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April 3, 2020 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 03 April 2020

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General Debate

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Maggy Wassilieff

Anyone remember those alarming reports a few months back that the Victoria Falls were drying up…

https://www.iol.co.za/travel/africa/watch-victoria-falls-is-thriving-records-highest-flow-45963166
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April 3, 2020 8:05am
- rightoverlabour
  
  On a similar note
  
  https://electroverse.net/earths-temperature-plunged-in-march/
  
  Now the general trend of that graph does show progressive warming, but make sure you make note of the Y axis… These are not absolute temperatures, but departures from a mean.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:14am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    It’s been getting cooler for a while.
    Global warming without sunspots?
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:39am
- oldfella
  
  Looks like the planet got pretty warm a long time before humans started messing with the climate. Just don’t tell Stuffed. It will do their heads in.
  https://nypost.com/2020/04/01/scientists-discover-antartica-had-a-lush-rainforest-90-million-years-ago/
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:30am
  - oldfella
    
    I was sure the Stuffed website would never carry this story. But I’ve just spotted it in their ‘Climate Change’ section. And I have no idea why it’s there. The only thing I can think of is that Stuffed has been hacked! /sarc
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:59am
  - rouppe
    
    It is on Stuff.
    
    The thing to note from this is that since that time, there has been an ice age which destroyed that environment (catastrophic climate change anyone?) and a subsequent melting which flooded the area (catastrophic climate change #2 anyone?) which begs the question that any climate change destruction that occurs now might just be “normal”, and that for humans to call it a catastrophe is hubris. Why should we be exempt?
    
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    April 3, 2020 12:11pm
  - surfing
    
    Hahahahahaha, you just shot yourself in the foot, why did you not think to read what the authors actually said.
    
    Missing from the NYPost story….
    
    ” Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere was also far higher than previously assumed”
    
    They say the CO2 concentration back then was at “1120 to 1680 ppm”
    
    Compared to today’s 400ppm.
    
    Co2 projections predict 1000ppm by 2100 if we continue economic growth and disregard Co2 emissions.
    
    If we make serious cutbacks to Co2 usage then maybe by 2100 we can cap Co2 to 500ppm.
    
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    April 3, 2020 1:08pm
- Loddenthinks
  
  On a similar similar note, Stuff has a thumbnail on its “breaking news” page, that states categorically “Ecuador’s tallest waterfall vanishes”
  
  Above that caption is a side-by-side image showing quite clearly that the waterfall has not in fact vanished. it has a lower water flow, and there are valid (non-climate hysteria-related) reasons for it, but it has by no means vanished.
  
  When you don’t even have to click on the article to know it’s fake news, you can safely disbelieve everything this “essential service” publishes except perhaps the day of the week.
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:43am
  - david
    
    That sounds like the old saw “all fishermen are liars except you and me, and at times I have my doubts about you”
    
    Otherwise in the words of the Goons “ yes, but can I be trusted?”
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:31am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

There are some seriously fucked up people in this World.
https://abc7.com/officials-engineer-tried-to-smash-train-into-usns-mercy/6069395/?fbclid=IwAR15lSBpbQZtK19LI-qykzd0GjQmR37imsTMD8VEjr9Bo8sA5eQjMiI-lPk
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April 3, 2020 8:07am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Casey Jones needs to lay off the crack
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:08am
  - PhilBest
    
    Casey Jones…mounted to his cabin
    Casey Jones…with his crack pipe in his hand….
    
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    April 3, 2020 8:23am
- G152
  
  Went off the tracks then ???? 🙂
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:27am
Poppa

So I think it pretty obvious that Cindy & her comrades have absolutely no idea how to get us out of this mess

There appears to be no plan & even if there is, what will be the trigger to move to lesser levels

None of them have ever owned a business & therefore have no idea. There will be many many businesses that don’t survive through this, but will the govt care? I doubt it
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April 3, 2020 8:08am
- Random T Person
  
  “None of them have ever owned a business & therefore have no idea.”
  This is why they think they can knock out half the value chain and still have goods at the same price. Fuck all knowledge of economics or economy. EVERY INDUSTRY IS ESSENTIAL OR IT WOULD NOT EXIST. Take one industry out and things get more complicated, more difficult and more expensive. Take half or three quarters or whatever out and you get an unmitigated disaster, as we are all about to discover.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:13am
  - jv
    
    The most powerful person at present is the Glide Time bully who from day to day decides on “essential services” and “essential goods”.
    Shut Mitre 10, no – open Mitre 10 for tradies, now open Mitre 10 for on-line for “essential goods” Imagine sitting in MBIE running through the Mitre 10 inventory giving ticks or crosses to each item.
    Half a brain would see the benefits for the economy and for mental health of providing on- line retail therapy for whatever you need to distract yourself in your bubble. But no even the PM needed to pimp on the Whangarei? woman who couldn’t access masks for her compromised people so had to order them from Shanghai.
    The same mindlessness as taking magazines off supermarket shelves.
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:25am
- artemisia
  
  The government will care, that’s all. They will be quietly hoping to be back on Opposition benches sooner rather than later. Stress free life, no accountability, good pay.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:14am
  - peterwn
    
    No. Their overarching objective is to win the forthcoming election – at any price – financed by the long suffering taxpayer.
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:13am
  - tf78
    
    I don’t think this government cares at all- they only care about their salaries.
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:14am
- PhilBest
  
  Today’s “Must-read”:
  
  https://www.jpost.com/opinion/it-is-time-to-end-this-misguided-social-experiment-get-back-to-work-622856
  
  “…Unfortunately, the current experiment that is being conducted on us by supposedly democratic governments throughout the world follows none of these principles. Moreover, it has been designed by unelected public health officials; the same officials who failed in their duty to protect us from the virus.
  Therefore, we are allowing the unit responsible for government failure to give advice on how to “solve” a problem that is in large part their fault…
  
  “…The other pernicious force at play in this multifaceted tragedy is a crazed media, which have sensationalized the spread of the virus and vastly overestimated the damage the virus could create. For example, media outlets constantly refer to Italy, which is clearly an outlier along many dimensions, pressuring policymakers to lockdown the entire economy…
  
  “…Public health officials, working with an unscrupulous media, have feverishly constructed a false and misleading narrative that conveniently fits their apocalyptic view of a “crisis.” This has compelled politicians, even those who would normally reject draconian measures to stifle economic activity, to engage in the most rapid form of self-inflicted wealth destruction and restriction of economic liberty we have ever witnessed in a free society….”
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:14am
  - Random T Person
    
    Epic PhilBest thanks for bringing that to our attention. Suffice to say I am 100% aligned with the authors.
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:22am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    https://spectator.us/lockdown-please-swedish/
    
    Funny how imposing totalitarian social control is always solution #1 for the rest of us, the Swedes seem to be one sensible country.
    
    I particularly like the comment that it is us who are doing an experiment not them.
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:40am
    - PhilBest
      
      There is an article on “The Spectator” unfortunately behind paywall, by a Swedish economist that starts with the memorable line, “Who would have thought that Sweden would end up the last place in Europe where you can go for a beer”?
      
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      April 3, 2020 9:55am
  - septic skeptic
    
    Spain is another outlier. And France had 1300 deaths today so that makes them another outlier. The UK is headed to be an outlier as well, as is the US.
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:59am
    - Evadne
      
      A useless statistic without considering how many deaths France usually has in a day, in a month, and in a year, with seasonal & age variabilities.
      
      Is this 1300 *more* deaths than usual? Or just 100? Or none? Would these people gave died anyway? Might they have been expected to die in a month’s time without covid, so we see a drop off in death rates later on this year? How does it co.pare to last year’s flu death rate?
      
      Also need to factor in how many extra people have died (or will die) due to lockdown restrictions. Eg. Delayed surgery, missed outpatients appointments, inability to see a GP or get regular screenings done, suicide, drug / alcohol overdose, domestic violence, immobility, elderly care systems withdrawn, poverty, overcrowding ,etc.
      
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      April 3, 2020 11:42am
      - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
        
        Indeed, the only measure that is useful is “surplus” deaths. And then we need to understand whether there were pre-existing conditions.
        
        500pax a year in NZ die of flu related complications – we don’t shut down the economy for that.
        
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        April 3, 2020 12:35pm
    - PhilBest
      
      “The US” isn’t so much an outlier, as New York, New Orleans, San Fran and a few others are an outlier. The same really goes for all the other countries; the ones that are high, have some epicentres that are determined by factors that don’t necessarily apply to the country as a whole.
      
      Even in NZ, we have “Southland” showing unusually high right now, but because of one conference in Queenstown.
      
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      April 3, 2020 12:25pm
- Simon
  
  Yep there aint no plan.
  
  Ardern is famous for her half arsed messaging. The messaging will be as follows;
  
  The Cov19 virus worse thing since the Black Death.
  We had to destroy the village to save it.
  But we have saved money for a “rainy day”
  Here have some free money.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:20am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    “But we are borrowing so much money that it will take a generation to pay it all back.”
    
    There, I fixed it for you.
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:50am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  There is always Plan C. Communism
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:28am
  - PhilBest
    
    You sure that isn’t Plan A?
    
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    April 3, 2020 8:54am
    - Random T Person
      
      Sure feels a lot like it.
      
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      April 3, 2020 9:21am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Hard to keep up -they shift the goalposts all the time
      
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      April 3, 2020 9:57am
- tf78
  
  The first thing I would do is bring on the coal and hydro power – forget about solar and wind. Drop electricity prices which will give people more money in their pockets, then drop wages and start NZ manufacturing with start up packages from the Government. We have Aus, UK, USA, Indonesia, India to name a few to export to. Start manufacturing here all the products we can instead of including China in anything. Make China pay a premium for our dairy products.
  
  We’ve done it before, we can do it again – the minimum wage has caused all the offshore manufacturing because of the cheaper cost. We need to start tomorrow.
  
  Stuff the Greens and stuff the dole bludgers they can get off their buts as the dole will be much less than working for a living.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:35am
  - artemisia
    
    The MOAB included reducing welfare payments so that those who actually got off the sofa and went to work were not worse off than those that didn’t.
    
    A policy still being rolled out by socialists as evil incarnate.
    
    Austerity is coming down the pike, and should include limiting welfare to 2 children as the UK has done. Slight problem – need actual employers to hire these folk. Ok, big problem.
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:16am
    - tf78
      
      Ditch digging on a chain gang until they get the hang of it would be a start.
      
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      April 3, 2020 9:53am
      - projectman
        
        It’s coming. Jacinda is talking about finding shovel-ready projects (whatever they may be).
        
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        April 3, 2020 11:02am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Windpower currently supplying 1% of our electrical energy.
    
    https://www.transpower.co.nz/power-system-live-data
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:14am
  - artemisia
    
    We have a couple of seabed mining projects in the wings – iron sands and environmentally useful phosphate.
    
    The first was OKd by the EPA on its second (expensive) application. It is now tied up in court proceedings from interested parties – interested in stopping it, that is. The project is shovel ready.
    
    The second was turned down by the EPA on its first application, under rules now amended. Getting ready to reapply this year and the ‘interested parties’ are also getting ready for sure. Apart from the local iwi who are in. Almost shovel ready.
    
    Quite possible neither will proceed if turned down again. The projects will fold and take their funding and expertise elsewhere.
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:54am
- Chris R
  
  She had absolutely no idea how to get out of the Kiwibuild mess, had no plans either forwards or backwards, still clawing her safe and secure salary, still adored by the mainstream media, still fooling overseas media, still believing hugs and slogans will fix everything. I detest the vain clown.
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:22am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Be kind she doesn’t know she’s incompetent.
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:43am
- DeepBlue
  
  Jacinda’s naivety really showed when she thought the govn loan and wage subsidy would save Bauer Media. She does not understand that company directors make decisions based on forward revenue/costs, directors’ liability, insolvency rules, bank loans and risk around future trading conditions. They do not make decisions based on some minimum wage carrot offered for the next three months. The certainly don’t decide because they will ‘be kind’.
  
  If the govn does’t release the timeframe and plan for ending the lockdown in 3 weeks many more businesses will follow Bauer Media’s lead. Wake up government.
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:16am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    I’m concerned about my clients going forward–a wage subsidy (still unpaid after nearly 2 weeks) is not revenue. Contracting has a long term perspective. New projects are likely to be deferred and a thin market means cut throat pricing to secure work. Without past profits there is no cushion for the future.
    The second half of this year will very likely see many big companies in liquidation.
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:50am
    - artemisia
      
      Wage subsidy delays – a government person said delays often due to issues with IRD numbers. 100,000 applications not finalised. Not matching up maybe. Family member’s came through in 2 days, but sole trader so very simple.
      
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      April 3, 2020 11:59am
      - rouppe
        
        I’m a Sole Trader. I applied last weekend. Got an acknowledgement, but nothing since…
        
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        April 3, 2020 12:32pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    That’s because she does not understand what it takes to run a business, or for that matter any organisation, including a country.
    
    If she had managed the fish and chip shop she worked in, it would have failed.
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:17am
- Ruahine
  
  It is worth while remembering that this mess was created by them. Something else is at play here.
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:31am
- lastmanstanding
  
  If the lockdown goes to 12 weeks I predict unemployment will reach 15%.
  
  For every 4 weeks after that you can add 2/3%. SMEs with leased premises will run out of cash and wont be able to reopen.
  
  I see bankruptcy and liquidations reaching record numbers as sole traders and companies collapse.
  
  This will extend to larger companies even some on the NZX who had marginal balance sheets.
  
  Many companies run highly leveraged balance sheets which is OK when the economy is rocking and rolling as it has been for the past 5 years. The longer the good times the more companies with high leverage.
  
  The banks no matter who much goodwill they have cant keep financing a dog thats only going to die eventually with the debt getting higher and higher by the day.
  
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  April 3, 2020 12:10pm
Tony Norriss

Jacinda will be gutted that Bauer is closing up.

Not because of all the people losing their jobs. But because their won’t be any more magazine front covers for her (thankfully).

Turn Ardern can retire now.
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April 3, 2020 8:09am
- yossarian
  
  #turnadern won then?
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:18am
  - DeepBlue
    
    To be replaced with #RetireArdern
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:18am
- kwkiwigirl
  
  $12b bailout package and she couldn’t save one SME.
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:23am
- Brian McDonald
  
  Women’s Day reader were you?
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:18am
Simon

Australian rugby go woke go broke.
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April 3, 2020 8:09am
Im Right

OK, Arden has had almost a full day to come up with a line or two about her health minister going for a drive and a bike ride….what are the thoughts on her reply to the question about this?
1: He has been working so hard and…{insert excuse}
2:Look, he knows what he did was wrong and has apologised…he has been working so hard and…
3:Look, it was something to clear his mind and de stress as he has been working so hard…he knows what he did was wrong…
4: I have had a stern chat with him and he knows what he did was wrong, he has been working so hard….
I think we all get the message, which one will she use today at her update (assuming she allows the question…perhaps just pick one of her fan girls to ask a patsy question and ignore it….no, don’t think that is possible!
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April 3, 2020 8:11am
- Prince
  
  No need for anything. Morning Report has ignored the story – no doubt a few phone calls overnight, and a few favours now due.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:20am
  - Chris2
    
    Yes, compare the media’s week reporting of Clark’s bike ride with the wide publicity two weeks ago when some unknown backbench National MP told people to stockpile goods.
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:35am
    - Ruawai
      
      Which was actually a really sensible thing to do, my cupboards/freezers are full.
      
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      April 3, 2020 12:17pm
  - alwyn
    
    I posted this on No Minister but my friend’s explanation answers your question.
    
    I listened to the first couple of hours on Morning Report today.
    Nary a mention of Clark’s stupid behaviour.
    I have just been chatting to a friend who recently retired from RNZ. He said, rather cattily perhaps, that of course it wouldn’t be in the news. News was, he reminded me, that a man has bitten a dog and not the other way around. As he then said.
    “Clark behaving like an idiot isn’t news. The man always acts like an idiot because he is one.”
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:38am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Yep and the ODT even shoves the story into a small slot, although yesterday they were running a big article on folks flouting the rulz.
    https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:18am
- artemisia
  
  5. I have given him an autographed copy of the Cabinet Manual but he might not have time to read it, he’s been working so hard.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:22am
  - Ruawai
    
    David Clarks staying home home was just aspirational.
    
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    April 3, 2020 12:18pm
  - yossarian
    
    Jonsie can give him his…still in the wrapper unopened.
    
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    April 3, 2020 2:40pm
- Biscuit
  
  5. Nine years of neglect by the previous Government
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:22am
- PhilBest
  
  Instead of piling into the Health Minister for his hypocrisy, why don’t we assume he was an honest and noble man making a statement about his government’s bad faith? – and appoint him the unofficial “leader of the rebellion”?
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:28am
- G152
  
  How about one law for all and no exceptions ?
  Drop him and select some-one with more ability
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:29am
  - rockape
    
    And there is the problem!
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:33am
  - oldfella
    
    The COL has already got it’s ‘A’ team on the field. Sheesh. Makes you wonder about the quality on the bench if this is as good as it gets.
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:34am
  - GT Build
    
    The talent puddle is very shallow
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:22am
    - Gazza the Giant
      
      Shallow indeed , Genter the next cab off the rank , and that stupid bitch rode her push bike to have her baby FFS
      
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      April 3, 2020 8:24pm
- Paulus Gnome
  
  ‘I am making this ah explanation to you (nodding head to one side max teeth) as ah um, there is ah no more room um under the carped in my ah um office’
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:29am
  - Gazza the Giant
    
    [Deleted – alleged and definitely not proven. Mod.]
    
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    April 3, 2020 8:26pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  What beats me is Clark can go mountain biking but I can not go boating/fishing.
  Hypocrite much?
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:32am
  - GazzaW
    
    ….. I’ll settle for entitled prick.
    
    More importantly WTF is the Minister of Health doing swanning around home in Dunedin when he should be at his post in Wellington supporting his staff at this critical time. It’s not as if the Ministry of Health is covering itself in glory currently.
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:12am
    - Ruawai
      
      Clark put a poster of Covid Unite on his bedroom wall behind has skype so no one could tell he was at home.
      
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      April 3, 2020 12:21pm
  - Random T Person
    
    Mate, go boating and fishing, then point out that the Health Minister has led by example. I’ve had a bit of a cold the last few days, but I am starting to feel well enough, so I am going to do just that.
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:23am
    - rouppe
      
      I agree with the sentiment. I’d really like to go out and walk the Paekakariki Escarpment track. But I won’t.
      
      Why not?
      
      Because if some copper decides to question me, he won’t give a flying turd what the Health Minister did or didn’t do. That copper will have a bloke in front of him against whom he can flex his new brown-shirted powers. Not he, the watch house keeper nor the JP I’ll be put in front of will listen to “but, but, David Clark”, they’ll be far too excited about “getting” a white man
      
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      April 3, 2020 12:40pm
    - dave_c_
      
      I was quite pleased with myself today. I went to the supermarket, and made sure I stayed 2metres behind . . . . . . . the car in front of me.
      
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      April 3, 2020 3:57pm
- Happychappy
  
  But as you known those in Labour believe they are intitled and remember the staffer out of the Prime Ministers office and the sexual assault, it’s allowed as they don’t have to go through the procedure the Joe Blog has to if they had committed the same crime.
  The only thing David Clark has confirmed is that he is a idiot that won’t have his normal accuse of being able to blame others like he continue to do with National every time he is caught and seen to be out of his depth with anythink related with the Minister’s Portfolio.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:37am
- tf78
  
  5. He know’s nothing about health so is too useless
  to do his job as health minister.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:38am
- Alboy
  
  I suspect over the next two days, all 4 will be used.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:46am
- lifesgood
  
  No, she’ll just say ” Now is not the time”
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:33am
- calendar girl
  
  Where’s our Deputy Prime Minister in all of this? He’s the one who put this COL together, and he holds all the power over its continuation.
  
  Either Peters now forces PM Ardern to sack David Clark if she continues to prevaricate, or he’ll confirm to everyone that he too has no principles to be involved in running the country in a time of crisis.
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:43am
  - marcw
    
    The Deputy prime Minister would do well to keep himself an anonymous as possible – after all, he is holed up in his holiday accommodation in the Far North, which is what the rest of us were told not to do. Remember, NO STAYING IN YOUR BEACH baches – it’s not a holiday! Like bike riding, the rules don’t apply to him either.
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:58am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    Being eulogised for cash on a blog that used to have integrity.
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:02am
  - calendar girl
    
    I’ve watched on TV1 today the daily 3.00pm broadcast on the pandemic that is usually fronted by the Prime Minister. Today she was not there to face the nation – no doubt ‘ducking’ rather than being prepared to answer difficult questions about her Minister of Health (David Clark)’s blatant, deliberate and disgraceful disregard of Government’s lock-down rules that apply to everyone else in this country.
    
    In Ardern’s absence, Grant Robertson handled well her regular 3:00pm TV1 presentation (although relying heavily on Clark’s alleged apology to the PM to settle the Minister of Health’s little scandal). Why hasn’t the same David Clark apologised to the nation as a whole, not just to the PM? We’re supposed to all be making sacrifices in this pandemic together – but Health Minister Clark is ducking, PM Ardern is ducking, and everyone is having to accept that one of Ardern’s Ministers (overseeing the Health Ministry of all portfolios!) can make his own rules and suffer no consequences.
    
    The only honourable outcome to this fiasco would be Clark’s demotion to the Back Benches, but now we know that Ardern will not have the courage to bring that about.
    
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    April 3, 2020 4:18pm
  - Gazza the Giant
    
    Heard him last night saying that it was alie that people coming through the boarder were not being quarantined if they didn’t have a plan , he said to HDA , what would you know , what a fool he is , the police , the PM , the even the director of health said its not happening , but Peters says its all a lie
    
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    April 3, 2020 8:29pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  Why wasn’t he arrested?
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:51am
  - Gazza the Giant
    
    Exactly , Bridges asked the police commissioner in the committee yesterday if I drove to the Mt for a walk on the beach would I be allowed , he said no , you would be arrested , perhaps the scum think its fine to have a different set of rules for the rightie MP
    
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    April 3, 2020 8:31pm
- david
  
  I’ Right, almost spot on. Just insert the word ‘incredibly’ before the word hard in each case
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:38am
Maggy Wassilieff

One benefit of the Pandemic..
The World’s big Climate Fest is postponed
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2020/04/01/coronavirus-forces-postponement-of-cop26-meeting-in-glasgow/

I do hope this Government and National review how much money they have poured into Carbon-Zero initiatives and green spin projects when we emerge from the economic morass and consider if those $$$$ would have been better placed shoring up the Nation’s resilience to real and immediate threats.
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April 3, 2020 8:12am
- Padraig Payne
  
  My hunch is that this crisis could spell doom for the Green Party. In the last month we have not heard a peep. In the next 6 months people are not going to have any willingness to tune in on climate change. And in the election they have said they will campaign on their car tax proposal. Yeah that will go down well.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:20am
  - Random T Person
    
    Climate stops being important the moment people start being hungry. Peter Foster, IIRC, made this point in the excellent 2014 book ‘Why we bite the invisible hand: The Psychology of Anti-Capitalism.’
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:27am
- Biscuit
  
  Exactly, Maggy.
  
  This epidemic has proven that:
  
  1. Our Parliament is bloated
  2. A lot of its business can be conducted televisually
  3. 99.99999% of these global conferences are a waste of time and a hideous waste of resources
  4. The United Nations (especially the WHO in this instance) is a near-useless organisation
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:26am
  - Lance
    
    Interesting that Italy and Spain have discovered the EU is useless as well.
    Trouble for them both is if they leave they will lose access to other peoples money they want to spend.
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:47am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Greta is fuming. How dare they?
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:33am
- cmm
  
  Don’t worry Greenies. All the post-pandemic stimulus will go into pretending that windmills and photovoltaic panels work.
  None will go into building hospitals or roads.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:33am
  - PhilBest
    
    That’s a b—-y good point. Ramp-up ICU capacity alone would be orders of magnitude less costly than crashing the economy for the sole reason “so ICU capacity isn’t overwhelmed”.
    
    It isn’t as if pandemic experts haven’t been calling for this to be done long since, as a lesson of SARS etc. Not to mention the reporting, tracking contacts, quarantining measures, etc.
    
    Maybe the medical experts attitude now is “people wouldn’t listen then and spend the money… so now….?”
    
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    April 3, 2020 8:49am
    - rockape
      
      The keep talking about 500 ICU beds being available. No they are not. usually ICU beds are full without corona virus. Sure some are not needed as surgery lists have been slashed but if that counts for 50% then thats less than 250 ICU beds nation wide/
      
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      April 3, 2020 9:36am
- PhilBest
  
  If only the “centre right” would get its shite together, they could make a proper fight now over the perils of bad modelling leading to bad policy. This should be like shooting ducks in a barrel, both for China Virus apocalpyse and global warming apocalypse. The British bureaucrat who did the apocalyptic China model (and has since revised it down massively) is the same guy who was proven wrong about his Mad Cow disease projections that led to the needless mass slaughter of livestock. And he wasn’t sacked then? He was left in situ to wreak the same damage on humans?
  
  Good people have always been doing the “centre right’s” homework for them. All the centre-right politicians need to do is freakin’ accept the ammunition they are being handed, and freakin’ use it. Instead, like Vichy in 1940-44, they act as surrogates of the political enemy and act in unison against the good people.
  
  Wayne Mapp refusing to even let Dr Vincent Gray through the door of the hearings room yonks ago, was the epitome of this kind of stuff. Some of us don’t forget defining moments in history.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:35am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Wayne Mapp should have emptied NIWA out the minute he learnt that Salinger’s adjustments had been swallowed by a Computer.
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/3434164/Salinger-denies-deliberate-record-loss
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:04am
    - PhilBest
      
      I wish it was possible to give multiple upticks!!! Never said this before, so this is praise indeed!!!
      
      5 3
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      April 3, 2020 12:27pm
- emmess
  
  Hands up who has enjoyed the taste of the decarbonised future.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:37am
  - kowtow
    
    More like an unemployed future , and if you;re lucky enough to have a job , a heavily taxed future.
    
    Be careful what you wish for.
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:59am
  - Classic Liberal
    
    Baby. Bathwater. I’m not enjoying the economy being wrecked and living in a Police State.
    
    Sure, people working from home at least some days can be productive. This has already been well underway for many people wanting to live further from centres or not commute for other reasons.
    
    But the key words for these decisions should be that they are wanting, choosing and enjoying this lifestyle. Words Watermelons don’t understand.
    
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    April 3, 2020 12:50pm
- coge
  
  This whole climate industry is tanking in 2020, https://waset.org/climate-change-conferences
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:25am
- KevO'Brien
  
  The WHO’s Senior Adviser sees their role as dealing with climate change too:-
  https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/02/senior-who-advisor-urges-a-climate-action-response-to-covid-19/
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:54am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    well, hell, they don’t want to be on the unemployed heap along with our children and grandchildren, do they?
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:09am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      But wait, there’s now more:
      https://www.wnd.com/2020/04/united-nations-wants-10-global-tax-wants-now/
      
      4 1
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      April 3, 2020 1:07pm
- curry4me
  
  Maggy Wassilieff: Saint Greta will be miffed. She could have take the train there.
  
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  April 3, 2020 1:26pm
Wangas Feral

So mountain biking off road is deemed bad because you can get injured. Are the fascists in charge going to ban cleaning the gutters, changing light bulbs and other household activities that cause tens of thousands of injuries requiring hospitalization or emergency responses each year?
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April 3, 2020 8:14am
- Tony Stuart
  
  The issue with mountain biking is that it generally happens in places with very limited road access, so getting an injured person out becomes a significant exercise.
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:20am
  - Lance
    
    Lets put it this way. All the mountain bikers I know (the serious ones) have all broken their collar bone at least once, with a smattering of diverse broken bones distributed amongst the rest.
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:50am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    I’d rather have the example of a Minister of Health exercising than drinking booze. He was by himself as well I gather. Silly but not fatal. Would there still be an uproar if he rode his bike the 2.1 ks to the track, plenty of others out on bikes not causing any harm?
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:25am
    - Lance
      
      I’m picking you think everybody in the CoL is incapable of doing anything wrong… expect maybe advocate for a return of Rogernomics.
      
      Aren’t you embarrassed by covering for such overtly inept politicians?
      
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      April 3, 2020 2:24pm
- rockape
  
  Can you copy that to my wife as a0 she is an ED nurse and b0 wants me to do many of those “dangerous tasks” She had me up on the roof at 73 killing paper wasp nests yesterday!
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:38am
  - Tall Man
    
    So … you’ve still got life insurance I see 🙂
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:42am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    A wasp nest in the roof can be dealt with putting a small hole in the ceiling and inserting the outlet of a bug bomb/fly spray into it and blasting till silence reigns.
    I once found wasps in our sitting room that treatment did the trick.
    
    8 0
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    April 3, 2020 10:59am
- JibberJabber
  
  Life is hazardous to your health.
  100% of people who breathe air will die.
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:03am
Simon

Does it really matter who owns Air NZ? Anyone except of course the Chinese.

Air NZ should be in administration. Sell Air NZ to Singapore Airlines they can run it.

The $900 million loan will be gone by now. How many more $900 million loans to keep this dog in the air? And for what?
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April 3, 2020 8:15am
- yossarian
  
  The Australian Govt has locked down all foreign ownership applications as of now. There is a suspicion that Chinese companies are preparing to raid bust companies at a bargain prices.
  
  Maybe tin foil hat thinking, but would it not surprise you?
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:48am
  - kowtow
    
    It’s not tin foil hat stuff.
    
    Before Wuflu the comrades’ flagship internationalist neo colonisalism was Belt and Road .
    
    Now they just have to buy up all the distressed public and private debt that’ll be on the market and any small players like NZ who might (but won’t) balk at this will be quietly told to kowtow , or we won’t buy your butter.
    
    Nothing new here , it’ll just be more obvious.
    
    Meanwhile the Media Pardy goes on about the evil Orange man . FFS.
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:05am
    - Brian McDonald
      
      Is that the guy who said ‘maybe 1 death (shrug), maybe not.’
      
      5 19
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      April 3, 2020 10:27am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Maybe tin foil hat thinking
    
    No..
    It is their modus operandi…..same as that of any savvy businessperson.
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:12am
- Paulus
  
  Singapore/AirNZ serious financial joint deal was discussed some years ago and the Labour Government at the time poo pooed it.
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:28am
- KevO'Brien
  
  There has been an international convention that national flag carriers are owned by the nation’s government. Reciprocal landing rights are also involved.
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:01am
oldpark

Was thinking in this instance Fawlty Towers is alive and well in NZ under a different name .
The Peters selected COL keep falling over their idealogy feet .
Latest case in point. Ardern decides to give the Maori, circa Seventy Million Dollars( $70,000,000) for their trouble to help them through the Coronavirus Crisis .
Yet the Doctors who can help them are losing their jobs . Panic once more sets in from the inept inane COL . They decide to make an emergency grant of Thirty Million Dollars($30,000,000)for the Doctors .The package less than half of what was given to Maori .
Yesterday there was a comment from a Senior Economist saying it was time an “Adult” should be in charge of the Covid 19 Crisis in NZ . What a confession and a bloody indictment of such a political self serving blunder by Peters on his COL selection.
The adage .” We all see who is swimming naked when the tide goes out”.Someone will have to take charge very soon or the good ship NZ and its Citizens will drown in despair.
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April 3, 2020 8:21am
rightoverlabour

Got an acknowledgement e mail from the Police thanking me for Dobbing in Clarke.

“Thank you for your report regarding a possible COVID-19 L4 breach.

*** This is an automatically generated email. Please do not reply ***

What happens next?

Please accept this email as confirmation that your report has been received and the information contained in it has been recorded by Police.

Please note, due to COVID-19 related demand we may take longer to respond to some breach incidents but please be assured we will be prioritising and acting as quickly as we can on information provided.

We will contact you if we need to clarify anything.

How do I provide additional information about what happened?

If you discover anything new you think we should know about, please complete a new breach report (if it is in relation to a previous breach report please indicate this on the form).

*** This is an automatically generated email. Please do not reply ***

What should I do if I’m worried or feel unsafe?

If at any point you notice anyone behaving suspiciously, call us immediately on 111. This gives us the best chance of following up while the person is still in the area.

Help for crime victims and their families is also available through the Victim Support website.

Are there tips for protecting myself or my property?

You can visit the Police website for tips on protecting yourself and your property:

Protect your property and vehicles

Protect your business (commercial)

Keep yourself safe at home

To keep up to date with COVID-19 related information and lastest FAQs, please visit http://www.covid19.govt.nz

Ngā mihi nui,

New Zealand Police

*** This is an automatically generated email. Please do not reply ***”

I feel so Proud of my self… Now who is next….? ( Will there be medals for the most dobbed in? A wonderful example like this : 1933 DEUTSCHE ARBEITSFRONT BADGE) https://www.emedals.com/europe/germany/third-reich-civil-medals-awards/a-1933-deutsche-arbeitsfront-badge
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April 3, 2020 8:22am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Well done 😀
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:21am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    On comparing our police to Nazis? That just sad, Tony?
    
    6 31
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    April 3, 2020 9:26am
    - Tony Stuart
      
      No; well done on reporting the Health Minister to the Police 😀
      
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      April 3, 2020 9:47am
    - rightoverlabour
      
      Normally not, but right now, there are justifications for these comparisons. Maybe you should educate yourself on Germany during the 1930s.
      
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      April 3, 2020 9:50am
      - mikenmildagain
        
        I consider myself reasonably informed about modern history. New Zealand police are not detaining people arbitrarily, torturing them, and murdering them.
        Look elsewhere for your Nazi comparisons – perhaps Hungary, which has just passed its version of Hitler’s Enabling Act.
        
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        April 3, 2020 11:55am
      - Classic Liberal
        
        The threats from PC Bush did sound like they could and might “detain people arbitrarily”.
        
        Until we and the Police all know the exact rules, detaining people for things that may or may not be in breach would be exactly that: arbitrary.
        
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        April 3, 2020 1:05pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        The Father-in-law was once detained by the Nazi regime when a young apprentice in Germany.
        
        As he was not a German he was restricted in where he could travel…. basically from his home to his workplace.
        
        One day he went to visit a friend in hospital and was stopped on his way home and asked to show his papers.
        
        As he was somewhere outside his specified locations he was taken to the local Police station, processed, and sent to an Arbeitsdienst (Labour Service) camp.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reich_Labour_Service
        
        How the Grand F-in-law got him out of there is a bit of mystery (?bribery/ or insisting that he was needed back on the V1-production line).
        
        But the F-in-law got the message….because the rules were clear…break them and there were consequences.
        
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        April 3, 2020 5:37pm
Simon

The Ardern government claimed that the government has saved for a ‘rainy day” Government debt levels low for a ‘rainy day”

Except all the massive tax revenue has been pissed away. There are no savings for a rainy day. All what will happen is the government will print on a massive scale.

After the money printing comes the inflation. With inflation higher interest rates. As NZ is a massive debtor nation everything gets crushed.

If you have a housing loan lock the rates in for long as possible. Probably within 12 months.
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April 3, 2020 8:25am
- Nigel Kearney
  
  Yes, inflation will run rampant. Slashing productivity and simultaneously flooding the economy with borrowed money is bound to have that effect. People who are running scared of the share market should not assume that holding cash will be a safe option.
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:13am
surfing

I have trouble with chief executives who cut their workers salaries by 70% or so, but , only take a 15% cut themselves.
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April 3, 2020 8:33am
- yossarian
  
  Everyone in our company top to bottom has taken a 20% pay cut for now, extended to 50% in four weeks.
  
  Question – has ANYONE is the public sector taken a pay cut? Or does the term ‘we’re all in this together’ mean absolutely nothing?
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:52am
  - yossarian
    
    Oh and by the way we’re all still working from home 40 hours a week
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:55am
  - emmess
    
    Beneficiaries got a pay rise
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:18am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      Not pensioners.
      
      12 2
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      April 3, 2020 11:03am
Paulus

Watched Cindy yesterday and we have concluded that she is no longer in control of herself and her role as PTPM, and certainly not our country.
Peters this morning is out of it and himself as he is incoherent.
The Fat Controller is not in control but is doing what he is told like spend spend to anybody who they think might votes for them. He will be disappointed.
Now is the time and not before that a Committee of National Unity should be formed with an intelligent independent leader, say Stephen Joyce to get us under serious control.
Bridges is showing leadership in the work that he is doing along with Seymour.
We are seriously in the poop and sadly our children and grandchildren will not forgive is if we continue to do the wrong things.
Wake up before the damage is irretrievable – Cindy has failed (before the Virus) and should do the decent thing and resign and leave people who know what they are doing to consider our future in an intelligent and not in a daily press conference ad hoc way.
Cindy – wake up and smell the daisies – now !
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April 3, 2020 8:36am
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  I watched some of that Committee meeting yesterday. Marama Davidson seemed to want to pontificate and make statements – no idea what she said, just the usual impotent strutting.
  
  I liked the sitting there frowning with her hands on her hips pretending she knew what the grown-ups were talking about.
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:46am
  - Tall Man
    
    I think it’s clear the she has “reclaimed” her special word and it fits her perfectly.
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:32am
Durden

Jacinda is at best a weak and flaky peace time leader. Leading a cobbled together coalition of hopeless misfits.

A war time leader she is not.

Prime Exhibit: “This week she said her Government “never ever considered [herd immunity] as a possibility, ever”. “I simply would not tolerate that,” she said, “and I don’t think any New Zealander would.”

So Prime Minister, is the prime directive to “Protect your country and its economy from ruin” ? Or is it “Be Kind and let me play the compassionate leader.”

You can consider Sun Tsu as written for its original purpose
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-business-leaders-are-_0_n_5003283

or get a corporate perspective.
https://a16z.com/2011/04/14/peacetime-ceowartime-ceo-2/

Either way she fails.
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April 3, 2020 8:38am
- Alboy
  
  Reality is that, in a war, people are unfortunately going to die. We seem unable to accept this.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:50am
- notreadyet
  
  I’m no expert but have a feeling that we actually have a low level immunity in the population evidenced by the low members of severely affected . As a community we are exposed to a lot of travellers to and from Asia which seems to be a hotbed for these viruses, time will tell.
  I read an article that said there had been 2 very mild flue season’s over the last 2 years in Italy drawing a conclusion there was very low herd immunity in the population
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:14am
  - kowtow
    
    Italy .
    
    The Media Party want us to think the society smashing lockdown is justified due to Italy etc
    
    The figures the media and govts daily shove down our necks are FALSE , it’s fake news.
    
    They are people who died WITH Wuflu , not FROM.
    
    Sorry for shouting , but we’re being lied to and the future is too grim to be polite.
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:13am
- beerbohm
  
  If the lockdown fails to arrest the spread of the virus then herd immunity is all we’ve got until a vaccine is available. Something that may be a long way off or impossible to achieve. It seems to be clear that the virus has a very low mortality rate for those under 70. So what we’re effectively trying to do with the current approach is to save the lives of the elderly at the expense of everyone else. Those with little future are being prioritized over those who could have looked forward to many years of productive life. If the lockdown fails it should be abandoned and something else tried. Unfortunately the gang of venal idiots who presume to run this country have no backup plan so will persist with what doesn’t work. Although if one looks at this from the point of view of what suits their political purposes then the current approach is working just fine.
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:33am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    At least they, including the opposition, are running the country under their own names.
    
    2 14
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    April 3, 2020 10:30am
- Simon
  
  Ardern is completely out of her depth along with her government. Kelvin Davis, Robertson, Twyford, Willie Jackson, Clark, Angry Andy a roll call of cretins. Just so many. Flanked by the crackpot Greens & grifters NZ First.
  
  Labour have been a shambles for a very long time. Most useless opposition and with numerous different leaders and factions over the last 10 years.
  
  Labour chosen by Peters because he knew he could manipulate Ardern.
  
  Labour are the government for all the wrong reasons. Sadly chickens coming home. NZ are paying the price.
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:51am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    How do we get Peters to pay the price for his Selection?
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:07am
All_on_Red

So almost 4000 people have been let in to NZ and not Quarantined- is that right?
Wouldn’t this mean we have to wait to see how much spread they cause from infecting others before we ALL can come out of lockdown?
Ie, has Ardern by not quarantining them just extended the lockdown for another month- which will certainly destroy our economy.
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April 3, 2020 8:39am
- Wangas Feral
  
  I honestly believe that it is by design. Nobody could be so stupid, given the lockdown etc, to let people in without quarantining and testing at a secured location.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:49am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  It looks like it might be more than just another month..
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120762626/coronavirus-confidential-government-emergency-plan-warns-recovery-still-a-some-time-away
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:53am
  - Evadne
    
    They can’t keep extending it for months on end.
    
    Businesses will go to the wall. Unemployment will rise expotentially. Our supply lines will collapse, leaving food rotting in the ground while we’re on short rations. People with other health issues will deteriorate and die as they’re refused treatment. Domestic violence, alcoholism & drug abuse will increase. The suicide rate also. The government will be paying out more in benefits than they receive in taxes. We’ll be indebted for a generation. The resulting widespread poverty will lead to increased deaths & negative health outcomes.
    
    But hey, Cindy can say she’s saved a few thousand lives. Never mind that she’ll have caused the deaths of thousands of others, destroyed the lives & livelihoods of a million people, along with the entire economy.
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:15am
    - Tall Man
      
      A “few thousand”, shit man, she’s saved 80,000 …
      
      Not sure who is dumber, her for saying it or the twits that believe it.
      
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      April 3, 2020 10:28am
    - Komata
      
      Evadne@1015
      
      But think of the advantages to be had by the Socialists / Proto -Communists now in control in NZ!
      
      With absolutely NO effort on their part, they have been presented with their dream situation; A country to mould in the Marxist / Leninist image that they have long dreamed of, the country where socialism WILL succeed as it has never been able to before!
      
      Add to this a populace that is inherently easy to control and obedient, then what is there not to like?
      
      Cindy et al must be wetting themselves with the realisation that this is the case; five million people to ‘Experiment’ on!!
      
      It simply COULDN’T be so easy, but yes, it is, so now watch as the socialist ‘muscles’ are flexed.
      
      Zimbabwe here we come…
      
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      April 3, 2020 11:00am
- PhilBest
  
  Headline: “Alert Level 4 will be maintained until cases of coronavirus ‘drop off’ – Dr Ashley Bloomfield”
  
  So the bleedin’ obvious re overseas arrivals, to try and avoid this, is….?
  
  Putting medical experts in charge of the macroeconomy isn’t a good idea. What say we make any number of deaths the basis of banning stuff on principle? Let’s do without motor transport because the road toll. Lets do without nuclear energy because, oh, wait, NZ already did that long since.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:54am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    The quality of the statistics, projections and action based on those is so amateur as to be recklessly criminal when considered under the laws of negligence.
    Govt has a higher duty.
    Time to go before ejection.
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:15am
    - PhilBest
      
      “…so amateur as to be recklessly criminal…”
      
      I think that’s fair comment.
      
      Change that to “criminal recklessness” which is better legalese.
      
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      April 3, 2020 12:29pm
      - KevO'Brien
        
        I could have said tortious. I am concerned that those who have accepted the responsibility of becoming members of the Executive Council have no understanding of that role.
        In a commercial situation the degree of criminal recklessness shown would qualify as fraud. Executive Council members have a higher level of duty and responsibility than commercial appointees so what is negligent conduct at that level? They cannot blame advisers as they have accepted the responsibility with their Office.
        Their resignations are expected at a minimum.
        
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        April 3, 2020 1:16pm
- notreadyet
  
  Ho figure, that the craxy aspect ofvthis whole debacle, look at whst they fid re quarantine for the plane load they rescued from China, quarantine and no exceptions and questions.
  So weeks later why so lax, words fail me
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:20am
  - GT Build
    
    The last 2 days there has been flights arrive from China that is how closed the borders are
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:40am
- kowtow
  
  At the start of this lock down / shut down farce ,Ardern said Plod had enough capacity to handle this.
  
  Well yesterday Top Cop said they didn’t.
  
  Someone’s telling porkies.
  
  And the economy has been smashed by this precipate , panicked shutdown.
  
  We copied Communist China thinking that was the way to go , but nothing they say or do can be believed or trusted .
  
  Why didn’t this govt slow down before pushing the nuclear button and examine what other Pacific Rim friends , and certainly less authoritarian regimes ( and therefore more similar to us) were doing such as Republic of China , Singapore , South Korea and Japan and Hong Kong who have been managing without total shut downs ?
  
  And why isn’t the Republic of China a member of WHO while an oppressive and closed regime like the PRC is ?
  
  ‘Taiwan is seen as one of the few places in the world which has successfully stemmed the spread of the coronavirus without resorting to draconian measures.’
  
  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52088167
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:23am
- KevO'Brien
  
  Haven’t we all been lied to about the lock down of the borders?
  We can’t move but others are surreptitiously free to come and go through our closed borders.
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:10am
rightoverlabour

Have a good laugh at some lefty’s expense…. Now we just need one for Jacinda.

https://twitter.com/DeepStateExpose/status/1243916725856370689
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April 3, 2020 8:39am
Yvette

The slightly crucial definition of “recovered”, or, to confuse it now, “non-infectious”.

After a few people looked at the earlier official covid-19 definition of “recovered” – “14 days without symptoms” – and when told “56 have recovered”, worked back 14 days to check that date’s announcement and found there were only 12 cases in the country then, so there couldn’t be 56 “recovered” 14 days later, they were puzzled. 
But rather than saying we don’t quite understand what has happened there, officials have changed the definition of “recovered” to “symptom free for 48 hours”.  
That still doesn’t explain the glitch in figures, but now raises the question of why should new arrivals be self-isolated for 14 days, and not just two – which if wrong could be utterly disastrous.
 Any attempt to “save face” by politicians involved, might not be a inconsequential as a few misspeaks – like Jami-Lee Ross utterances, or Winston’s “private details” super obsessions – now such shit may cost hundreds, if not thousands, of lives.
 So, after the length of this emergency to date, what is the official definition of “recovered”.
It could be slightly pivotal.

But there’s more –

Bloomfield was questioned about the changed definition on Thursday.
“One is 48 hours symptom free, then we would classify them as recovered. We would use the 14 day period … as a safety period .. so we’re confident they’re no longer infectious.”
The reduced recovery period was based on international practice, he said.

But even when recovered, individuals in New Zealand would need to remain in strict isolation until cleared by their health provider. [1]

There – they seem to have achieved what Phil Twyford did for Kiwibuild and now Auckland airport rail – utter one confusing statement after another until no one is clear what is happening.
But they do need to clarify this one, because some people’s lives may hang on it.

[1] https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120764662/coronavirus-almost-100-kiwis-have-overcome-the-virus-but-how-is-recovery-defined
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April 3, 2020 8:44am
- PhilBest
  
  Is this because of the reality, not admitted by the powers that be so far, that most people infected don’t even get particularly crook? I know we don’t have an antibodies test yet, but is there some way in which patients are being belatedly classified as “having had COVID-19” and recovered?
  
  The reality is that for all the people being tested because they are crook, 90% of them have something other than COVID-19 (all the usual stuff going around) but lots of people who aren’t crook, have the virus and are part of transmission – and the development of herd immunity, which is the TRUE good-news metric we should be focusing on.
  
  https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/oxford-study-coronavirus-may-have-infected-half-of-u-k.html
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:36am
  - Tall Man
    
    The incidence of the virus isn’t increasing, testing is increasing and revealing the extent of the virus not the growth.
    
    Stop testing and we’ll have no new cases. Job done 😉
    
    13 3
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    April 3, 2020 10:25am
    - Ruawai
      
      Agreed, that is why they need to do a large random sample.
      
      5 0
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      April 3, 2020 12:57pm
      - Tall Man
        
        Definitely and retest after this ridiculous lockdown.
        
        3 3
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        April 3, 2020 1:25pm
Waipuk

I am currently working from home. I am shopping at the nearest supermarket which is in a small town. It is a little closer than the supermarket in the city where I would normally work.

The prices are easily $1 to $2 dollars per item more expensive. It is costing me a fortune with very little offset from fuel savings.
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April 3, 2020 8:54am
Bykmad

Not only destroy the Economy, my sanity is severely under threat. How can people sit around at home and not work. The house is spotlessly clean, the yard is tidy, the gardens weeded. My wife is worried that I am developing OCD tendencies???
23 1
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April 3, 2020 8:59am
- brett68
  
  You need to learn how to relax.
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:39am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    The new sport brett68? Seeing who panics and who doesn’t, in other times they’d be over the side.
    
    2 8
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    April 3, 2020 10:36am
    - brett68
      
      I think it’s more a control thing.
      People freak when situations are out of their control, the key is to just realize you have no control anyway, what will be will be.
      
      You can’t change that, you’ve just got to learn how to go with it.
      
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      April 3, 2020 11:06am
- Tall Man
  
  Assuming your pseudonym is indicative, maybe join the minister of health on a bike ride 🙂
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:24am
All_on_Red

Wry humour from the Bee

https://babylonbee.com/news/man-glad-to-know-job-that-fed-his-family-paid-his-rent-is-non-essential
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April 3, 2020 9:03am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Yo Cindy. This is how it is done:
https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/ny-robert-kraft-patriots-plane-china-masks-20200402-745whnpznvdtrhkalw2euaku54-story.html?fbclid=IwAR16YtzQ1hQqPn_Xiv8YglPUBd-d-88Emtw5XK9QLY4iq0PcKgeu1rFXn8o
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April 3, 2020 9:15am
lastmanstanding

So Dave the guy that mows the lawns at our bach up north in the country sent me an email last week to say hes not an essential service so cant mow them.

This morning walking the dog at the local park ( less than 500m from home) Auckland Council contractor mowing the grass.

And that folks is example #5487 why I have no respect for politicians or civil servants.

They are but a distant stranger to logic and common sense.
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April 3, 2020 9:16am
- Brian McDonald
  
  I worth taking up with the far north council. A person working sole on a bach lawn is not spreading CV.
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:37am
  - Captain Mainwaring
    
    Neither is the greenkeeper mowing the greens at the golf club, but he’s not allowed to work and multi-million dollar assets are going to be destroyed.
    Madness. It’s what happens when no-nothing idiots are in charge.
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:14am
    - Brian McDonald
      
      Those are good points to push. Things are not set in concrete, I’m sure the Golf Clubs can provide a proper safety plan for maintenance and so they should. I think there has also been a blue on the small produce suppliers. Nobody could have thought of all the minor detail in a shutdown, but better to adjust up than down.
      
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      April 3, 2020 11:24am
WaveyDavey

The softening-up begins:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120762626/coronavirus-confidential-government-emergency-plan-warns-recovery-still-a-some-time-away

“Stuff obtained the details from… …the National Crisis Management Centre”

This is being spun. Either that or Stuff has nicked a copy of the report.
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April 3, 2020 9:26am
Brian McDonald

All the bleating posts indicate ‘stir crazy’ is reaching a new level. Blaming others is the first sign of defeat it also means dismissing positive signs and building resilience with them.
There are a lot of people working new jobs since the closedown and many miss that. Trading is changing something Bill English seems to be missing, some of the bigger traders are online now with safety systems in place to protect against virus spread, that was always a no brainer to follow the general demobilisation of movement.
Those that have lost jobs in some areas are being encouraged to work in other areas to fill the gaps left by the normal migration of seasonal works. New jobs in packaging and preparing food are being filled.
On the other hand, buses are being driven round in circles without passengers to just show how far off-kilter some things remain – looking like Kiwiblog is like most times lately. But I did see public lawns being mowed yesterday by solo workmen. Maybe by the time we no longer see empty buses on the streets, our defensive line will be set and we will embrace more fully stepping forward into the new economy more and more each day.
If you waiting for a whistle to sound and everything to go back to normal you’ll be waiting forever. Increments, bit by bit, judged, sometimes changed but moving none the less.
By all means, helplessly blame the world, that will let others get on and save your moaning butts.
Moan if you want but it is not compulsory, or get stuck in and do what you can.
A step forward on rates I expect to see spread: https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/christchurch-city-council-allows-rate-payment-deferrals/ar-BB123j2c?ocid=spartandhp
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April 3, 2020 9:27am
- Inandout
  
  BM, deferring merely puts a finger in the dyke for six months, then the flow increases. Isn’t this Mayor being investigated by the SFO?
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:37am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Not to my way of thinking Inandout – Councils costs should have dropped with non-essential workings going on the wage subsidy. And stupid spending should be on them – a job for an open audit on the books.
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:41am
- Tall Man
  
  [Deleted – you are on a warning already, in future your comments that breach rules will be summarily deleted without us having to waste out time giving reasons. Mod]
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:21am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Missed your comment Little Man, sooking again were you?
    
    2 19
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    April 3, 2020 10:42am
    - Tall Man
      
      Nope, I suggested that you let a bit of oxygen into your bubble because your argument showed a diminishing of gray matter that a lack of oxygen induces.
      
      I think that was the crux of it but I may be wrong and there was more. I think “whoosh” may have been in there but maybe not.
      
      This repost may get me banned but I really don’t think what I said was abusive but hey, I’m medicated at the moment 🙂
      
      I read the rules and I can call your argument moronic but can’t can’t call you a moron. I didn’t want to call you a moron and I didn’t think your argument was moronic. I still think you need to take a deep breath, oxygen, and re-read your post as parts don’t make sense.
      
      Eg:” there are lots of people working new jobs since the lock down and many miss that” …. ?
      
      Actually I wouldn’t mind if the mod could have a quick chat with another and get a second opinion as I too am puzzled.
      
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      April 3, 2020 12:15pm
  - Captain Mainwaring
    
    Mod. I wish you’d tell us what Tall Man said, so the rest of us have some idea where the line is.
    
    [Sure here is the link. Mod]
    
    https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/comments_policy
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:17am
  - Komata
    
    Mods:
    
    Re: ‘Tall Man
    [Deleted – you are on a warning already, in future your comments that breach rules will be summarily deleted without us having to waste out time giving reasons. Mod]’
    
    Y’ know Mod., in that single sentence you have proven that despite being on a supposedly ‘liberal’ blog where freedom of speech is (also supposedly) encouraged, you are in fact absolutely no different from those currently in power in Wellington; essentially you, Sir, are as much a bully and authoritarian as Commissioner Birch et al!
    
    To close down speech ‘Without us having to waste out time giving reasons’ is no different from what happens in China, and, ironically (given DPF’s parental background) EXACTLY what they fled from in Europe!
    
    Sorry DPF (Assuming you even get to see this; which I very much doubt will be the case), you’ve caved, and the totalitarians are now on site; despite any pontifications to the contrary, you are now no different to the Standard.
    
    Alas free speech, I knew you well; shame you were forced to leave
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:23am
- kowtow
  
  “Blaming others”
  I don’t see any problem blaming the bastards who “farm” exotic wild life or the authorities in countries that allow that shit in food markets , especially after previous corona/sars outbreaks And is a member of WHO , FFS.
  
  All this while the world’s Media Parties used to and will continue to dog whistle shrilly ,openly and racistly attack wealthy white big game hunters incessantly who were doing no harm to anyone and who in fact were contributing bigly to the local economy in poor countries.
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:33am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Totally agree with you on that Kowtow, I don’t want to be inflammatory but if any nukes near a target it’s those markets, all Governments should be standing up together against them.
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:44am
Suze Wainwright

It’s a rum thing…
I’m sure I read an article in the NZH yesterday afternoon that referred to a ‘carload of bros’ pulling up to a dairy in west Auckland.
I re-read same article later and it was then referring to a ‘carload of mates’.
Either I completely mis-read the earlier edition or an editor must have gone into overdrive.
Should have screen shot what I read first
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April 3, 2020 9:27am
- Clyde
  
  We have seen that Maori in the far north are flagrantly ignoring ANY lockdown rules with one “bro” interviewed on TV1 last night said he and his “bros” were partying every night. On the same bulletin a story about PI residents in Auckland continuing to have their regular kava parties.
  
  On the other hand we see the normal line-up of activists screaming out – and getting – huge amounts of public money so that maori can be given special treatment because they are vulnerable.
  
  Well, I’m sick to the back teeth of this crap. Are you?
  
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  April 3, 2020 9:55am
  - cmm
    
    PriNZess said she is sending the army up North.
    
    Makes sense, why should the soldiers miss out on all the partying?
    
    If the cops don’t shut down Hone’s Angels, then surely the army are not going to shut down Northern parties.
    
    7 1
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    April 3, 2020 11:00am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Did you also see the elders speaking out against it? And you believed the teenager up north who wouldn’t have 2 bob to rub together because it suits your narrative. Sure.
    
    1 14
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    April 3, 2020 11:13am
    - cmm
      
      Do you really think the saggy pants hip-hop crowd listen to their elders?
      
      If they don’t have 2 bob after getting the koha then that’s coz they spent it. How is it that “the poor” seem to be able to afford more booze, smokes and KFC than anyone else?
      
      9 2
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      April 3, 2020 11:20am
      - Brian McDonald
        
        They will up north or they’ll eventually get the bash.
        As for the kava drinkers a little bit more tricky. It’s the Church that wields the big stick there and it was 1 Minister speaking out.
        
        2 11
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        April 3, 2020 11:28am
      - cmm
        
        Do you really think some 70 year old elder is going to put the bash on a 20year old bro?
        
        8 2
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        April 3, 2020 11:51am
oldfella

China lied. People died. Never forget.
https://clashdaily.com/2020/04/china-was-buying-up-global-stock-of-medical-gear-weeks-before-admitting-coronavirus-was-an-epidemic/
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April 3, 2020 9:27am
- Suze Wainwright
  
  I’m happy to say the CCP lied – there can be a big difference in saying that China or Chinese lied…
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:16am
  - Raphael
    
    In common parlance, “China” refers to the country and it’s government, not the people suffering under it’s brutal dictatorship.
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:40am
- Raphael
  
  From a Hong Kong protester: “don’t trust China, China is asshole”
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3tnH4FGbd0
  
  14 1
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  April 3, 2020 10:17am
  - Swifty
    
    Heh
    
    2 0
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    April 3, 2020 12:36pm
Humai

While business owners around the country draft up redundancy letters, here’s quite possibly The Herald’s most tone-deaf, dopey puff piece yet.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12321517
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April 3, 2020 9:30am
- Tall Man
  
  FFS, they really haven’t got a clue. Do they really think pandering to an advertiser is the way to go?
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:18am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    But the media was like this all month…
    little pieces on how to work from home …
    
    as if the entire workforce of NZ sat behind a bloody screen all day..
    
    Do journalists/media folk have any concept of the tasks productive working folk undertook in their workplace?
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:43am
The only red for me is that of Manchester United

At times I don’t understand my own country. Visitors who are still allowed into New Zealand are asked for their permission to allow police track their physical location through their cellphones. This is optional.

Police then allow locals to set up a roadblock to prevent people driving into a local area. Vilgante behaviour and not legal, but ok with the police and government.

Which one if these pose a greater risk to the community? Is it really so difficult for our conflict avoidant prime minister to say the word “no”? She seems sacred to offend anyone.
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April 3, 2020 9:32am
- Brian McDonald
  
  I may be wrong but no visitors now, those you are talking about are returning citizens.
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:29am
notreadyet

Go figure, that the craxy aspect of this whole debacle, look at whst they fid re quarantine for the plane load they rescued from China, quarantine and no exceptions and questions.
So weeks later why so lax, words fail me
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April 3, 2020 9:36am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Waikiki. Oh, to be there now. Social distancing works.
At 1.14 is the area where I flew my drone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O320MiRki3g&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR1wxm8G7aM3xZygWDvo5B75orn6bBGl2vYYC3JV7EhmnGrKThVWSJR0PwI
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April 3, 2020 9:38am
WaveyDavey

Hang on a sec. Wasn’t the spin the other day that Bauer hadn’t asked for government support?

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/04/government-turned-down-request-for-help-from-struggling-publisher-bauer-media.html?fbclid=IwAR2tpogFFRebvizzfS0tdcPhi2Q5c_XFh15xlxycvxQRYwksjRaW4Hf5Icg

“But Newshub can reveal the Government turned down a last ditch Hail Mary request by Bauer Media to throw the business a lifeline.”
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April 3, 2020 9:39am
- Tall Man
  
  “Spin” no. As always, ardern lied, this time by omission in only telling part of the story.
  
  24 1
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  April 3, 2020 10:17am
  - Durden
    
    You were always right Tall Man about SLG being a liar. The 250 odd journalists who kept spinning for Jacinda in their publications now don’t like it when its their jobs gone.
    
    Also Bauer asked the CoL to take over the titles and run it. The lovely Jacinda on behalf of the Labour+Gren+NZFirst said no.
    
    Karma is a bitch.
    
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    April 3, 2020 2:21pm
- Suze Wainwright
  
  “Hang on a sec. Wasn’t the spin the other day that Bauer hadn’t asked for government support?”
  
  Yes, Cindy went to lengths to say that…
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:18am
  - Jack5
    
    Suze:
    
    In the worst case there could be thousands of cases where the Government could be asked to buy collapsing businesses.
    
    Rather than pure handouts, a Government entity could take equity stakes in more promising firms in return for bail-out.
    
    Lagter, in the recovery, the Government could:
    
    1. Take many of the bigger firms on to the sharemarket and gradually (or at float time) sell off part or all of these stakes.
    
    2. Put the stakes into a number of Government owned investment enterprises and then either gradually float these on the NZ Stock Exchange or sell shares to Kiwisaver investment schemes and (if it’s still running) the National Super Fund.
    
    This would build the NZ Stock Exchange, reduce the cost of bailing out the country from the Covid-19 collapse, provide local investments for Kiwisaver organisations, and in the meantime put some assets, though weak at first, on the State balance sheet.
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:55am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      Yeah right. A business failing because of lack of custom remains a failing business.
      Would you trust your business to any COL MP?
      
      8 1
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      April 3, 2020 11:54am
      - Jack5
        
        Taking a stake does not mean taking over the business.
        
        Cash for an equity stake is often, even usually, better than piling debt on to a firm in temporary trouble. I hope, Kevin, that you aren’t suggesting that taxpayer money should just be given to troubled firms, rather than loaned or provided in exchange for an equity share.
        
        If the firm survived and boomed there are many ways the State could withdraw. I suggest by stock exchange floats, or by floating new investment companies holding the Government stakes. If the firm failed, at least the Government would have had a shot at getting its money back, even of getting a return on it.
        
        When we talk of Government help in the pandemic, we mean taxpayer help.
        
        Who would want a repeat of the finance companies fiasco? People put money into a higher risk investment that paid higher interest because of that risk. When the property companies got into trouble many (and thus their investors) were bailed out at cost to taxpayers.
        
        If equity stakes had been taken in some of the property companies’ investments there would have been less cost to the Government – and thus taxpayers.
        
        How would MPs be in charge of a business in which a State enterprise had taken equity? New SOEs would have to be set up, and these could be run and directed by business people. Some of the SOEs would be designed to privatised as soon as possible.
        
        Kevin, when you talk of a business “”failing because of lack of custom”: we are talking about a short-term shock caused by factors outside the business’s control – factors that will end within a year or two at most.
        
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        April 3, 2020 12:48pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        When Air NZ last collapsed, the government took a majority shareholding. That hasn’t meant the government running the airline.
        
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        April 3, 2020 1:01pm
      - KevO'Brien
        
        I’m not seeing just short term shocks. Do we want Govt ownership too? Planning for many will be impossible. Several of my clients may not survive the next 12 months-that puts me at risk too.
        In uncertainty, capital budget decisions are halted or seriously slowed down. That causes job losses and fierce pencil sharpening to obtain contracts. I have seen it in the past few years how devastating it can be when contracts are let below cost to buy continuance. A loss of profits is really a loss of cash and that means resources, opportunities and livelihoods disappearing. No matter who is financing them those losses are still being suffered. Govt ownership would be no different–taxpayers may be able to pay despite cash losses but taxpayer-management is poor by commercial standards. (They propose but do not achieve.)
        
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        April 3, 2020 1:33pm
      - Jack5
        
        Kevin, again: the State taking a short-term or medium-term equity stake in a company is not the same as a State nationalising a company. The State pumps in cash and in return takes shares.
        
        It is an alternative to the State giving to the company hard-earned taxpayer cash free, outright, no strings attached.
        
        The rescue of Air NZ cited by Milky is an example, and perhaps it may happen to Air NZ again.
        
        Taxpayers would make on the deal if the stakes were privatised at a profit, and some would be. At very least, the final total cost of State rescues would be reduced.
        
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        April 3, 2020 2:06pm
      - KevO'Brien
        
        If an outfit needs State cash to survive because of lack of future business and profitability its plainly dying.
        Getting the taxpayers to pick up the tab may keep some people in make-work but does nothing to refresh the economy and release the newly created serfs.
        Govt have been well proven to be incapable of running profitable business–hope and waste are their outcomes. Did Twford deliver houses or just the thoughts about houses? If the COL had commissioned Fetcher or such like to establish a Housing Program with govt assisted funding the outcome would have been different.
        
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        April 3, 2020 3:51pm
      - Jack5
        
        Kevin, I get your position now.
        
        No help for businesses. If they can’t ride out the pandemic they die.
        
        Too harsh, and economically disastrous, IMHO.
        
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        April 3, 2020 5:53pm
- Swifty
  
  Ardern caught telling more porkies:
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/120788232/bauer-closure-were-all-in-this-together–but-some-are-more-in-it-than-others
  
  “Annoyingly, Jacinda Ardern said on Thursday that Bauer “didn’t enter a conversation about becoming an essential service”. This is untrue.
  
  The Magazine Publishers Association worked closely with Bauer, and other publishers, on a long submission to the Government on exactly this matter. We clearly asked for the non-essential ruling to be reversed, pointing out that magazines have a tight and controlled supply chain, so that continued publication is not a safety risk.”
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:54am
- cmm
  
  The Liar In Chief clearly said, multiple times, that she was disappointed in Bauer for not taking the offer.
  
  Lying bitch.
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:23am
- Brian McDonald
  
  Did any of you read the article? Bauer was offered wage subsidies, rejected that and asked for a bailout.
  The problem with the rejection is that it’s not clear if they put that case to their workers.
  I hope that some of the staff may pool their efforts, seek a wage subsidy and give it a try NZ owned.
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:34am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    The COL are bloomin’ hopeless at basic economics.
    Computers function like a command economy and look how much software and service they require.
    The world is dynamic and cannot be controlled with the rigour that socialists dream of.
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:57am
  - WaveyDavey
    
    She lied.
    
    “Annoyingly, Jacinda Ardern said on Thursday that Bauer “didn’t enter a conversation about becoming an essential service”. This is untrue.
    
    Why don’t YOU read the article?
    
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    April 3, 2020 12:31pm
  - Hard Cheese
    
    Yes, Bauer rejected the wage subsidies on the basis that it would have made no difference. More disgraceful disingenuousness from Faafoi and Ardern:
    
    Bauer’s spokesman said the company wrote to Faafoi last weekend.
    
    “Bauer was explicit it was not interested in a short term subsidy or support, primarily because its view was that the issues of the business were much bigger than that and that it would be essentially dishonest to take a short-term taxpayer subsidy because it wouldn’t resolve the issues,” he said.
    
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    April 3, 2020 1:36pm
- Kevin Herlihy
  
  Bauer is a German mega-multinational. But with its ad revenue flat-lining, it didn’t believe the Government’s wage subsidies could save its New Zealand titles.
  
  “Bauer contacted the [Finance Minister] and told them they weren’t interested in subsidies,” Ardern said.
  
  “They didn’t enter a conversation about becoming an essential service, they didn’t seek to continue to operate during lockdown, and they didn’t want to use the Government support to keep their doors open.”
  
  But Newshub can reveal Bauer asked the Government to bail it out – to buy its magazines and to save jobs as a last minute lifeline, for bottom-dollar.
  
  Finance Minister Grant Robertson said the Government doesn’t want to “own all the media”.
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:48am
  - Evadne
    
    Just some of it? And drive the rest out of business?
    
    The government shouldn’t be owning ANY media.
    
    7 2
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    April 3, 2020 11:54am
    - Jack5
      
      Evadne, short-term, part-ownership by the State is better than going out of business.
      
      To prevent, or reduce political interference, this could be done through a special SOE, as suggested in posts above, but it would have been a bad deal for the Government and taxpayers.
      
      Print media are being crushed by technological obsolescence, and putting cash into print media now would be a lousy investment for anyone.
      
      Therefore, though the magazines decision is hurting staff and families of employees, Bauer, by reportedly declining the State wages subsidy, and the Government reportedly by declining the offer to buy the magazines business for $1, have saved taxpayers from throwing good money after bad.
      
      Banning magazines from supermarkets and post, however, is hard to defend. That is cruel.
      
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      April 3, 2020 1:13pm
lifesgood

I am picking that in a few weeks of lock down NZers are going to become mighty pissed off, if not already. I am guessing there will be rebellion and people will simply flout the rules. How on earth can single people be expected to live in solitary confinement for months on end not to mention families, dysfunctional or otherwise squashed together. As a matter of interest, how much power does the govt have over us? Do they have the right to enforce this lock down
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April 3, 2020 9:41am
- krazykiwi
  
  It’s becoming increasingly clear to me the we have a serious illness circulating, but not a pandemic that justifies shutting the country down thereby causing incalculable social, emotional and economic damage.
  
  Like you, I expect there will be a rebellion. I have lost the business I spent the last 5 years investing in and building. My wife’s job is looking like it will vanish. We have some savings to live on, but quantitative easing will ensure inflation eats away at that.
  
  This government’s inept leadership, and it’s transparent use of the ‘crisis’ to advance it’s socialist agenda borders on criminal.
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:02am
- mandk
  
  Of course people will start to flout the rules.
  
  If it’s OK for a Cabinet Minister, it’s OK for me and you, and everyone else.
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:13am
- kowtow
  
  In a few weeks?
  
  Hone and his Henchmen are in open revolt , well they’ve always been revolting , but the worst of that is the Crown is actively assisting this law breaking and the rest of the country can see that.
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:46am
- KevO'Brien
  
  The basis for their decision making is very suspect, reckless even. They will have to justify that probably in the near future.
  Winston went too far.
  
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  April 3, 2020 12:00pm
krazykiwi

Another voice of reason, this time from Biophysicist Felix Scholkmann in the US.

It is not the number of infected people that is increasing exponentially, but rather the number of tests being conducted.

The number of infected people in relation to the number of tests remains basically constant (oscillating between 10 and 20%), which speaks against a current viral epidemic.
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April 3, 2020 9:42am
- Stu2
  
  So why are deaths increasing exponentially?
  US deaths
  
  113 Mar 22
  141
  225 Mar 24
  247
  268 Mar 26
  400
  525 Mar 28
  363
  558 Mar 30
  912 Mar 31
  1049 Apr 1
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:13am
  - cmm
    
    Why does anyone care about 1000 deaths a day in USA?
    
    Every day approx 12000 people die in USA of all causes.
    
    Of those 1000 who died with Covid, at least 900 would have had preexisting conditions and would have been harvested by the next flu anyway.
    
    So we’re losing our shit over less than 100 people dying a day?
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:35am
    - kowtow
      
      “We’re” losing our shit because the Media Party are literally leading a panic .
      
      Their ‘reporting’ on this amounts to a fear mongering campaign which has frightened “leaders” into destroying the economy and the consequences will be deadly.
      
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      April 3, 2020 10:44am
    - Inandout
      
      cmm, you and I know that, but ordinary winter flu is so last year.
      
      8 3
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      April 3, 2020 10:46am
    - Stu2
      
      The USA model projection peaks at 2644 on April 16th (it assumes the remaining US states enact shelter orders (*))
      
      Big numbers, very hard to run the herd immunity approach politically
      
      (*) at least one of the recently enacting states has exempted churches, just bizarre
      
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      April 3, 2020 11:02am
    - Brian McDonald
      
      Right, so every year America sets up CIUs in tents in Central Park, and removes bodies from hospitals in semi-trailers? didn’t know that.
      I thought it was going to be ‘ maybe 1 death,(squint) maybe not.’
      
      3 10
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      April 3, 2020 11:40am
      - cmm
        
        That is in NYC. Hardly a statistical representation of USA at large.
        
        USA is, generally, conservative. In NYC they’re making public service announcements to tell people to stop doing rim-jobs.
        
        I don’t think I’m that square, but I had to look up what a rim-job was.
        
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        April 3, 2020 12:09pm
      - cmm
        
        Every day, over 9,000 people die in USA from all causes. They have approx 1000 deaths a day from Covid19.
        
        Clearly adding 1000 to 9000 does not completely change the picture for the USA as a whole.
        
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        April 3, 2020 12:19pm
  - Evadne
    
    There are many possible reasons. A moment’s rational thought should lead you to some of them.
    Eg.
    
    Because the numbers of people infected has now reached a critical mass (ie. So many people are infected, the low case fatility rate is now statistically noticeable across a whole population) ?
    
    Because those that died of it before routine testing have been recorded as a respiratory or infkuenza-like illnesses (ILI) (or an underlying pathology) so it’s merely the result of assigning deaths to a new column?
    
    Because initial infections occured amongst the young, mobile and active, but it’s now so endemic it’s reaching the vulnerable retired communities?
    
    The usual winter flu season picked off some of the weakest before they could succumb to this coronavirus, but now the flu curve has peaked, covid is taking over?
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:55am
    - UrbanNeocolonialist
      
      That the epidemic still has about 100x growth coming in the USA, and will start to kill a shit-load of younger people as the hospitals are overwhelmed (their mortality goes up ~30x when that happens, only 2-4x for elderly)
      
      Wuflu is murderous on obese too, so US (particularly southern states) and Polynesians are in big trouble – they will die at several times rate of average kiwis.
      
      5 2
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      April 3, 2020 11:12am
      - All_on_Red
        
        So far US Hospitals aren’t getting their capacity stretched at all.
        Even in NY. That Hospital ship has no patients yet.
        If anything it may be that the curve has already started to flatten in NY
        
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        April 3, 2020 11:49am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Test, test test and count the tests.
    Cumulative numbers can be impressive as pseudo lies.
    
    2 2
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    April 3, 2020 12:02pm
Lee C

Share this with our political leaders. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnXzGB170GI&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR13zXehL1eMKRv430Gw5E8ex0pLh8zfnsSFWxpb9Vs5UN-GjxwmcpiQpvc
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April 3, 2020 9:42am
- Tall Man
  
  We don’t have “leaders” Lee, we have sheep that are attractive to the more stupid among our population at each end of the age spectrum.
  
  Age and diminishing gray matter and “trusting” a policy for pay conman led the “what’s in it for wynston”.
  
  Nothing more than abject stupidity and hatred of those who achieve something gave the watermelons a piece of the pie.
  
  A desire to have the lifestyle of a successful person but without having to actually work for it gave ardern a share of the pie.
  
  An election is designed to give us the best of the best to lead our country. 2017 was an abject failure in democracy.
  
  2020 will correct this.
  
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  April 3, 2020 10:09am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Waikiki. There is traffic but prob about 3% of normal. It’s 54 minutes, but it’s not like you are busy doing something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt2Rxm5rWHs&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2LNpueASXusgtmIVml060iKKKF-KZ0O5TH6Yqr2seOqWYuLoV-a8p0Xro
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April 3, 2020 9:46am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

https://babylonbee.com/news/cnn-publishes-real-news-story-for-april-fools-day?fbclid=IwAR1dw3nThxpLJ1iwdPitefIn24BMe4o7LOPBr23Mfdz0HMrg-_GaWp9fEh0
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April 3, 2020 9:55am
Happychappy

A good article on Newsroom from Bill English following on what Stephen Joyce had already noted on Nationals though on what to do with helping the economy
trough disasters.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/04/03/1113027/steven-joyce-government-needs-to-rethink-its-stance-on-business-closures
But if action is anything to go in todays pandemic the Government doesn’t seem to want advice or to listen.
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April 3, 2020 9:57am
- Brian McDonald
  
  Already happening.
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:44am
PhilBest

Weird COVID-19 science item of the day:

https://www.qeios.com/read/article/554

Smoking not implicated in COVID-19 risk after all???

If true, this places far higher importance on the other risk co-factors such as urban density, housing quality, and environmental concentration of other pathogens.
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April 3, 2020 9:58am
- cmm
  
  I’m highly skeptical. If you have screwed up your lungs then any respiratory illness is going to be worse.
  
  I’ll wait until they conduct the same study using the Italians.
  
  11 3
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  April 3, 2020 10:30am
  - kowtow
    
    And cocaine snorters .
    
    That’s said to be a bigly thing with the with it ,in crowd.
    
    Shhhhh, don’t mention “recreational” drugs.
    
    9 2
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    April 3, 2020 10:38am
    - cmm
      
      Anything you do to hammer your system is going to reduce your chance of survival of pretty much all diseases: obesity, smoking, vaping, alcohol, drugs, etc etc.
      
      10 1
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      April 3, 2020 11:05am
      - PhilBest
        
        The study authors emphasize that. The odd thing here is that smoking seems to do something to the immune system that actually reduces the impact of coronaviruses. Kinda like the immune system is already stimulated in the right way, coping with the smoking. For coronaviruses, this effect actually cancels out the impact of the harm from smoking. I said this was weird.
        
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        April 3, 2020 12:33pm
      - cmm
        
        Yes, weird, and I would like to see more data.
        
        Perhaps it is due to the way Chinese were accounting for deaths.
        
        eg. Smoker dies of pneumonia, they call it pneumonia; non smoker dies and they call it Covid19.
        
        The article/study just takes the statistics at face value. There is no further analysis/breakdown of what is going on.
        
        Buy, hey, maybe a pack a day keeps Corona away!
        
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        April 3, 2020 2:16pm
MrTips

Seeing as there is no plan B, perhaps the govt and Ashley might like to consider what Germany is close to doing: issuing immunity certificates upon proof of SARS-CoV-2 antibody titres indicating immunity combined with good health .

This would mean people could be released from lockdown and get back to work. Its a no brainer. You need the right kit though, probably not a Chinese one.
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April 3, 2020 10:10am
- Brian McDonald
  
  NZ will do something like that when it is in a position to do so. We needer the broader testing of those without symptoms, the level of those who may asymptomatic, and re-infection rates.
  International travel will go the same way as well – but some way down the track.
  We shouldn’t walk before we run but certainly exploit businesses that can provide transmission free business which has already begun.
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:50am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    How long? Two years?
    
    4 1
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    April 3, 2020 12:04pm
    - Brian McDonald
      
      Data first.
      
      2 8
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      April 3, 2020 12:08pm
      - KevO'Brien
        
        The data so far has not been fit for purpose.
        
        4 1
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        April 3, 2020 1:37pm
secondcumming

Doomed to repeat…..

Stuff reports: Second tier lender of last resort, *FE Investments*, has gone into receivership, putting at risk approx $64 million of mainly mom & pop Term Deposits…..probably all chasing that extra decimal point.

Lest we forget…..Hanover, Bridgecorp, Lombard, South Canterbury Finance, Strategic,
St Laurence, and many others.
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April 3, 2020 10:10am
MrTips

Dear diary
Day 9:
Contemplated jumping into the rubbish bin. It gets out more than I do, so could go along for the ride one time.
I’m not into conspiracy theories, but has anyone else noticed that 2m social distancing is equal to the wingspan of a vulture?
Shout-out to our health minister, David Clark. It takes real courage to make a fool of yourself and you have an EXCEPTIONAL amount of courage.
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April 3, 2020 10:19am
Michael NZ

David Sinclair on COVID
some good links to science sites within the newsletter.
Pt coming tomorrow.

https://mailchi.mp/lifespanbook.com/my-covid-19-update-2572786?utm_source=Lifespan+Book&utm_campaign=60abc5c67a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_17_07_24_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_82e2167267-60abc5c67a-127288101
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April 3, 2020 10:41am
- Brian McDonald
  
  Thanks. I have copied that.
  
  1 5
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  April 3, 2020 12:09pm
MrTips

Well, well, well……

Look who’s turned up as Stuff’s “Head of Video” .

Doesn’t help stifle suspicions of Stuff becoming the next Pravda.
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April 3, 2020 10:44am
- bruceavon
  
  She’s been there for ages. At least two years.
  
  3 0
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  April 3, 2020 12:56pm
secondcumming

I see the *downticker* put in his appearance at exactly 10.43am….mouse in one hand, penis in the other 😎
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April 3, 2020 10:46am
- rightoverlabour
  
  It’s amazing how one should always pay attention to how one types …
  
  “mouse in one hand, penis in the other” vs
  
  “mouse in one hand, pen is in the other”….
  
  5 2
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  April 3, 2020 10:54am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Too much detail…
  
  remember there are refined old ladies reading here.
  
  9 1
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  April 3, 2020 11:49am
  - rightoverlabour
    
    Just add a space.. Problem solved…
    
    2 1
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    April 3, 2020 11:57am
  - Tall Man
    
    66 is old?
    
    I never knew ?
    
    3 0
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    April 3, 2020 12:21pm
- Brian McDonald
  
  Fixation with penises much?
  
  3 3
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  April 3, 2020 12:32pm
Inandout

MrTips’

Dear diary
Day 10:
Minister of Health still hasn’t been spoken to by Jacinda. Daily papers have buried the story.
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April 3, 2020 10:48am
- cmm
  
  … and any papers and magazines that might have done some digging have been killed off…
  
  15 1
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  April 3, 2020 11:17am
- Captain Mainwaring
  
  Barely Sober gave it a bit of a run at 12.10, to his credit.
  
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  April 3, 2020 12:35pm
Alboy

Just some perspective on this Covid-19 thing. I was reading the daily stats this morning published on Newsroom (a Reasonable news source BTW). So far, 2.79% of the tests conducted in NZ have returned a positive test result. Given we have 797 confirmed cases, this tells us we have done 28,800 odd tests. The thing is, up until yesterday, we were only testing those who had symptoms and had proven contact with a likely source of the virus.

So, of those most likely to have contracted the virus, only 2.79% were actually proven to have it. And, we have shut the country and the economy down because of this!!
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April 3, 2020 10:49am
- cmm
  
  Excellent point. It is not as if they are doing random sampling, only testing those who are considered high risk. That does not build a good picture of whole-population rates.
  
  AFAIK: These are antigen tests and are only testing for people who have an active virus in their bodies. They only give a positive during a very brief window.
  
  What would be more interesting and informative are antibody tests that check for whether people have been infected in the past. That would give us a better picture of population immunity levels and how many people are getting the virus but only very mild symptoms (eg. thinking it was a cold).
  
  I suspect that the number of people who get it and shrug it off is going to be quite high.
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:16am
  - Ian Boag
    
    Sorry that this is a bit lengthy ….. From an article I found in the Economist. I have tried to put it into simple terms.
    
    Testing for COVID antibodies with a simple finger prick is being touted as the gold standard. Here is how it works (or not) – draw your own conclusions.
    
    Antibodies are proteins that the immune system produces to tag and clobber invaders. Some of them hang about forever after activation, some don’t. There are two involved with COVID – call them A and B.
    
    A shows up within a week or so of infection. B shows up a while after that. A eventually goes away and B hangs about forever. So ….. some test results ….
    
    Neither A not B – you are not infected and have not been infected or you are in an early stage.
    A only – you are infected
    A and B – you have been infected recently – might be over it, might not.
    B only – you are over it and immune.
    
    There are a few other hiccups – there are specificity issues – antibodies similar to A/B that may also give a positive test. There are sensitivity issues about what level is detected which can generate false negatives. To check all this out, the developers need access to a large supply of blood samples that are known to be infected, not infected and recovered. As the disease is all a bit new …..
    
    Low sensitivity generates false negatives. Low specificity generates false positives. It appears so far that tweaking things to improve one seems to make the other worse. One of the big pluses is even an imperfect test will give us a (presently not available) handle (of sorts) on the level of “silent infection” and “over it”. Relevant for contact tracing and “herd immunity” considerations.
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:38am
    - cmm
      
      Yup as I understand it, antibody tests are just emerging now and are not widely available.
      
      It is my understanding that what is coming down the pipe is fast and cheap which means it can be used in larger sample sizes, faster.
      
      Sure there are going to be false positives and false negatives, but those can be characterized and accounted for – of course not for individual cases, but for general population modelling.
      
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      April 3, 2020 12:24pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        I imagine that the sensitivity/selectivity issues are the holdup. Some sort of general feeling among the decision-makers that the tests are not yet good enough to base actions on ……
        
        For example – I get a test and it comes out with just B. Hooray – I am immune. I am a nurse so I can go back to work. Unless the test was actually reacting to one of B’s useless cousins. A false negative. In which case instead of being “immune ” I am actually “at risk”.
        
        I think they are trying hard to get a handle on the level of all this before rolling it out by the shipload.
        
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        April 3, 2020 3:41pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Economist again …. would do a link but it is sort of paywalled. I am a subscriber
        
        Antibody testing is particularly susceptible to false positives and false negatives, so needs to be carefully validated. A bunch of Chinese companies produce antibody testing kits, and have been churning them out. They are in high demand. The British government is in negotiations to buy millions of them, but business sources say that countries that demand less validation data than Britain—such as Russia, Spain and the Gulf states—have been snapping them up. The swifter countries risk getting dodgy tests; the slower ones risk getting hold of kits too late. ■
        
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        April 3, 2020 4:43pm
  - Alboy
    
    You’re absolute correct cmm, if we were doing broad population testing for both antigens and antibodies, we would know exactly how far we were along the curve to herd immunity and what the real mortality rate was. You have to question why we didn’t do this basic analysis prior to making a $40b plus decision.
    
    Once again, relying on poorly constructed computer models is letting the population down.
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:39am
    - cmm
      
      As much as I like to put in the boot, the data was not there to support better decision making.
      
      However, there was heaps of better data available when the 80,000 deaths report was written and publicised and, IMHO, it was grossly irresponsible to publish it and give it air time.
      
      Decisions have to change as new information arises. However, I fear, it seems to be that we are wedded to ideology, not decision making.
      
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      April 3, 2020 12:27pm
      - Alboy
        
        I guess you’re right, forced into making decisions without all the data (which is the std burden of leadership) but yes, we should be prepared to alter those decisions as clearer data comes through. By contrast, it looks like we’re doubling down on the poor decision (to save political face probably)
        
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        April 3, 2020 12:33pm
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Will, there be some point when you understand that test kits and testing facilities were at a premium, so it follows that only certain (cases, showing symptoms, recent travel, contact with recent travelers) were tested, as supplies and facilities improve the level and type of testing will increase.
    
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    April 3, 2020 12:30pm
    - Alboy
      
      But only yesterday the PM stated that we had plenty of swabs and excess testing capacity. If that is so, we should have a plan to improve our database (which it would appear we don’t).
      
      Mind you, GPs we’re telling us yesterday that they had no swabs and had been advised by the supplier that none were available. Believe who you want I guess.
      
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      April 3, 2020 1:51pm
- Tall Man
  
  Bingo.
  
  Now, if stop testing we’ve saved 80,000 just like ardern said ?
  
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  April 3, 2020 12:23pm
mikenmildagain

Today is the feast day for Saint Luigi Scrosoppi. Apparently he is the patron saint of footballers, despite never playing the game.
According to this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Scrosoppi, prayers to the Blessed Luigi resulted in the healing of an AIDS patient in South Africa.
Bollocks.
Everyone knows that Colin Meads is the patron saint of football.
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April 3, 2020 10:50am
- kowtow
  
  Association or rugby football?
  
  I imagine that as the good saint is, presumably an Eyetie he’d favour the round as opposed to the oval ballers.
  
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  April 3, 2020 12:12pm
  - mikenmildagain
    
    Maybe we need to patron saints for each of the many codes.
    Even if only of one code, how does an Austrian bishop get to decide promotion of an Eytie priest who never played the game to the supreme role of patron of the world game?
    
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    April 3, 2020 12:35pm
    - kowtow
      
      Possibly by the same logic that a New Zild woman ,who probably never played a game of RFU in her life,could run Australian rugby football and sack a Polynesian who did.
      
      She needs a St Jude , the Patron Saint of Lost Causes.
      
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      April 3, 2020 1:16pm
rightoverlabour

A very good rational analysis here. “No doubt about it: Lockdowns, quarantines and isolation are saving the day”

http://joannenova.com.au/2020/04/ancient-technology-wins-quarantine-and-isolation-still-work/
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April 3, 2020 10:52am
- Evadne
  
  But saving which day?
  
  The “no one dies of covid” day?
  
  Or the “deliver on all other health needs” day?
  Or the “maintaining economic future for our country” day?
  Or the “educate our young people and have jobs for them at the end of it” day?
  Or the “community mental health” day?
  Or the “keeping our food supply lines open and harvesting all the vege/fruit” day?
  Or the “keeping our society functioning” day?
  Or the “ensuring our human rights such as freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom of the press, access to education, health, roof over our heads & food on our table” day?
  
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  April 3, 2020 12:10pm
Paul Marsden

The weather in the main, has been beautiful over the country since NZ has been in lock down. Now the country is on the cusp of winter and the end of daylight saving, it will bring with it a monumental sea-change in the pubic mood against the Govt.

With continuing displays of Ministerial arrogance such as that exhibited by Clark and the lack of leadership in this country, that might be the type of spark that sets off a tinderbox of social unrest throughout the land

It will become a winter of discontent

, and combined with displays of Ministerial arrogance like that of which Clark indulged in and our lack of leadership, that could well be the spark

has been lucky with the weather been brillinat We are on the cusp of winter and a change in the mood against the current Govt.
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April 3, 2020 10:52am
- rightoverlabour
  
  And, if temperature has anything to do with the spread of the virus, things could get very interesting. I don’t know what the current thinking on temperature and the virus is, but the Southern Hemisphere and warmer areas seem to be less infected. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html
  
  Dodgy Data from Africa and South America may also be an issue though.
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:04am
  - Stu2
    
    Yes, I’ve been wondering about that
    There are really low hospitalisation and ICU rates in NZ and Oz, which are way out of kilter with Europe. I’m wondering if it will become more deadly here mid-Winter
    
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    April 3, 2020 11:52am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    That’s why flu inoculations have been pushed.
    
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    April 3, 2020 12:18pm
    - Evadne
      
      But there aren’t enough to go round.
      
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      April 3, 2020 12:22pm
      - MCos
        
        Last year there were 1.2mil flu shots; this year 1.7mil. Far less than half the population has shown an interest in the vaccine in previous years and a lot more vaccines have been ordered this year.
        The effectiveness of the vaccine is variable, but generally around 50-60%
        https://www.influenza.org.nz/effectiveness-inactivated-influenza-vaccines
        
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        April 3, 2020 3:10pm
barnacle bill

Heaven forbid we ever have to experience the Black Death.
First outbreak was in 1347, until 1664, altogether it returned 17 times.

Unless some nations tidy up their filthy habits, then who knows ?

https://quillette.com/2020/03/28/social-distancing-during-the-black-death/
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April 3, 2020 11:09am
- MCos
  
  Nobody said there isn’t going to be an virus coming along with far worse consequences than this one.
  
  Back in the Black Death days medical knowledge pretty much didn’t exist. So at least we have that advantage.
  
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  April 3, 2020 2:51pm
cmm

Spare a thought for my poor neighbour.

It would appear that he’s not being having too much fun indoors with the missus. He’s mowed his lawn three times in three days.

… and now his petrol ran out…
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April 3, 2020 11:09am
- Poppa
  
  I suspect lawns are going to get a lot of mowing in the next few weeks
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:30am
- All_on_Red
  
  Two of my neighbours have been out there cleaning their houses.
  Did a pretty good job too.
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:40am
WaveyDavey

Yay, NZ punching above its weight again

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/120786322/coronavirus-oecd-expects-big-impact-for-nz-economy

“New Zealand’s economy is likely to suffer a bigger coronavirus blow than most in the OECD, new research says.”
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April 3, 2020 11:20am
- Poppa
  
  Who could have guessed that??
  
  I have no faith in this so called govt. We will suffer for a long long time
  
  I wish I owned a supermarket
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:59am
rangitoto

Single use plastic bags are back in San Francisco. Reusable bags banned.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/2/san-francisco-reverses-ban-plastic-bags-now-bars-r/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=socialnetwork
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April 3, 2020 11:26am
BeaB

The Millennials love Jacinda and they will pay the price all their lives, poor sods.
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April 3, 2020 11:29am
- Wired-one
  
  Not all of us millennials.
  
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  April 3, 2020 12:53pm
Dave Mann

NEWSFLASH:
Leighton Baker will be giving a 20 minute address on Facebook Live this evening at 7.30pm.
http://www.facebook.com/newconservativenz
You will be able to send in questions for him to answer at the end of his address.
Join us! But tell your friends too.
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April 3, 2020 11:37am
- Dave Mann
  
  Sorry, I should have clarified that Leighton Baker is the leader of the NCs.
  
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  April 3, 2020 11:48am
- Inandout
  
  Dave, is this bordering on breaking Covid19 emergency laws on mushroom cultivation?
  
  1 4
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  April 3, 2020 11:51am
- curry4me
  
  Dave Mann: I’ll be listening.
  
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  April 3, 2020 1:58pm
- MCos
  
  Is it pay for view?
  
  A lot of people could do with the money.
  
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  April 3, 2020 2:43pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Get this folks..
Bauer about to do a big $40M buy up in Aussie..

https://www.bandt.com.au/breaking-accc-approves-bauers-40-million-acquisition-of-rival-pac-mags/
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April 3, 2020 11:55am
- Inandout
  
  Maggy, my wife used to get read womens’ mags from a neighbour and even she used to laugh at the absolute rubbishy contents. Imagine how difficult it must be to cobble together new stories every week.
  
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  April 3, 2020 12:00pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  Business is business.
  
  6 0
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  April 3, 2020 12:10pm
kevn

@Maggy… JA squeezed Bauer out of NZ with her ‘non essential’ decision.
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April 3, 2020 11:58am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Just watched play school TV1 news (speaker of the house insists on it)
No mention of hypocritical ministers going mountain biking. Immune already
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April 3, 2020 12:30pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Putin sending a huge plane of medical supplies.
Russian collusion in 3, 2, 1
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/russia-sending-plane-filled-with-medical-equipment-to-u-s-amid-coronavirus-pandemic?fbclid=IwAR19vbYLJo6PAbvEfUM6-BT3anp9OkAregJiKI_wiPV8lQ4tloijvJ8jAdo
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April 3, 2020 12:32pm
Captain Mainwaring

Spirits drinkers are being treated very unfairly by this lockdown – they have to live in Licensing trust areas, and who would want to live in West Auckland or Invercargill?
But there is a solution. Gilmours will sell you as much whiskey or gin as you want. The only catch is that to get one of their cards you need to know somebody who has a GST registered business.
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April 3, 2020 12:40pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  You can buy online.
  
  2 7
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  April 3, 2020 12:42pm
  - david
    
    Try whisky and more.co.nz
    I have nothing else to say about that.
    
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    April 3, 2020 10:39pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Liquor King is open – or it was last Sunday.
  I stocked up, but need more. The speaker of the house has run out of Kalua and Baileys. So guess which essential service place I am going to in the morning?
  
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  April 3, 2020 3:47pm
Greg Ettridge

Government policy has consequences
100,000 tourists needing to go home
One way fares
Next Friday Melbourne/ Frankfurt $1285
Auckland/Frankfurt $10,641
Both via Doha
That hop across the ditch has become a tad expensive
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April 3, 2020 12:53pm
- WaveyDavey
  
  Operating costs
  
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  April 3, 2020 1:21pm
  - Greg Ettridge
    
    Called what the market will pay, dry it up and this is what happens, only have 300 odd plane loads of tourists to get out of NZ, next thing this cluster F will start paying for tourists because they cannot afford to go.
    Lets face it in normal times a long haul seat costs around $50 an hour $10,000 should take you a far way.
    This is just another classic example of not thinking through consequences of your actions.
    
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    April 3, 2020 2:06pm
RW Capitalist

Will these small business “loans” be as draconian as the Air NZ one?
2 years to pay
interest 2x mortgage rates
compulsory govt. purchase if you can’t pay on time.
With lock down length uncertain, how long before you can earn money to pay it back?
So 2 year loan becomes 18month loan (time left to earn enough)
Govt. loan to airnz, is approved by the majority share holder in airnz, using tax payer money?
Conflict of interest?
Or
With the draconian terms.
Hostile takeover by the govt.?
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April 3, 2020 12:53pm
Wired-one

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12322130

Sums up my thoughts exactly. Good to see in other articles that English and Joyce are starting to speak up also. We dont have a plan to get out of this and even if we did, we dont have a government who can deliver that plan.
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April 3, 2020 12:55pm
- Poppa
  
  That is the really scary part about it
  
  We have kindy kids in charge
  
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  April 3, 2020 1:18pm
- Wired-one
  
  Here’s that other article
  
  https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/120790664/coronavirus-awkward-questions-from-nationals-bill-english-and-steven-joyce
  
  Can we please put the adults back in charge?
  
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  April 3, 2020 1:22pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Is this the starting point for the first Black, Woman POTUS?
BLEXIT.
https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/02/candace-owens-considering-run-for-congress/?fbclid=IwAR3fpBa6ZBy53PZHMBUQF-WpJgy90kw9HuFoQ7aVJy1fTZfyAawJgpJwtoo
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April 3, 2020 12:56pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  She is a nutcase sure, but would make a better president than TRumpy.
  
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  April 3, 2020 1:06pm
  - Wired-one
    
    Shes absolutely brilliant. Just because she doesnt accept being a victim like the Democratic party expects all black voters to do, she gets a lot of abuse. She’d have my vote. Smart, competent and fierce.
    
    7 2
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    April 3, 2020 1:25pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Yep. The once ever faithful Black Americans are leaving the plantation. They have been lied to for decades.
      Trump 2020 landslide
      
      7 2
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      April 3, 2020 1:51pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    She would run rings around you Mike. Have you for breakfast
    
    3 2
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    April 3, 2020 1:49pm
    - mikenmildagain
      
      The seems little likelihood of me entering American politicis.
      
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      April 3, 2020 2:39pm
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Just in a debate on politics. Nobody said you would enter politic – and Candace Owens is only considering.
        You live in a bent up twisted World sonny
        
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        April 3, 2020 3:25pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        Oh, Ok. I think I could debate her – she’s an babbling moronic Trump worshipper. See her interview with Joe Rogan where she claims she can’t trust Scientific American on climate change because its web address ends in .com!
        
        BTW, this is a woman cited by the Christchurch mosque shooter as his biggest influence – her reaction – ‘LOL’.
        
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        April 3, 2020 4:36pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RowPncrGuI0

The Truth about Viktor Orbán’s Emergency Powers. He can rule by decree for the duration of the crisis. Parliament isn’t suspended. Elections haven’t been cancelled. Parliament can suspend his powers. It’s not unusual in times of national emergency. Is he a ‘dictator’? Is the Fourth Reich a bit miffed? Some want to expel Hungary. That might be a bit like throwing Brer Rabbit in the briar patch.
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April 3, 2020 1:12pm
curry4me

https://amgreatness.com/2020/04/02/san-francisco-bans-reusable-grocery-bags-returns-to-plastic-bags/
Outbreak of common sense in California. Reusable plastic bags banned in favour of single use ones. Won’t some think of the turtles!
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April 3, 2020 1:13pm
- WaveyDavey
  
  F*ck the turtles there are bigger amphibians to fry
  
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  April 3, 2020 1:22pm
  - kowtow
    
    Fried bats?
    
    3 1
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    April 3, 2020 2:08pm
WaveyDavey

A relative’s son who works in medical at a hospital has just told us that they’re being prepped for 4 months of this

Might just be getting ready for a worst-case of course
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April 3, 2020 1:24pm
- Brian McDonald
  
  No doubt the prep is going on we’ve been told that for weeks. Any reason to object to it?
  
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  April 3, 2020 1:53pm
  - WaveyDavey
    
    None. But interesting that they’ve been specifically told today – the same day that Stuff has “magically seen” a briefing document suggesting the same.
    
    A confidential document that was presumably left “just lying around” in an area occupied by journalists.
    
    They don’t have the guts to tell us what they think we’re in for and we are the frogs in the gradually heating water.
    
    Personally from the outset I thought 3 months minimum & I have no real problem with that, although we do need a more grown-up way of doing it – people are already bristling at the restrictions in place overseas and I wouldn’t expect NZ to be any different.
    
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    April 3, 2020 2:57pm
- rockape
  
  Ditto in NMDHB.
  
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  April 3, 2020 3:12pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  Do they really want to completely ruin NZ? The COL Ministers have a high duty but seem to be way out of their depth to meet the standards required.
  We are going to have to insist on accountability at a later date. A mere rejection at an election is not adequate when performance seems to be so poor.
  They held themselves out as being able to do the job which they have shown they cannot. They were never a given a mandate to shut NZ down with their low level of ability to assess needs.
  They cannot blame others who don’t hold their High Office.
  
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  April 3, 2020 4:03pm
Happychappy

Sean Plunkett on our Health Minister and his two finger salute to the health workers.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/04/opinion-the-question-of-health-minister-david-clark-s-removal-is-not-debatable.html
How can a Health Minister still have a job after his latest fuckup to go with the ones he made on menegicocal, then the Measle epidemic that he exported to Samoa, not enough flue vaccines for those that need flue injections this year and now his breach of rules that are set for all NZer’s to follow in the COVID 19 Pandemic is a step to far.
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April 3, 2020 1:41pm
RW Capitalist

Some cliche’s to have fun with.
Life: def.: A sexually transmitted terminal disease.

Life is a fair ground, you chose which ride to go on and how much you are prepared to pay for it.

One thing about life….It’s dangerous and NOBODY gets out alive.

It’s better to burnout, than it is to rust.
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April 3, 2020 1:52pm
Maggy Wassilieff

For those of us missing our Woman’s Weekly recipes..

The Easiest cake to bake. (no eggs, no butter)

1 C Self-rising Flour
1 C Sugar
1 C shredded coconut
1 C milk

Preheat oven 180C (ordinary)/170c-fan forced
Thoroughly grease /line with baking paper – Cake tin

Mix 4 ingredients…..(should be a rather sloppy mix)
Pour into cake tin
Bake at 170-180C for 40 min.

(If you haven’t got S.R. flour…. add 1 heaped tspn of baking powder / 1 c Flour)

This is a sweet, moist cake – lasts well.
You could ice it (I don’t).
You could reduce the sugar by a quarter cup
You could add a few drops of vanilla essence.
You can safely double the quantity (big cake tin).
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April 3, 2020 2:00pm
- Classic Liberal
  
  You’re a sweetie 🙂
  
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  April 3, 2020 3:12pm
  - Tall Man
    
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hMk63SOkdms
    
    1 1
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    April 3, 2020 5:41pm
Brian McDonald

Didn’t want to spread panic but asymptomatic cases have been a concern with 2 figures released as 20 to 25% of the population. Not sure if that is the full population, those tested, or showing symptoms? But at today’s briefing, Dr. Bloomfield was able to say most recent info from the WHO is that infections from those that are asymptomatic are very low.
I think that takes a big mystery out of the lifting of restrictions. On a different topic, I’m not sure about the re-infections probability but the first point appears to be good news.
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April 3, 2020 2:11pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Trouble is..
  How do you differentiate between asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic?
  
  Bloomfield said folks could spread the virus for at least 3 days between picking up the infection and showing symptoms.
  
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  April 3, 2020 2:33pm
  - Stu2
    
    All the same, you wouldn’t want to be on a near full bus
    
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    April 3, 2020 3:06pm
- kowtow
  
  ‘Didn’t want to spread panic’
  
  Not to worry , that’s the MSM’s department.
  
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  April 3, 2020 3:25pm
  - mikenmildagain
    
    Or blogs running several posts a day attacking the government’s response…
    
    2 8
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    April 3, 2020 5:45pm
    - Swifty
      
      Do you make your sarcy comments to people face to face?
      
      7 2
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      April 3, 2020 6:32pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        Oh yes, on a daily basis. Why, do you expect people to behave differently on blogs?
        
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        April 3, 2020 9:02pm
- Classic Liberal
  
  Sigh. You’ll have to excuse me shouting, because I’ve been saying this for weeks.
  
  So, again:
  
  1. Once current cases are no longer infectious due to 4 week lockdown (it didn’t need to be 4 weeks, except for this government’s stupidity in not quarantining arrivals), we need to GET BACK TO BUSINESS.
  
  2. Even then we might not be able to fully trust that there are no cases in NZ (check via wide spread antibody tests to see how much community spread). So we must be alert for hot spots, immediately trace and isolate any cases and contacts.
  
  This is a system we need anyway. For the next damn virus. Instead of WRECKING THE ECONOMY.
  
  3. But after lockdown the levels should be so low that only the vulnerable need to stay in any sort of lockdown.
  
  4. People who want extra protection can wear masks.
  
  5. To make this lockdown as effective as possible: quarantine all arrivals. Right now. No exceptions.
  
  6. If we did that, we could even open the borders up to long term visitors who are prepared to go through quarantine.
  
  But the main point should be:
  GETS BACK TO BUSINESS!!
  
  Threats of a longer lockdown: cui bono? Is it the socialists’ wet dream if large companies go bust, shares turn to dust and only government owned and controlled ‘essential services’ can exist?
  
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  April 3, 2020 3:30pm
  - mikenmildagain
    
    It’s a shame your extensive knowledge of epidemiology, infection control and virology are not at the service of the government in this time of emergency.
    
    2 12
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    April 3, 2020 5:44pm
    - Classic Liberal
      
      I am actually qualified in public health, so stick your sarcasm up your arse.
      
      12 3
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      April 3, 2020 7:23pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        Sorry, I didn’t realise we were being treated to a statement from an expert.
        
        1 6
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        April 3, 2020 9:01pm
      - rightoverlabour
        
        @ mikenmild, you wouldn’t know the difference….
        
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        April 3, 2020 10:35pm
kowtow

Our media make much out of rude or peculiar behaviour , particularly by Americans and Australians and especially when they footage of it . ie the fights for loo roll , gun buying etc

It’s part the Media Party’s hatred of all things familiar and close and no doubt also reinforces their own over self inflated self satisfied opinion of themselves.

Since the shut down I’m of the impression that there’s been a shooting incident every other day here in NZ and what of these reports of abuse ?

They get a mention but don’t get highlighted at all .

‘Hospital staff report increase in being spat on’

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/rnz/hospital-staff-report-increase-being-spat

Man turns up at Dunedin Hospital with gunshot wound

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/crime/man-turns-dunedin-hospital-gunshot-wound
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April 3, 2020 2:22pm
Tasman Terror

Dr Clark is not the type of Dr who takes a hypocratic oath, but he is a hypocrite.
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April 3, 2020 2:25pm
kevn

@Tasman… maybe we could go lower case, dr clark?
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April 3, 2020 2:47pm
Poppa

So can someone help me please, maybe cmm

We are doing more tests but the case numbers have not blown out, in fact have basically levelled. To me that suggests the graph is actually falling

But they are feeding us the line that they are going up

I am confused
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April 3, 2020 3:02pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Not sure, but the tests for new arrivals at Auckland Airport lasted 2 hours for the media to cover after the PTPM spoke the other day – but it is no more. Run out of testing kits. She was stretching the truth again.
  Correct me if I am wrong – but not with opinions, just facts.
  Oh, at the current rate of testing it will take 8 years to test all New Zealanders (opinion, but I did read it on a graph summary)
  
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  April 3, 2020 3:35pm
Tasman Terror

This whole debacle is quite testing.
11 2
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April 3, 2020 3:25pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Especially for lefties. They are in quite a fucking mess at the moment.
  So many have ducked for cover. Let’s go mountain biking, nobody will know
  
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  April 3, 2020 3:37pm
Swifty

Clark apologises to Ardern:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120792472/coronavirus-health-minister-david-clark-apologises-to-the-prime-minister-for-mountain-bike-ride

When is he going to apologise to NZers?

When is he going to tell us just why he thinks he retains the moral authority to hold the Health portfolio after being caught doing what he has been telling the rest of us NOT to do?

FFS – if he had any morals he would have resigned his post yesterday saying:

“What I did the other day was wrong and I shouldn’t have done it. I let my team down and I let NZers down and as Minister of Health I should exhibit the highest of standards at all times and especially during this health crisis.

I didn’t and therefore I resign my portfolio so as not to detract from the otherwise excellent work this government is doing….”

At least he’d get back a shred of dignity if he did that.

Now he’s just a joke.
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April 3, 2020 3:53pm
- Swifty
  
  Robbo says Clark’s apology to Ardern should suffice for us plebs too:
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120801728/coronavirus-finance-minister-grant-robertson-to-give-update-as-nz-cases-reach-868
  
  Robbo clearly thinks we’re ok with the scraps off Ardern’s table, rather than Clark feeding us directly.
  
  Know your place Kiwis!
  
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  April 3, 2020 5:28pm
- Tall Man
  
  “Now he’s just a joke”. The whole lot of them are just a joke.
  
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  April 3, 2020 5:33pm
EX_NZ

I know David Farrar isn’t going to ask this and neither is anyone else in NZ but how is NZ going to get equipment.

I mean China Nationalized 3m factories months ago stopping shipping to other countries and here in the US President Trump tonight just nationalized 3m here stopping them from shipping products overseas.

If you don’t have a manufacturing base you are screwed which means and David Farrar will hate this but Robert Muldoon was right and has always been right.
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April 3, 2020 3:57pm
- Swifty
  
  Nonsense.
  
  We are now far better off.
  
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  April 3, 2020 5:08pm
- Tall Man
  
  A CEO for a company I did work for back in the 90’s emigrated here from the UK a few years earlier. He loved NZ and said that in order to retain all the good things here we had to pay a margin for many things, as we weren’t a sustainable economic base, in order to survive and retain our own manufacturing and infrastructure base. He was right but what we have now is limited manufacturing and infrastructure but we still have price gouging in many areas.
  
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  April 3, 2020 5:32pm
  - barnacle bill
    
    One for you TM.
    
    Will liberalism survive this crisis ?
    Liberalism, or in other words Globalisation ?
    
    What is your view ?
    
    2 1
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    April 3, 2020 8:01pm
    - barnacle bill
      
      This link was supposed to be added TM
      
      https://www.newstatesman.com/2020/04/why-crisis-turning-point-history
      
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      April 3, 2020 8:04pm
      - Tall Man
        
        I’ve tried.
        
        2 1
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        April 3, 2020 9:08pm
  - barnacle bill
    
    @TM
    I think that that CEO was on the right track.
    
    If Globalisation is to help NZ, then we need to be more selective in what we take on.
    Seems to me that all these free trade deals are also tied to globalization in some way
    
    It would be great if we could be more self sufficient in what we manufacture ourselves and less reliant on China.
    
    However we will need to be prepared to pay more.
    I would, but not so sure about others.
    
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    April 3, 2020 9:23pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  I heard one of the DHB specialists on the wireless talking about how NZ was acquiring medical equipment in the face of enormous orders from bigger and wealthier countries. He didn’t give any specifics, naturally:
  https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018741003/coronavirus-government-secures-new-ventilators
  
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  April 3, 2020 5:41pm
  - EX_NZ
    
    The NZ media as usual ask the wrong question its not if he can place the order its if the order is going to be executed.
    
    Florida has been placing orders with 3m for the last month, we learnt tonight that 3m wasn’t fulfilling the orders, which prompted the President to effectively nationalize 3m tonight.
    
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    April 3, 2020 7:01pm
Happychappy

Brian McDonald will be one to see the Party he fawns over and thinks is the best we have to handle this crisis use there Friday afternoon press conference to give there Finance Mister the time to do electioneering on behalf of the Government. So The Prime Minister was having a break which is fine but you have a Health Minister that should have fronting up and that is exactly why he is paid more than a MP out of Cabinet.
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April 3, 2020 4:04pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

“What I did the other day was wrong and I shouldn’t have done it. I let my team down and I let NZers down and as Minister of Health I should exhibit the highest of standards at all times and especially during this health crisis.”
So, Dr David Clark, when are we going fishing? I have the boat, gear and bait/lures; so I want you as cover. The rest of NZ is shut down, and yet you are being a big woman’s front bum
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April 3, 2020 4:56pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Mods will delete this but that is David Clark is in their pocket until the mod debate finishes
  
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  April 3, 2020 4:58pm
- RW Capitalist
  
  What I did the other day was wrong and I shouldn’t have done it.
  Then why did you?
  This is the excuse of a five year old.
  I knew it was wrong, but did it anyway.
  This smacks of…..rules for thee but not for me.
  
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  April 3, 2020 8:04pm
  - marcw
    
    This is why the PM’s response is being panned so much. Totally inadequate.
    
    10 1
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    April 3, 2020 8:09pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Look, Clark is confused enough already without confusing him further over the functions of a vulva and a bum.
  
  5 1
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  April 3, 2020 8:13pm
RW Capitalist

https://www.national.org.nz/key_agencies_in_covid_19_response_disconnected
Seems Simon is commenting on what we are seeing.
8 1
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April 3, 2020 5:06pm
Iamright

Watching her lady ship being interviewed by Hilary Barry. Giggling about Easy Rider with his mountain bike. Pathetic. Says she is sharing data with us including f……g potty training.Unbelievable and she is our leader. Give me a break.
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April 3, 2020 7:28pm
RW Capitalist

I have a cure for cancer…………..strychnine
It’ll kill the cancer stone dead………..
Jacinda has a cure for covid 19…..Lock down
8 4
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April 3, 2020 8:01pm
RW Capitalist

My wife cancelled her flu shot for 1:15pm today.
She did not feel well enough to go.
The nurse said that they would run out anyway and not have supplies till next week.
Q: If this is to be compared to a war footing, why is the delivery happening tomorrow?
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April 3, 2020 8:11pm

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