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6:00 am, July 15th, 2025 - 29 comments
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Climate Change and Bumper Sticker Politics
China is not a threat to Regional Peace
The article was going fine.
We had below normal deaths at first – border controls eliminated flu etc – then back to normalish with the COVID death add ons.
But then this
I would have thought that it was the border lockdown that did the main work, the vaccines merely allowed the opening up of the borders.
Most COVID deaths occurred after that point, omicron (while more mild) getting around the vaccine.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360756357/new-zealands-covid-strategy-not-perfect-it-saved-lives-expert
I have not read the Stuff article but a few quick comments.
Both vaccination and border lockdown were helpful but not absolute measures, think Swiss cheese model of protection (https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2020/10/22/covid-19-and-the-swiss-cheese-system.html).
Vaccination took time (the initial idea was to build up ‘herd immunity’ through vaccination) but was thought to be more sustainable/achievable over time while border lockdowns were thought to be less (economically and socially) sustainable.
One or two lines (from a short (?) interview?) are not necessarily give a complete & comprehensive description of the situation, I’d have thought.
No.
The border barrier was very effective.
And the reason for our lower death rate.
That fact is not in question.
That it was not sustainable as a policy does not negate that.
PS Our policy began before there was a vaccine.
It was a combination of factors, in space and in space, that contributed to the overall outcome.
I suggest you read the findings so far of the Covid-19 Inquiry: https://www.covid19lessons.royalcommission.nz/reports-lessons-learned.
Why, would doing so change the facts?
The Stuff article was about the evidence.
You subtly changed your wording/framing @ 2 and 2.1.1.
You appeared to disagree with the last sentence of the Stuff article, so I’d have thought that you could change your mind by reading the findings of Phase One of the Covid-19 Inquiry.
You appear to conflate facts and [your] opinions.
You have not provided any support for your opinion and assertions nor given any reasoned argument that’s compelling and this is a waste of my time.
I get it, you are vaccine apologist narrative driven.
Right back at you.
Our lower death rates from COVID occur only in the period of the border closure.
No, you don’t get it at all. Read my comments again and stick to the facts; is Michael Plank driven by a ‘vaccine apologist narrative’ as well?
The government cites the positive impact of the use of private hospitals to provide treatment.
The medical experts simply note that this risks running down public health system delivery and that creates a permanent dependence on the private system treatment.
He is right to be concerned but the government is doing this deliberately because it seeks to conspire that outcome without ever getting an electoral mandate.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360756599/surgeon-warns-tipping-point-government-boosts-private-hospital-use
Health insurance is becoming unaffordable.
People are becoming more dependent on the public health system delivery and or government funded operations in private hospitals.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/566943/health-insurance-crunch-prompts-calls-for-fringe-benefit-tax-break
Trump has done a shift from being "pissed off" with Putin several weeks ago to applying more leverage: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/trump-send-patriot-missiles-ukraine-us-envoy-visits-kyiv-2025-07-14/
I liked how he pointed out that he was including batteries so they could operate the system. I recall as a kid those irritating toy gifts that didn't work because you had to head off into town to buy the batteries separately. Trump shows here that he does get how consumerism is meant to work: the experience of delight that marketing gurus have been promoting the past several decades. I presume he remembered to invest in the arms company manufacturers beforehand. Reagan won by outspending the commies, so T is very likely to be doing a rerun of that winning formula.
"I liked how he pointed out that he was including batteries so they could operate the system"
I love it. Something funny out of the otherwise completely depressing situation that is Ukraine.
Our state broadcaster (yeah, I know, antique framing) is making a new user interface, seemingly a lunge at the 21st century media consumer market. Nuances abound.
If it deploys intelligent design, it will be bound to attract viewers to the platform. Yet it isn't chartered to be commercial, so will affect the media market indirectly I presume.
A user-friendly portal would scale naturally via contagion, so they will need a metric to measure user growth. Providing an onsite register of usage by the public would guarantee mass influence, making the concept of public broadcasting viable again.
Someone ought to remind no boats and Sorted that a 7%+ collapse in retail fueled by a 3.4%, 4.4% and 2.2% drop in house prices across Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch respectively isn't an election winning strategy no matter how hard Hoskings kisses your ass.
Pete's unhinged super-villain outs.
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In a recent New York Times interview, billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel was asked whether he “would prefer the human race to endure” in the future. Thiel responded with an uncertain, “Uh —,” leading the interviewer, columnist Ross Douthat, to note with a hint of consternation, “You’re hesitating.” The rest of the exchange went:
Immediately after this exchange, Thiel went on to say that he wants humanity to be radically transformed by technology to become immortal creatures fundamentally different from our current state.
"There’s a critique of, let’s say, the trans people in a sexual context, or, I don’t know, a transvestite is someone who changes their clothes and cross dresses, and a transsexual is someone where you change your, I don’t know, penis into a vagina,” he said. None of this goes far enough—“we want more transformation than that," he said. "We want more than cross-dressing or changing your sex organs. We want you to be able to change your heart and change your mind and change your whole body."
https://www.techpolicy.press/digital-eugenics-and-the-extinction-of-humanity/
The same guy is supplying Palantir tech to develop a Panopticon Society regime, an oligarch assisting government rule over the people.
And remember he is the guy behind JD Vance the social conservative (like Charles Koch behind Mike Pompeo).
The Christianity of Thiel is playing God, while he objects to democracy because it is a constraint on libertarianism – but his idea is of a two tier society, those who wealth and liberty (rich and sorted) and the controlled working class.
It is a reprise of the US technocracy movement of the 1930’s (an American fascism variant).
Danyl McLauchlan in the Listener sees hope for the Left in the 2026 election, including nostalgia for Jacinda (paywalled):
"…. the current trajectory of our politics points towards a Labour win next year. Christopher Luxon remains a peripheral figure in his own government, eagerly reporting on his action items – many of which are empty signifiers: “take decisions”, “progress legislation” ‒ while indifferently admitting “it’s still tough out there”.
The Finance Minister attempts to address said toughness by tweaking tax settings and abatement thresholds. Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour continues to dominate media discourse, alongside NZ First’s Winston Peters and Shane Jones, with Jones intensifying his bizarre campaigns against the environment and endangered species.
The public’s already-thin patience with these powerful and erratic minor-party figures is fast diminishing. Nostalgia for the relative normality of the Jacinda years is taking hold: the recent Post/Freshwater poll ranked Ardern, who left Parliament in 2023, our most popular politician.
..the recent Ipsos issues poll found the Greens are perceived to be the most trusted party on climate change and the environment. Te Pāti Māori is most trusted on issues facing Māori. Act and New Zealand First are not trusted on any major issue facing the nation.
Another year of Jones gloating about dredging the seabeds and the prospect of a Green fisheries minister could feel like an awakening from a fever dream. There is a hypothetical left-wing government that is more attractive than the coalition’s offering, which is currently a disjointed combination of cruelty, culture-war nonsense and sclerosis."
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-listener/politics/danyl-mclauchlan-nostalgia-for-the-relative-normality-of-the-jacinda-years-is-taking-hold/EOA3T5VLLJERDPSFHVLMX7FG6A/
Back when Sanctuary & I were regular commentators on his blog Danyl was known to be Green. I remain somewhat sceptical that he's able to read the entire nation accurately although it's true that his instincts are usually spot on.
Did he ignore `it's the economy, stupid'? If so, too sectarian. Human nature makes us see what we want to see rather more often than is good for our survival prospects.
"Back when Sanctuary & I were regular commentators on his blog Danyl was known to be Green."
was that during your 'praxis/nexus' phase or are my purple Paekakariki crystals misleading me again?
[No trolling here, thanks. This is your warning – Incognito]
Mod note
Heh…!…it is funny tho'….
A problem for Luxon is that (despite allowing interest to be tax allowable for landlords) Auckland City house prices have dropped 19% since their peak in Jan 2022. When inflation is taken into account the drop is over 30%.
Jan 2022 average price $1.730m
Jun 2025 average price $1.395m
The COC gets many of its votes from Auckland and surrounds. This is hardly the feel-good factor National was hoping to convey going into the 2026 election.
https://www.qv.co.nz/price-index/
That in a nutshell is why the economy is fucked, big mortgages and lost equity leaves people with very little discretionary spending and no headroom to top up a mortgage to put in a new kitchen, or bathroom etc. It is going to take a very long time to recover from.
Can thank the Reserve bank for handing out free money to the banks who promptly poured it into the housing market at the back end of Covid.
Question time in the House. Q3 answered by Minister Jones "with characteristic modesty", to quote himself. He then, with the same awareness, criticised the opposition for "virtue-signalling".
The man makes a joke of being a joke.
Shane Jones is lying that a shortage of oil and gas is down to Labour's ban on new exploration.
It allowed those with existing licenses to continue.
There is no way a new license to explore would have resulted in more gas in the short time frame concerned.
The main factor is the amount of gas left from existing fields is now lower than previous forecasts.
They could make a deal with the methanol producer, but na.
https://www.tickaroo.com/e/G2EaTzftKObK1vto
Seymour has been naughty again. Somebody will have to enter it on his report card.
RNZ news just now reported him saying he'd been too efficient. Answering someone else's mail isn't efficiency, its misbehaviour. You can easily get 6 of the best for shit like that. He got a wet bus ticket lazily wafted at him:
A process point sounds like something a bot would know about. Maybe Lux's controller is a bot? Conspiracy theorists would reckon "Nah, egghead's a bot himself." Dunno tho, I do like the old mask behind the mask mode.
Luxon is minimising there. It's more than simply a process point. It's about an official, all cabinet (or at least Peters and Luxon), diplomatic response to the UN, not letting some racist libertarian ideologue answer for the people of New Zealand.
Seymour's off the leash, he thinks government is a game with rules which don't apply to him.