Andrew Dickens Afternoons

COMMENT:
The closer we get to this election the less able I am to differentiate between the leading parties. 
They seem to be morphing into one indistinct blob. 
It started when the issue of opening the border seemed to disappear from National mouths just as Todd Muller disappeared from public life. 
It continues when Judith Collins started agreeing that the government had done a good job to this point. This was in her early days as Opposition leader where she acknowledged that the steps taken to date were effective. 
It validated the elimination argument and watered down the flames that had been fanned by Todd Muller that our border control was a shambles. 
Then she threw out the financial targets that had been suggested by Paul Goldsmith around paying off debt.  Goldsmith said the party would try to reduce net core Crown debt to 30 per cent of GDP in roughly a decade, requiring $80b less borrowing on current GDP projections. 
Collins didn’t like putting numbers and targets on things which could come back to bite them on the bum if they weren’t achieved.  But it also diminished Goldsmith’s thoughts on his role which included spending cuts most notably in Government contributions to NZ Super. 
Next thing we’re hearing that the Government would not extend the wage subsidy scheme as it is all borrowed money and after 6 months enough is enough.  If that wasn’t a strange enough about face on it’s own, it was followed by both Collins and ACT’s David Seymour called for an extension. While I understand why, it did seem like the parties had temporarily swapped heads. 
Meanwhile the common cry that the Government has no plan for short term recovery is still trotted out by National.   
Despite the fact that all of National’s economic plans are around the long term.  They’re all post Covid plans.  The new job subsidy, the writing off of GST on capital expenditure.  The billions to spent on big infrastructure which is still 10 years down  the track. They’re policies that are good for businesses that are confident on growth rather than figuring out how to get through. 
It’s almost as though all politicians are exhausted and confused and not quite sure what’s going to happen to us next in our Covid adventure. Therefor they’re loathe to put their ideas on the line. 
The debate seems to be stuck in the immediate issue of border control. And not much more. 
There’s no talk of taxes or government cuts or a moratorium on pensions or benefits. There’s no talk on how to kill the debt monster that any government will inherit. 
There’s no talk on poverty or inter-generational unemployment. Or what’s going to happen to health and education services in straightened times. 
Both Labour and National are campaigning on a simple unqualified statement that each is the best to manage this.  Because.  Just because. 
There is no talk about what’s next because no one really knows what is next.  We’re a nation taking it one day at a time and making it up as we go.

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So here we are again at yet another crossroad on our Covid path.  A six-month journey that so far that feels more like a year.  A period of time that is but a blip in the timeline of a virus or a pandemic. 
There always the common perception that tasks grow easier as time goes on.  Not in this one.  This is the hardest part of the battle so far.  The coming weeks will test us as we have never been tested so far and in my opinion, we come into the test underdone. 
Whatever the real story is behind the official social media call for half of Auckland to get tested this weekend, I believe it’s indicative of underlying tension that many of us are unaware of. 
I believe that the Ministry would have liked to have tested half of Auckland.  I bet that’s where the messaging first came from.  I believe they would have extended the heightened alert levels.  I believe the Ministry and Ashley believe that this is a risky call and the chances of failure and a situation like Melbourne are not inconsiderable.  
In this whole process, I have not believed the myth that the Ministry of Health under Ashley Bloomfield has enjoyed a tension-free relationship with the Government under Jacinda Ardern. 
They are not some united team, bonded at the hip, imploring the team of 5 million to crack on.   
The government are politicians and politicians are attuned to public sentiment.  Throughout the Covid battle, the government has mitigated the health professionals desires.  
If Ashley was in sole charge, we would have gone down earlier, we would have gone down harder, we would have gone down longer. 
But the politicians realise there is a limit to the public’s patience.  And we are at that limit. The well expected bottoming out of the economy is here.  The wage subsidy ending. The people whose businesses and jobs have been hanging on by their fingertips are losing grip. 
Egged on by a constant level of exaggerated of criticism and comment that says everything’s a shambles, or a disaster, or a science experiment, or a conspiracy, the country has had enough and we are prepared to take the risks and the government knows it. 
But are we really? To avoid a Melbourne we are going to have to take a level of personal responsibility that we have never done so far.  We are going to have to social distance, we are going to have to mask up in crowds, we’re going to have to use the Covid app.  We’re going to have to accept some personal hassle to prevent a much greater imposition. 
But crowds at beaches and the running battles I have witnessed at supermarkets when people are asked to register do not bode well. 
The news that members of a church in the middle of the outbreak had been holding secret prayer meetings is even more concerning.  What on earth were they praying for?  If it was an end to the pandemic then their prayers failed at an epic level. 
Mistakes by the Government have created a small but vocal group of opponents who believe the whole approach is wrong.  And all it takes is a small group to become infected and six months of work flies out the window. 
Today is the first day of the most critical battle yet.  Let’s hope we’re up for it.

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GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS DETAILS WHICH READERS MIGHT FIND UPSETTING
A victim of the Christchurch terror attacks saved lives by tackling the rampaging gunman before he was shot dead.
Naeem Rashid, 50, ran at Brenton Harrison Tarrant as he methodically murdered people inside Masjid Al Noor mosque on March 15 last year.
Rashid's bravery was revealed in the Crown summary of facts – the official narrative of events – on the first day of Tarrant's sentencing at the High Court in Christchurch.
As fellow worshippers fell dead and wounded around him, Rashid ran at Tarrant from the southeastern corner of Al Noor's main prayer room where at least 120 people were gathered.
Rashid was about 1m from Tarrant when he swung the AR-15 gun around and fired four shots at point blank range with one shot hitting Rashid's left shoulder.
Rashid crashed into the gunman, sending him down to one knee.
The impact dislodged one of the ammunition magazines from his tactical vest.
Rashid lay on his back and in an attempt to shield his body pulled his arms and knees up to his chest. Tarrant fired at him, the summary says.
The shooter got up, withdrew a few steps and fired a further three aimed shots at Rashid, hitting him in the chest, hand and arm. Rashid remained in that position and was later pronounced dead at the scene.
"Mr Rashid's actions allowed a number of other worshippers to escape," the summary says.
The killer reloaded and stepped over Rashid's body, walking back into the main prayer room.
He stood in the middle of the room and fired 32 rapid-aimed shots into the southeastern corner and then seven rapid-aimed shots into the northeastern corner.
"Both of these areas had many victims lying on the floor trying to hide or trying to escape through the single doorways," the summary says.
The sentencing hearing is ongoing and scheduled to last four days.
Tarrant initially pleaded not guilty to his offending but later changed his tune and admitted 51 charges of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one of engaging in a terrorist act laid under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002.
He will be sentenced to life in prison.
- text by Anna Leask and Kurt Bayer, NZ Herald

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Last night I watched the Sunday programme which concentrated on Covid 19 in Australia and New Zealand. 
I wondered beforehand  whether it was going to be a dramatic scaremongering propaganda piece. It was not by design, but it was by effect. 
First we saw the tale of two New Zealanders who had been through a Covid infection and the effect it had on them. 
Jenene Crossan was enlightening.  A 42 year old entrepreneur who returned from overseas.  She was fit and healthy and surprised by the infection and the force of it.  She talked about the debilitating cough and the pain and the exhaustion and the fear of breathlessness.   
She also talked about how she continues to be affected by the infection. From becoming allergic to dogs, to being continually tired and having a vicious cough that strikes from nowhere. This is the thing about viruses.  They’re whole body experience.  One of my friends died in his 40s of heart disease caused by damage from a tropical virus he caught in his 20s.  Covid will live on long after the pandemic is over 
Jenene Crossan was at great lengths to say that her Covid infection was not just a cold or flu but something far more violent. That tallies with one of my friends in France who has beaten the Covid.  He is late 40s, a skier, an amateur  mountaineer, a tramper, a fit man.  He described Covid to me as trying to climb Mt Everest - without oxygen. 

Meet the Kiwi faces of Covid-19 and why they say complacency is not an option. THIS WEEK.Plus why Melbourne is doing it tough. @Jenene @taniapage @MavaEnoka #Sunday pic.twitter.com/pCgcpWhpgw
— Sunday (@SundayTVNZ) August 20, 2020
Another episode was fly on the wall coverage of a Melbourne Emergency Department dedicated to Covid patients. 
It was a scene from a nuclear fallout apocalypse with all the PPE’s  buzzing around. Doctors who were seeing the effect of the virus were telling the camera that this is not something to be underestimated. 
But the take away that stuck with me is something we don’t mention often. Covid is so new there is no treatment for it. If you can’t fight it off yourself all we can do is calm you down and stick a hose down your throat to help you breathe. This is why the globe is so concerned.  We can treat cancer, we can prevent car crashes, but Covid has no enemy or foe. 
But the doctor at the centre of the piece gave me hope.  With every case they’re learning more and bit by bit they’re learning how to fight this.  The same way we learnt to make HIV non fatal. 
And the final piece was on the total shambles that was the Melbourne isolation regime.  It made our problems at the border seem trivial.  At the heart of Melbourne’s problem was the private security force.  By giving the power for sub contractor’s to hire it gave them a profit motive to hire as cheap as possible resulting in an untrained and ill prepared staff who took outrageous risks and that has been a city’s death sentence. 
The provision of some public services by the private sector are always vulnerable to profit taking.  We need look no further than Serco prisons in this country or the Public Private Partnership disaster that is Transmission Gully, now years late and half a billion over budget. 
I thought it was an illuminating programme to remind us that complacence and underestimation of Covid is a fatal mistake and that will kill not just your people but your economy.

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A pair of spectacles thought to belong to Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi are set to be auctioned for more than $19,000 -- after being left "hanging out" of a letterbox on a busy industrial estate.
Around four weeks ago on a Monday morning, auctioneer Andy Stowe headed into work and was checking the letterboxes at his office on an industrial estate in Bristol, southwest England.
"I saw an envelope hanging out of our letterbox -- really, literally, just hanging out," he told CNN.
When a colleague opened the envelope, they discovered the unusual contents -- a pair of gold-rimmed, circular spectacles.
"They had a little note in there saying 'These belonged to Gandhi, and my uncle was given them,'" he said.
Stowe told CNN he called the phone number on the note, and traced the item's seller, who was an elderly man who lived locally.
The man told Stowe that the glasses had been passed to him from his uncle, who told him they were given to him by Gandhi while he was employed in South Africa.
"The uncle [was] working for British Petroleum at the time and was stationed in South Africa, and it can be presumed that these were gifted by way of thanks from Gandhi for some good deed," auctioneers East Bristol Auctions said in an item guide.
"We started doing some research and realized they were worth quite a considerable amount of money," Stowe told CNN, adding that the glasses have been valued at between £10,000 and £15,000 (from $13,000 to $19,500). They are expected to sell for "a considerable amount" more, he added.
"I gave him a call back later that day, and I think he nearly fell off of his chair when he learned how much we were going to value them at," he said.
Stowe told CNN that auctioneers researched the item's timeline, and are confident that the story -- and the glasses' provenance -- checked out.
"The dates and the facts match up fine. The guy is an 80-year-old man -- I don't think he concocted it up in his head," he said.
"From our point of view, the history and the story matches up completely fine," he added. "The fact that the gentleman told me that if they weren't worth anything, I could throw them in the bin -- I'm quite sure he had no idea how much they were worth."
The glasses will be auctioned on August 21.
text by Amy Woodyatt, CNN

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Well here we are in August already.  Six weeks after the solstice and so apparently we are in the deepest depths of winter 
We’ve also just past the four month mark in the battle against the great contagion of our time. 
It is worth re-iterating that.  The battle is still in it’s infancy. It’s only just started. 
At the beginning we were told it would be two years at least before a return to some sort of normal might happen.  We’re less than a sixth of the way to that point. 
But the ferocity of the debates and the dominance of Covid in the news has made us all seem as though it has been a lot longer.  That things and time has passed and changed and we can move on.  
It’s completely understandable as we’re keen to get out of this slow suffocating hell.  But we do seem to be in an unseemly hurry.  The call to open borders started only 8 weeks after we closed them.  What on earth were people thinking back then? 
But outside our borders, things have been getting worse and worse and worse.  Victoria is facing a wildfire of fatalities.  Our Prime Minister confirming that a trans-Tasman bubble is now months away. The UK are heading back towards lockdowns. Mexico has joined the leaders board of infection.  And on it goes. The battle has only just begun 
So the battle against the virus and the economic carnage it is wreaking now reach an interesting stage. 
Having completed the short term, we are now into the beginning of the medium term.  It is now just four weeks away from the end of the wage subsidy on September 1st 
The $11.9 billion scheme has been in place since March, and has helped insulate 1.7 million workers and their employers from some of the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. 
In announcing the end the Prime Minister said they’ve clearly signalled that a wage subsidy is not something that can continue on in the never-never.  She also said it would delay the critical work that businesses may need to do to pivot in the new Covid environment, and businesses themselves have said that they think that continuing for too long, could run the risk of being harmful for the long term resilience of some of those businesses. 
I wonder if businesses still feel that way. 
An international report over the weekend said that governments should continue subsidising businesses or else the money spent so far would be all for nothing.  Australia meanwhile is continuing it’s corporate welfarism they call Jobkeeper until March 2021 
But critics of this Labour-led Government are constantly criticising them for throwing money at Covid problems we just don’t have.  The support for user pays quarantining was in reaction to it’s half billion dollar cost to taxpayers. 
And so we face a real dilemma.  
This government is acting like hard arsed capitalists saying the subsidy ends in a month and if businesses haven’t found a way to survive over the past 4 months that’s just tough.  If you’re true to the belief that the government can’t keep borrowing to plug the holes in a sinking ship then there shouldn’t be any extension 
But if you don’t want the baby thrown out with the bathwater should we go the socialist path and throw money at business that we just don’t have. 
What would you do?

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COMMENT:
I’ve never been a fan of polls.
I find them to be very unhelpful for democracy. Actually they’re worse than that.  Tthey deeply undermine democracy.
They reduce the competition of ideas and beliefs and principles to a ranking game without analysis or cogent thought.
They are lazy journalism which is why they are supported by media outlets.  It’s easier to write about someone’s popularity and how it has plunged or rocketed than it is to investigate the policies that person represents.
They have no context and so they mislead.
Parties enjoying  a high poll number can see their supporters become complacent. Their opponents can be convinced to give up because what’s the point? Parties riding high can attract votes simply because of a human desire to be on the side of the winners.
So as everyone always says.  There’s only 1 poll that matters so let’s just have that one.  Give the world some mystery.  Let’s find out on the night of September the 19th.
Meanwhile, last Sunday I had brunch with a respected QC. The conversation naturally truned to the globe and Covid.
He said that he regrets Covid’s rise because it detracts from the real crisis facing humanity which is climate change.
So I asked him what sort of crisis that might look like.
He said that the first impact of climate change on humanity will not be from the climate changing but from humans fighting each other.
As a lawyer he is already seeing businesses preparing to minimise their exposure.  To move the liabilities.
Insurers wanting to increase premiums or refuse insurance.
He’s seeing developers preparing briefs in case developments are flooded or profits diminished by droughts that should have been expected by regulatory authorities.
Activists looking to sue the super polluters.
He said it doesn’t matter if you believe in climate change or not, this will happen.
Meanwhile he has seen little concrete change of behaviour or energy use that will prevent it growing in importance.
So while Covid has distracted us from the looming challengers there’s no way they’ve gone away. And with many economises struggling the carbon fires that provide the energy to grow are being ramped back up.

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Judith Collins’ first weekend in charge of the National Party has passed and she has faced the weekend media. 
And shock horror, the 61-year-old veteran politician handled the questions from Tova O’Brien and others with aplomb causing an outbreak of yahooing that the tide has turned. 
It shows you how far our expectations of our politicians has fallen over recent times. We’ve got used to the struggles of the David Clarks and the Todd Mullers and the Phil Twyfords of this world to answer straight questions.  We’ve got used to politicians pretending to have convictions and positions and then flannelling when push comes to shove. 
But it all bounced straight off Judith Collins because she knows what she believes and thinks and what she will hold to. 
It surprised me how much relief and energy and belief swept through the National Party and its supporters because, to be frank, the policies announced were less than inspired. 
Collins announced a $31 billion infrastructure spend that even at first look appears to have been drawn up on the back of an envelope over a few beers. Further, more it was Muller’s scheme but presented by Collins so it marks no difference in leadership, just a different voice presenting it.  Its biggest weakness is that it did nothing for New Zealanders in the short term. 
With the wage subsidies and other pandemic economic responses coming to an end over the next 6 months, New Zealanders are worried about an economic carnage emerging in the near future.  The reason they’re worried is that they can see it with their own two eyes and they’ve heard about it constantly from National. 
The government has no idea of the economic carnage coming our way was the constant refrain of Todd Muller over his 53-day reign.  So what do we get?  Some unconsented road and rail projects that may get off the ground in a decade. 
How will a second Auckland Harbour crossing arriving in 2030 or 2040 help a family of four with the breadwinner who becomes unemployed next March? 
It is as pie in the sky as Labour’s light rail. The second Harbour crossing has been discussed for years without decision.  Chris Bishop was asked last week where it will be.  He couldn’t answer that because there is no designated route. It’s a reckon. 
Just like the four-lane, 60-kilometre expressway between Ashburton and Christchurch that they think they could build for $1.5 billion. If they can do that, I’ll eat my hat.   
Last week, Jim Bolger said the country wants specific policy approaches to address the economic issues brought about by Covid-19. He said the public want politics that address their bread and butter issues, job and income, and a future for their children.  
Instead, we’re getting ghost roads and ghost trams and policies reducing immigration, which is a dead issue in these Covid days.  
Maybe the fact is no politician seems to have a clue about how to get through Christmas because it’s just too hard for them.

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With my new working life I now get to do news and talkback just one day a week on a Monday. 
This gives me a terrific chance to step back and look at the fuller news cycle rather than just the day by day cascade of stories that dominate the day but not necessarily the week. 
It reminds you that a lot of stories that seemed so pressing at the time are often barely remembered past a month.
So this time last Monday we were in the midst of a crisis in our quarantining. Escapees, a lack of testing amongst those released under compassionate grounds. The contact tracing app near to useless.  Add to that the appointment of Megan Woods as Minister of Isolation on June 19, and then the resignation of David Clark on July 2, and the weekend papers were full of opining on the SHAMBLES of our border security and primarily of the Government.
One week later and a cursory investigation of the weekend’s papers and you’ll see the SHAMBLES now apparently belongs to the opposition.
Southland brat Hamish Walker is no more after an extraordinarily ignorant release of confidential health information of those who have tested positive to Covid. The source of his leak, a former National Party President who obtained the information through her position as the head of a rescue helicopter trust and who should have known better. 
This was dumb dirty politics. Trying to lay the blame of security lapses on the government when in fact it belonged on the opposition. National took aim and shot itself in the foot.
It has laid bare Todd Muller as a lightweight. He took days to make a decisive statement or action that should have taken seconds.
It has laid bare Michael Woodhouse, who also had the information from Boag.  While his leader was flailing around trying to blame the government, Woodhouse knew all along where the information had come from.  A real candidate for Health Minister would have dobbed Boag in the moment she emailed him the details.
Stop the rot was Andrea Vance’s editorial stance this weekend towards Muller.  He didn’t even seem to know there was rot.
Meanwhile, Rio Tinto announced it would pull out of Tiwai Point. This has been obvious for a long time. Bill English signalled the end of government subsidisation four years ago.  The price of aluminium is not good. Rio Tinto has better options elsewhere and Meridian offered them a lot but that was still turned down
Yet the opposition lambasted the government for letting it happen.  If Muller knew his way around a balance sheet, then he’d know it was inevitable.  David Seymour also blamed the government even though he has long fought against corporate welfarism.  Even worse Seymour called the government student politicians.
David needs to know that he is no better.  A bachelor of Electrical Engineering and a BA in Philosophy, then 5 years as a public policy analyst in Canada before entering politics.  He’s a career politician. He’s no better qualified in balance sheets and business than anyone in the government.
And while this sideshow continues we have no community transmission and all the cases found recently have been found in the managed isolation, which while under pressure, is sign that it’s working.
No matter your political persuasion, the last week seems to suggest that the Opposition is more interested in fighting the Government than it is in fighting Covid. That’s not a good look in my book.

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Nine Kiwi families are in mourning after a horror weekend on the roads.
Hawke's Bay Police have confirmed one person has died, after crashing their vehicle on Springfield Road in Taradale just before midnight.
It follows seven other fatal accidents across the country over the weekend, which killed another eight people.
A pedestrian was struck while walking on High St, in Masterton, just after 7pm yesterday.
Emergency crews were called to the scene at 7.13pm and the victim was taken to Wellington Hospital in a critical condition.
Police confirmed that the person had since died.

Two of the crashes happened in the Canterbury region within about 10 minutes of each other.
About 9.20pm, crews were called to North Parade in Richmond, Christchurch, after a report that a motorcyclist had crashed into a fence.
The victim was said to have suffered serious injuries, initially.
The road was closed for some time as authorities worked at the scene. A police investigation is said to be ongoing.
Another person who died was also initially seriously injured in a single-vehicle crash at the intersection of State Highway 75 (Christchurch-Akaroa Rd) and McQueens Spur Rd last night.
Emergency staff were sent to the scene about 9.30pm after reports that a car had rolled there.
Two people were killed in Dunedon after a 3:30am crash involving a car and a truck. After colliding with the truck, the car caught fire.
Police confirmed later that the driver and a passenger inside the car both died at the scene. Another passenger in the car suffered serious injuries and was taken to Dunedin Hospital for treatment.

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