don’t be so tunnel-visioned.
Grey Warbler – Bradbury’s as entitled to his opinion as anybody else, and if a story is being made to measure then there’s no reason to suppress this. From what I can gather, this Missouri- trained New Zealand born journalist has been living and working overseas for a number of years – I don’t think we’re talking about a Kiwi journo flying off elsewhere on assignment.
And please do not patronise women of child bearing age, or tell us who or what to choose as our partners.
Statistically over two-thirds of us are battered, abused or murdered by the New Zealand men who you would have us to choose from, few of whom possess the story book qualities you describe. They are people who you know, or who live in your street, or with whom you’ve worked, and there are many types of tunnels.
Snow White It sounds as if you want to shoot yourself in the foot. Go ahead. I don’t know why people should bother to concern themselves about women when so many have such a victim complex that they never want anything fixed in a rational way for them, making room for their special circumstances. Make things better and take away female grievances? Just go away and mind your own business seems to be women’s message. It is so pathetic after all the work that feminists have done in the past. It seems that one can’t take the victim out of the girl, it’s built in. But the last wave of feminism taught women to think strong, learn self defence, and learn to be assertive, not aggressive. Certainly not to whine and look for reasons to run others down because they didn’t present the ‘right’ line of complaint.
Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen is the present theme song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEx5pLLTTDo
Thanks for some sanity Grey, I for one am also disgusted that the unborn child seems absent from this “debate”. Who will speak for her?
The Afghan cluster fuck and Ms Bellis aside, MIQ has done it’s dash. Omicron is our way out and we just need to embrace it. There is no putting this genie back in the bottle. My famly all have it from our teenager at Soundsplash. cough cough meh. numbers are either being severely under reported or people are not getting tested/know they have it. Expecting a big spike in coming days. If you want to avoid it, it’s up to you – I say let it runs it’s course. Open up.
23 Million is a lot of people. Drought and famine in Yemen, Somalia, all caused by the war machine. “Oh but in New Zealand we are peace-loving anti-nuclear pacifists” yeah right I don’t think anyone buys that anymore.
If we cannot develop emergency systems to fast track food aid to Afghanistan as a priority over maintaining our so called democracy we’re fucked.
All I can say is read alliesofhumanity.org before you take another breath.
I understand the Bellis publicity thing is annoying Martyn but it shows how the spin outside NZ is very different to what we can access here without a paywall.
My best case scenario would be for her to come home, make everyone happy, have her baby girl and maintain communications with Afghanistan.
I don’t know how many people wept on reading the stories of families having to SELL their children for food. This had got to be the pits, an all time low on the pendulum swinging the Sword of Damocles over humanity.
A year ago today, exactly
Two yrs.
There doesn’t appear to be any evidence that this outrage was caused by the Taliban. Deficient primitive males still function this way in Indonesia, India and other evolutionary backward societies. In New Zealand, the brutish males tend to go it alone when abusing, maiming, and killing women and children in OECD leading numbers.
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