King of the Cookers
Agreeing to disagree, with the experts.
Breathe.
Inhale deeply through your nose, and hold it.
Open your mouth slightly. Exhale slowly, feel the breath passing over your lips.
Hear it. You’re alive.
Statistically, if the last government hadn’t taken the actions it did, about twenty of you, even in my small audience, would be dead now. If I do a good job writing this piece and it’s shared, then that number’s more like twenty five.
That’s ignoring the fact that you’re an older sample than the general population, although tempered with the fact that I reckon you’d be a lot more willing to follow safety precautions than the average person. But your ability to listen to medical advice would’ve only helped so much if the government had just let Covid run its course.
Without the lockdowns, without the mandates, I’d be talking to fewer of you. That’s a pretty sobering thought.
They were big, tough decisions. Dealing with an unprecedented pandemic, killing millions worldwide, and having to balance people’s lives with the economy. Our government of the day prioritised lives, taking sweeping measures to protect people, and pumped billions of dollars into keeping businesses afloat.
Problem is some people really don’t like being told what to do. Even if it’s for their own good, or for the welfare of others.
Disinformation spread like wildfire, turning otherwise sane people into conspiracy theorists believing things that just seemed like lunacy to the rest of us. It’s fair to say some of us weren’t exactly sympathetic to their concerns.
Things seemed so straight forward to many of us. If you didn’t want to get a vaccine then you didn’t have to, despite the hysteria nobody was forced to get “jabbed”. Sure a vaccination became a requirement for some roles, for the protection of others and to reduce spread, but if you didn’t want to get one… well as far as some of us were concerned, you probably shouldn’t have been in that role anyway.
I understand that doesn’t sound very kind, but c’mon who wants someone working in an education or health setting that can’t make sensible decisions about getting a vaccination, or taking health precautions to reduce the spread of a deadly virus?
It’s fair to say the vaccinations were new and in the rush to make them available to save lives there wasn’t necessarily a good understanding of any long term effects. But there was growing evidence about the long term effects of Covid and it was a whole lot worse. Most of us understood that on balance getting a vaccination was a much better option than not getting one. Science isn’t 100%, but some odds are a lot better than others.
Many of the ideas spread were outright insane. Bizarre theories of the government working in collusion with Pharmaceutical companies, suppressing information about mass deaths, and making vast sums of money.
I’m sure the drug companies made plenty of money but sorry to disappoint the conspiracists, people like Jacinda, Ashley, and Grant don’t have millions squirrelled away in the Caribbean. They sacrificed much, working themselves into exhaustion and early retirements.
So how do we thank them? By holding an inquiry into their actions. To use hindsight, which even now is far from 20/20, to judge the decisions made at the time under immense pressure and with no single solution that all would agree was right.
On the one hand I feel disappointed there’s an inquiry at all, these people did their best and were in my view motivated by nothing other than doing what was right for New Zealanders. Imagine the sort of inquiry we’d be having if they’d taken a different course of action, if tens of thousands more had died at the time?
Still on the other hand it’s good to look retrospectively, to learn from what happened. What would we do differently if there were a similar situation in the future? What would we do more of, or less of? It’s useful to review with an objective of learning and improving. But that isn’t what some people want, they want a witch hunt.
They wish to paint those who did so much to help us negatively, and to appease the self-researchers that got them back into power.
Covid deniers and conspiracy theorists are critical to NZ First’s re-election prospects. The Gunns, Greys, and Tamakis will be sniffing around for the cooker vote, Winston has to protect his turf. Even if that means throwing his toys from the coalition cot.
As you might be aware a Royal Commission of Inquiry has already been looking into the pandemic response. That inquiry was delayed while the new government reviewed the scope, and there will now be a public consultation on expanding it to include:
Use of multiple lockdowns.
Vaccine procurement and efficacy.
The social and economic impacts on both regional and national levels.
Whether the decisions made, and steps taken, were justified.
The cost-effectiveness of the Government’s policies, and whether the rules set by the Government appropriately balanced Covid-19 elimination with other goals.
The Government’s utilisation of partnerships with business and professional groups.
The extent of disruption to New Zealanders’ health, education, and business as a result of the Government’s policies.
If the Government’s response was consistent with the rule of law.
How New Zealand’s pandemic preparedness compared to other countries.
Which looks a very in-depth and thorough review. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Brooke van Velden, explained that the inquiry would now be in two parts with the original inquiry reporting back in November and then the new, expanded scope, the second phase, reporting back in February 2026.
Apparently this isn’t good enough for Winston who’s unhappy with the original commission completing it’s inquiry and wants that work scrapped.
Van Velden said that the two phase approach was the most “fiscally prudent way forward”.
“There was a lot of evidence gathered to date and it would have been a waste of evidence, resources and the commissioners’ time for this to end a few months before it was expected to report back.
What we’ve done is expand those terms of reference into areas that were missed out in the first terms of reference and there will be additional cost but I think the path forward also saves taxpayers money by not asking us to end and re-litigate all of the evidence that’s already been gathered.”
Listen carefully, I’m pretty sure I’ll only say this once - I agree with Brooke.
Whatever motivations there are for increasing the scope beyond that of the Royal Commission it just makes sense not to waste the work done to date.
Unless of course you’re Winston who’s motivated by one thing only - re-electing Winston. His cooker crowd will demand their pound of flesh in return for future votes. Peters doesn’t want some interim report suggesting the government did the best it could with the information available, or worse yet - the possibility of it recognising that the last government did rather well actually.
Still that didn’t mean that he wasn’t taking the credit for the expanded enquiry.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said the expansion was, “an attempt by David Seymour and Winston Peters to try and cook up an inquiry that reinforces their conspiracy theories.”
I listened to Chippy on RNZ this morning, he just sounded so sane and reasonable in the face of so much crazy.
In his mature fashion Peters said, Chippy could “go down the rabbit hole that he’s talking about and stay down there”. Naw is Winston, the bearer of that famous name, sensitive to the fact that he’s only there due to the support of deluded individuals sadly divorced from reality?
Well tough luck - that’s your epitaph Winston. King of the Cookers.
So Peters has played his first “Agree to Disagree” card. A provision allowing one of the coalition parties to say they don’t support what they government is doing, but they’ll go along with it anyway. Essentially a tool to appeal to their support base, and put the boot into their coalition partners, for political purposes.
It doesn’t augur well for the longevity of this coalition that one of its members has made such a move over something as simple as an initial inquiry completing it’s work. Before the expanded scope is then addressed.
Mind you it doesn’t say much for the principles of Peters that this, of all the things the coalition has done, is the one he chooses to symbolically oppose.
Not the broken promise over Cancer drugs in the budget, not cuts to disability funding, or anything else, but an interim report that might not meet the short term needs of his cooker constituency.
Breathe.
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Let the witch hunt commence. Warning: this local clip does contain swearing and it will lodge itself in your brain.
Meanwhile the Media is keeping rather quiet that we're currently trucking along with about 28-35 Covid deaths per week, although some indications show that we're getting past the peak of Wave #6.
I was just so impressed and proud of our country's response to that first year of Covid. And we are STILL held up as a World-leading example of how to do things properly.
For a government bureaucracy to physically swing into action so quickly, and respond so quickly as information & knowledge grew is just astounding, even now. To have leaders calmly addressing the people, explaining the actions as based on developing scientific recommendations, and encouraging a group, good-for-everyone response was key to how we survived.
It's now so damn depressing to see the politicised & conspiracy-driven nutters now pitching their torches and polishing the tines of their pitchforks, for what basically comes down to petty revenge for being proven wrong.
As one who was involved in the first stages of Covid vaccine distribution, I can assure you that most of what was in the press and TV news about the Government's failure to deliver when a mislead public were trying to access it was utter bullshit. The Government had ordered the vaccine about 5 months before it had been produced then very generously offered to divert our first shipment to countries which were affected, because, at that stage we weren't. There was a great deal of secrecy surrounding the arrival and storage of the vaccine, which then had to be batch tested to ensure the quality before it became available. We were also sworn to secrecy about anything to do with it and had to fob off those in the media who wanted to get the scoop on it. ( I promise I'm not making any of this up). My colleagues and I wished fervently that we could let the truth be told but couldn't for the sake of security. We were deemed "essential people" and spent months being sent home to work because we couldn't afford for anyone involved to get sick. I was sent home 5 times over a few months. What pissed me off the most was, despite having a letter exempting me from being penalised for driving, I was never pulled up by the police! If only people had realised the reality of what was involved at the time, I'm sure they would have been more accommodating and understanding. The bottom line is that Jacinda, Ashley and everyone else in their team did exactly what had to done, exactly when they had to. They potentially saved thousands of lives for which we should be grateful. The minister for pointless enquiries, Winston, apparently doesn't think so. How many more taxpayer dollars are going to be wasted on trying to resuscitate this dead horse?