Kate Hawkesby points out what is becoming increasingly obvious. The government is taking advantage of COVID to avoid having to be held accountable for its incompetence.
I know of four families who lost teenagers to suicide these past school holidays.
[…]Our suicide rates in this country should be of no surprise to anyone – we have the worst rate of teen suicides in the developed world. It’s a shameful and heartbreaking statistic.
But the reason I raise this is because one of this government’s promises, in a long list of lofty promises.. was zero suicides.
Yet another government failure.
[…]Not only that, they were going to fix mental health.
I’m not sure whereabouts the mental health part got ignored in trying to legalise cannabis, but adding cannabis to the mix in a country awash with mental health issues doesn’t seem like the smartest idea to me.
With regard to cannabis, the risks to mental health are only significant for people who start while still in adolescence and are heavy users, which is one of the main reasons why the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill makes sense. Allow sales only to adults, identify problematic users, and slowly push out the black market. Ironically I have far more confidence in Judith and Company administrating the bill if it comes into force than the incompetent lot we have in power now.
With regard to the other referendum, in a country with the highest rate of teenage suicides, the End of Life Choice Act doesn’t seem the smartest idea to me. All life is sacred and allowing circumstances to be defined where life isn’t so sacred doesn’t make any sense.
And then there’s child poverty. They were fixing that too.
Yep. And it was the reason apparently that Ardern got into politics.
[…]Why do I raise all this? Because it’s election year, and the only thing getting political coverage right now appears to be Covid.
I do wonder how much the media are complicit participants in the Labour party campaign when they seem to be content to stay on message with the government’s Covid routine. That we are still in a health crisis. That this is indeed a ‘Covid election’.
Here’s the rub, post the election, it conveniently won’t be about Covid anymore, because the news will all be bad. The economic haemmorhaging will have worsened, more people will be getting made redundant, the rubber will be hitting the road.
(Not a new road though, they don’t like those.)
The news won’t be bad. Bad news will be either conveniently ignored or spun into good news. Redundancies? Businesses going under? Meh, just think of how much *worse* things would be if it weren’t for Jacinda and how she handled the COVID crisis! People matter more than money! And if you don’t agree you’re obviously just another right wing capitalist who’d rather put vulnerable people at risk than save lives! /sarc.
[…]But where’s the accountability on progress? Where’s the report card on what this government has actually achieved in its 3 years and what its likely to achieve in the next 3? We don’t see it, because the message they want to keep blinding us all with, is Covid.
There hasn’t been because the media has become just a propaganda arm for the government. Fortunately with the change in leadership in the National party it looks like we finally have an opposition that will hold the government accountable.
And here’s the irony on that. They want polling stations to have social distancing in place and hand sanitiser, they want us to download contact tracing apps, we are reminded constantly that Level 2 lockdown is just around the corner. Yet I see out on the hustings in busy crowded marketplaces, the PM, not social distancing, and I dare say not contact tracing each person stopping her for selfies.
Do as I say not do as I do.
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