“I wouldn’t describe it that way, there is an impact that people are feeling undeniably but I wouldn’t describe it in that way,” Ardern told AM.
‘Really irked me’: Kiwis hit back after PM declines to call cost of living spike a crisis (msn.com)
No doubt this statement repudiating the cost-of-living crisis will be added to the impressive collection of quotable quotes and drivel from this foolish, dangerous, and supremely unkind PM. If nothing else, it is an ungrammatical and ridiculous sentence. She doesn’t have the nous to admit the enormous stress that the current cost of living crisis places on those who don’t have a cool half-million-dollar annual income plus benefits.
The head nodding, frowny faces and arm waving of her execrable body language are not selling us anything but distrust and hurt – with more of both on a daily basis. She is so far out of touch with the population and the hurts of everyday life as to be an oligarch: tyrannical and mandating public obedience.
“In the early 20th century Robert Michels developed the theory that democracies, like all large organizations, tend to turn into oligarchies. In his “Iron law of oligarchy” he suggests that the necessary division of labour in large organizations leads to the establishment of a ruling class mostly concerned with protecting their own power.”
Oligarchy – Wikipedia.
Michels Iron Law of Oligarchy Microsoft Word – chapter 7 supplement.docx (csun.edu) makes interesting reading as Michels “came to the conclusion that the Socialists did not live up to their own ideals”.
The PM’s privileged position of power and wealth allows her to airily dismiss the concerns of others. She does not ever have to worry about the cost of a jar of Vegemite for Neve’s lunchtime sandwich. She does not have to concern herself with the likelihood of no school shoes for her daughter when her growing feet are crunching into the toes of her existing shoes and winter is not too far away. Neve will never go without lunch or new shoes. The PM will always have fuel and the power bill is of no consequence to her at all. Ms Ardern has never had to be bothered about such issues and so can dismiss them as not being the reality that thousands are now facing for a third winter. “…there is an impact that people are feeling undeniably”…but she “wouldn’t describe it that way.” Well, just which way would she describe it?
“Kiwis are currently spending, on average, an extra $4000 to $5000 in the past 12 months on basics such as food, rent and fuel. The majority of the increase is on fuel, with an average spike of $678 per year at the pump.”
Kiwis tell PM Jacinda Ardern why the cost of living is a ‘crisis’ in viral Reddit thread | Newshub
“Inflation is at 6 percent. Fruit and vegetable prices were 15 percent higher in January this year compared to 2021. The national median rent climbed 6 percent in 12 months to reach a record $570 and unleaded petrol has topped $3 per litre.”
PM mocks Luxon’s proposed $2 extra a week for $40k earners but pressure mounts to admit ‘cost of living crisis’ (msn.com)
Is this situation the Labour Government’s Achilles heel? Its point of weakness and vulnerability? Now that Christopher Luxon has raised the topic, it will not go away.
“Luxon said New Zealand has a cost of living ‘crisis’ and the government needs to stop its ‘tax grab’. He said people were struggling with inflation at a three-decade high. ‘We’ve got prices rising twice as fast as wages and we’ve got Kiwi families being worse off than they were 12 months ago.’”
cost of living crisis Nation NZ – Search (bing.com)
Jacinda Ardern had no problem wading into a foreign issue but consistently refused to speak to the domestic distressed on Parliament’s front lawn: our front lawn. Her behaviour, and that of all other parties, was contemptible. The protesters may have been removed but their protest was effective and already the PM is backtracking on isolation times and opening the country up – carefully timed in order to appear completely coincidental rather than in response to the protest.
Across town, Vladimir Putin must be quaking in his fur-lined boots at such a telling off by the stern head-prefect of this small country at the bottom of the globe. And Nanaia Mahuta must really have gotten the Russians nervous with her “clear message that New Zealand is not a safe haven.” And in place of mandates, sanctions. How worried must they be? Fewer than one hundred people and less than forty million dollars involved here – and some vodka. But Putin has said they don’t want to be friends anyway and have placed New Zealand on a list as an “unfriendly country”.
The irony is that this country is no longer a safe haven for its own people.
The PM required the Parliament protesters to be pepper-sprayed, water cannoned, shot at with rubber bullets, to have their belongings destroyed, to be wrestled to the ground, and to be arrested by a stooge police force in full riot gear. She allowed people to be described by a Minister as “rivers of filth”. People were subjected to noise and water torture by the Speaker of the House, a lame duck on a slide to nowhere. New Zealand was definitely not a safe haven for the protesters. It is fine, it seems, for the PM to use her might against New Zealanders. “They are not us,” she may as well have said.
Compare her recent heartless response to the protesters with how she handled the Christchurch massacre.
“People have remarked upon the way we’ve responded, but to me there was no question. You need to remove some of the politics sometimes and just think about humanity. That’s all.”
Not a lot of thought was given to the humanity of the protesters.
And this gem…
“We may have left flowers, performed the haka, sung songs or simply embraced. But even when we had no words, we still heard yours, and they have left us humbled and they have left us united.”
8 Statements of Empathy by NZ’s Jacinda Ardern on Christchurch attacks – Listen without Prejudice
She felt no humility and heard no words from the singing protesters, nor does she now for her people facing an everyday, real, cost of living crisis, and one significantly of her making. We are not united.
“The answer,” she said of Christchurch, “lies in our humanity.”
Really Ms Ardern? She is right about one thing: the answer is in her lies. She does not give a damn for those who she has hurt and damaged. She has no humanity.
Covid was and remains a heaven-sent opportunity for the PM and her underhand agenda: the Covid smokescreen. It will be interesting to see how much longer she can spin this out in the face of some realistic National Party opposition and push-back against inflation and the government’s tax grab, as well as the cost-of-living crisis so swiftly and callously ‘refuted’ by the PM.