While driving today, I heard something on the radio which said we are now celebrating 2 years of being plastic-bag free. We are not plastic-bag free, of course. Anyone can buy them at the supermarkets in packs, or in bulk on the internet. I assume they mean ‘free-plastic-bag free’, as in they are no longer given away in supermarkets. As supermarkets still sell these products in various forms, thus improving their bottom line, I cannot see how this is anything to celebrate.
A quick bit of research on the internet, however, and I couldn’t find details of anyone celebrating this milestone. This is hardly surprising, but of course, I was reminded of the next raft of plastics that are soon to be banned, such as fruit stickers and meat trays. It brought to mind Cam Slater’s excellent article earlier in the week about how the government focuses on things that don’t matter… because, gee… banning fruit stickers is such a huge deal – right?
To this government – yes. But in the overall scheme of things? Hell no. Now we have the ridiculous situation where government agencies are required to use Maori businesses for at least 5% of their contracts, but there are not always Maori businesses that do the type of work required. Nobody ever seemed to think about that. So now, either business owners will be self-identifying as Maori, or even more inefficiencies will occur as government agencies look for Maori businesses that do not exist… making the production of everything even more delayed and haphazard than it already is.
If you are starting to think that this government is hell-bent on destroying our economy piece by piece, you have good reason to believe so. We all know that they do not understand the first thing about business, but in the present circumstances, where they are failing at every level, it is hard not to think it is all deliberate. Are they really so incompetent? Or are they just so ideologically driven that they cannot help themselves? I lean towards the latter but have decided that it is a mixture of both.
Take for example the proposed hate speech laws. We all know that a change in the current law would have done nothing to alter the fact that an Australian came over here with the express purpose of murdering Muslims because of his Mein Kampf-like manifesto, but Jacinda seems intent on making changes for change’s sake. She is determined to turn the hate speech laws into a vice-like grip on ordinary people’s speech, even though the majority of voters bitterly oppose it. Yes, there may be extremists out there, but we all know these people are few and far between. Punishing people who are not radicals for the actions of a lone wolf radical seems fine to Jacinda, but does not sit well with anyone else.
Nobody wants to see a repeat of the terrible mosque massacre. The proposed hate speech law, however, will make no difference either way… nor will it bring anyone back from the dead. The damage is done.
In the meantime, ordinary Kiwis want houses. Many are desperate for mental health care. Even more would like something done about the dreadful traffic jams that are a part of our everyday lives in a country of only 5 million people. People want, above everything else, to live decent lives. This should not be a problem in a first-world country of only 5 million people and a large land mass… but it is.
Then there is all this ridiculous pandering to Maori, with the constant use of their language, even in inappropriate and unnecessary circumstances, but in the end, Maori want the same things that everyone else wants. They want decent housing, decent wages, education for their children and to be able to afford to live.
A section of NZ society needs adequate social housing and the government could get on with building more social houses if they chose to. The trouble is, while they force landlords to follow rules regarding range hoods and heat pumps, the government itself is not abiding by the same rules. Many social houses are still cold and damp, while private rentals would be breaking the law if they were in the same state as government rentals. Why exactly this is acceptable while the government focuses on hate speech and bike bridges that cost over $785 million is anyone’s guess.
Imagine what this government’s manifesto is going to look like at the next election. They will announce how proud they are that they banned fruit stickers and meat trays while homelessness hits record highs, Kiwibuild has yet to complete 2,000 houses and mental health is in tatters. Meanwhile, fruit still rots on the ground because of a lack of RSE workers, we have a chronic nursing shortage because they all left for Australia and, in spite of claims of being ‘in the front of the queue’, we still haven’t vaccinated 5 million people while the UK has vaccinated 60 million and the USA over 330 million. But hey. Wasn’t Ru Paul’s show great? We got a day off to celebrate Neve’s 5th birthday and now we all have 10 days sick leave and an extra public holiday. Shame we can’t afford to buy tasty cheese, petrol is over $4 per litre and now all of our gas appliances are useless, but I guess you can’t have everything.
No. You can’t even have the basics of life, it seems. What a way to go.
I am shocked and disgusted at how the world has changed for Kiwis in less than 9 months. I was never a fan of MMP and wanted it gone, but now I have changed my mind. If allowing a government to have total control means we are all subjected to the communist manifesto, then MMP needs to stay. I have no fear of anything a National-led government will do, but future Labour governments need to be kept under control. MMP might be the only way to do that.
If that is the case, God help us all.
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