Ok, let’s be honest about what happens next with the pandemic in NZ

ByMartyn Bradbury

This election won’t be decided on what we do next, it will be in part political loyalty generated by Jacinda when people who aren’t normally frightened felt scared and in part by who makes us feel safer, Jacinda or Judith.

Emotion and loyalty will decide the 2020 election.

When you think about it, there rarely are universal events that touch everyone. Our lockdown was one such event, and pundits inability to understand the tectonic shift that this pandemic has generated is why they aren’t comprehending the magnitude of what’s coming.

The negative is that we have some of the most crucial and pressing issues to deal with and because of the gratitude tsunami coming Labour’s way, none of those issues will get debated before October 17th.

So here are the realities confronting us with the pandemic.

Death Cult Capitalism will ask to kill thousands:

They will demand no more lock downs, they will demand less restrictions and they will demand looser borders, but here is the naked reality…

Covid-19: Herd immunity approach would lead to ‘thousands of avoidable deaths’

A researcher modelling Covid-19 death rates says 1300 Māori and Pasifika would die in the Counties Manukau district alone if community transmission was allowed to run rampant, reinforcing the importance of an elimination approach to the virus.

…so the poorest amongst us should sacrifice themselves for the economy and the wealthy who prosper most from that economy?

No one is going to accept that.

The reality of the Pandemic Infrastructure and reshaping of economy:

America’s economy fell 33%, the IMF are screaming into the void of bad economic data and our own domestic warnings are equally grim. The economic fall out of the pandemic hasn’t even begun to impact us yet and the need to build a quarantine infrastructure alongside reform of the International student market, migrant worker market and tourism industry either become a priority or become a haemorrhaging wound that kills the next Government.
To minimise virus transmission if it gets through the border we need a powerful track trace infrastructure alongside mandatory mask use and this will have to be the new normal until we get a vaccine and that isn’t likely until 2022.

The reality of doubling the size and capacity of the State:

National are offering deregulation, less funding for public services and reopening borders where as Labour have to understand that surviving the pandemic will require the State directly hiring more people and building structural capacity in our health care, defence force and community services. Labour need to not just add responsibilities to the State, it needs to build a bigger State.

The tsunami of social damage:

The domestic violence, the depression, the mental health impacts of social isolation, unemployment, suicide and crime are all going to erupt as financial pressures and stress take their toll. The community services that can heal and repair this damage have no capacity for what is coming. A vast new wellness industry must be adopted immediately and a tax debt amnesty for those small and medium businesses about to go under.

The promotion of conspiracy and death of public broadcasting:

We are seeing what happens when people just get their news from Facebook. The rise of conspiracy theorist politicians is a grotesque mutation that threatens the body politic with its toxicity to reason. To date, Chris Faafoi as Broadcasting Minister has been missing in action. He has not grasped the importance of public broadcasting and the urgent need to have trusted journalism that is open to a code of ethics. As a former broadcaster himself, Willie Jackson needs to become Broadcasting Minister and be given the room to implement real reforms so that conspiracy theorists can’t dominate the space where public broadcasting is failing.

The fundamental problem is that the advertising market has been bled dry by Google and Facebook. Here is a blueprint.

1 – Public Funded Media in the nations interest

The RNZ-TVNZ merger should be occurring immediately with the following inclusions.

      • TV1 commercial free (so existing advertising can go to Mediaworks).
      • RNZ launch a commercial free youth radio station.
      • RNZ/TVNZ launch a 24 hour news station on one of their existing Freeview+ channels.

2 – Tax Google & Facebook and ring fence that for direct funding of corporate journalism

Google & Facebook charged a percentage on all revenue from NZ, that money is specifically ring fenced to a contestable fund available to established Media to specifically provide Fourth Estate Journalism.

3 – NZ on Air ‘Read between the Flags’ Kiwi journalism 

In a world of disinformation, we need journalism we can trust. We all get the ‘swim between the flag’ model of surf life saving, NZ on Air should be given extra funding for ‘Read between the flags’ Kiwi Journalism. This money is to break the current elite opinion NZ on Air circle jerk and provide revenue for smaller blogs and citizen journalism who become eligible if they agree to a set of Journalistic Principles. If you do agree and sign up, you are entitled to funding and must have a Kiwi Journalism flag on your site to show you are obliged to the Journalistic Principles Code of conduct. You would have an awareness campaign to urge NZers to ‘read between the flags’ for trusted information.

 

 

New Zealand has some of the biggest issues ever confronting us to debate and I fear they simply won’t gain much air time because Labour’s stratospheric rise will eclipse all other narratives as confused pundits struggle to explain a majority result under an MMP structure.

Unfortunately these issues are so pressing they will be felt the day after the election regardless of whether or not we’ve debated them.

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8 Comments

  1. Tony Abbot says out loud what other conservative right wing politicians all around the world are all thinking.

    Let elderly die from virus to cut lockdown cost, says Abbott
    2 Sep, 2020 2:42pm

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12361632&&ref=topbox&fbclid=IwAR0cvnIf_PT3niudsLyS-eUc7ggFWefqUWx4N0eY7R84VtuDGizgH46raQ0

    Tony Abbot’s Australia would have been witness to scenes of mass graves, of overflowing morgues, of bodies stacked on top of each other inside refrigerated containers, scenes from places like New York and Italy where the virus got out of control.

  2. I like what you are writing Martyn – one of the problems is that without a government that has goodwill towards the people and shows it with real moves and physical provisions, the grey hopelessness of never being able to have a brighter future will envelop many. Our governments have dug us into a trench, and if we arent careful the sides will fall in and suffocate us. Most of the changes you note are essential. If we give our pollies a firm hold on their perch will they be smart enough to do the necessary tricks? Or are we going to get a repeat of the Dead Parrot Sketch? The lovely Norwegian Blue wasn’t kipping, it was nailed to the perch. The unhappy customer’s replacement option was a slug. Practically parallels our case.

    I am already feeling uneasy at the images in the constant stream of flyers for retirement homes showing white old people looking prosperous, usually happily laughing, sitting in attractive rooms looking out onto gardens. I am white and know lots of white people who haven’t a hope of achieving that setting, so what about other racial groups with great numbers on low incomes? Social welfare, has a certain scent of sulphur in some people’s minds similar to having a social disease. Yet it has been a basic requirement in our failed-enterprise state, and has now become mainstream.

    It could however be used with huge amounts of Green Taskforce Teams and creative ideas being dreamed up, acquiring seed funding; housing, work on preparing for drought and wildfires etc. We could be making lemonade out of our lemons and getting by on basic incomes for many but with bright moments thrown in to look forward to. But the haters administrating society who really don’t want the poor to ever be happy could wreck our renaissance before it starts. We must think of a way to affect the psychology of our civil servants and their contractors and sub-contractors. Because the private approach can now not be unlike the old public approach which at worst was take-it-or-leave-it. How can we incentivise good attitudes and a will to help the public in the minds of the administrators? A start would be a career pathway within the public service right up to home-grown, capable CEOs – not change-agent, shape-shifters helicoptered in from past the Green Wizard of Oz curtain so effective at masking the ROP (Rather Ordinary People) behind.

  4. “…so the poorest amongst us should sacrifice themselves for the economy and the wealthy who prosper most from that economy?

    No one is going to accept that.”

    Plenty of Nat voters would happily accept that, sadly.

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