Why will Labour listen to the science on Covid but nothing else?

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Why is is that we have a government hellbent on using science for Covid, but very little else?

All the science on Cannabis tells us that reform and not prohibition is the right outcome, yet we have a Government who refused any reform.

All the science on crime tells us that prevention is far preferable to prison yet the public services don’t get properly funded.

The science tells us mass reforms are required in welfare, this Government gives crumbs instead.

The science tells us a Capital Gains Tax is a legitimate tool to tackle inequality;ity, yet Jacinda rules it out.

The science is glaring when it comes to the Climate Crisis yet we get watered down nothings.

Science isn’t something you can chose to agree with when its politically expedient.

 

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40 COMMENTS

  1. None of these issues benefit the 1%, that is why the science/study doesn’t matter. Guess what that means about Covid and whom government truly represents!

  2. Good question, not just the government also the judicial system wrongly thinks it does a better job than science at determining fact – and more generally so does religion, and philosophy and etc…

    Yet science is humanity’s greatest achievement towards a method than consistently and best examines and explains reality.

    • That doesn’t just apply to Labour @Jeremy. Currently they’re the least worst of it with one or two exceptions

    • You need to think that whole “control over the people” line through. If it was true, then the government is deliberately putting the economy under stress, devoting huge amounts of energy into managing a pandemic, and making itself unpopular. Why? According to your narrative, because they want control. In my experience, a government wants to be reelected. If they make themselves unpopular they risk not getting reelected. And what is the purpose of this “control”?

  3. They don’t disclose the reasons for the ambiguity because it’s most likely based on political gains and donations.

  4. They don’t disclose the reasons for the ambiguity because it’s most likely based on political gains and donations. These two alone outweigh the public good.

    • O.E.D.: Elite – (noun) a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society.

      There is nothing wrong with being elite, it exists in many activities and walks of life. It’s a shame people abuse the term by using it when they are really only using it narrowly to mean society’s power brokers, or even worse, simply the wealthy.

    • but it might as well be a degree in voodoo political science is a ‘science’ like sociology and economics are.

  5. This govt doesn’t listen to anyone. Why should they? They know it all. And what they don’t know, they make go away with PR spin. The science are pointing to Jacinda having to look for a new job in 2023…

  6. To be fair to the government, the problem they had was deciding which scientist they should listen to.

    In the case of Covid 19 it seems they brought in the epidemiologists; a hyper-specialization whose sole focus appears to be the generation of computer models. Useful but hardly the whole story. They didn’t bring in the social scientists, the economists, the physicians, the logistics experts and all the rest in order to provide a broad input to decision making.
    In addition I know from internal contacts that the MoH and MBIE actively shunned advice from outside of their little fiefdoms. Like Gollum, the virus was their little ‘precious’.

  7. When it comes to Covid, they listen to some of the science on Covid, while on Cannabis, they do not listen at all.

  8. While I am in favour of the actions all of those things would necessitate I would be cautious to use science rather than politics to push them.

    I tend to find non scientists have far more faith in science than scientists. Speaking as someone who should know (without wishing to give too much away to the people who monitor this site) I can assure you that beyond predicting things like anomalous magnetic dipole moments science is not exact and in most of the areas outlined above subject to interpretation and all the vagaries of human nature. Scientists are just as human as politicians and the top 1%. Some of them are all three.

    While science has made many positive contributions to human society it also has a rich history of making some quite terrible contributions too. The challenge is the human element.

    • “While science has made many positive contributions to human society it also has a rich history of making some quite terrible contributions too. The challenge is the human element.”

      You were referring to Jeremy /John when you said terrible contributions too?
      Absolutely agree, undeniable.

  9. as my school science teacher said

    ‘imagine an infinite onion, science peels off layer at a time but because the onion is infinite we can only get closer to the truth’

    I would add my own rider….’but anti-science numpties think the onion is a tomato.

  10. Of concern, someone posted this on The Standard’s Daily Review last night. They are talking about the school curriculums.
    “The standards also recieve input from identified diversity people, including tangata whenua. The story regarding science/gology standard was talking about the identification of different soil strata and rocks. The input from the science teachers was about geology and identification of minerals e4tc. They were told they had missed to reference to Maori. When asked to define how this could be accommodated, the advisor said “You need to reference the mauri of the rocks, how you feel when you stand in the water and connect with the wairua of the place”.
    And of course the biology curricula about sex gender and biology………………….bonkers I am afraid

  11. They have listened to science on Covid because it is a life and death situation that affects them personally. Their friends family and themselves are at risk of dying next week. On the other hand, cannabis reform, prison reform, welfare reform, CGT, climate problems affects them not so much.

  12. Wear a mask because jabs don’t work.

    Get a jab because masks don’t work.

    Get another jab because the previous ones didn’t work.

    And you call that bullshit ‘science’ ??? !!!

    • NO get a jab because the virus is real
      get a second one because the virus is real
      get a booster because the virus is real

      don’t get a jab you may die or much much much more tragically kill others.

      surgeons nurses dentists etc wear masks all day everyday without having a fainting fit like some outraged victorian virgin..and more importantly not getting the germ infested contents of their mouths into open wounds…which by and large, weighing up the pros and cons is generally a good thing.

  13. Hint: It’s not science they listen to it’s political science. Watch when the worm turns how quickly mandates, masks and red lights are dropped. Don’t believe me – have a look at the Blue States in the US right now. Restrictions are being dropped quicker than a MAGA hat as the left looks at electoral oblivion in the mid terms

  14. This government listens to ideology and nothing else. Very little if anything they have done outside of about 60% of the Covid reactions seems to smack of properly investigating or evaluating issues. My worst fears of what this group in charge would do has been realized. I goped that they would (as every government does) only get a certaon amount of their policies through, amf that if I didnt like some of them they would get through the ones I was really supportive of.

    Instead they get very little through, what they do get through is often poorly planned, worded even worse and then implemented in an even greater display of ineptitude. Even their listening to the science claim falls apart when it comes to Covid as numerous OIA releases show they simply lied or changed their actions not based on the information or answers from the scientists, but their own feelings or ideals instead.

    All of this is just going to be even messier than it is now.

    • Totally agree Andrew they display ineptitude in everything they attempt.
      Their legacy will be a divided NZ.
      Which indeed is well underway.

  15. Yeah, wouldn’t it be amazing if legislation was enacted whenever there was clear evidence that a particular course of action was right? Doesn’t seem a lot to ask for.
    Even the National Party once had a Road to Damascus moment when they declared that legislation should be “evidence based”. If I remember right it was over the realization it was cheaper for the state to pay GP fees than clean up the damage later in hospital. Lasted till the next election. It is so much easier to spout bullshit about being tough on crime etc than to convince people to vote for things that actually work.

  16. Easy solution, vote Green, much of their policy covers what you are beefing about.
    Much of what governments do or don’t do, reflect the voting public, who can be less than smart to some degree or other.
    Unless more of us get voting for this stuff, then it will not be addressed.
    End of story

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