Former National MP and University Lecturer Simon Thornley are in the news after publishing a video interview questioning the effectiveness of the Covid vaccine and suggesting that the evidence that Ivermectin is useful in treating Covid is epidemiologically sound and strong.
Yesterday National released what feels like take 16 of its Covid response plan, this one focussing on business interests and setting a hard timeline for reopening. But getting significant details wrong and rehashing failed policies previously tried in England has dampened its effect.
Some big decisions are due to happen today. What happens to Auckland’s Covid status? Should the lockdown level be reduced or should the Government think about putting it back up?
The latest Roy Morgan poll was run between August 30th and September 26th. The headline results of Labour/Greens with 55% (increase by 3.5%) against opposition National/Act/Maori parties on 41% (up 0.5%) were good enough. But they also showed the gender split.. Women are deserting the right.
This week we have seen reckons from John Key, Act and National on how we should be loosening up Covid lockdown restrictions. Yesterday’s 45 new cases shows how dangerous it is to think that dealing with Covid is a simple management exercise.
John Key has doubled down on his claims that Aotearoa is a smug hermit kingdom and claimed that it is imperative that international travel is eased although he is fine with all other restrictions to stay in place.
John Key is back and has described New Zealand as a smug hermit kingdom for daring to so far achieve something no other western nation has been able to accomplish, holding back Covid and preventing thousands of deaths.
Events this afternoon have confirmed that Judith Collins is indeed toast.
Judith Collins’ insistence that Parliament be reconvened even at a time that the country was in lockdown level 4 has backfired spectacularly.
This week there has been some argy bargy between the Twitterati including the Waitakerati and the media on coverage of Covid in Aotearoa with elements of the media complaining that the criticisms are unjustified. A brief review of some of the offerings this week would suggest otherwise.
Last night it was revealed that National and Act had refused to agree to a proposed virtual Parliament sitting where questions could be asked, and instead wanted face to face meetings, even though this would mean a third of the country’s MPs travelling regularly to Wellington from a Covid delta hotspot.
Former National MP Matt King has been publicly posting anti vaccination propaganda under the ruse of only wanting a conversation.
Jacinda Ardern has resumed the 1 pm briefings where she communicates effectively the country’s current situation and what the plan is. But National and some elements of the media are complaining, presumably that she is doing too good a job.
Political leadership in the time of Covid is important. As the Government urgently swung into action and imposed a level 4 lockdown after news of a community case of Delta Covid who lived in Auckland and had spent time in Coromandel while infectious, Thames-Coromandel District Mayor and former National MP Sandra Goudie admitted to not scanning regularly.
National, the party that claims to be focussed on the issues that matter decided to get upset when the Greens requested the replacement of a picture of a former UK leader who had a reputation for engaging in crimes against humanity.
In an extraordinary move National’s board has reselected Peter Goodfellow as Party Chairperson and this has caused former MP David Carter to resign as board member and express no confidence in the leadership or in National’s chances at the next election.
Back in the day National used to have a strong urban liberal wing that gave the impression that it was sympathetic to LGBTQI issues. Yesterday that impression was trashed.
Judith Collins has decided to attack the Government on the use of the Te Reo name for New Zealand even though the last National Government regularised its use.
It should be an offence for political parties to deliberately misrepresent law and order statistics as National has done this week. It should be an aggravating feature if the party is a conservative party that champions law and order issues. After all fraud is an offence and if we don’t punish it appropriately then everyone will do it.
With record floods in Marlborough, half of Westport evacuated, disastrous flooding in Germany and the North East and the threat of record bushfires in the North West of the United States Mother Nature is passing rather cruel judgment on Groundswell NZ’s recent protest.
Simeon Brown in his attack on the Government for allegedly funding the Mongrel Mob has shown a disturbing ability to understand how Government works and an even more disturbing inability to perform basic maths.
In two separate leaks it has emerged that Judith Collins privately briefed Don Brash on National’s demand the debate campaign and that Brash wrote to wealthy donors seeking $300,000 for an Iwi Kiwi style billboard response.
The debate about the Government’s consultation on proposed changes to hate speech laws continues, with the level of heat increasing, but the level of actual understanding of what is being proposed in critical shortage.
The details of a particularly brutal National Party caucus meeting that resulted in Todd Muller announced his pending retirement from Parliament have been leaked in detail to the Herald’s Claire Trevett.
Yesterday National suffered further damage to its ranks when Harete Hipango was outed as the MP with Parliamentary Services resources issues and Todd Muller announced that he will stand down as an MP at the end of this term nominally so that he can eventually spend more time with his family.
Oh dear. There is yet another story about yet another National MP in trouble because of their born to rule impulses. Update: the Herald has reported that the MP is Harete Hipango. These blue on blue attacks are getting out of hand.
On the weekend Andrea Vance gave the Government a bit of a serve about its record on openness and transparency. But a deeper dig into the issue suggests that the cause may have nothing to do with the Government’s preferences and everything to do with the volume of information requests made by the opposition.
National’s week from hell is further evidence of a culture problem that will not be easily solved.
Last night the story about Nick Smith’s issues that caused his resignation finally broke, or did it?
Nick Smith is leaving Parliament not only to spend more time with his family but also because details of an employment dispute started after he yelled at a junior staffer were leaked.
Right now, in terms of our Covid response, New Zealand is in a unique position. It has no community spread of Covid and its level of restrictions is the most permissive in the world. But this does not stop Chris Bishop from trying to double guess the handling of the pandemic.
National presented a particularly glum picture in Parliament yesterday. And it was not only the realisation that Judith Collins is out of her depth. It was because this budget spells the end of Ruthenasia.
Forlorn for now though they may be, this is the advice National MPs need right now.
Judith Collins has applied the dog whistle to the He Puapua report and suggested that it is evidence of the Government wanting to radically change New Zealand society. But a check through history shows that the report is based on an International Treaty that National signed up to.
Yesterday Minister of Labour Michael Wood led the announcement of a policy that conceivably could do more to address the decline in workers wages and conditions over the past 40 years than anything else tried recently.
Last weekend Judith Collins spoke to the Northern Regional Conference of the National Party and gave as crude an analysis of te Tiriti as you can imagine.
