It has been a challenge to remember what a normal political scene looks like, but how good is boring right now?
As countries around the world experience a resurgence in Covid-19, New Zealand has once again contained the virus, making its election cycle something close to normal, and also a tad ridiculous.
It was already a bit ridiculous.
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins both bring B-game to seemingly interminable show
Are we there yet? Is it election day? Is it possible to bring the date forward a little bit from 17 October? Not by too much – things have to be put in place, pens secured to pieces of string and the like. How’s tomorrow?
Election fatigue hit hard during Tuesday night’s leaders’ debate. It was a long programme. It could have been worse: it could still be going. Mind you, it feels like it still is and always will be; that the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and the opposition leader, Judith Collins, will go at it unhappily ever after in front of a live audience in a dark room in Christchurch.
Continue reading...Scientists say hotter and longer summers make such an unusually fierce fire more likely
A bushfire that destroyed most of a village in New Zealand’s South Island has sparked a fierce debate between high-country farmers and conservationists, as those affected struggle to understand the unusually fierce nature of the blaze.
Lake Ōhau village is located at the foothills of the Ben Ohau mountain range, and is home to just 15 permanent residents but its numbers swell significantly during the holiday season. On Sunday morning, a fire tore through the foothills and into the village, forcing 90 people to evacuate.
Continue reading...New Zealand’s largest city to move to level 1 as Jacinda Ardern says there is 95% probability Auckland cluster is eliminated
Coronavirus restrictions in New Zealand’s largest city will be lifted this week, prime minister Jacinda Ardern said, as she expressed confidence a second wave of Covid-19 infections in Auckland has been almost eliminated.
The city will move to alert level 1 from 11.59pm on Wednesday, joining the rest of the country, after reporting no new cases in the Auckland cluster for 10 consecutive days.
Continue reading...A tongue-in-cheek campaign is urging eligible overseas New Zealanders to vote in this month’s general election. Here’s how easy – and important – it is
Two weeks out from the election, New Zealanders based overseas are being called on to make their voice heard by the “team of 5 million” back home.
Every Kiwi Vote Counts, a new non-partisan initiative, is seeking to increase low turnout among overseas voters with a tongue-in-cheek social media campaign encouraging Kiwis offshore to “meddle” in their election.
Continue reading...New Zealand's prime minister has wished the US president and his wife a rapid recovery after they were diagnosed with Covid-19 on Friday. She said the virus had had a 'devastating impact' globally and noted that several world leaders had been taken ill with it
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern says her country will not open up until Australia records a month without community transmission of Covid-19
New Zealand will not reciprocate quarantine-free trips across the Tasman as the Australian Capital Territory joins Australia’s travel bubble with the country.
On Friday, Australia’s deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, announced New South Wales and the Northern Territory would allow Kiwis to bypass the compulsory fortnight of quarantine on arrival from 16 October.
Continue reading...The Mana Motuhake policy is a 25-year plan to improve the outcomes of whānau Māori that the mainstream major parties have failed to deliver on
In an election campaign that has so far been largely a bidding contest over who can fund the most “shovel-ready projects”, create the most jobs and support the most apprentices post-Covid, many commentators have bemoaned the absence of any visionary debate about the type of New Zealand we want to become.
It was therefore refreshing to see the Māori party announce its Mana Motuhake policy this week. As far as timing goes, the policy hasn’t gained a lot of media attention. The news has been dominated by the Serious Fraud Office’s charging of two individuals in connection with the New Zealand First Foundation, a new poll and the second leaders’ debate. Many also think the Māori party is inconsequential in 2020, sitting only on 1–1.5% party vote support in public opinion polls, and not looking like they are going to win back any electorate seats.
Continue reading...The government will announce tax and deregulation measures on Friday, as declining Covid-19 cases offer hope for economic revival. Follow all today’s news
Labor’s Julie Collins has responded to the aged care royal commission’s Covid response report:
I am sure the public will have very little confidence that this government, or the minister, is up to implementing these recommendations by 1 December because what we have seen is that when it came to the royal commission’s interim report, very unusual of a royal commission to actually issue an interim report, the very first recommendation – the first one was to fix the home care wait list.
Here we are 12 months later, [and there are] still [more than] 100,000 older Australians waiting for home care.
Linda Burney was on ABC Queensland radio talking about the people the jobseeker changes were going to affect the most.
It’s your mum, your grandmother, or their friends.
The reduction in the jobseeker allowance is going to disproportionately affect older women, particularly women who are over 60.
And it’s very hard for those women to find a job because you face age discrimination. All those – all those issues, of course, that we are familiar with older people trying to get a job.
Related: 'It's degrading': Australians on the poverty line brace for pain after jobseeker cuts
Continue reading...New Zealand and the United States both had leaders' debates this week, and some political junkies noticed a distinct difference in tone. In New Zealand, where the Labour leader and incumbent prime minister Jacinda Ardern faced off against National leader Judith Collins, the pair exchanged compliments in a debate described by Collins as 'robust and a win for politics'. Meanwhile, in America, president Donald Trump's attacks on his Democratic rival Joe Biden turned highly person
Quickfire questions led to dope-smoking and Trump-admiring revelations from Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins
Queen Street! The main shopping drag in New Zealand’s biggest city, a valley that rolls down towards the harbour in downtown Auckland, is hanging in there, just, even in these stay-at-home Covid days, as someplace fun and weird and chaotic – rare virtues in New Zealand life at the best of times – after dark.
True, the only joint to get a feed after 9pm is up the hill at Denny’s. And one of the few signs of commerce is the homeless man with his cardboard sign reading: “Let’s beat Covid. We can do this. Please give me money.”
Continue reading...New Zealand's prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has admitted to using cannabis 'a long time ago', in a heated televised debate with the opposition leader, Judith Collins.
Speaking during the 90-minute debate on Newshub, the Labour leader and incumbent PM chose not to disclose how she would vote in the forthcoming cannabis referendum, drawing ire from her opponent, the National party leader
Continue reading...Vodafone and communications agency DDB respond after calls on companies to use the reo term
One of New Zealand’s biggest telecommunications companies has heeded an exhortation to use the country’s original, Indigenous name of Aotearoa, joining others that have pledged to use more reo, the Māori language, or tikanga – protocols – in their daily business operations.
Earlier this week Vodafone – which has about 2,000 New Zealand employees – confirmed it had changed its banner at the top of users’ phones from “Vodafone NZ” to “VF Aotearoa”. The company gave short shrift to those on social media who complained about the change. Rival companies backed the move.
Continue reading...If the country is to honour the pandemic’s spirit of collective solidarity there must be a genuine commitment to healthcare and education
New Zealand’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been a master-class in inclusive communication. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described the country as a “team of six million”. The top public health official, Ashley Bloomfield, said: “The virus is the problem, not people ... people are the solution”.
But the policies arising out of the pandemic, especially in the run-up to New Zealand’s election on 17 October, have not always been as inclusive as the communication. There’s a mismatch between universalist rhetoric in the pandemic response, and policy offerings that seem to give up on universalism in public services.
Continue reading...Melbourne’s stage four restrictions ease as Victoria records three deaths and five new Covid cases and NSW reports zero. Follow live
A man who had been deported to New Zealand, and who was in isolation at a government-run quarantine hotel, is under investigation by the police after he tied bed sheets together to escape the facility from a fourth floor window.
All travellers returning to the country – only New Zealanders and their families, plus others with special exemptions are allowed to pass through its borders – must spend two weeks in mandatory isolation, during which they are tested twice for Covid-19.
I am going to leave you in the very capable hands of Naaman Zhou for the rest of the afternoon shift.
There have been quite a few messages today – I am slowly working my way through them – but if you have anything else to say, or I missed you, you can contact me here and here.
Continue reading...‘Pidge’ disappeared from Rainbow Springs in New Zealand in 1996 and was not seen again before his return in August
He might not have had the best homing instincts. But a New Zealand native pigeon – or kererū – named Pidge made it back, eventually, to the place of his hatching after 24 years missing in the wild.
Pidge, who was hand-reared at Rainbow Springs – a wildlife and nature park in Rotorua, on New Zealand’s North Island – disappeared in 1996 and was not seen again before his return in August. That would make the bird, identified by a numbered band on his leg, 29 years old; most references list kererū lifespans as between 15 and 25 years.
Continue reading...Both major parties are pinning their hopes on jobs for the boys to lead the post-coronavirus economic recovery
Some may have heard the terms “shecession” or “pink recession”; words associated with the worldwide trend for pandemic-related job and income losses to affect women more than men. In New Zealand, we saw it in the June quarter unemployment figures. Ninety percent of the 11,000 New Zealanders who had at lost their jobs due to Covid-19 were women.
These statistics were shocking but perhaps not surprising. New Zealand’s early pandemic response was gendered when it came to which industries were, and weren’t, considered “essential”. In the highest alert levels (3 and 4) work in the personal care industries (hairdressers, manicurists, beauticians, domestic cleaners, personal trainers, gymnasiums) – largely done by women – was not allowed. Business owners and workers in these industries were told they could not offer services which involved face-to-face or sustained close personal contact; the risk of Covid transmission was too great.
Continue reading...Pacific nation has strong links to New Zealand, but languishes a day behind it as a result of the somewhat arbitrary international dateline
Some on Niue want to travel through time.
The lone Pacific island, one of the smallest nations on Earth, is considering jumping west across the international dateline, to come forward in time, almost a full day.
Continue reading...Labour’s Covid policies and popularity means the opposition is effectively cornered when it comes to presenting a different choice to voters
Its record on eliminating Covid-19 and bringing a second outbreak under control has drawn praise for New Zealand from around the world. Now, the centre-left Labour party, led by the wildly popular Jacinda Ardern, faces an election bolstered by their success in containing the virus – but darkened by the shadow of the country’s worst recession in years.
At the polls on 17 October, voters will be asked to choose between slightly different approaches to who would be allowed to enter the country, whether border quarantine should be government-managed or partially privatised, and the best economic recipe to recover from the pandemic.
Continue reading...PM widely expected to beat challenger in October but both criticised after ‘muddled’ exchanges
The first election debate between the New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and the opposition leader, Judith Collins, went off without a bang, with both leaders failing to properly ignite.
Ardern is widely expected to win the election on 17 October. In a Colmar Brunton poll released an hour before the debate, her Labour party garnered 48% as preferred leaders, compared with 31% for the National party.
Continue reading...