[Politics] Jacinda Arden

[schmunk]

Horrible woman. Her and that Krankie woman to the north of us make a right pair.

Not a fan of strong, opinionated women?

 

[Deleted member 22389]

New Zealand population 5M. No wonder they have had an easier time of it than us and other countries.

 

[Deleted member 22389]

You have no evidence at all that would be the case.

Running a remote island on the other side of the world with a tiny population is a totally different thing to densely populated countries of 60m plus population with shared borders. The comparisons are nonsense.

 

[wellquickwoody]

NZ is in the middle of nowhere with less than a third of London’s population.

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5 million v 9 million

 

[Lower West Stander]

5 million v 9 million

Ok - and that changes my point. How?

 

[wellquickwoody]

and they've managed to lead relatively normal lives over the last couple of years, with the odd lockdown here or there, but much more open than us.

Incorrect.

Multiple lockdowns strictly enforced. My employer is NZ owned, and they have had it tough. Not so much with COVID, but the restrictions. At one point it was one visit to the supermarket per week for a decent amount, and two shorter visits in between. Ona of their staff flew into Melbourne early December, he will not be allowed back until May.

 

[wellquickwoody]

Ok - and that changes my point. How?

In real terms not much, just thought it might help you to be less condescending.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

New Zealand population 5M. No wonder they have had an easier time of it than us and other countries.

Closing airports and not allowing thousands of Italian football fans into Liverpool also helps. Cheltenham races were 'important' to Dido Harding as well.
There were many warnings in January and February 2020. but our government ignored them as they ignored Operation Cygnus in 2016.

 

[Wardy's twin]

No. Because if you close your borders that's exactly what will happen.

Don't understand your comment really....

So why didn't we close our borders and prevent 150k deaths ? we are an island so why didn't we do it?

 

[Wardy's twin]

Not sure why people are taking a pop at Arden her generally approach to COVID was good for NZ (as was her response to the mass shooting). Sure its not easy to compare what happened in NZ with what's happened here as the demographics are very different but 33 deaths in a population of 5 million was down to very strong action which delivered bearing in mind in this country we are still having 200+ deaths per day.

But if we take COVID out of the equation we have a leader who on the face of it appears to be honest & strong versus a serial liar whose only interests are keeping himself in power and keeping his mates happy and richer. I know who I would rather have .

 

[Billy the Fish]

So why didn't we close our borders and prevent 150k deaths ? we are an island so why didn't we do it?

"We're an island as well" is probably the most idiotic comment people make when comparing the UK and NZ.

I always forget that NZ is connected by rail to a continent of 1.5 billion people and only separated by 30 miles of water.

What do you think the knock on effect of closing our borders would be? Most of our freight comes in by lorry from Europe. Are you going to implement a 10 day quarantine period for every lorry driver? We'd all starve to death before the virus caught us.

 

[Seagull27]

Incorrect.

Multiple lockdowns strictly enforced. My employer is NZ owned, and they have had it tough. Not so much with COVID, but the restrictions. At one point it was one visit to the supermarket per week for a decent amount, and two shorter visits in between. Ona of their staff flew into Melbourne early December, he will not be allowed back until May.

Well my sister lives there and while we were in 4-5 months of lockdown/restrictions, twice, they were still having birthday parties, going to work and school, going out and about more or less normally - after their initial 2 month lockdown at the start. Since then any restrictions they have introduced have been short-lived compared to us. I remember a conversation a few months ago when she mentioned that she had to keep the kids at home for an entire week in lockdown and didn't know what to do with them. How nice it would have been for us to only have to worry about 1 week of being stuck inside last winter.

Of course someone flying to a different country would have had a different experience, but they would have known that before they chose to fly.

Every time I speak to my sister about the relative experiences of covid there compared to here, she is astounded by the mess that we've been in, and very smug about how well it has been handled there.

I assume you missed the disruption to businesses in the UK over two long periods of restrictions?

 

[Wardy's twin]

Incorrect.

Multiple lockdowns strictly enforced. My employer is NZ owned, and they have had it tough. Not so much with COVID, but the restrictions. At one point it was one visit to the supermarket per week for a decent amount, and two shorter visits in between. Ona of their staff flew into Melbourne early December, he will not be allowed back until May.

Tough is 150k deaths and listening to Johnson lie about things and watching his mates get rich on the proceeds.

Tough is knowing your wife is in ICU and you can't visit yet drinks parties happened.

Tough is seeing how hard our NHS staff have worked especially those in ICU roles who have been at great risk and knowing that the hard work and risk has been greatly exacerbated by people who don't get vaccinated

Tough is knowing that you are in a 6 million deep queue waiting for a surgical procedure , some of which will be life saving, because the bed is occupied by someone who is unvaccinated.

 

[Billy the Fish]

Covid aside, Ardern is simply the poster girl for people obsessed with gesture politics. There's plenty of regulars on this board, it's usually the same people who think Corbyn and Momentum were a good idea.

As long as a policy sounds nice and fluffy they'll go along with it without considering the knock on effects.

 

[wellquickwoody]

Well my sister lives there and while we were in 4-5 months of lockdown/restrictions, twice, they were still having birthday parties, going to work and school, going out and about more or less normally - after their initial 2 month lockdown at the start. Since then any restrictions they have introduced have been short-lived compared to us. I remember a conversation a few months ago when she mentioned that she had to keep the kids at home for an entire week in lockdown and didn't know what to do with them. How nice it would have been for us to only have to worry about 1 week of being stuck inside last winter.

Of course someone flying to a different country would have had a different experience, but they would have known that before they chose to fly.

Every time I speak to my sister about the relative experiences of covid there compared to here, she is astounded by the mess that we've been in, and very smug about how well it has been handled there.

I assume you missed the disruption to businesses in the UK over two long periods of restrictions?

Yeah, I missed the disruption in the UK. Mainly because I have been in Melbourne, the city with the most lockdown days during the entire pandemic. Interesting the disparity between your sisters’ experience and the conversations I have had with Kiwis. Most I have spoken to have been happy to have been kept safe thus far, but now are prepared to let the inevitable wave sweep across NZ to try to sve the economy.

The Kiwi now stuck in Melbourne travelled just before Omicron really hit down here and was only expecting to be away from home for a few weeks. Oh well……..

 

[Lower West Stander]

In real terms not much, just thought it might help you to be less condescending.

Bit of irony there....

 

[sydney]

Ah but surely, she was only doing her best ? .... just got lucky I suppose ?

not really mate , England , despite what your European detractors are telling you is still in the top 5 "hubs" for air travel , these hubs bring money in to the govts. of the concerned countries in airport taxes , duty etc.....so England has probably had 15 million transitory travellers through the place and NZ has had less than 20 k ......i haven't googled it , these are my estimates but it should give you a decent foothold as to why a country like NZ has had such a good run with covid.....the thing is though , you can't dodge it , it's gonna get there sooner or later.

 

[wellquickwoody]

Tough is 150k deaths and listening to Johnson lie about things and watching his mates get rich on the proceeds.

Tough is knowing your wife is in ICU and you can't visit yet drinks parties happened.

Tough is seeing how hard our NHS staff have worked especially those in ICU roles who have been at great risk and knowing that the hard work and risk has been greatly exacerbated by people who don't get vaccinated

Tough is knowing that you are in a 6 million deep queue waiting for a surgical procedure , some of which will be life saving, because the bed is occupied by someone who is unvaccinated.

Both ends of the COVID spectrum are hard. Saving lives now against saving an economy later, both have expensive price tags.

 

[Seagull27]

Yeah, I missed the disruption in the UK. Mainly because I have been in Melbourne, the city with the most lockdown days during the entire pandemic. Interesting the disparity between your sisters’ experience and the conversations I have had with Kiwis. Most I have spoken to have been happy to have been kept safe thus far, but now are prepared to let the inevitable wave sweep across NZ to try to sve the economy.

The Kiwi now stuck in Melbourne travelled just before Omicron really hit down here and was only expecting to be away from home for a few weeks. Oh well……..

To be fair, she lives outside of Auckland and it sounds like restrictions have been tougher there than in the rest of the country. But even then, I think it sounded better than here (the UK) for the most part.

It is going to be strange for them to shift mentality in that suddenly the case numbers are going to go up significantly and they are going to have to be ok with that. And I can understand arguments that now they have good vaccination levels, they could open up quicker than planned.

Overall though I'd be interested to see in a few years time how their economy has faired compared to us and other countries. Figures earlier in the thread suggest they're in a better position currently.

 

[Wardy's twin]

"We're an island as well" is probably the most idiotic comment people make when comparing the UK and NZ.

I always forget that NZ is connected by rail to a continent of 1.5 billion people and only separated by 30 miles of water.

What do you think the knock on effect of closing our borders would be? Most of our freight comes in by lorry from Europe. Are you going to implement a 10 day quarantine period for every lorry driver? We'd all starve to death before the virus caught us.

It wasn't meant to be a sensible comment just a retort to the fact that people saying NZ is an island (well islands) so of course they could do it. I was just stating that if it was because of being an island then we could have done it also. The demographics and thus reality are as you say very different .

What was also very different though is their approach , Johnson never wanted lockdown and history has shown this by his subsequent actions and so we got the worst of both worlds a lockdown that was not enforced but impacted the economy and still didn't control the disease.

I understand the thinking behind not having forced vaccination (though disagree) but certainly stronger social measures against the unvaccinated should have been in place and a much stronger line on mask wearing should have been put in place but as I said Johnson didn't really believe his scientists.

The work on getting jabs done was good the rest of his actions were a mess.