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# NZ – the Little Engine That Couldn’t
- URL: https://goodoil.news/nz-the-little-engine-that-couldnt/
- Published: 2020-04-24T01:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2020-04-23T02:27:57.000Z
- Author: Lindsay Mitchell
- Tags: Business, COVID-19, Economy, NZ, NZ Politics, Politics, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-17 03:24

**Lindsay Mitchell**  
[lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com](https://lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com/2020/04/nz-little-engine-that-couldnt.html?ref=goodoil.news)

New Zealand has always been ‘the little engine that could.’ It’s endearing imagery but also powerfully symbolic.

But thanks to our leadership and their reckless decision-making now compounded by dogmatic digging-in, we are fast becoming the little engine that couldn’t.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/31/f4/31f4e20a-0315-499e-83ff-139e8eab53bf/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/efflittleengine2.jpg)

The BFD

Today exactly what many have predicted has begun. Pharmac [backtracks](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/414885/pharmac-back-tracks-on-plan-to-fund-lung-cancer-drug-keytruda?ref=goodoil.news) on a cancer drug that could have saved 1,400 lives a year because “it can no longer afford to make the investment.” In a headlong rush to save the lives of an unknown but over-stated quantity, the lives of a known number will be lost.

The economy, our very lifeblood, was all but switched off with no advice from people whose job it is to understand and appreciate its criticality. I still can’t work out why. Maybe Grant Robertson thought that New Zealand was in a relatively strong position debt-wise and he could take risks, enormous risks with it. But I am dismayed and disgusted by how many people think it’s a mere matter of switch off – switch on. Just like that. Hence their patronising chiding of the rest of us to ‘just be patient. ‘It’s only a few more days in your bubble’. Or worse, their snitching to the authorities.

Hell’s bells. Have these idiots (many deriving their security from Super or a public service salary) really thought any further than the end of their twitchy noses? They seem incapable of joining the dots beyond just A to B. Austerity will come as a rude and rough shock and they will deserve it.

Everyone of us is a domino to some degree.

Many have all ready fallen over. Tragically, today it was lung cancer patient’s turn

> *“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.”*

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