Tallying Covid: Why Kiwis could vote Labour again after September economic shockwave

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
73
2878

3283 – NZ (population 5m)

24755 – Sweden (10m)

9162 – Ireland (5m)

191211 – Italy (59m)

Those are the numbers.

That’s how many died from Covid and the population of each nation, compared to Ireland we are talking about 6000 lives difference.

That’s the price we sacrificed to protect as many people as we could, to leave no one behind.

It was expensive and forced a level of borrowing that was unprecedented. Of course there were mistakes made, it was a once in a century pandemic and we were flying blind during it!

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There were sacrifices made that generated unequal consequences in an unequal society.

Labour’s mistake was believing society could just go back to how things were when things were so unequal, we needed the transformative change Jacinda promised but couldn’t deliver.

But the decisions made were courageous and righteous and saved 6000 NZers lives.

That’s a price that was worth paying then, and it is a price that any honourable leader would implement again if faced with the same situation!

Too often we ignore what was saved to rage against what went wrong.

Labour need to rouse that universal shared experience that was Covid and remind us all what we saved with those decisions and that the duty now is to see those challenges through.

New Zealanders leaned into Labour in crisis, because they see in Labour someone who wants to help them, where as in National and ACT they see someone who will kick them when they are down.

Chippy is likeable, Luxon wants you to like him.

When the books get opened next month the World will be able to see how significant the China economic slow down is and NZs exposure to that decline.

There is every possibility those numbers spark the sense of an economic crisis with the stock market tanking and voter’s Kiwisavers getting smashed.

Voters will ask themselves in that sense of crisis, ‘who will look after me, Labour or National/ACT’.

Chippy and Grant or David and Chris Luxon.

Who will look after you when you fall over?

Chippy and Grant will help you up on your feet and dust you off while Chris would lecture you about not falling over as David kicks you for being weak.

These are the choices in front of us this election.

 

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73 COMMENTS

  1. Parents know their kids’ education was thrown under a bus so Ardern could look strong and in charge for the elderly and anxious.

    Same with businesses who needed the borders open to trade and survive.
    Rumours out of the MoH at the time was that the blockage was Ardern personally, despite the advice they provided.

    • ada, ‘rumuors’, no doubt from the Hosking fan club. Anyone prepared to put their name and facts on the table?

    • @Ada, Adern is literally the last person on the list of NZ prime ministers who were preoccupied with looking strong!
      The complete lack of discernment from people at the moment amazes me. This country followed a path that practically every country in the world followed regardless of the political leanings of their particular government yet everyone directs their hatred at Jacinda as if she was a devious mastermind.

      I’m not a Jacinda supporter but you could at least come up with some logical reasons why you dislike her.

      • Adas a troll, in every sense of the word. What Covid created were people like Ada creating hate and division becauseof her personal dislike for Ardern and Ada knows this. Does she truly believe Ardern set out to destroy children’s education?
        Ada is no diggers than the dog shit on my shoe, incredibly annoying.

      • I do not dislike Jacinda personally as I am sure she believes the course she took while in power was the right one . No leader can please everyone so you have to believe in your head you are right .
        My grip is the thinking behind the Labour way of running the country with the current team .When Clark was in power it was a different style and I voted twice for her then they changed style and it was back to National. Her team has had 6 years to prove themselves and failed .

        • Can’t fault your thinking there as that is why I went with Labour because Key’s style was appalling and had 9 years of failure.

      • I think what people dislike was the agressive power grab (the Podium of Truth), the failure to admit fault (the KFC worker, the Northland ‘prostitutes’), lying (we are at the front of the queue), and listening only to Baker, Wiles and Hendy when other experts could have told them that there will be economic effects and that people missing Cancer screening visits will have an impact. Stupid shit like – dont talk to your neighbours, or you can go visit friends now but be sure to shit in their back yard, also made them look like Muppets.
        Auckland hasnt forgotten my local MP (Ardern) only came to Auckland in that 4 month period.

    • I have two words for you… “National Standards”.. Code name for fitting the curriculum to direct the money, and resources towards the more “productive” schools.. The ones producing the most promising computer code writers…
      Your “comments” are normally less informative, and useful than a duck quacking, but you provided an opportunity to remind people just what was done to our primary schools, at the same time as the very same system was in full retreat from it in every state it had been imposed..
      And the same bullshit used to justify it there, worked a treat here…. and as I sit here, listening to the ducks quacking, I understand why…

    • …and if you want to understand NZ’s housing inequality watch the movie “In Time”. It is an exact dystopian future the likes of Luxon prays to the holy cloud in the sky for.

    • Seymour and Luxon in negotations:
      Seymour: Hey Chris!
      *Smashes him in the head with an axe*
      Seymour: TRY GETTING A RESERVATION AT SKYCITY NOW YOU FUCKING STUPID BASTARD!!!

  4. Labour have not made a good job of looking after the financial side of this lovely country. Another 3 years will have us in at a 3rd World level .
    Churchill saved England from Germany invasion but the people voted him out of power after the war and while Labour did a good job with covid it does not give them the right to another term .

    • Trevor, the fact that Air NZ can’t satisfy demand would indicate the economy is not in such bad shape. Yes, a lot of people are suffering, but that’s because of 30+ years of rogernomics and neoliberalism.

      • Current Trade balance worse in the OECD and economic growth 2nd worst in the world (only behind Equatorial Guinea) say hi.

        Robertson and Orr have run this country into the ground and turned a rock star economy into a bag of rocks.

      • ANZ are short of planes and staff so no story there . Businesses are all suffering due to inflation and poor control of the economy

        • Businesses that were all on welfare benefits during the pandemic and are now returning record profits from higher prices. It’s not the lack of planes or staff that are the story, it’s the fact that in this so called ‘broken economy’ so many people are able to holiday overseas.

  5. Middle NZ is being squeezed, don’t ya know! The medical evidence suggests such collective squeezing is likely to induce memory loss.

  6. You aren’t getting any more votes from that source, Covid-19 is gone & forgotten apparently, only the anger & resentment remains.

  8. The population size is one factor, but population density is another factor when considering the impact of a communicable infection. Italy has approx 200 citizens per sqm. NZ has approx 19 citizens per sqm. (Ireland has approx 70 citizens per sqm.) Whoever was in charge of NZ’s response to Covid had a very different playing field to European nations. Added to that, NZ did not have to consider ground access to our country via busses, cars, lorries, trains, motorbikes or hitchhiking etc. One figure bandied around in 2020 was that 65,000 kiwis were going to die. Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but even so, NZ as a Pacific Island was uniquely positioned to deal with Covid compared to the European countries.

    • Overall population density is irrelevant. It’s the density of the places where people actually live, ie the main cities.

    • Disingenuous to say the least Pete.
      Get some detail of where NZ had the highest infection rates and stack that up against the population density.
      I think you will find we were still way ahead of Italy.
      Just because we have vast areas of unpopulated land it doesn’t mean we did no better and I’m sure you wouldn’t consider that to be a factor when you talk about poor roads in Auckland or ED waiting times in Manukau as opposed to Palmerston North. They all stink but. NZ population density overall doesn’t mean diddly squat.

  9. New Zealand’s CIVID response started well, but after the initial success it ossified, up to and beyond the inane lunacy of the kindergarten chook raffle of the MIQ lottery.

  10. The premise of locking Auckland down like North Korea for 4 months was a complete and utter overkill and an appalling overreach of government.

    I recall clearly the terror and hysteria from our government accompanied by university backed mathematicians and virologists with modelling showing how apocalyptic life was going to be under Omicron if we didn’t hide away. It was agreed to by scientists almost unanimously. Anyone who dared disagree was pronouced a witch with mental health problems. Guess what, it was bullshit. It spread wildfire anyway, we all went what the fuck was this bloody scare campaign all about and the government had to surrender. And then the horror stories of the end of mankind ever so coincidentally faded away too.

    I would have to say the Covid era undermined government credibility hugely for at least a generation.

    Labour do NOT want to go anywhere near their Covid days. It sure either in 2020 but it’s the polar opposite now. Its a good part of the reason Ardern is now not PM and one of a hundred reasons they will lose! But hey they’re so desperate, who knows?

  11. Sorry but I think you’re delusional.

    From a what I’m seeing and hearing, it doesn’t matter what Labour says. Kiwis want to move on and have had a gutsful of them.

  12. As my years have advanced I have grown more cynical about governments and political parties. Nothing is ever done for those most in need. The focus is always on the group most likely to ensure election to the government benches. It inevitably means a focus on the so called middle classes. Why waste promises on the haves and the have nots? We know how they will vote. The sad reality is that those most in need of help can ‘go to hell’ in the scramble for votes. Any real change is coincidental to the ruling government and under the current system real change is even less likely.

    • Sadly, I pretty much agree with you Charlie.
      You sound old enough to have grandchildren and what I find disturbing is that the Greens don’t poll much higher than about 10% max. (and I guess they’ll never get the vote at 16 – (certainly not when NatACT are in power)
      The 100-year storms that we suffer about every second year; the planet is burning with temperatures in the 40 50C in summer… and we ignore, forget or …. is it that everyone of us is basically only voting in our own selfish interests?
      Grandchildren can look after themselves – if they survive the increasing dystopian future that climate change will inevitably bring.
      But wait, there’s more…. there’s PEFU, China et al sabre-rattling, the world economy in bad shape, Rogernomics still has a following (but not Roger himself,) division and hatred within NZ etc etc …mmmmm not a pretty picture.
      Guess you’re glad you’re the age that you are, Charlie?

  13. Many of our Māori kids didn’t get the computers they needed during covid lockdown were you in that boat Ada? yet most of us still know what side our bread is buttered on, and it isn’t with National or Act. National tax cuts have hairs on them they are giving with one hand and taking with the other. There is too much at stake to let them win this election and I can see trickery in this 14 billion tax policy. I had a good look at it and the rich benefit the most when it should be the poor working people. National cannot deliver without cutting and adding more tax to pay for their taxes its simply not possible. And it’s not what they had said that troubles me it’s what they have left out.

    • So Labour did not do a good job of getting computers to Maori but you say then that they are the party that looks after Maori.
      I am sure many Pakeha did not get computers iether so all were treated badly that is why so many have decided that because under Labour they can no longer afford butter they will vote National.

    • What Willis has said cip,( previously) she HAS left out and that is the tax cuts( it’s all National knows)will be paid for through Kiwisaver and the Superfund. This indicates we in fact will pay for our own tax cuts and they will raise the retirement age to 67. Trust and National should never ever be used in the same sentence.

  14. What a load of bollocks this opinion piece is.
    I respect your right to voice your opinion but don’t agree with you one bit.
    I saw you on maori tv the other night and lost complete respect for you.

  15. The covid response delayed a lot of 80+ year olds from dying for a year or two but at what cost ! Sweden did a lot better job , kept the schools open and people working . Didn’t take on billions of debt and ruin their economy or disrupt education to the extent that kids lives have been permanently damaged by lockdowns –

    • I’m afraid I do, to a degree, agree with you. The lockdowns saved many of my age (80s), and for that we should be grateful.
      But I saw my grandson having to be “at school” at home, being “in class” on a laptop. He’s OK; but I fear many are not. Once these young people with a less secure family base were forced into schoollessness, that may have become the norm, as they saw it. What are we to make of the extraordinary degrees of truancy, especially, as I gather, up north? Are such events as children as ram raiders the collateral damage of the covid policy of the time?
      Labour may have been wielding a double-edged sword in the fight against covid. Gratitude towards them should not be uncritical.

  16. But how many people had to die for Sweden to do better artemis you obviously don’t value someone’s life.

  17. Yes let’s all vote Labour because their values are so amazing…disagreeing with Trans ideology is hate speech and should be met with violence (aka trans-love), and democracy is heteronormative and racist so we must give 17% of the population 50% control.

    https://www.interest.co.nz/public-policy/123980/chris-trotter-gives-his-assessment-pm-labour-leader-chris-hipkins-weekend

    No.

    This lifelong Labour and Green voter will be voting Act (who I despise) just to restore some semblance of balance.

  18. Weren’t we supposed to be at the front of the que for everything according to the covid peep Hipy

  19. Thomas (who quoted kiwi blog) Fitch credit rating agency gave us a AAt with a stable outlook this followed Moodys credit rating agency analysis who said we also have a stable outlook rating us Aaa and saying our debt level as a % of GDP remains lower than many of our international peers. So, someone is telling porkies me thinks it kiwi Blog and you repeating the porkies.

  20. ” Chippy is likeable, Luxon wants you to like him ”

    Likeability is great but its got to be a lot more than that like real concrete policies and direction that act as a force field against the ravages of unregulated capitalist profit gouging that financially rape our most vulnerable people with no legislation that should provide protection against these inhuman greedy entitled horde’s who are more protected and nurtured because of their power and influence.

  21. Covid was a dark time, no one wants to be reminded of it. Best we offer solutions to today’s problems. Champion our solutions and only attack the other mob when they try to poke holes in our solutions. We need to be proactive, we need to be positive. Championing our solutions, defending our solutions, this to me is being proactive and positive. Attacking their solutions, this to me, when we are apparently behind in the polls, is a losing game. Front foot please, and front foot the issues that matter to boot!

  22. The Labour/Greens/TPM would continue our slide to the bottom of the OECD.
    When over 2/3 of the country think we’re going in the wrong direction the 50% of Labour MP’s that are going to lose their jobs should be planning their 3 months taxpayer funded holiday!

  23. This is last year’s news! Labour and Jacinda did a great job protecting us from covid and were rewarded in the last election. This coming election is all about how they betrayed their voters and just totally f#$%&*d up. Different situation altogether.

    • 100% Daniel. They, Labour, are world-class at shutting things down – hopeless at building anything up (apart from resentment in the working classes as you note). Those who defend them because ‘they saved us from COVID’ are living in the past

  24. Sorry Martin but bullshit. Singapore population 5m deaths 1870. No need to cripple the economy or borrow a billion dollars a a month. Labour’s student politicians have destroyed the economy.

    • Can someone please explain to me about the economy. From my limited understanding, business confidence is growing. There are profits galore, most of the students are back or coming back. The travel industry is growing again, more planes in the air every day. There are more people in work than out of work. Wages are mostly keeping up with inflation. Health will improve with the changes made ( this health crisis was decades in the making), children are going back to school. We have more police ( just imagine if we didn’t how much worse things could be ). People are now queuing to come live in NZ. We have kept all our AA+ ratings with independent agencies stating our economy is in good shape. We are comparing well with the rest of the world
      Australia is more of a mess than their letting on , Brisbane is the crime capital of Australia ( youth crime ) sound familiar, ( and their police are armed ! ). This tax policy from the National party is utter crap and they and everyone else knows it. They will completely stuff up the economy for absolutely no need. People need to work out what they are losing in the very small print. It’s obvious the rich donors wrote this policy for themselves. They are relying on foreign buyers and dodgy online gambling. Wasn’t there a call to cull pokies by the problem gambling association just recently because of gambling harm , now we have the national party going to encourage online gambling just to give their rich mates a tax cut.So here we are at the cusp of an election catastrophe with a megalomaniac ( i used to run an airline don’t you know) Guy Fawkes , Nicola Willis pretending she can’t afford the movies ( condescending in the extreme to more than the squeezed middle and uncaring to their labeled bottom feeders). So Bob, Trevor et. al. I think you have been shafted by the biggest political scam yet. Don’t be fooled ,these right wing people only care about their rich mates and bugger the rest of us .That actually includes you and your mates as well ( unless your filthy rich of course ).

      • Quite correct Queeny, people are brainwashed by right wing media rhetoric and sensationalism. Everything you have quoted is correct but the media won’t report it because they’re paid to put negative stories on line or in the print press, that’s what pays the bills.
        Nurses have never been better off, teachers have never been better off, police numbers have never been better off.
        I personally have never been better.
        Common sense is the best degree anyone can have and sadly too few on this site have it.

    • Singapore went full Vax first. Like what are you trying to say that because 1870 deaths out of population proves or disproves Singapore’s corona response?

  25. Global Heard immunity is probably the most reliable and safest way to deal with this bs. Why?

    The symptoms. They’re flu & cold -like. And compounded if you have existing respiratory issues. That’s it.

    Stop fucking about with masks, mandates and lockdowns. Be sensible and conscientious but fuck off with the Nazi-Authoritarian-Fascist shite.

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