The Covid years leave an image in my mind of a sheepdog, with blood dripping from its toothy, snarling jaws, driving a mob of terrified sheep from behind.
Leading from behind was first suggested by Nelson Mandela and pounced upon in 2011 by Barack Obama. It may be a socialist thing but I’m not learned enough to be sure.
“It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.”
Nelson Mandela
Well isn’t that nice? Giving credit to someone else, as long as you get credit too. The flip side to driving from behind is also true: in the event of bad decisions producing bad outcomes the leader can hide behind the bunch of useful idiots in front.
Was it stupidity for our MPs to condone border closures, lockdowns, vaccine mandates and the violent eviction of peaceful protesters from parliament grounds without question or debate?
Did not one MP recognise the illegality of our first lockdown?
Did not one MP recognise that stopping New Zealanders returning from overseas was a human rights violation?
Did not one MP foresee that the ballot system for quarantine places would quickly become unworkable after becoming overwhelmed and subsequently hijacked for profit?
What about locking residents down and turning a blind eye to the gangs’ roadblocks to keep travellers out of their turf?
How about mandating the experimental Covid vaccine?
If it was relatively simple for ordinary New Zealanders to resist Ardern’s blatant fear-mongering and question her flimsy Covid strategies, what does it say about the quality of our current politicians and academics? At the very least we deserve much, much better.
But what if our MPs were not stupid at all, but cowardly?
Which is worse in the face of tyranny?
To conquer, Ardern first divided us, and in more ways than one.
There were the vaccinated and the unvaccinated but she also created two tiers of people at the border. Getting into New Zealand was difficult: not for the elite, but for relatives of the sick and dying, arguably the most deserving. But they were excluded while overseas entertainers got a free ride.
When enough people were fed up with Ardern’s unfair and harsh treatment they protested. First in convoys up and down the country and then camped on the parliament lawns. People just wanted to be heard by their representatives in government – who refused to listen.
Not one current MP bothered to meet with the protesters. Just like the prime minister, MPs didn’t want to hear about lost jobs and homes when employees refused the mandated jabs. MPs didn’t want to hear about vaccine injury or death among those forced to take the jab to keep their jobs and who ended up regretting it.
All these tragedies were avoidable, and the public parliamentary protest and subsequent violent police response reflect badly on all current MPs.
Ardern’s draconian measures didn’t make one scrap of difference to Covid outcomes. She merely delayed the arrival and spread of the disease.
NZ paid huge economic and social costs to delay the inevitable Covid spread.
NZ spent $61.6B on our Pandemic Preparedness Response (PPR) for Covid measures that didn’t work. Money that would have been better spent on repairing NZ hospitals, providing better staffing and more funds for specialist services like cancer treatment and mental health.
Ardern’s zero-Covid policies were supposed to keep us safe until the vaccine arrived. Instead, the policies caused financial mayhem and social division.
Our health experts did the opposite of what Sweden did, which was to avoid strict lockdowns and instead wrap protection around the elderly and physically susceptible, letting everyone else get on with their lives and livelihoods. If we’d done that we may still have the thriving businesses that went bust, viable tourist and hospitality sectors and much better health outcomes.
After their blip in 2020, 2021, probably from Covid deaths and maybe deaths from the vaccine rollout that began on the 27th of December 2020, Sweden’s crude mortality rate is trending downwards, while ours is still rising.
It was a gamble for New Zealand to enforce harsh measures while waiting for the vaccines, and the elephant in the room to this very day is that New Zealand studiously refused to examine Covid treatments.
Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were used successfully overseas in treatment regimes, however cheap and effective was a threat to Big Pharma’s vaccines.
But the vaccines were a bust; a gamble that not only didn’t pay off but is responsible for vaccine injuries and might be the reason for the increase in excess deaths in highly vaccinated countries.
A new report from New Zealand’s drug safety authority, Medsafe, states that “by chance” some people will get a new illness or die shortly after receiving a Pfizer Covid injection. But according to Medsafe, it’s nothing to worry about.
Contrary to what Medsafe says, there are many reasons to be concerned. Currently, all-cause deaths are 15 per cent above what is usually seen in New Zealand. And a time series analysis of New Zealand (“NZ”) data supports a relationship between mRNA vaccination and death.
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Instrumental to implementing the NZ Covid strategy was Dr Ashley Bloomfield who was amply rewarded for adhering to the WHO guidelines when he was given a professorship at Auckland University and a 2023 knighthood. Bloomfield gave us a blinkered view of Covid strategies and we were deceived into believing New Zealand took the only available path in the fight against Covid.
The New Zealand medical profession supported the Government’s Covid strategies, ousting naysayers from their ranks by cancelling their licences to practice medicine.
Big Pharma calls the shots and they invested heavily in vaccines. It remains to be seen how the New Zealand medical industry will weasel it’s way out of the vaccine carnage and resulting lack of public trust. One thing is certain, the time is ripe for the growth of an alternative medicine industry.
But I digress, the question is, will the current MPs make the same decisions when the next pandemic looms?
It’s a no-brainer: of course, they would. They’ve admitted no wrongdoing, much less apologised for their part in the fiasco.
For my part, I will vote for new blood and a new voice. There are no guarantees, of course, but I am fortunate to live in an electorate with a superb candidate supported by a strong public profile in a party not currently represented. Although the party is unlikely to make the five per cent threshold, their candidate has a good chance of winning the electorate and I will not be responsible for one of the useful idiots returning to power.
