RaceCafe..#1...Tipsters Thread.... Share Your Fancies For Fun...Lets See Who The Best Tipsters Here Are.
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Jacinda Ardern

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On 3/25/2020 at 10:30 PM, Archer said:

Don key,

is he not the dude who shit his trousers and ran bleeding from his prime ministerial post early, when the PANAMA PAPERS appeared  ?  

;) 

No he's the dude that figured out how to save people from ruin during the GFC , policy's that cindy is following today .

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On 3/25/2020 at 5:16 PM, Nerula said:

Dear Jacinda and Winston 

  

We are now looking down the barrel of a massive health crisis and equally as bad economic crisis, predicted to make the last financial crisis look like a kindergarten . Your touting of the tourism industry as the darling of New Zealand economy is now losing 350 million dollars a week.  Your crazy selling of tens of thousands of acres of good pastoral land to overseas buyers to plant in Pine trees as a carbon sink is looking like a bad gamble..  made even worse by  the berating, belittling and ridiculous polices aimed at Farmers of New Zealand. 

Well what a difference a week makes... you have just announced a 12 billion dollar package to soften the blow but you well know that’s not even a scrape in the bucket of what’s needed. 

I guess now all we have once industry shuts down and tourism crumbles completely is the farmers. The same ones who your coalition called Rednecks, the same ones who are committing suicide at a terrible rate, the same ones who get up at 5:00 am to milk their cows so you have your milk and butter for breakfast. The same ones who work tirelessly on the hill country day in day out during drought conditions to make sure their lamb and beef is the best quality before it hits the shelves. The same ones who are struggling with the ridiculous polices that are coming in relation to cows farts and fencing. The same ones who have been doing it for generations to make sure people have something to eat. The same  Farmers who produce food more efficiently and more environmentally friendly than anywhere else in the world. The same ones who your coalition has made to feel like they are the problem in the world - are now suddenly the only ones we need.  Isn’t it funny how things change so fast and you suddenly need someone who you belittled more than ever. As you sit down for dinner tonight pondering how we are going to get through this, take a look at the food on your plate and be thankful for the ones who you have ignored. In fact invite Winnie over for dinner but have him bake a humble pie and bring that around and take a bite both of you. It will be good for you, and the Farmers will get up tomorrow and keep on producing food for us and the world. Next time you decide to belittle the main stay of our economy remember a couple of old sayings we learnt on the farm. ‘Never bite the hand that feeds’ - and ‘you reap what you sow.’  When you order the whole country on lock down the farmers will still get up and go out and work their asses off for this country like they have always done. We will get through this but you are going to need those Farmers more than you have ever needed them before. They will keep the supermarkets full, they will be the ones exporting out produce worldwide and returning ever so needed revenue for the coffers. 

Peace and love 

James Herbert

 

Brilliant .

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On 3/27/2020 at 10:00 AM, tripple alliance said:

No he's the dude that figured out how to save people from ruin during the GFC , policy's that cindy is following today .

Nah pretty sure he is the dude who cut and run. the only person he has ever saved in his whole career, has been himself.

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On 3/25/2020 at 1:55 PM, Ohokaman said:

Fuck me, how long is that shit going to go on....you could have bought NZ with the money given to you...and mostly wasted.

Just because WE are MAORI...Doesn`t mean we all came in the same waka...Ignorance breeds dumbasses... We know what Waka you came on!!

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9 minutes ago, jack said:

Just because WE are MAORI...Doesn`t mean we all came in the same waka...Ignorance breeds dumbasses... We know what Waka you came on!!

Jack , the gravy train (round 2) has been running for a very long time and will never end , those who are creaming it will make sure of that , the rest will still carry  on playing dress up , there will be  no such thing as full and final .

An example .

In 1926 a royal commission began to inquire into the land confiscations of the 1860s. It found some confiscations to have been excessive and recommended compensation. Taranaki Māori accepted an annual payment of £5000 from 1931, but negotiations for the other settlements were delayed until 1944. In that year, compensation was made to several major iwi for land taken in the 19th century. The three major settlements were: Ngāi Tahu (£10,000 per annum for 30 years), Waikato–Maniapoto (£6000 per annum) and Taranaki (£6000 per annum for 50 years and £5000 thereafter).

 

 

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18 minutes ago, jack said:

Just because WE are MAORI...Doesn`t mean we all came in the same waka...Ignorance breeds dumbasses... We know what Waka you came on!!

No, the stories change to suit the circumstances...funny that. Who was first here again......?!  :rcf-thinking-1:

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8 minutes ago, tripple alliance said:

Jack , the gravy train (round 2) has been running for a very long time and will never end , those who are creaming it will make sure of that , the rest will still carry  on playing dress up , there will be  no such thing as full and final .

An example .

In 1926 a royal commission began to inquire into the land confiscations of the 1860s. It found some confiscations to have been excessive and recommended compensation. Taranaki Māori accepted an annual payment of £5000 from 1931, but negotiations for the other settlements were delayed until 1944. In that year, compensation was made to several major iwi for land taken in the 19th century. The three major settlements were: Ngāi Tahu (£10,000 per annum for 30 years), Waikato–Maniapoto (£6000 per annum) and Taranaki (£6000 per annum for 50 years and £5000 thereafter).

 

 

Hey Jack , how  many settlements would you like , it seems the government has been paying for a very long time 

 

Rotorua lakes agreement 1922
Rotorua lakes agreement 1922

This 1922 newspaper article sets out the terms of an agreement between the government and Te Arawa over access to and ownership of lakes in the Rotorua region. This agreement was one of the earliest settlements between the Crown and Māori over tribal grievances, and a forerunner of the Waitangi Tribunal settlements that began in the late 1970s.

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Commentators Going Easy on Ardern in Life or Death Crisis

Why Have New Arrivals since the Shutdown Not Been Quarantined?

In A Newspaper, Matthew Hooton informs us that Jacinda will get us through. Chris Trotter gets poetic with his ‘the incredible lightness of being Jacinda’, appearing to have taken leave of his senses. And then Paul Little’s warm and fuzzy ‘I’m glad Jacinda’s got our backs for the next wee while’ rounds it all off.

A largely left-leaning, Ardern loving media, do not want to ask the tough questions as they would had National been in power. Apart from the likes of John Armstrong, they look for the positive and skim the surface and not with a critical eye.

The lockdown and self-isolation is a necessary move but that does not mean we should stop critically questioning the government. Many have concentrated on Ardern’s media appearances to speak on the crisis, where she acquits herself well. However, this crisis is not just about optics; it is about their decisions and actions.

Their welcome announcement since the lockdown, of tougher measures at Auckland airport, has turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. For example, just 6 (or so) people have been quarantined out of about 360 arrivals on Thursday. People can be infected with the virus and show no symptoms and could be bringing the virus with them to infect others with whom they travel home; or could have been on the same fights as the 8 Air NZ flight crew who are now infected. 

Duncan Garner, a voice in the media wilderness, has been onto this and questioning why new arrivals since the shutdown have all not been quarantined. I am with him on this. 

This has been the government’s weakness all along; poor or nonexistent monitoring at Auckland airport, backed up by widespread anecdotal evidence from international arrivals. 

Michael Woodhouse, Shadow Spokesman for Health informed us last month the form being given to travellers on arrival was a generic one National had produced some 6 years ago. And the pandemic plan being used by the government was produced by the National government in 2017 and has not been updated. 

Woodhouse also called in the House for an investigation into why an Iranian woman, complaining of feeling unwell on arrival, was allowed through Auckland airport, untested, (before an NZ flight ban on Iran), then admitted to North Shore Hospital and not tested for 4 days. She was found to have the coronavirus, and 56 staff had to self-isolate for 14 days.

It took the government until 19th March to update a customs form to include specific questions about the coronavirus. Jenny Salesa, Minister for Customs, was explaining it and waving it about during parliamentary question time. 

And the matter of the lack of testing kits has been a problem all along. Did the Ministry of Health not learn the pitfalls of being unprepared from the measles outbreak? They could have ordered these back in January or February if their preparation had been robust.

There has been little drilling down into the nitty-gritty of this emergency by media and there have been accusations of politicking when National tries to bring up these issues.

There are no such problems in the US where the Trump-hating (shoutiest) media are not afraid to ask the hard questions and even on occasion make stuff up if it suits their narrative. Our media here get their news feeds from the left-wing news outlets. So much for balanced, investigative journalism in this country…

The US are fortunate they have a good-sized right-wing media to give a balance and some evidence is even emerging of bipartisanship in this time of crisis with the signing of the huge two trillion dollar economic recovery bill.

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I once heard a New Zealand politician (Graeme Lee – father of current MP Denise) explain that government in a free democracy and economy had two key responsibilities

1) To defend the nation from external threats.

2) To take care of the needy – the poor, the elderly, the infirm (physically and mentally) – who are disproportionately affected by market failures.

With regards to number one, there is a strange logic to what has taken place with Covid-19. If we looked at this (what was an “external threat”) through another lens.

ugdkmhdg1m8-630x421.jpg The BFD.
  • If we knew that people were flying to New Zealand carrying guns (or even encouraged them to fly to New Zealand as our Foreign Minister did).
  • If we knew that those individuals had intent and people were sick and dying overseas because of their ‘network’. 
  • If we could not detect who had the guns as they came into our country. 

Would we not have kept all travellers out (quarantine for a virus) until we knew they had no guns and were good people? No one would have been allowed to enter our country until we knew they were not a threat.

New Zealand was perhaps the best-placed country in the world to do that effectively. 

Making a different choice has meant that we now have one death, 514 cases and 9 people in hospital (as at 1pm on 29/3/20). Who knows where those statistics will end up? Not only that – instead of having our international economic links in lock-down (and gradually being re-established) – we have the vast majority of our domestic economic activities in lock-down also and the impact will be huge and long-lasting.

I have an eighty-year-old mother in law. Today the Prime Minister was reported as saying:

“more people would get sick – older New Zealanders are ‘by far’ at the most risk.

“Today’s death is a reminder of the fight we have on our hands.”

I have a son who is a firefighter – overseas they are the people being required to collect the dead. I have a daughter and a wife and a grandchild on the way that I would like to meet and see grow up. I work within three schools that are shut down with scared children and many families that are poor and locked up in very inadequate housing. We have 75 staff who need not have been put at any risk at all.

Heather du Plessis-Allan was right today to say all arrivals should be quarantined. We know of a returning family just three days ago who almost literally waltzed in.  

What am I missing? If this is the very big threat that the Prime Minister and health authorities now tell us it is – who will take responsibility for letting the bio-guns in and creating it?

I would not be a politician if they trebled the pay, and I have never aspired to be one. But if you have aspired to lead you must be accountable for what you do.

Do I support the current efforts and our put-upon police, health and other essential services? Of course. But we should never have got here! We also have a right and, in fact, a duty to expect our media, politicians and citizens to deeply examine every step our government takes.

G Poole. 

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Good morning to you all; my Coronial Subjects, it is I: Go-hard Go-early Jacinda, Queen of New Zealand, Most-efficacious Saviour of the Nation.

You will all, by now, in this time of crisis, have noticed the superb communication skills I wield in the baddle against our common enemy, and my udder determination to rid this pleasant land of private enterprise and misconceptions both.

To this end, I have been extremely clear and transparent from the ged-go, and on top of things, hard and early, prepared and ready to employ both my communication barrels, yes – head-nods AND double-adjectives – in my war on pestilent truth.

Those of you, my subjects, old enough, will remember my press conference of March 4th, 2020, when I nodded so furiously to emphasise a point I loosened a filling:

idbkiwi-The_BFD-d2.png The BFD

Reacting to the news of a second Kung-flu victim within these shores I employed a precise word as an adjecdive, an old word, a word older even than the Boomers, a word derived from Veritas – my predecessor as Goddess of Truth – to describe the potential risk posed to those who came in contact with asymptomatic Kung-flu carriers, saying to the nation: not that the risk of transmitting the virus was “low”, nor did I say the risk was “very low”, you will recall I declared the risk as “very, very, low“. And that is why we are here.

Idbkiwi-very-very-low-630x177.png The BFD. Screenshot idbkiwi

I will now hand over to Basil Bush, Coordinator of Operations for the Ministry of Truth, to explain my demeaning. Thank you for understanding.

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Mike's Minute: Careful with messaging.

This week's challenge is to try and see if we can do something about the Government's messaging.

Forget the whole issue around what's local, and how far you can drive to a park. The Government, in yet another example of how this whole thing is highly political, is controlling the messages you hear on any given day.

We have been looking to get Iain Lees-Galloway on the radio show for most of last week - he is not allowed to speak to us.

We want to talk to him in his capacity as Immigration Minister. The visa issue around foreign workers both stuck here, and not allowed to come in to the country, and the issue of fruit harvesting and there not bring enough hands on deck. These are serious issues with economic implications.

We also wanted to talk to Immigration New Zealand, who were happy to talk apparently, but had been told not to.

There is a very distinct line between getting messages out that you want people to hear, which is standard practice for any government, and preventing genuine detail coming out because you don't want it to, or it might not suit your agenda.

Part of the excuse is Iain Lees-Galloway isn't on the right virus committee, so they offer up a minister who is, in a one-stop shop sort of role.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is not a Government festooned with great talent. A lot of these ministers under other governments would barely be making the tea, far less have a portfolio.

Simply putting a person up doesn't mean questions get answered or detail gets delivered. I'll spare names to save embarrassment but a couple of ministers were floating around last week, basically saying we don't have that detail, we haven't talked about that, I'm not sure where that sits, and any other series of 101 PR spin lines designed to say nothing.

The longer this goes on the more suspicious I get that this is a PR exercise for the Government, and they are as interested in how this plays for them politically, as they are for the lockdown itself and our wider wellbeing.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is running a very fine line between being an actual leader with decisive decision-making powers, and a TV and radio presenter with lots of time for Facebook Lives, teddies in the window, and a lot of touchy-feely be kind to each other.

While we are all bantering backward and forward about whether kayaking or abseiling is good exercise, and how far we can drive to do it, the Covid-19 numbers are going up dangerously.

It is becoming clearer the airport and testing have been a joke, there are issues around personal protection equipment and access to it, there are people who may or may not be isolating, and there is tonnes of work sitting in paddocks and fields across the country needing to be done, to actually make this country a living.

What's happening with that? And who's doing it? That's our question. Iain Lees-Galloway has the answer, and yet he's locked away.

Some of the media might want to wake up to this and realise they're being played. Surely I can't be the only one who wants some proper insight, information, and answers from the proper people.

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5 hours ago, tripple alliance said:

Jack , the gravy train (round 2) has been running for a very long time and will never end , those who are creaming it will make sure of that , the rest will still carry  on playing dress up , there will be  no such thing as full and final .

An example .

In 1926 a royal commission began to inquire into the land confiscations of the 1860s. It found some confiscations to have been excessive and recommended compensation. Taranaki Māori accepted an annual payment of £5000 from 1931, but negotiations for the other settlements were delayed until 1944. In that year, compensation was made to several major iwi for land taken in the 19th century. The three major settlements were: Ngāi Tahu (£10,000 per annum for 30 years), Waikato–Maniapoto (£6000 per annum) and Taranaki (£6000 per annum for 50 years and £5000 thereafter).

 

 

Settlements so far:

  • Ngati Tama: $14.5m deal in 2002
  • Ngati Ruanui: $41m deal in 2003
  • Nga Rauru: $31m deal in 2005
  • Ngati Mutunga: $14.9m deal in 2005
  • Ngaruahine: $67.5m deal in 2014
  • Te Atiawa: $87m deal in 2014
  • Taranaki $70m deal in 2015

Mr Finlayson told the crowd of about 300 at Pukeiti that the Taranaki settlement had a particularly bleak backdrop.

The Crown had waged an unjust war on the people of Taranaki in the 1860s and confiscated 1.2 million acres of land - all its land not already taken - and left the iwi in economic ruin.

There had been an assault on the human rights of the Taranaki iwi, Mr Finlayson said.

"It's arrest without trial, being sent off to the South Island and the Chathams, the scorched earth policies, the waging of war and shelling of settlements.

"If you want to talk about the raupatu or confiscations or the real unfairness of what happened to Taranaki iwi, (these were) pretty well near the top."

Mr Finlayson said for these wrongs the iwi was owed a long-overdue apology and the Crown deeply regretted the actions of the past.

As well as the financial redress, the settlement also includes the rights to 29 culturally significant sites, including the Ngā Motu Islands off the New Plymouth coast, and rights to a similar number of Crown properties.

"It's significant because we get to a point in time where those wrongs, those breaches of the Treaty, the manner in which our forbears were treated has been acknowledged, but also importantly what it does is it provides as an opportunity to move forward as an iwi into the future."

Mr Finlayson also spoke about the injustices that occurred at Parihaka, which was the centre of passive resistance to the Crown in the late 1800s.

It was sacked by government troops and militia in 1881 and he said a separate form of redress for the settlement was being finalised.

 

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4 hours ago, tripple alliance said:

Hey Jack , how  many settlements would you like , it seems the government has been paying for a very long time 

 

Rotorua lakes agreement 1922
Rotorua lakes agreement 1922

This 1922 newspaper article sets out the terms of an agreement between the government and Te Arawa over access to and ownership of lakes in the Rotorua region. This agreement was one of the earliest settlements between the Crown and Māori over tribal grievances, and a forerunner of the Waitangi Tribunal settlements that began in the late 1970s.

hree Te Arawa Treaty Settlements

By Peter Johnston
26 Oct 2006

Te Arawa iwi have recently negotiated two Treaty claim settlements with the Crown.  They are also eligible for a share of the proceeds from the Maori fisheries settlement.

Lakes Settlement

The Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Act, signed by the Governor-General on 25 September 2006, benefits all members of Te Arawa.  It includes:

  • Cultural redress including the return to Te Arawa ownership of the beds of 13 lakebeds in the Rotorua area, to be vested in a new Te Arawa Lakes Trust which has replaced the Arawa Maori Trust Board;
  • Financial redress of $2.7 million to recognise economic loss;
  • Annuity redress’ of $7.3 million (capitalising an annuity Te Arawa already receive from an earlier claim settlement); and
  • Participation in ongoing management of the lakes through appointing 2 of the 6 members of the new Rotorua Lakes Strategy Group.

Lands Settlement

Te Arawa’s non-lakes Treaty claims are dealt with in another Deed of Settlement.  It was signed on 30 September 2006 between the Crown and Nga Kaihautu o Te Arawa Executive Council, representing 11 iwi and hapu.

The cultural redress includes the return of 19 sites totalling 675ha, including the Whakarewarewa Thermal Springs Reserve.

The main component of the financial redress is $36 million which will be used to ‘purchase’ specified parcels of Crown forest land (excluding trees and improvements) at market value.  They will then receive the accumulated Crown forest rentals on this land.  Te Arawa will have another 6 months to purchase some or all of the balance of the 50,000ha.  The 50,000ha of forest has been valued at $175 million.

Te Arawa will also have a two-year right of deferred selection over selected Crown-owned commercial properties and geothermal assets at market value.

This settlement has yet to be ratified by the iwi and implemented through legislation.  It will be for the benefit of the 20,000 people represented by Nga Kaihautu.  Other Te Arawa groups are pursuing their Treaty claims separately.

Fisheries Settlement

As well as these onshore settlements, in September 2006 Te Arawa were also allocated $23.6 million from Te Ohu Kaimoana as their share of the Waitangi Fisheries claim.  The mandated iwi organisation, Te Kotahitanga o Te Arawa Waka Fisheries Trust, represents 11 Te Arawa iwi.

 

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So why are the hands still out Jack.....are you incapable of looking after your own ?? That’s everyone, not just a select few who seem to control things.

Amazes me that Maori constantly harp on about “doing their own thing, being independent, own State yada yada....” then when it suits “we are all one as New Zealanders” and the whining starts about not being looked after. 
 

Which is it ?? :rcf-thinking-1:

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27 minutes ago, jack said:

hree Te Arawa Treaty Settlements

By Peter Johnston
26 Oct 2006

Te Arawa iwi have recently negotiated two Treaty claim settlements with the Crown.  They are also eligible for a share of the proceeds from the Maori fisheries settlement.

Lakes Settlement

The Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Act, signed by the Governor-General on 25 September 2006, benefits all members of Te Arawa.  It includes:

  • Cultural redress including the return to Te Arawa ownership of the beds of 13 lakebeds in the Rotorua area, to be vested in a new Te Arawa Lakes Trust which has replaced the Arawa Maori Trust Board;
  • Financial redress of $2.7 million to recognise economic loss;
  • Annuity redress’ of $7.3 million (capitalising an annuity Te Arawa already receive from an earlier claim settlement); and
  • Participation in ongoing management of the lakes through appointing 2 of the 6 members of the new Rotorua Lakes Strategy Group.

Lands Settlement

Te Arawa’s non-lakes Treaty claims are dealt with in another Deed of Settlement.  It was signed on 30 September 2006 between the Crown and Nga Kaihautu o Te Arawa Executive Council, representing 11 iwi and hapu.

The cultural redress includes the return of 19 sites totalling 675ha, including the Whakarewarewa Thermal Springs Reserve.

The main component of the financial redress is $36 million which will be used to ‘purchase’ specified parcels of Crown forest land (excluding trees and improvements) at market value.  They will then receive the accumulated Crown forest rentals on this land.  Te Arawa will have another 6 months to purchase some or all of the balance of the 50,000ha.  The 50,000ha of forest has been valued at $175 million.

Te Arawa will also have a two-year right of deferred selection over selected Crown-owned commercial properties and geothermal assets at market value.

This settlement has yet to be ratified by the iwi and implemented through legislation.  It will be for the benefit of the 20,000 people represented by Nga Kaihautu.  Other Te Arawa groups are pursuing their Treaty claims separately.

Fisheries Settlement

As well as these onshore settlements, in September 2006 Te Arawa were also allocated $23.6 million from Te Ohu Kaimoana as their share of the Waitangi Fisheries claim.  The mandated iwi organisation, Te Kotahitanga o Te Arawa Waka Fisheries Trust, represents 11 Te Arawa iwi.

 

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Jack , look at the date on the lake settlement , 1922 , that's , 98 YEARS AGO , society HAS BEEN PAYING FOR nearly  100 YEARS . if people were better off because of it then that's not so bad but sadly those in need are more in need today than ever .

People should look south and learn , the Irishman , Steven Oregan was pretty good at building wealth .

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Chris Hipkins and His Educational Cluster Bomb

Just 15 days ago Education Minister Chris Hipkins stated very publicly that schools, universities, polytechnics and early-childhood centres are “very, very safe places” to be, despite the coronavirus pandemic.

A great deal has happened in the 15 days since he made that stupid statement. One of the worst clusters of COVID-19 infection is Marist College:

Auckland girls’ school Marist College has 48 confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 – the biggest cluster of infection being tracked by health authorities.

The board chairman Stephen Dallow says the confirmed cases include teachers, students and adults within the community.

The entire school of about 750 students, as well as staff, are classed as close contacts and they have been asked to keep to strict self-isolation rules.

Seventy-six new cases of the virus were confirmed around New Zealand on Monday, bringing the total to 589.

Earlier, the mother of a year 10 student at Auckland’s Marist College told the Herald she was worried there could be “an explosion” of cases if three school communities were not tested for Covid-19.

Some students from Lynfield College and Mt Albert Grammar have ridden in the same school bus as Marist College students while they were infectious, and are considered to be “casual contacts”.

The mother should be worried, but testing now won’t stop the community spread associated with this school. There are a large number of other variables.

Forget school buses and trains. In the immediate vicinity of the school is the Westfield St Lukes shopping centre. What is the likelihood that teenage girls went there after school while infected? Then there is the New World on the corner. Did any students have part-time jobs there or at nearby Countdown? Did they go shopping there?

Then there is the community swimming pool at the Mt Albert Aquatic Centre. And how many had boyfriends at neighbouring Mt Albert Grammar School? Indeed what about all the other schools that boyfriends go to?

marist-1536x1016.png The BFD.The epicentre of a Hipkins Cluster Bomb Image credit: Xavier

This Hipkins cluster bomb is going to go off. There are now literally thousands of people associated with connections to this school, their pupils and everywhere they’ve been and touched.

It isn’t the students’ fault, they are teenagers after all and will do what teenagers do. They and their parents and teachers were told that schools were “very, very safe places to be” by Education Minister Chris Hipkins.

If he was even half-decent he’d realise his tragic error and resign forthwith. He won’t, of course, so this cluster bomb is on him.

Just fifteen days ago Chris Hipkins lied, and we now have a likely cluster bomb going off.

 

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Barry Soper: $56 million for Māori exposes naked politics of Covid outbreak

 

Author
Barry Soper,
 
Publish Date
Thu, 2 Apr 2020, 1:30PM
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. (Photo / NZ Herald) Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. (Photo / NZ Herald)

This time last week we were all beginning what will for most of us be the most weird, if not difficult, period of our lives; being confined to our homes because 36 people had caught Covid-19.

But we have been assured time and time by Jacinda Ardern that we're all in this together and we're constantly being urged to be kind to each other.

The longer the lockup the shorter the tempers have become with many stories of intolerance, of people being accosted while out for a run or walk, activities we are assured is good for our mental health providing we keep our distance.

Out walking you can't help feeling a bit like a leper must have felt with people giving you a wide berth.

We have all become a little scratchy which is perfectly understandable. But the mood isn't helped for some of us who daily watch the politics of it all, and this oozes politics with an eagle eye on this year's election prize.   

You can't help feeling for Simon Bridges who has become virtually invisible as Ardern daily steps up to the podium to essentially repeat what we had already heard a couple of hours earlier from the health, civil defence and police bosses.

But the focus on Ardern, which is inevitable in this time of crisis, exposes the naked politics being played in the Beehive.  

Increasing a minimum living wage by $1.20 an hour on April Fool's Day is bad enough at a time when business is on its knees, but looking after its Māori constituency lays bare the superficiality of the claim that we're all in this together.

Ardern proudly told us the $56 million laid aside last week to Māori to fight Covid 19 has already been allocated.  It's been spent on 100,000 care packages which gives Māori access to products which will ensure they're safe and can meet the guidelines set by the Health Ministry.

The money will also help kaumatua get priority testing for Covid 19 and will provide food and clothing for the vulnerable and assist them to get into isolation accommodation, all of which the rest of us have to pay and wait for.

It’s difficult to find why Māori would be harder hit than the rest of us with this virus.

But it’s not difficult to deduce that Labour, with the seven Māori seats now back on its ballot, is determined to keep them there.

 

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Government's rocky week shows they're out of their depth

Mike Hosking

 

These must be strange times.

Shamubeel Eaqub and I turn out to be in lock step on one key thing: We need an adult in the room. That's what he said to Parliament's Epidemic Response Committee.

That committee might have been one of the great modern democratic discoveries. All the stuff you never hear about, all the Parliamentary question times you never listened to, was there on display with the added advantage of a bunch of experts, Eaqub being one of them.

By week's end Sir David Skegg spectacularly exposed the Government over a lack of testing, a lack of clear direction, and a plan. Act MP David Seymour managed to change the Government's mind on community newspapers.

And Eaqub exposed the cold hard reality that this is turning into a chaotic mess - and no one of any great repute is actually running this thing.

When someone as left and dour as Eaqub, nothing personal intended given he's my new hero, but when someone like that says what he said, we should all be bolt up right and paying attention.

There is no plan to get us out of this, the same way there was no plan to build 100,000 houses. The Government went into this with a reputation as being useless at delivery, with a lot of noise, ideas, and committees, but little concrete behind it.

So at week's end the medical profession are crying out for personal protection equipment the Government said was plentiful - and yet is nowhere to be found. The flu vaccine which was over-ordered, but is nowhere to be found. The contact tracing that they were all over has vanished as story after story emerges of people a week into isolation not having heard a word.

The testing scam has finally been exposed. There were never enough kits, the criteria for testing was a joke (as well as confusing) and the Prime Minister most embarrassingly of all on Tuesday decided to use the World Health Organisation's two-week-old mantra of "test, test, test." It was as though Jacinda Ardern had just put her latest teddy in the window and discovered it as a fresh buzz phrase.

Add the scandal of funding for beneficiaries that isn't virus-related, the minimum wage rise that can't be afforded, the funding for Māori (as though the virus had a racial element) and this is the most blatant pork barrelling you've seen in a generation.

Top off the refusal to quarantine return citizens and still defending the idea of self-isolation as workable.

You have ended up with a Government in seriously deep trouble, and quite obviously a mile out of their depth.

The love-in that this started as, with your Facebook Lives, and be kinds, and shout outs to sign language experts, is turning. And watch next week as jobs and livelihoods tumble, how quickly this becomes an economic fight over a Government that still insists that health trumps all.

This thing is costing the economy more than $3 billion a week, how many weeks can we afford that and still have a Government telling us we all need to be at home doing nothing?

 

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The Unfortunate War Analogy Being Used

f We Are in a War We Need to be Talking about Acceptable Losses

By CS

The Government is currently using wartime analogies to discuss how we are combating the spread of the COVID-19 virus. There is a problem with that analogy though as they are trying to fight a war without having any casualties, and in the process crippling the economy, all to save about 20% of the over 80s age bracket.

In any war, there is a concept of acceptable losses, both in combat and in the civilian population. During World War II the population accepted many restrictions on their way of life including rationing, conscription, movement control, curfews and the separation of children from families to avoid the London Blitz catastrophe. Right now we are experiencing some of those same restrictions.

But like the Phoney War that existed in Britain before the tragedy of Dunkirk, we are experiencing our own Phoney War where people are simply not taking this virus seriously. Everyone knows people who are promulgating the notion that this is just the flu or that the current lack of deaths means that somehow New Zealand is going to avoid what no other country has managed to avoid, and that is the spread of COVID-19. Unfortunately, some of our civil servants and most of our politicians seem to think we are winning the Phoney War when the evidence is mounting that we are in fact heading resolutely towards our own Dunkirk. The Phoney War was also referred to as the “Twilight War” (by Winston Churchill) and as the Sitzkrieg, which is ironic as that is precisely what most of us are doing right now, sitting, and to use another military euphemism we have to hurry up and wait.

Unfortunately for us there isn’t a flotilla of little boats arriving that will save us.

The Government in using the war analogies leaves us to use actual war details to describe the battle thus far. Dunkirk is apt when you consider that it wasn’t until March 14 that the Prime Minister decided to invoke the war analogies and talk about bravely “going hard and going early”. Unfortunately she had done neither. The extent of the spread of the virus was known far earlier than that. In February she should have made the decision to sacrifice the tourism sector for the sake of the rest of the economy. The borders should have been shut. We had a moat and should have used that moat to defend the walls of Fortress New Zealand. Instead, the Prime Minister thought a tour of Fiji and then bearding the Prime Minister of Australia with the Sydney Opera House in the background was far more profitable politically, for her. Never mind the rest of New Zealand or our economy.

Ardern-sydney.jpg The BFD

If we had shut the borders, not the half-pie, phoney shutting of the borders announced on March 14, then we might have avoided the predicament we all face now. We didn’t go hard, and we most certainly didn’t go early. Had we sacrificed the tourist sector we might really have flattened the curve. Because of the porous policy that we actually implemented we basically lost Europe, like the British did before Dunkirk.

The Phoney War is over and now we must enter the meat-grinder of a real war. Unfortunately, in a war people die. The goal of our leaders is to ensure that the sacrifices and deprivations we must now suffer will benefit the many, and a few, like in a real war, must necessarily die or suffer debilitating health issues. The questions facing the leaders of our nation are serious, and giggling through press conferences or adopting insincere posturing at the same won’t be enough. Real leaders make tough decisions.

It beggars belief that currently, our leadership thinks that somehow, by some unknown and imperceptible mechanism, we will do that which no other nation on earth has achieved and repulse COVID-19. Because the Government chose to enter the Phoney War and imposed wartime restrictions on the flow of information, even invoking wartime sayings about only trusting the government for the flow of information, we now have large parts of the population believing that we are just experiencing a bad flu. They, like the proverbial ostrich, are believing that somehow New Zealand will be alone in the world in succeeding against COVID-19.

If the Government were honest with us they’d say that it is impossible to stop the spread of COVID-19. That, unfortunately, some people are going to die, and that their job is to make that number as small as possible, but without destroying the economy that feeds us all and keeps the wheels of government turning through the taxes that pay for health, welfare and education. They would extend that honesty and say that what they tried earlier was what in the military is called a “forlorn hope”.

A forlorn hope is described as a band of soldiers or other combatants chosen to take the leading part in a military operation, such as a suicidal assault through the kill zone of a defended position, where the risk of casualties is high. Most will die. But they were acceptable losses to breach the walls in a siege. We’ve tried the forlorn hope of a porous border and a frankly pretty useless lock down. It is now time to enter true wartime restrictions.

But in war time the wheels of industry must roll on in order to feed the rapacious consumption a war entails. We must now do the same. But that requires a political leader who is prepared to accept, and be honest with the nation, that getting the wheels of industry moving means that we must also accept some losses as though we were in a real war. That means, unfortunately, that we must be prepared to accept that potentially 20% of those aged over 80 are going to die, and that those aged over 70 will suffer greatly as well. Those tough are decisions, and sometime time soon Jacinda Ardern is going to have to segue from channelling Neville Chamberlain to channelling Winston Churchill.

To continue the war-time analgies, “Going hard and going early” was akin to “Peace in our time”. She now needs a “Fight them on the beaches” speech followed by the sort of resolute leadership that Britain saw under Winston Churchill.

If Jacinda Ardern can’t make that segue, then, for the benefit of our nation in this time of our darkest need since the war, she must stand aside and get someone else to lead. Failing that, we then at least need a grand coalition formed, plucking the best, brightest and most capable to lead us and make the tough decisions that we know must be made.

Those over 70 must remain in lock down for their health and safety, but that is the least that we should do. We must accept that there will be losses, we must minimise those but not to the detriment of the rest of the nation, for that is a price that most of us are going to be unwilling to pay. The effects of the current lockdown are already catastrophic; to continue it would be folly. We can do sensible things like keeping schools, cesspits of sickness since forever, closed as they have done in South Korea. But those of working age need to be able to get back to work and save what is left of their businesses so that the wheels of industry and commerce can pay for the health and well being of the rest of the nation.

The Government should place itself on a proper war footing too. They must take an axe to wasteful nice to have Government spending, and instead deploy funds into saving the economy. We need to end frivolous spending and be quite brutal about it. Those areas, by necessity, also become acceptable casualties of war. Forget contributions to the Paris Accord, likewise the United Nations. Globalism is now dead. Cancel the fees free policy, bring in means testing for pensions, abolish entire government departments and slash council spending. Tough times mean tough decisions. That means doing what MUST be done, not that which would be nice to have. Welfare reverts to being a safety net rather than a trampoline or a hammock and we really actually start living within our means.

An honest and transparent government would say and do all that, knowing that by and large people will accept it as the only way we can survive. The war analogies continue with fortune favours the brave, and so too does General George S. Patton’s famous quote that “a good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week” followed by “courage is fear holding on a minute longer”.

Now is the time for courage from our leadership, not the Chamberlain-esque wishy-washy statements of hope and prayer. Will our leaders exhibit courage or will they quiver in the fear that what they decide might not be that palatable?

 

 

 

 

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MSM Starting to Turn On the PM

he idea from Hardernurly’s (Jacinda Ardern’s) misleadia-managers to plagiarise the slogan ‘Test, test, test‘ in the Covid Catastrophe propaganda war has proven to be very bad advice indeed. She should have known better, communications degree ‘n all.

It’s had some severe blow-back, denting her credibility, and she’s now feeling the pressure. The unthinkable happened – a front page story in the DomPost yesterday criticising her:

“Test, test, test” said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Tuesday, “We have the capacity,” we’ve heard ad nauseum from her lieutenants.”

Oh, dear. ‘Ad nauseum‘ – ‘until sick of it’.

The chant was always foolish in its unoriginality and has only highlighted her leadership shortcomings. Her initial lackadaisical approach to looming disaster, once applauded by the DomPost as ‘in keeping with the national character’, now manifests as hugely flawed over-confidence and structural under-preparedness. The chant also draws attention to the source of the slogan; the WHO advising “all countries” adopt this approach a very long time ago in pandemic terms, on March 16th.

idbkiwi-The_BFD-9-630x152.png The BFD

Journalists making the connection, and to their credit, there’s several of them, have asked why, more than two weeks after WHO’s announcement, it’s suddenly a good idea for New Zealand to test, test, test? The good lady is floundering for answers, gasping like a flat-fish, and lying like one too, saying in one response to the obvious question:

“New Zealand’s testing numbers were really high and believed that message wasn’t aimed at this country”

but in another,

“Ardern defended the delay before heeding that call, saying New Zealand had moved into lockdown at a very early stage and she did not believe New Zealand was the target of the call.”


Fib, the first: At the time of WHO’s call New Zealand had been conducting, on average, eleven tests per day – 11. One more than ten. That’s not a “really high” number by any stretch of the imagination.
Fib, the second: New Zealand moved into lockdown on March 26th, fully ten days after the WHO Director General’s plea. I’m sorry; Jacinda, there’s no way the 26th comes before the 16th unless your calendar’s upside down.
Fib, the third: The WHO’s call was to “all countries” without exception; there is no reason whatsoever to believe it “wasn’t aimed at this country” or that New Zealand was not “the target of the call”.

It’s going to be a long week m’dear. You need to get yourself some better answers, and some better hired-help.

 

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By JC

Dear Jacinda,

You seem to operate under the old adage that if you tell someone something often enough they will believe it. May I politely ask, was this part of your communications degree? Again at your Sunday press conference, you stated that observing the trajectories overseas had helped the Government to decide to “go hard and early”. You seem to use the term “hard and early” at every opportunity. If you call taking action a month or more after the initial knowledge of the event “hard and early”, think how much better placed the country would be now had you actually done that. Think of the jobs saved, think of the businesses better placed to continue, think of the non-imposition of restrictions on people’s daily lives. But you didn’t go hard and early. Nothing like it.

Had you done so we would still be able to read the Women’s Weekly, The Listener, North & South etc. Your argument that Bauer Media did not seek essential service status appears not to hold water. Internal Bauer emails obtained by The Spinoff show Bauer was assisting the Magazine Publishers Association “on a further submission” to the guidelines which had excluded them and others from the essential service designation. This was to YOUR department. According to you, they were offered the wage subsidy by Kris Faafoi which you say they should have taken up and which would have made a difference to the writers and journalists. Unfortunately, Jacinda, the bottom line for the company wasn’t just about its writers and journalists. Your annoyance at their refusal is understandable. I can see it is as much a blow to you as it is to them. Cover shoots are no doubt a wonderful distraction from the day-to-day drudgery of running a country.

This though, Jacinda, is the big worry concerning you and your Government. You are not business-friendly and the reason is that you don’t understand how business works. Thinking that the taking up of a wage subsidy was the panacea for this company’s woes shows a frightening lack of awareness of the intricacies of running a business. To survive they had to keep trading. To say the virus and the Government had nothing to do with their demise is patently not correct. This gives cause for a not inconsiderable degree of nervousness when one contemplates just how you intend to extract the country from the mess you have got us into.

You now use the modelling to justify your “hard and early” nonsense. The modelling suggested four thousand cases by the weekend just gone and we only had one thousand. Modelling all around the world has proven to be wildly inaccurate so there is no realistic link that can be made between the two. Figures are being thrown around like confetti at a wedding. No doubt the enforced lockdown has helped but it shouldn’t have got to this. Had it not, the Minister of Health could have lived up to his ministerial title and gone mountain biking without breaking the rules or possibly other parts of his anatomy. Instead, he’s been caught out and joined others not behaving – those who you charitably describe as “idiots”. No argument on that score. Are you aware of any other Ministers who indulge in this pursuit? It might pay to check. You might be surprised!

I am afraid to say that, far from going hard and early, you and your Government have dropped us in the so called proverbial. The hole is getting larger by the day. According to the Taxpayers Union, your Government doesn’t have a plan to come out the other end. It is of serious concern that neither you nor your Government have been on top of this situation from the start.

You describe it like a game of rugby where in the first half we’ve been playing into the wind and now we are about to turn with the wind behind us. Very clever analogy, whoever dreamt it up. I just hope by September the wind is still behind you and it’s hurricane force. I hear New York is very nice in the summer.

 

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