Jacinda Ardern continues to demonstrate her inability to handle the Covid situation in a way that shows an understanding of business, an empathy with those wanting to return home and an admission that both their MIQ booking system and the facilities are dogs. As we got no apology concerning the slow vaccine rollout I don’t expect any admissions of failure. In fact, Grant Robertson on ZB with HDPA indicated everything was going perfectly when it is obvious to most people that MIQ is a complete and utter shambles.
Covid is again showing up this Government for who and what they are. They are simply incapable of putting in place strategies to ensure a smooth running of any of the operations of their portfolio responsibilities. Covid is a glaring example. As we know, “hard and early” has meant slow and late. Figures from the OECD prove it. All the myriad of lame excuses offered doesn’t change the fact. Saliva testing should have been provided months ago as a simple alternative to invasive nasal swabs.
I read in the ‘fiercely independent’ NZ Herald, once I’d got past the pathetic article to do with Judith Collins and an ice cream, a piece asking why there are 18,500 hotel rooms going unused. The booking system to start with is manifestly unfair. To play with people’s lives by instituting what amounts to MIQ-Lotto is truly abhorrent.
Maurice Williamson had the right idea. Those who have been waiting the longest should go to the front of the queue, along with those needing to get home urgently. A friend of our daughter had to fly to England due to a family emergency. She left her husband back here and now can’t get back herself. Ardern’s idea of kindness is hypocritical and quite frankly sickening. They won’t look at Maurice’s idea, even if they think it’s a good one, because it wasn’t their idea. They are playing politics with other people’s lives.
The endless dreary advertisements lecturing us on getting tested and vaccinated have become a turnoff. This is another example of the lack of understanding of this government, this time in terms of marketing. It is also another example of wasting taxpayers’ money. How about some creative thinking about incentives to get people vaccinated, particularly Maori, but applying across the board. Set up in a car park adjacent to a KFC. In return for a jab you get a KFC voucher. You could run something along the lines of “don’t be chicken, get a jab and eat some”.
Level 4 in Auckland has been nothing short of a joke. Why? Because people are totally over it and observing all the silly rules has gone out the window. People have been partying like there’s no tomorrow. Barry Soper talked about it in his area and it has been happening with students in my area. That is according to my neighbour who, listening to the podium of truth yesterday, I’m not supposed to be talking to. When is this woman going to grow up and start treating us like adults?
Traffic volumes at the weekend – 500 in one hour past our place in semi-rural Auckland – and thousands at the beach should have sent a message. But no, don’t talk to your neighbour is the message along with a hundred other nonsensical diktats. The whole shebang has been a disaster from the start and has now turned into a complete farce. Shakespeare’s ‘Comedy of Errors’ springs to mind. What is required now is a quick rollout of saliva testing, incentives for getting vaccinated, freeing up of vacant hotel rooms and a properly organised booking system.
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