Covid inquiry: Time to cut Dame Jacinda Ardern a break – Fran O’Sullivan
Cut Dame Jacinda Ardern a break.
All manner of business egomaniacs have been putting the boot into her in recent days – polishing their own brands in just the way she is accused of having done hers.
Just move on, please. It is sickening. Time wasting. Polarising.
Sowing dissension when this country could more usefully focus on setting an ambition that might persuade more talented New Zealanders to build their futures here instead of heading for the departure lounge.
I believe Labour did an incredible job of managing a once in a century pandemic and the economic and public health data bear that out.
She did this by being open with us all, and we respected that by overwhelmingly agreeing without authoritarian force.
China welded doors shut, Jacinda paid us to stay home.
However, there were mistakes made, because of course there would be.
- Instead of building back better to acknowledge our collective sacrifice, Labour merely built back to where the bleeding gums of our inequality had left us. Labour’s GST off fruit and vegetables told us they hadn’t felt or understood our pain.
- Because we a liberal progressive democracy that respects the autonomy of the individual, no one was held down and injected, any citizen can refuse a medicine for whatever reason, and those who were negatively impacted by the mandates should have had a zero stand down for welfare and once the emergency had passed, they should have all been offered their jobs back.
- The protests at the Dumb Lives Matter protest deserved to have been heard, rather than allow Mallard to turn it into a recruitment video for right wing extremists.
- Auckland was never thanked for taking the hard yards while the rest of NZ raced to get vaccinated.
Jacinda won the Covid War.
She lost the Covid Peace.
That didn’t justify her vilification nor demonisation.
We need to learn from the mistakes made because the next pandemic is coming.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
Reasonable points in retrospect, particularly number one where NZ Labour majorly squandered its once in a generation MMP majority.
Wiping Benefit Stand downs and some jobs back would have been reasonable justice…but in the health sector…really?
Another significant error down to Robbo was giving employers large and small the loot to distribute. For workers it should have been paid direct to them by IRD. But hey, it is easy to be wise now, although I did raise the direct to worker payments at the time.
The Parliamentary occupation was a major stuff up and even as a non cop it is totally obvious what should have happened–Police and the other 10 or so agencies of state intelligence should have been up with the play and any attempted occupation by Groundswell and the rest repelled on the first day with force.
Your article is very fair. While it would be great to know the future before needing to make decisions, we don’t always have that ability, and people make the best decision they can at the time. The motive was to save lives, and your sensible improvements should be included if another pandemic arrives. However, I suspect that if anyone like the current government is in charge, they will just order more body bags.
That’s why Auckland deserted Labour in droves.
Auckland was imprisoned the longest by far. I don’t think the rest of the country ‘raced’ to get vaccinated while Auckland waited. Once the rest of the country knew Aucklanders couldn’t invade them, they faffed around and came up with excuses not to be vaccinated, gave them too much time to watch you tube videos from all the experts who ‘knew better’, too much time to ‘do their own research’.
Gave various protest organisations too much time to organise themselves. Those who had the least to moan about made the most noise – Groundswell, what a bunch of silly boys.
Auckland children missed out on more schooling. However, we have to balance that statement against the idea that if kids had been at school, covid would have spread quicker, taking out over-stretched teachers and their families as well. So perhaps they were all better off being at home.
Have never agreed with the lottery idea for MIQ. Need should have been the top priority but the lottery forced more defense personnel into a job they didn’t want.
Not much sympathy for those who missed births, deaths and other events. This has been a feature of human existence since forever. You aren’t necessarily there when these things happen.
Trying to convince South Islanders that Aucklanders should be thanked is an unlikely proposition. Let’s not get too carried away. Trying to convince blue-shirts that Jacinda should be thanked just as unlikely. They don’t know how lucky they were, but that is always the case. Those who suffer the least, moan the most.
Living in Christchurch, the impression I always had was that the transmission of COVID outside of Auckland had reduced enough for more freedom to be allowed, while enough people in Auckland failed to follow the sensible measures to reduce the spread of the disease so they had a longer lockdown. I thought that vaccination rates were similar across the country so I don’t think that was a factor.
A lot more people in Auckland so a lot more possibilities for problems. Many people felt restrictions were good, but didn’t really apply to them. Other Aucklanders were very annoyed about them too.
Auckland was very restricted so as not to spread covid round the country.
I said I didn’t believe the rest of the country had ‘raced’ to get vaccinated. Too busy enjoying their freedom.
Do Labour policy makers read your blog. They should because it tells the truth about why they lost .I would fined it hard to vote Labour because I do nit like their policies but I am sure for many they would vote for them if the leaders said sorry to those they destroyed.
Talking shit again Trevor.
Nats and ACT and in particular Peters have never said sorry for any of the cockups they have ever made.
Another example reported today.
Breast cancer screening promise for women between 71-75 to be fully implemented this term now pushed out to 2029.
I could list many more promises broken in the last 18 months but haven’t really got the time.
But you expect labour to apologize for something that may have affected some but certainly not the majority but because the nutters like Winston and the vindictive like Seymour continue to have the ear of the media nutters like you get on the bandwagon.
How about you get your mates to apologize to those ripped off by ANZ and ASB that are being screwed over by retrospective legislation.
Why should Labour apologize if your Government is getting away with fraud and helping their mates.
Does that saying sorry apply to those destroyed in world wars past
This witch hunt is a waste of 14 million all to appease 8% yet many petitions have received far more signatures and support yet nothing done zilch comprendo! We need to move on we have more pressing matters to deal with like the cost of living, thousands of our young people migrating to Aus, a shortage of doctors, massive infrastructure costs and growing inequalties.
There must have been a thing called “covid shock “ as in we dodged a bullet. Not one person has come up with any alternatives to what the Labour government did. It’s all blame blame blame.
1 there’s got to be questions about medical professionals dismissing the science and refusing vaccinations, midwives advising pregnant women not to be vaccinated. Abuse thrown at vaccinators in their work place not only parliament grounds. Many of us were retired nurses who had already did a lifetime of caring.
2 Poor Auckland the biggest city sadly had to take one for the team .
3 The parliament sit in was purely the mobs fault they chose to go there in the middle of winter with their babies and children,then turned around to blame everyone else for their predicament.
4 businesses were saved jobs were saved. People who complained about not being allowed in were off on the next plane as soon as the borders were open.
5 The rabid media criticized every decision the government made encouraging anti vaccination crowing at perceived mistakes.
My 5 steps of anarchy against Jacinda Ardern et.al
The 14 million dollars spent on this witch hunt could have brought decent mincemeat for the kid’s school lunches instead of then using offal.
Comments are closed.