Jacinda Ardern is resigning!

[MrsMarkRonson]

Didn't see that coming?! I know her popularity has dipped somewhat, but I didn't think she'd leave before the election? wondering if she was being pushed out?

@changeme4this

Most of what you've written (interest rates, rising cost of living, shipping backlogs, international flight cancellations, business closures due to the pandemic, building industry supply issues, rising costs of fertiliser etc) are all pretty much the same around the world thanks to Covid, rising costs associated with climate change adaptations and the Ukraine war and little to do with the government's Covid policy.

International ships were always allowed into NZ, it was just slower processing. There have long been shipping queues out the back of the Hauraki Gulf but that is in some substantial part to do with the Ports of Auckland's fiasco of a container management system.

As for the aged care, I too have loved ones there and although your relative was happy to catch Covid, mine weren't, and felt protected by the rules. It wasn't easy, no. Pandemics typically aren't.

I never saw a police car cruising the supermarket carpark during the whole of the lockdown period (and I'm in Auckland so collected the full set). It may well have happened at places where people felt intimidated by those who were aggressively anti-vax but I didn't see or hear of police harassing anyone who was able to show basic respect for other people.

And on the landlord side, again, I'm sure there were landlords who were unsympathetic, but by far the majority of business owners I know found their landlords actually sympathetic or supportive. I saw some truly astonishing acts of generosity from some landlords.

I don't dispute that what you said happened, but it's only one part of the story. Plenty of people had very different and even opposite experiences to the ones you talk about, and there are many factors contributing to the issues you raise. To blame Jacinda Ardern or even the Labour government as a whole for them is inaccurately simplistic.

@JamSandle the 'wedge' mentioned may relate to the strict vaccine mandate here - there were many, many places that you needed to be vaccinated to use/visit. If not vaccinated, you were not permitted to work in various places inc. healthcare & teaching. I have NO issue with this. Had I been - or any relative been - in hospital or a care home I certainly would have wanted the environment to be absolutely as safe as possible. We had periods of school from home until well into last year. IMO it was very much about doing your bit to keep everyone safe.

Yes, people who refused to vaccinate did lose their jobs.

Plenty of anti-vax and anti-mask nonsense being peddled here as undoubtedly it was in the UK. I took great pleasure in driving past the roadside protest people with my mask on, giving them the thumbs-down (that's quite a political statement for me 🤣).

Thank you @CheekyHobson for your measured post, which saved me trying to put my response into words to counter the nonsense the previous poster wrote. It astonishes me that people can sit in their own little bubble and complain bitterly about what is happening in their country without bothering to look at what is happening in the rest of the world. I did have a massive laugh at the idea of the police cruising supermarket carparks, and can't help but wonder just where that poster lives!

If not vaccinated, you were not permitted to work in various places inc. healthcare & teaching. I have NO issue with this. Had I been - or any relative been - in hospital or a care home I certainly would have wanted the environment to be absolutely as safe as possible. We had periods of school from home until well into last year

The idea behind Covid vaccine mandates was to stop the spread and it did no such thing. So they absolutely had a point.

Also, there was no need to shut schools but they did without good evidence it actually did anything but harm education. A lot of older children did remote ‘school’ and simply dropped out completely. It’s very sad.

theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/06/new-zealand-principals-voice-alarm-as-students-fail-return-to-school-after-covid-lockdowns

Lost "Had I been - or any relative been - in hospital or a care home I certainly would have wanted the environment to be absolutely as safe as possible."

did NZ lose many staff to the mandate? I realise every place is different. Here in the UK, I am astonished at how some people wanted the mandate, then got all butthurt that people left their jobs. Just all "what about meeee". We're just past the anniversary of the NHS demo against the mandates, where many workers chucked their uniform anyway. I think a few - sadly influential - oddballs thought it was attention seeking, till they realised how many staff had actually left the job.

Of course NZ will be in a very different situation healthcare wise and population wise, and in so many ways really, so I'm curious to know how that mandate worked out.

re police in car parks

I got laughed at on here the first time I said the park was full of police with megaphones. I don't know why posters were so keen to laugh at me. Then various London parks got closed, so I think at that stage, posters realised I was telling the truth. Then a famous person tweeted about my park specifically, but I didn't want to pinpoint where I lived, and at that stage posters were so vicious I stopped posting, I think.

I hope Ardern doesn't want to come to the UK.

I shop in quite a normal suburb magicthree in the north island. It was well documented of policing in supermarket carparks around NZ at the time so I know I’m not the only person in the whole of nz to experience it.

it was also well covered about the elderly in nursing/care homes unable to see their loved ones and wondering if they ever would again and what the purpose of their life had become with access to their families.

the people I found disbelieving of what was going on in NZ are people who were not here, although it was said to me once that people in Wellington had a completely different outlook as to how bad things had got in nz during lockdown and thereafter. perhaps you fit into one of those categories. In the meanwhile what I wrote happened, and continues to affect day to day people.

That fact you find it laughable is appalling.

My relatives care accommodation still struggles with staffing issues for a couple of reasons (but yes it was incredibly bad during the crux of lockdown), one is the requirement to stay at home if in doubt as to wellness, and secondly the majority of health care employees come from overseas and there has been govt policy preventing overseas workers and incoming visa issues/restrictions. The most prominent one recently had been for nurses and the inabilities and difficulties in fulfilling the visa requirements. I think it was said recently only a very small number had been able to take up the opportunity with more leaving for Aussie and the like.

much the same as the lack of seasonal workers coming in for fruit picking. Staff shortages everywhere, in positions normally filled by temporary arrivals.

Wind your neck in! The only thing I said was "laughable" was the police cruising around car parks. I was shopping for myself and my father, my friend was shopping for herself and three other people - at different supermarkets - neither of us ever saw the police in a car park, and the poster I was responding to also rubbished the idea. Just because it happened where you live doesn't mean it happened nationwide. The only police I saw during the whole lockdown were simply driving down the road, as they normally do.

I never mentioned the elderly in rest homes not being able to see their relatives as I know that happened - but do you seriously think that only happened in NZ? There were plenty of threads on MN at the time about it happening in the UK, and it happened in other countries as well. I think you need to have a good look around the world before you start moaning about things happening here.

For the record, I most certainly was here at the time, and I live nowhere near Wellington!

I did all the shopping for the family (online where possible, but has to go to the supermarket more often than I’d have liked), and never once saw police cars cruising supermarkets.

here's a link to a post on the Waikato Police FB page discussing the policing plan...

www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-no-compassion-for-sick-dying-elderly-during-lockdown-say-family/U6Y6MLTQGPUT5EEXMPTBBBPVT4/

www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/130979761/uk-nurse-with-about-40-years-experience-close-to-giving-up-on-working-in-nz

www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2022/12/revealed-how-many-nurses-have-arrived-in-nz-under-govt-s-controversial-visa-pathway.html

Here's some links validating some of my earlier comments (note the supermarket policing comment on the Waikato Police statement), it goes on but I think I have copied the relevant points. There's not much reporting available re the road side checkpoints (those away from the official internal borders) although lots on social media in the communities affected.

Just before I head off, upthread a poster commented that some of the issues I raised are covid related issues that many Countries have also experienced.

I agree, although NZ interest rates currently at 6.39% fixed for 1 year would be unheard of (yet?) in the UK going from threads I have read...

However the attached article highlights that NZ's Prime Minister of the day has a huge influence as to the direction the Country takes: www.nzherald.co.nz/business/small-businesses-offer-pm-chris-hipkins-advice-take-some-of-the-pain-off/3ZOSHKNDKJB6PNKCVIU6C62B34/

However the attached article highlights that NZ's Prime Minister of the day has a huge influence as to the direction the Country takes.

Ah, no. The article describes nothing more than a standard PR exercise when a new leader steps up. Just because people tell the Prime Minister what they want when they do a “walky-talky” for the benefit of the media, it doesn’t mean the Prime Minister has direct control over whether those ideas are actually taken on board.

You don’t get to see or read much domestic news then…

You don’t get to see or read much domestic news then

No idea what this weird personal assumption has to do with what I wrote but I assure you I have a high level of contact with domestic news.

What a bizarre conclusion to draw in relation to that comment.

I'm inclined to think @changeme4this lives in a different NZ to the rest of us!

If @changeme4this is getting all their news from the NZ Herald then yeah, they probably are living in a different world than the rest of us.

Oh, I can just imagine where @changeme4this gets a lot of their ideas news from…..

Chatting to sone friends about politics and New Zealand got mentioned, and how JA has done well and better than the UK politicians. They looked a bit surprised when I said that she wasn’t popular by everyone, there’s been a noticeable increase in gangs etc (all learnt from this thread).

This thread is contrary to the image you see on “Wanted Down Under”

(for our NZ mumsnetters - this is a tv programme where British families spend time in Aus or NZ include looking at jobs, houses, cost of living et to decide whether they want to emigrate).

Yes, there has been an increase in both gangs and violent crime in NZ under labour, just as there has everywhere due to economic recession and pandemic stress. Also, the National party and the mainstream media over-reporting certain kinds of crime is creating a moral panic. The increase in danger in NZ from crime is almost certainly broadly similar to that in the UK or anywhere else.