The Official Aotearoa Politics Thread

[Ramble on]

Yeah, it's him all right. Thanks for the heads up, Guy.

I have already honestly posted who I am idiot

[Gumboot]

Happy with that . Sucks to be you Auckland .

No word on how it got back ... sneaky little fvcker ain’t it

Yeah, that's quietly reassuring. Certainly better news than I was expecting. Small blessings at this point.

[Enzedder]

It is blatant electioneering and funny in pretending not to be

So she shouldn't announce anything to do with Alert levels and Covid? Just let it run rampant until after the election?

I can say with some certainty though that if she backed off and left it all to Bloomfield the braying from the Nats that she was hiding would be deafening. I do recall that recently she was accused of only giving out good news - now she's doing the bad and it's electioneering? You guys need to align your scripts.

[Wignu]

Yeah, it's him all right. Thanks for the heads up, Guy.

Play the post please Wignu - not the poster

Fixed.

[Enzedder]

Good to see that major business leaders are on board - although the size of the contraction of the economy is staggering - evidently we are back at 2016 levels.

Earlier today Westpac said a short period of lockdown at alert levels 2 and 3 "would have little lasting economic impact" to the economy.

However, a new level 4 lockdown would have "more severe" economic implications although "international experience shows that losing control of the virus would be much more damaging to the economy" than further lockdowns.

David Searle, National chairman of Baker Tilly Staples Rodway, said leaving Auckland in Level 3 and the rest of the country at Level 2 until 11.59pm on Wednesday 26th August seems an appropriate response.

[Ramble on]

It is blatant electioneering and funny in pretending not to be

So she shouldn't announce anything to do with Alert levels and Covid? Just let it run rampant until after the election?

I can say with some certainty though that if she backed off and left it all to Bloomfield the braying from the Nats that she was hiding would be deafening. I do recall that recently she was accused of only giving out good news - now she's doing the bad and it's electioneering? You guys need to align your scripts.

No. I just don't think it is fair for a current govt to have the entire media limelight leading up to an election.

[Kiwias]

It is blatant electioneering and funny in pretending not to be

If you want to see what a blatant electioneering broadcast is, just watch any press conference or appearance by Trump. What Ardern does is a long way away from that -- she actually conveys important and timely information.

[Gumboot]

Jacinda's appearing on The Project shortly.

How dare she!!

[Ramble on]

It is blatant electioneering and funny in pretending not to be

If you want to see what a blatant electioneering broadcast is, just watch any press conference or appearance by Trump. What Ardern does is a long way away from that -- she actually conveys important and timely information.

I couldn't give a rats about Trump, I am talking about Ardern and the current advantage to one party over the others

[Wignu]

Yeah, it's him all right. Thanks for the heads up, Guy.

Play the post please Wignu - not the poster

Fixed.

Given who posted it was just too hard to resist and given they actually play the person/party thought it was fair, however will refrain from now

[booji boy]

So then apparently nearly 2/3rds of Auckland's border isolation staff have never been tested.https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zeal ... k-ago.html

That is rather shocking and coupled with the various escapees kind of makes this reversion to lockdown look inevitable. Of cause the Pm has now committed to compulsory testing, this is good but also akin to shutting the door once the horse has bolted.

This is absolutely dumbfounding! What on earth is this government thinking... Ive lost what very little faith I had in our ability to stop this virus when I read that. Not testing people who have contact with those in Quarantine is just ridiculous.

Calm down mate. As explained later, monitoring (temp and symptom checks) combined with PPE is the pragmatic approach. There’s a lot of hysteria being pushed in NZ over this... there’s an election looming. Media needs to be filtered carefully.

This post makes it very obvious who this Guy is.

[Wignu]

Mike Hosking?

[Jambanja]

It is blatant electioneering and funny in pretending not to be

So she shouldn't announce anything to do with Alert levels and Covid? Just let it run rampant until after the election?

I can say with some certainty though that if she backed off and left it all to Bloomfield the braying from the Nats that she was hiding would be deafening. I do recall that recently she was accused of only giving out good news - now she's doing the bad and it's electioneering? You guys need to align your scripts.

I’m not sure what anyone else thinks but I think the news she delivered today was good news

[Fat Old Git]

Happy we haven't had to lockdown further. Looks like I can still do my planned work trips that have already been rearranged several times. Not to Auckland obviously.

[Enzedder]

It is blatant electioneering and funny in pretending not to be

So she shouldn't announce anything to do with Alert levels and Covid? Just let it run rampant until after the election?

I can say with some certainty though that if she backed off and left it all to Bloomfield the braying from the Nats that she was hiding would be deafening. I do recall that recently she was accused of only giving out good news - now she's doing the bad and it's electioneering? You guys need to align your scripts.

I’m not sure what anyone else thinks but I think the news she delivered today was good news

Not sure about that. And tuesday?

[Jb1981]

Does anyone know if there are rules around school principals and political neutrality (on the back of Polytech story)?

I received a flyer in the mail promoting a local candidate - nearly, it was for the bordering electorate which was a fail to start - and it had endorsements from community leaders.

One of the endorsements had a photo, name and listed the person as a College Principal without naming the school, although they are fairly well known in the community.

My code of conduct (public sector) would prevent me from doing this and the person is the principal of a state school.

It seems poor judgment and risking criticism if nothing else.

[Monkey Magic]

I thought we left the crazies at the old board.

As good a news as possible. Now saying the hospital case is likely linked - works close to the mt wellington cool store?

If they had found a bunch of different clusters we'd be up the creek, right now it's just sit tight and hope it has been caught quickly enough - definitely worth the instant level 3

[booji boy]

Yeah great news really. I expected we'd all be headed for level 3, well at least the North Island anyway.

I was supposed to be flying to Queenstown tomorrow for a weeks ski holiday. At level 2 I can still travel but a bit hard flying out of Auckland. Also I was travelling with a group of Aucklanders who are obviously locked down. Ah well it could've been much worse (Auckland level 4, rest of NZ level 3). Let's hope we get through this quickly and limit the spread and damage.

[Maniototo Man]

Happy we haven't had to lockdown further. Looks like I can still do my planned work trips that have already been rearranged several times. Not to Auckland obviously.

Nice to see you here FOG - another one for the lifeboat. You'll notice there are the same old sharks.

[Auckman]

Understood

She doesn't trust Bloomfield the director of health to answer health questions on his own advice

He is there to assist her, not vice versa

I realise the last health minister was shite, but why was it not Chippy?

It is blatant electioneering and funny in pretending not to be

Oh poor you. Go give Judith a hug.

She is the PM. This is her job. To front up. The NZ PM should not be running and hiding during somthing like this.

[Auckman]

Anyway, turns out my old workmate and his family are in one of the compulsory groups of people required to get tested. which they've done. If this thing seriously got out of control in South Auckland, given the inter-generational living arrangements of families and the health statistics in south auckland communities, there will be deaths no doubt about that. I'm very happy they're moving all cases into the quarantine facility near the airport.

[booji boy]

Anyway, turns out my old workmate and his family are in one of the compulsory groups of people required to get tested. which they've done. If this thing seriously got out of control in South Auckland, given the inter-generational living arrangements of families and the health statistics in south auckland communities, there will be deaths no doubt about that. I'm very happy they're moving all cases into the quarantine facility near the airport.

Sort of what happened in Victoria.

[Enzedder]

Who's next (although this guy will be back on the quiet in no time)

Long-serving National board member Roger Bridge has resigned from the party after it was discovered he used the alias 'Merv' to call talkback radio and complain about his party's candidate selection process in Auckland Central.

In a statement this afternoon, National's president Peter Goodfellow said Bridge tendered his resignation after the party's board "thoroughly investigated and discussed the matter".

After a board meeting last night, Bridge tendered his resignation, which was accepted.

"We all make mistakes and this is an unfortunate situation for someone who has given many years of loyal service to the National Party," Goodfellow said.

The party president added that Bridge has been an effective contributor around the board table and actively supported countless members, supporters, as well as the wider Party.

Goodfellow said the party now considers the matter closer and no further comments on the matter will be made.

National's board was first made aware of allegations during a Newshub story on Monday. Bridge was confronted by a reporter who put the allegations to him.

Bridge – who said his name was Merv – had called Newstalk ZB's Marcus Lush and said he was upset about the goings on in the Auckland Central seat.

He said he was in Manurewa and had planned to vote for Nuwanthie Samarakone for the local seat before she decided to run for Auckland Central.

"I'm a bit confused because there's billboards all over the place with this 'Nuwi' girl and then I understand that she's also standing in Auckland Central," he said.

[Sandstorm]

Don’t envy NZ (or USA) having to deal with Covid19 in the run-up to an election.

[Ramble on]

Don’t envy NZ (or USA) having to deal with Covid19 in the run-up to an election.

Think personally it will end up being delayed tbf

[Fat Old Git]

Happy we haven't had to lockdown further. Looks like I can still do my planned work trips that have already been rearranged several times. Not to Auckland obviously.

Nice to see you here FOG - another one for the lifeboat. You'll notice there are the same old sharks.

Thanks mate. Been meaning to check this place out for ages. Some of the old sharks are easy to spot. Others I'm trying to work out still. :)

[Jimmy Smallsteps]

It is blatant electioneering and funny in pretending not to be

So she shouldn't announce anything to do with Alert levels and Covid? Just let it run rampant until after the election?

I can say with some certainty though that if she backed off and left it all to Bloomfield the braying from the Nats that she was hiding would be deafening. I do recall that recently she was accused of only giving out good news - now she's doing the bad and it's electioneering? You guys need to align your scripts.

No. I just don't think it is fair for a current govt to have the entire media limelight leading up to an election.

That;s just life as the sitting government, you certified weirdo. For better or worse.

For every Labour shill talking her up on the Twitters, there's 0.4 card-carrying National wankers bagging the shit out of the Labour government for daring to exist.

[Brat]

So then apparently nearly 2/3rds of Auckland's border isolation staff have never been tested.https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zeal ... k-ago.html

That is rather shocking and coupled with the various escapees kind of makes this reversion to lockdown look inevitable. Of cause the Pm has now committed to compulsory testing, this is good but also akin to shutting the door once the horse has bolted.

This is absolutely dumbfounding! What on earth is this government thinking... Ive lost what very little faith I had in our ability to stop this virus when I read that. Not testing people who have contact with those in Quarantine is just ridiculous.

Calm down mate. As explained later, monitoring (temp and symptom checks) combined with PPE is the pragmatic approach. There’s a lot of hysteria being pushed in NZ over this... there’s an election looming. Media needs to be filtered carefully.

Since when is monitoring the pragmatic approach

I would tend to agree with prof skeg and des Gorman that it's absolutely ridiculous that 63% of associated workers haven't been tested as of last week

That's total incompetence and failure of a basic level of care required that everyone should expect

I was discussing this on the old forum before we got locked out..it's an obvious vector for this disease to enter the country

[Ted.]

If that guy in Auckland hospital (13th case today) turns out to be unrelated to the current cluster, it's squeaky bum time.

Yep totally unrelated. I know a person related to the case. Whilst I hope not this this horse appears to have bolted.

You are possibly a little premature on that assessment. This person is supposedly a doctor who treats a number of the people who work at the cool store.

[Ted.]

She is so utterly full of shit to avoid an election move it is beginning to get annoying

Is this Dark?

No matter, I shan't bother waiting for an answer.

[Enzedder]

Aye, it is.

I have found a gift for Christmas at the JuCo household

[Flockwitt]

This is absolutely dumbfounding! What on earth is this government thinking... Ive lost what very little faith I had in our ability to stop this virus when I read that. Not testing people who have contact with those in Quarantine is just ridiculous.

Calm down mate. As explained later, monitoring (temp and symptom checks) combined with PPE is the pragmatic approach. There’s a lot of hysteria being pushed in NZ over this... there’s an election looming. Media needs to be filtered carefully.

Since when is monitoring the pragmatic approach

I would tend to agree with prof skeg and des Gorman that it's absolutely ridiculous that 63% of associated workers haven't been tested as of last week

That's total incompetence and failure of a basic level of care required that everyone should expect

I was discussing this on the old forum before we got locked out..it's an obvious vector for this disease to enter the country

(I'll put up my reply from there.)

There's a fair bit of righteous indignation about it, but I was hearing pushback this morning from border staff representatives on the radio.

Not made up my own mind one way or another about it yet. One issue is just what is effective screening. A test once a month is useless as a preventative measure. 1/week? Once every 3 days? That's got to be done for how long? There's a point there that people didn't sign up for that, it's not pleasant. Be happy to see them get a hardship payment and require it done regularly.

[Ted.]

Calm down mate. As explained later, monitoring (temp and symptom checks) combined with PPE is the pragmatic approach. There’s a lot of hysteria being pushed in NZ over this... there’s an election looming. Media needs to be filtered carefully.

Since when is monitoring the pragmatic approach

I would tend to agree with prof skeg and des Gorman that it's absolutely ridiculous that 63% of associated workers haven't been tested as of last week

That's total incompetence and failure of a basic level of care required that everyone should expect

I was discussing this on the old forum before we got locked out..it's an obvious vector for this disease to enter the country

(I'll put up my reply from there.)

There's a fair bit of righteous indignation about it, but I was hearing pushback this morning from border staff representatives on the radio.

Not made up my own mind one way or another about it yet. One issue is just what is effective screening. A test once a month is useless as a preventative measure. 1/week? Once every 3 days? That's got to be done for how long? There's a point there that people didn't sign up for that, it's not pleasant. Be happy to see them get a hardship payment and require it done regularly.

Good point. I've changed my mind on this a bit. Is every 3 or 4 days, max, a reasonable compromise? I'm basing that on the fact that symptoms can take from 1 to 14 days to show, however people can spread for several days before they become symptomatic. Put that way, some could still slip through. It's all very well for us to get on our high horses, but as you suggest, it seems that what is reasonable to expect out of the workers and what is effective could be quite a distance apart.

[Ramble on]

Aye, it is.

I have found a gift for Christmas at the JuCo household

Understood

To joke about the opposition leader not knowing how to count to ten in Te Reo, ace

To joke about Ardern not knowingthe 3 points of the Treaty of Waitangi, or what a GDP is, moaning

[Jb1981]

I wonder what the story is here and who was providing the advice.

Hipkins also said testing at the border had not been happening at the rates the Government had been asking for and it was told was happening.

[Flockwitt]

Since when is monitoring the pragmatic approach

I would tend to agree with prof skeg and des Gorman that it's absolutely ridiculous that 63% of associated workers haven't been tested as of last week

That's total incompetence and failure of a basic level of care required that everyone should expect

I was discussing this on the old forum before we got locked out..it's an obvious vector for this disease to enter the country

(I'll put up my reply from there.)

There's a fair bit of righteous indignation about it, but I was hearing pushback this morning from border staff representatives on the radio.

Not made up my own mind one way or another about it yet. One issue is just what is effective screening. A test once a month is useless as a preventative measure. 1/week? Once every 3 days? That's got to be done for how long? There's a point there that people didn't sign up for that, it's not pleasant. Be happy to see them get a hardship payment and require it done regularly.

Good point. I've changed my mind on this a bit. Is every 3 or 4 days, max, a reasonable compromise? I'm basing that on the fact that symptoms can take from 1 to 14 days to show, however people can spread for several days before they become symptomatic. Put that way, some could still slip through. It's all very well for us to get on our high horses, but as you suggest, it seems that what is reasonable to expect out of the workers and what is effective could be quite a distance apart.

Still pondering it. There's a point that could be made that effective back testing might be a reasonable compromise. The quarantined people test positive, immediately every single border person who might have had any sort of interaction with that person gets tested multiple times over the next week or so. They can set up to control that effectively.

Might be more sensible that requiring everybody to be tested all the time, when if their PPE and procedures are working properly they'll never get infected in the first place.

[Ted.]

(I'll put up my reply from there.)

There's a fair bit of righteous indignation about it, but I was hearing pushback this morning from border staff representatives on the radio.

Not made up my own mind one way or another about it yet. One issue is just what is effective screening. A test once a month is useless as a preventative measure. 1/week? Once every 3 days? That's got to be done for how long? There's a point there that people didn't sign up for that, it's not pleasant. Be happy to see them get a hardship payment and require it done regularly.

Good point. I've changed my mind on this a bit. Is every 3 or 4 days, max, a reasonable compromise? I'm basing that on the fact that symptoms can take from 1 to 14 days to show, however people can spread for several days before they become symptomatic. Put that way, some could still slip through. It's all very well for us to get on our high horses, but as you suggest, it seems that what is reasonable to expect out of the workers and what is effective could be quite a distance apart.

Still pondering it. There's a point that could be made that effective back testing might be a reasonable compromise. The quarantined people test positive, immediately every single border person who might have had any sort of interaction with that person gets tested multiple times over the next week or so. They can set up to control that effectively.

Might be more sensible that requiring everybody to be tested all the time, when if their PPE and procedures are working properly they'll never get infected in the first place.

That looks like a sensible plan. You'd hope that sort of thing is already in place and perhaps it is, after all 40% have been tested with perhaps a % of those being the ones who have dealt with incoming positive cases.

[Ted.]

Anyway, on to more important things, is there a Highlanders V Canes thread on this bored?

If not, would one of you Highlanders people be kind enough to get one up and running.

[Flockwitt]

Anyway, on to more important things, is there a Highlanders V Canes thread on this bored?

If not, would one of you, spit, Highlanders people be kind enough to get one up and running.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=390&p=18623#p18623

[Ted.]

Thank you.