Just when the Council’s annual plan indicated a small step towards overdue environmental, infrastructure and social equality, it has reviewed its budget in light of expected income slumps, and suggests cutting all things good in favour of austerity, prioritising contracts where commitments have already been made with socially distorting effects.
Despite the rush to return to the economy of pre-Covid-19, statues are not the only edifices we should seek to dismantle.
I ended the week feeling sorry for Simon Bridges
‘Courageous Jacinda’, when catastrophe has allowed compassionate leadership and Jacinda has taken the country with her. And ‘Cautious Jacinda’, when it’s come to delivering on Labour’s initial policy promises and hopes and goals.
This year ANZAC Day parades were cancelled for the first time ever. Instead we were invited to stand at dawn and remember the war dead. For this one day of the year we were called to think of the cost of war. We’re called to be mindful of suffering, conflict, the forging of a nation, and Trans-Tasman solidarity.
Food supply is a matter of national security. Empty shelves in the supermarket are an unfamiliar sight in New Zealand, more reminiscent of 1980s Eastern Europe. We’ve had such relative privilege for so long, many of us forgot how dependent we were on contingent, international supply chains.
As with the myth about economic growth being a rising tide that lifts all ships, it’s also not true that the falling tide effects all workers equally. Some of the CEOs on multi-million-dollar salaries who were paid – and failed- to anticipate business disruption, face a cut to their incomes, but workers lose their whole livelihoods.
Vladimir Lenin said “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen” – and it definitely feels like events in time are speeding up.
2020 started with an existential bang. Catastrophic bushfires, drought, international undiplomatic brinkmanship and now Covid-19, it’s felt like we’ve ticked off the full apocalyptic list.
The Novel Corona Virus and potential recession may provide an opportunity to reconsider the social and economic settings that have led to political and environmental instability around the world.