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Have the wheels come off St.jacinda of NZ

321 replies

Radyward · 14/02/2022 23:43

What!!! spraying protesters including women and childrem with water outside parliament Classing all protestors as loony anti vaxers.no sign of liftimg restrictions ' quite the opposite. Polls plummeting. She is completely nightmarish tho 53 deaths is amazing. Nz is now so woke no one with any brain or indepent thought will go there to holiday / work. She is on a power trip to end all. Poor kiwis

OP posts:
MarchCrocus · 18/02/2022 18:22

@mbosnz

No, the Spanish flu is not whataboutery, it's a direct corollary with a relevant comparative historic example.

Watapalava, if you want to talk about statements that make a poster sound a bit thick, then 'NZ had capacity to take its citizens back, it just prioritised money', has to be up there.

NZ prioritised minimising loss of life due to a global pandemic.

The Spanish flu occurred a century ago, which in public health terms might as well be another planet. It entered NZ before anyone knew what it was. The idea that this is a direct corollary with a virus that was known about and that control mechanisms could still be taken against whilst not shitting all over citizens rights isn't one that survives contact with reality. It's pure whataboutery.
mbosnz · 18/02/2022 18:26

Hang on. Lets just remember about how little we knew about coronavirus when it first emerged. We didn't know how contagious it was, we didn't know how it was transmitted, we didn't know how serious it was, we didn't know how to treat it, we had no vaccines that were effective against it. What we did know was that it was very contagious, and that it was very serious. (Remember, we're not talking about Omicron),

That sounds pretty bloody similar to me.

MarshaBradyo · 18/02/2022 18:29

@mbosnz

I absolutely agree MarshaBradyo. I also wonder how many others would have done what NZ did if they had the geographic advantages we did!

I remember at the time, a hell of a lot of people clamouring in the UK for borders to be shut to all, and really being quite reluctant to acknowledge that it would be a hell of a lot harder for the UK to successfully implement this.

I think an awful lot if the coulda, woulda.

I don’t think we could have done the same but also lockdowns are hard and if you’re rewarded with freedom at the end it’s like a prize. I think we tried just as hard - as evidenced in the numbers falling from high rates - but we were never going to get zero Covid in same way.

So we had two more lockdowns, got highly fatigued, and still changed behaviour with omicron. On top of all that we’re hard on ourselves and from some o/s with criticism why it didn’t work.

I’m surprised there aren’t more bog off messages around that but we seem to have internalised a sense of being beaten a bit. When it was our geography not behaviour that led to outcome.

MarchCrocus · 18/02/2022 18:31

It's noteworthy that the UK government repatriated British citizens from China pretty early in proceedings, instead of leaving them there to fester, and there was never any real doubt that they would. I'll hear many things against Boris Johnson and his government, but they did do this.

As for you'd all do this too if you could, alternative realities people construct as a cope or an argument device are neither here nor there. Literally. All states pandemic responses have been significantly impacted by their circumstances. That's a given.

mbosnz · 18/02/2022 18:32

I'll go with what I said about how there was confusing, contradictory advice about what to do, in the UK, which I think caused fatigue earlier. But I really genuinely believe that the general populace of UK, on the vast whole, did their very best, often in spite of, rather than because of, official guidance.

mbosnz · 18/02/2022 18:33

All states pandemic responses have been significantly impacted by their circumstances. That's a given.

Absolutely. That includes NZ.

I will also point out that the resources of the NZ Government when it comes to repatriation etc, are not really comparable with those of the UK.

MarshaBradyo · 18/02/2022 18:34

@mbosnz

I'll go with what I said about how there was confusing, contradictory advice about what to do, in the UK, which I think caused fatigue earlier. But I really genuinely believe that the general populace of UK, on the vast whole, did their very best, often in spite of, rather than because of, official guidance.
It didn’t help and there was a lot of annoyance re the first BC / DC thing

But mostly we have changed behaviour in massive ways

More than other countries due to length of time in place and repetition

What gov did or didn’t do barely touched the sides re how arduous I found homeschooling but still had to do it. And still complied as many did.

MarshaBradyo · 18/02/2022 18:36

If you look at figures from first lockdown we got them down from many thousands to low

NZ did lockdown with borders closed at 105 cases

I think people aren’t recognising scale

MarchCrocus · 18/02/2022 18:37

@mbosnz

Hang on. Lets just remember about how little we knew about coronavirus when it first emerged. We didn't know how contagious it was, we didn't know how it was transmitted, we didn't know how serious it was, we didn't know how to treat it, we had no vaccines that were effective against it. What we did know was that it was very contagious, and that it was very serious. (Remember, we're not talking about Omicron),

That sounds pretty bloody similar to me.

As well as the absolutely vast difference between medical science in the middle of WW1 and now, Spanish flu was already well and truly embedded in NZ before even anyone knew it existed. We knew much more about covid in late March 2020 than we did about Spanish flu as it entered NZ.

But the actual reason for mentioning Spanish flu was because you didn't like the point being made that NZ owes thanks to the UK (and a lot of other countries) for this one, let's be honest.

mbosnz · 18/02/2022 18:37

I was so lucky, I had teens - they homeschooled themselves! I shudder to think if they'd been younger. . . we did the best with the hand we were dealt.

That's what most people did, wherever they were. And yes, it's bloody hard, when you're away from home.

mbosnz · 18/02/2022 18:41

In terms of economic impact, do you think you could quantify it re UK and stranded NZers? I couldn't. You seem to be reluctant to acknowledge the points I've made about what NZ has contributed in terms of the UK? Surely that counts as well?

I've been quite clear that I appreciate and acknowledge the help given to NZ'ers stranded overseas (not just the UK, you know), due to the NZ response to the pandemic.

MarchCrocus · 18/02/2022 18:42

But actually, the point I should've made there about Spanish flu is that NZ has carried on with this policy for a long time now. It was one thing in March 2020 as a shorter term option, but it's 2022 now and we know a great deal about covid. March 2020 is a different world too, really. Yet the denial of access to many citizens has persisted. Even if one considers that it was acceptable for a short period, that's long been and gone.

CheekyHobson · 18/02/2022 18:46

@CheekyHobson more fake news. 9000 rooms per 28 days www.mbie.govt.nz/business-and-employment/economic-development/covid-19-data-resources/managed-isolation-and-quarantine-data/miq-capacity-and-allocations/ at current capacity is something less than 2250 allowing for cleaning in between.

If you wanted a specialist MIQ facility that would have a) eliminated the risk of virus getting into the community and b) afforded more NZers to come here, you would have needed to at least match the existing hotel-based capacity of 9000 rooms per month. Yes, some of those room spaces might have been one physical space that was used for two isolation periods (therefore counting as two rooms) but due to isolation extensions when infections appear, many would be used only once in a month. So at minimum you'd want to build 6000 of the individual cabins you speak of to match the capacity that was needed, more if you wanted to increase capacity.

Many of these rooms are NOT fit for purpose, and there have been outbreaks as a result of them.

What would be more accurate to say is that hotel rooms were not ideally fit for purpose and there were a small number of outbreaks but in comparison to the difficulty of building a massive facility that would remove any need for city-based accommodation, it was an acceptable compromise.

Victoria in Australia, which has identical winter average temperatures to Auckland (and less hospitable temperatures in the summer)
Ohakea isn't Auckland but okay.

has built a quarantine facility that could surge to those numbers within 1 month from now, and they started work in September. The project only got the green light in July www.vic.gov.au/victorian-quarantine-hub.

I can't find any evidence to suggest that this proposed project – which has been described as a $200-million "white elephant" –has actually delivered a single one of the 1000 expected beds (beds, not rooms) and probably never will given that MIQ is now over in Australia. But even 1000 rooms wouldn't have eliminated the need for hotel-based accommodation during the time it was needed as 1000 is woefully short of the capacity needed.

Also, take a quick look at Ohakea on Google Maps and let me know where I might find the large piece of flat land that your enormous proposed NZ facility would have needed. The Victorian one was proposed for Commonwealth land (which Australia has a fair bit more of than NZ). Ohakea air-base is sited in the middle of a large area of privately owned farmland. Public land further away is largely hilly and hard to build on. There's no flat government-owned land nearby (other than the actual airbase, which wouldn't accommodate a project of this size).

Also, while we're discussing ways in which you are wrong--in the three years prior to leaving NZ, I went exactly nowhere due to my financial situation. Not that it should matter, because if I had I would still have been a New Zealander, just as you are.
No idea what point you're trying to make here. You have been moaning that you haven't been able to holiday in NZ more than once during the pandemic. My point was that holidaying overseas once in two years is regarded as normal life for many people. If you understand that, great, stop moaning.

Your parochialism and lack of imagination about lives other than your own and solutions other than exactly what NZ has achieved only serve to exacerbate the fiction that New Zealand is a brainwashed, totalitarian state. I'll not engage with you further, because you clearly have a fixed mindset and there is no point.
Turning to wild insults is usually the last resort of those who lack logic. Imagination is great, sure, but practicality is an essential part of actually getting thing done.

It seems to me that your imagination stops at the point of "Hey how about this for an idea?" and doesn't extend to "Okay, how would we actually achieve that?"

mbosnz · 18/02/2022 18:48

Yes, you're quite right, it's a different world between March 2020 and now. We've had how many waves, for example? Now we have reasonably efficacious vaccines.

Perhaps that could be part of the reason why NZ is opening up to its vaccinated citizens overseas now? Are we now going to argue about whether you should have to be vaccinated? There is a choice. Vaccine and go home. Or don't. Pick your poison. But don't say that you are not able to go home. You can.

MarchCrocus · 18/02/2022 18:52

@mbosnz

In terms of economic impact, do you think you could quantify it re UK and stranded NZers? I couldn't. You seem to be reluctant to acknowledge the points I've made about what NZ has contributed in terms of the UK? Surely that counts as well?

I've been quite clear that I appreciate and acknowledge the help given to NZ'ers stranded overseas (not just the UK, you know), due to the NZ response to the pandemic.

No, the Home Office doesn't publish a breakdown by nationality for people who were covid stranded and needed to apply for further leave because of that. My primary concern isn't economic either: there will have been some cost in making provision as the exceptional assurance applications were free, but it wasn't really what I was thinking of.

I'm also concerned not just about Kiwis who were stranded in the UK but Kiwis who were in that position everywhere in the world. It may be that there are other countries who do provide that data, but I wouldn't necessarily be able to read it if eg France do, for obvious reasons.

As for the other things that NZ has contributed to the UK, well they don't count in a discussion specifically about the behaviour of the NZ government towards her own citizens and the decision to offload responsibility for a portion of them, no. They count as important things in themselves. The human beings who were pointlessly slaughtered in WW1 should be acknowledged and remembered forever. The ones from NZ deserve better than being used to justify the government deciding they were fine to deny the right of access to a cohort of their fellow Kiwis a century later.

CheekyHobson · 18/02/2022 18:56

I will also point out that the resources of the NZ Government when it comes to repatriation etc, are not really comparable with those of the UK.

Also that the vast amount of dissatisfaction with the NZ border closures has come not from people wishing to permanently repatriate, but from people wanting to visit.

mbosnz · 18/02/2022 18:57

But your main argument has been how dare NZ impose the cost of its citizens on other countries. That no longer counts, when we talk about about what NZ contributes on the world platform, as opposed to what it takes.

My primary concern is NZ, and NZ'ers. Therefore, I can understand the measures taken, given our limited resources when it comes to hospital care. I can (more than) empathise with the feelings of desperation and homesickness of being elsewhere, rather than there, but I can also understand the reasoning and motivations, and the actions therefore taken.

SquirrelG · 18/02/2022 19:03

The argument about NZ not being the business of people elsewhere doesn't work, not when part of NZ's pandemic response has involved expecting the rest of the world to accommodate a chunk of their citizens until such a time as they felt like taking responsibility again.

Andd this affects you personally how? Surely the majority of NZers who are wanting to get back at this stage are people who are living overseas and had been for some time. From what I have seen on various forums they are wanting to get back to visit family/friends rather than returning to live, so how is the rest of the world having to accomodate them such a big issue?

Once again, a thread about a totally unrelated topic has come back to NZers stranded overseas. It is getting beyond boring.

MarchCrocus · 18/02/2022 19:05

@mbosnz

But your main argument has been how dare NZ impose the cost of its citizens on other countries. That no longer counts, when we talk about about what NZ contributes on the world platform, as opposed to what it takes.

My primary concern is NZ, and NZ'ers. Therefore, I can understand the measures taken, given our limited resources when it comes to hospital care. I can (more than) empathise with the feelings of desperation and homesickness of being elsewhere, rather than there, but I can also understand the reasoning and motivations, and the actions therefore taken.

Actually, my main argument is that NZ have behaved badly towards a cohort of their citizens, and that the importance of this needs to be understood. This is where my professional concerns stem from, I really don't like it when states decide they can just fuck off the rights of citizenship when they feel like it. The sense of entitlement at the heart of this policy, and the attitude of some of the defenders who fail to notice it then minimise it when it gets pointed out, is a distant second.

But let's focus only on what NZ has unilaterally obliged the rest of the world to take on. The stranded Kiwis who were not confined to countries where NZ has historically provided thousands of soldiers to fight in wars, nor to places with the level of resources available in the UK. Some of them have been in countries with worse healthcare than NZ. But that was acceptable, apparently.

MarchCrocus · 18/02/2022 19:07

@SquirrelG

The argument about NZ not being the business of people elsewhere doesn't work, not when part of NZ's pandemic response has involved expecting the rest of the world to accommodate a chunk of their citizens until such a time as they felt like taking responsibility again.

Andd this affects you personally how? Surely the majority of NZers who are wanting to get back at this stage are people who are living overseas and had been for some time. From what I have seen on various forums they are wanting to get back to visit family/friends rather than returning to live, so how is the rest of the world having to accomodate them such a big issue?

Once again, a thread about a totally unrelated topic has come back to NZers stranded overseas. It is getting beyond boring.

Whether it personally affects me or not is completely immaterial to the fact that your argument was wrong. Had you not attempted to suggest that this was somehow not the business of those outside NZ despite the government having made it so, you wouldn't have had to be corrected and this boredom you're experiencing could've been avoided.
mbosnz · 18/02/2022 19:10

I really do think that NZ behaved pragmatically towards a cohort of its citizens. Them what was overseas, outside their borders, who took themselves beyond their governance and protection (we're four of them).

I wonder, are you so altruistic, or actually more concerned about you and yours situation? It's a bit of a problem, when we act globally, and think locally, I'll give you that.

CheekyHobson · 18/02/2022 19:21

The stranded Kiwis

I'm unclear exactly what is being meant by 'stranded' here.

Does it mean people who have been living overseas, but now want/need to move back to NZ and and have in the interim had visas expire and have no jobs or savings to support themselves, so are reliant on the support of overseas governments? I imagine this is not a terribly big cohort.

Does it mean people who chose to travel overseas for a holiday (under full warning that borders might close again at any time) and now can't get back in a timely manner? Again, I don't imagine this is a very big cohort.

Or does it include people who are not technically 'stranded' but who can't visit within the time-frame they want?

Is your suggestion that the first two groups of people should have been prioritised for MIQ spaces ahead of NZers wanting to come purely to visit friends and family or for business purposes?

If so, I quite agree, but as you can see from the thread already, there would likely have been massive howls of outrage from the denied holidaymakers ("But I'm a New Zealander too and have exactly the same right to return as any other citizen!") if the government adopted this policy.

CheekyHobson · 18/02/2022 19:22

I really don't like it when states decide they can just fuck off the rights of citizenship when they feel like it

A global pandemic is not really a "just coz we feel like it" situation though, no?

mbosnz · 18/02/2022 19:26

CheekyHobson, I'm a Kiwi 'stranded' overseas. It will now be five years before we can realistically, reliably go back. It's shit. Our mothers are 85. We came over here, relocated. We promised the girls we'd be back in two years. Whoops!

I fully support the measures NZ put in place. But please, do not underestimate or deny our suffering (yeah, scoff, I know, but you know what it's like that first breath of NZ air when you get off the plane) from not being able to go home.

CheekyHobson · 18/02/2022 19:51

CheekyHobson, I'm a Kiwi 'stranded' overseas. It will now be five years before we can realistically, reliably go back. It's shit. Our mothers are 85. We came over here, relocated. We promised the girls we'd be back in two years. Whoops!

I fully support the measures NZ put in place. But please, do not underestimate or deny our suffering (yeah, scoff, I know, but you know what it's like that first breath of NZ air when you get off the plane) from not being able to go home.

I'm not scoffing at anyone. But I'm confused by your post. Do you mean you can't move back permanently for five years?

I can understand that if you made a promise to visit your elderly parents regularly and now can't make good on that, it's very disappointing (though I would say that the border closures will round out at exactly 2 years, so you've only barely missed that date). I'm not scoffing at anyone's distress.

But many people seem to feel that if they can't acquire a highly-in-demand MIQ space in order to return for a visit, the NZ government has failed them as a citizen. And I just don't agree with that.

In order to accommodate everyone wanting to come back for a visit, the government would have had to provide facility for tens of thousands of MIQ spaces every month. It's just completely impractical. The alternative would have been to open borders and accept many thousands of deaths among people who live here permanently (including, in high likelihood, my highly immune-compromised parents) before vaccines and treatments progressed to the level we have now, and the virus evolved to a less severe variant.

It sucks. I do know that. But almost none of the people moaning most loudly seem to be able to offer any realistic alternative. Not you – you seem to understand it. But from many, many posters seem to take the perspective of "Sure, maybe your family members may have died so that I could visit mine. But that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."

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