New Zealand leader Jacinda Ardern says while there was no timeframe on plans for a trans-Tasman travel bubble that would include Australia, the rise in Covid-19 cases in Victoria means it won't happen for some time to come. Once hopeful of including other countries in the Pacific region in the travel bubble, Ardern has confirmed New Zealand's borders will remain closed until the risk of coronavirus entering the country through visitors can be minimised. 'We wish Victoria all the very best as they continue to combat what is a devastating situation,' she said, 'but I think the reality for both of us is this is going to slow things down for us'
Continue reading...Category Archives: New Zealand
‘I’m going nowhere but up’: Winston Peters on populism, politics and the polls
Veteran politician, who is being aided by Brexiteers Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore, is bullish about New Zealand First’s chances at the election
“When you talk about populism, let me ask you this question,” says Winston Peters, the MP who has at times been in a position to handpick who will lead New Zealand. “In your profession or mine: who wants to be unpopular?”
The eccentric veteran politician – rich-voiced and finely-tailored – has held seats in New Zealand’s parliament since 1979 with only two breaks from his time in office, advancing his minor party on a platform of curbing immigration, benefits for pensioners, and exhortations to “common sense”.
Continue reading...Sowing doubt: people around world receive mystery seed parcels
Packages marked as ‘earrings’ spark biosecurity concerns and global investigations into origins
There is not much that Jan Goward does not grow in her small Eastbourne garden. “I grow everything,” she says. “I’ve got the exotics: the aubergines, the chillies …”
But some mystery seeds she received in the post this week – ostensibly from Singapore, and marked as stud earrings – will not be joining them.
Continue reading...Free but restless, Behrouz Boochani takes tentative first steps into new life
Kurdish Iranian journalist is adapting to quietness and isolation of New Zealand after six years of struggle
It’s the middle of the day in a sleepy, affluent suburb of Christchurch and Kurdish Iranian refugee Behrouz Boochani is burning lunch.
It has been seven months since he arrived in New Zealand and the subtleties of cooking elude his grasp – and interest. His large house down the road from the University of Canterbury has a bachelor-pad vibe. Books are stacked untidily on every surface, and two broken heaters sit on the floor beside a heat pump turned to max.
Continue reading...As cases surge, we must learn from past mistakes | Letters
At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the government failed to heed warnings from other countries, writes Giselle Green – it must not do so again. Plus letters from Phil Coughlin, Geoff Naylor, Heather Massie and David Wilkinson
Instead of waiting to see which countries experience a surge in coronavirus cases, I would hope that the government is actively looking into the reasons why. Among the factors being blamed for Spain’s spike are “a rush out of lockdown, opening the borders, patchy compliance with physical distancing, and inadequate contact tracing”, with outbreaks emerging from bars and clubs, and seasonal fruit and vegetable pickers (Why are travellers to the UK from Spain being asked to quarantine?, 28 July). With the exception of reopening nightclubs, it appears we are making the same mistakes as our Spanish neighbours. Right at the start of the pandemic we ignored the lessons of other countries, with devastating consequences. Let’s not do so again.
Giselle Green
London
• You report that scientists are “concerned” and “anxious” that a surge in Covid-19 infections in the coming winter months could be exacerbated by “normal winter illnesses” (Covid-19 new cases and deaths will remain high for weeks, warn UK health leaders, 29 July). I wonder if they have taken into account that the measures taken to control Covid-19, such as social distancing, hand washing and use of face masks, should be equally effective at reducing the spread of winter coughs, colds and flu, which hopefully may result in a less cataclysmic winter than they are forecasting.
Phil Coughlin
Houghton-le-Spring, Tyne and Wear
New Zealand’s relationship with China is at a tipping point | Anne-Marie Brady
More needs to be done to limit Beijing’s political interference and any short-term damage will be worth it in the long run
This week New Zealand announced it was suspending its extradition treaty with Hong Kong as a result of Hong Kong’s new national security law. At the same time, NZ changed its policy on military and dual-use goods and technology exports to Hong Kong, subjecting the city to the same as the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The New Zealand government also issued a travel warning to New Zealanders on the risks of travelling to Hong Kong.
In a statement, Wellington said it “can no longer trust that Hong Kong’s criminal justice system is sufficiently independent from China.” No explanation was given for the suspension of sensitive technology exports.
Continue reading...Beloved Eel McPherson disappears from New Zealand pond during massive storm
Owners hope the friendly shortfin eel, which delighted children in Whangārei for 35 years, made it out to sea during deluge
A shortfin eel named Eel McPherson, who was beloved by a New Zealand city for 35 years, has bid bon voyage to its backyard pool and disappeared during a once-in-500-years flood.
The eel was kept by a Whangārei man, George Campbell, for decades – first at a fish museum that he ran during the 1990s and later at his home – said Campbell’s granddaughter, Alyce Charlesworth.
Continue reading...‘We were the luckiest people in the world’: our month on the last lockdown cruise
On 1 March, photographer Jon Tonks left New Zealand on a Pacific cruise. Twenty eight days later, the boat docked in San Diego, amid a pandemic. What happened in between?
The cruise ship MS Maasdam left New Zealand on the evening of 1 March, steaming out of Auckland’s Waitemata harbour into the Hauraki Gulf, where it headed north. The route was to San Diego via Fiji, the Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Hawaii. On board the Holland America Line ship were around 1,200 passengers, including Americans, Britons, Canadians, Australians and French holidaymakers. The 542 crew included Dutch, Americans, Germans, Venezuelans and Filipinos. There were also a handful of entertainers and guest lecturers along for the ride, including Jon Tonks, a portrait photographer from Bath, who ended up with a portrait of a cruise that didn’t go to plan.
Covid-19 was certainly a thing at the beginning of March, but it was still considered mainly a China thing. The Maasdam wouldn’t be going anywhere near China. Questionnaires were handed to passengers, about symptoms and where they’d been before, but then they were good to go. Still, Tonks says that friends had joked before he left: “Good luck on your corona cruise.”
Continue reading...Behrouz Boochani granted refugee status in New Zealand
Exclusive: Journalist who became the voice of the victims of Australia’s punitive detention system granted a visa after seven-year ordeal
Behrouz Boochani, the Kurdish Iranian exile and journalist who became the voice of those incarcerated on Manus Island, has had his refugee status formally recognised by New Zealand, and granted a visa to live there.
He said he finally felt secure “knowing that I have a future”.
Continue reading...Two sex scandals in a week: New Zealand faces reckoning over MPs’ behaviour
Exits of an MP and a minister might signal a new attitude in a nation where politicians’ private lives have traditionally been off-limits
After a New Zealand MP quit and a minister was fired in successive days over allegations of sexual misconduct or inappropriate relationships, New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, was asked by a reporter whether it was “open season” on any member of parliament who had “ever had an affair”.
“I don’t want to get drawn into hypotheticals,” Ardern replied as she faced questions about the sacking of Iain Lees-Galloway, her minister of workplace relations and safety, over his workplace relationship with a former staffer in his office.
Continue reading...Australian trainee doctors distressed after exam postponed by Covid-19 suddenly rescheduled
Exclusive: some say it’s ‘unfathomable’ to only have three months to prepare for the Royal Australasian College of Physicians exam amid a heavy pandemic workload
Hundreds of trainee physicians who were told an exam they must pass to be eligible for specialist training would be deferred until 2021 due to Covid-19 are distressed after the Royal Australasian College of Physicians said on Monday the exam will in fact be held in about three months’ time.
The decision will affect around 700-800 physician trainees in Australia and around 100 in New Zealand who are eligible to sit the exam, which involves a written and clinical component.
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern sacks New Zealand minister following his affair with staffer – video
New Zealand's prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has fired her immigration minister after being told he had engaged in a 12-month-affair with a staffer in his office.
Iain Lees-Galloway's affair took place over a 12-month period and Ardern was concerned that an abuse of power may have taken place.
Continue reading...I want to vote in the New Zealand election – but cost and Covid-19 make it harder for expats | Elle Hunt
The country’s requirement that expats must visit at least once every three years should be reviewed in these changed times
Early last year, in what now seems like another world, I nabbed bargain flights from London to Sydney. My parents were already there, visiting, so my sisters flew from Wellington to join us.
We spent a pleasant two weeks together, with the unspoken understanding that it would be another couple of years before we saw each other again – such was the frequency of visits I’d fallen into since leaving New Zealand in 2015.
Continue reading...Willpower v kindness: could Judith Collins crush Jacinda Ardern at the New Zealand election? | Grant Duncan for the Conversation
Two months out from the polls, the new National leader is hoping to come from behind by painting her popular rival as all appearance and little substance
The starting gates in New Zealand’s 19 September election race are finally full. Labour’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern is the bookies’ favourite and the opposition took a long time to settle.
All the same, punters may still want to hedge their bets.
Continue reading...New Zealand scientists invent volcano warning system
Researchers claim system could save lives in situations like the Whakaari/White Island eruption in 2019, which killed 21 people
New Zealand scientists say they have invented a warning system to predict volcanic eruptions that may prevent future tragedies such as the blast that killed 21 people on White Island/Whakaari in 2019.
University of Auckland academics David Dempsey and Shane Cronin say their research “shows patterns of seismic activity before an eruption that make advance warning possible”.
Continue reading...If anyone can demand New Zealand’s National party pull its socks up, it is Judith Collins | Claire Robinson
Only once in the past hundred years has a party formed government after changing leader in an election year, but that was Ardern in 2017
According to conventional wisdom, it’s electoral suicide for political parties to change leaders in an (ordinary) election year. But what about in extraordinary election years? And what about changing leaders twice in the midst of the first global pandemic and recession in a hundred years? When the much-needed rule book is written on this, central to its exposition will be whether Judith Collins, the New Zealand National party’s fifth leader in four years, was able to pull off one of the biggest upsets in the country’s electoral history.
Only once in the past hundred years has a party formed a government after changing its leader in an election year, and that was three years ago in 2017. Confronted with his party in opinion poll freefall, then Labour leader Andrew Little stood aside seven weeks from election day to see if his more publicly popular deputy, Jacinda Ardern, would be able to stem the flow of voters leaving it for the Green party. It was an audacious move, and it paid off.
Continue reading...Robot dolphins: the cruelty-free £20m ‘animal’ you can’t tell from the real thing
Creators say robot dolphins provide an alternative to keeping cetaceans in captivity and could be rolled out in Chinese aquariums
They can respond to questions, swim happily in shopping mall display tanks, and withstand close contact that would usually be harmful to real animals – without any ethical problems. And they could soon be coming to aquariums in China.
Entrepreneurs in New Zealand are working with American creators of some of Hollywood’s most famous creatures to develop animatronic dolphins that look almost identical to their living counterparts.
Continue reading...Christchurch mosque attacker to represent himself at sentencing
Australian man who pleaded guilty to 51 counts of murder will be sentenced in August
The Australian man who pleaded guilty to killing 51 Muslims in a terrorist attack in Christchurch in March 2019 has chosen to represent himself at his sentencing next month.
Brenton Tarrant pleaded guilty in March to 51 counts of murder, 40 of attempted murder and a terrorism charge after dozens of worshippers were gunned down at two mosques in New Zealand last year.
Continue reading...Helen Clark: WHO coronavirus inquiry aims to ‘stop the world being blindsided again’
Former New Zealand prime minister says WHO director general said during early days he was ‘screaming every day but no one is listening’
A former prime minister of New Zealand whose leadership was defined by stability and thoroughness has been appointed to investigate if the World Health Organization failed to adequately warn of the coronavirus pandemic.
In global circles, Helen Clark became known as a “fighter” and has described the WHO investigation as “exceptionally challenging” and a “very tough gig”, given the review would be conducted in the midst of a pandemic. Speaking to the Guardian from her home in Auckland, Clark said she had to start immediately – “before another pandemic is upon us”.
Continue reading...New Zealand: man cuts through fence to escape Covid-19 quarantine and buy alcohol
Man in his 50s is the third person to abscond during quarantine, as the nation battles with influx of returning citizens
New Zealand’s government has revealed that a third person has absconded from a managed isolation facility, saying a man cut through a fence so that he could go to buy some alcohol.
On Wednesday a man, aged in his 30s absconded from his managed quarantine hotel in central Auckland to visit a supermarket and later tested positive for coronavirus. It came after a woman jumped over a hedge to get out of quarantine. Later, she got lost and asked a passing policeman for directions back to her hotel.
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