There is a spectre stalking Australia and New Zealand – no, not just the Wuhan pandemic but a killer even worse which is following in its wake. But while the media and politicians can’t stop yammering about COVID-19, they politely avert their eyes from its shadow.
Probably because it’s a killer largely of their making.
I’m talking of course about the spike in mental ill-health and suicides. This deadly wave was predicted by health experts as soon as leaders like Jacinda Ardern unleashed their mania for police-state lockdowns. Unlike the hysterically exaggerated claims made about COVID-19, the predictions regarding mental health and suicide seem to have been horrifyingly accurate.
I know of four families who lost teenagers to suicide these past school holidays.
I hear there were 7 families impacted by suicide in the Queenstown area in the past two weeks.
In Australia, too, depression and suicide are spiking in the wake of lockdowns. Anecdotally, I know of one man who lost his wife to cancer and who is now suicidal because Victoria’s draconian lockdowns have left him isolated from the normal comforts of family and friends that we would expect as a buffer against grief.
Beyond anecdotes, the evidence is fast emerging of the shocking toll of lockdowns. Suicide hotline Lifeline is experiencing a record surge in calls, exceeding even those during last summer’s bushfire crisis. Experts are warning that suicides will vastly outnumber COVID deaths.
The reason I raise this is because one of this government’s promises, in a long list of lofty promises.. was zero suicides.
Zero. None. That was their goal.
Not only that, they were going to fix mental health.
But the Ardern government’s grandiose promises have evaporated in a suffocating smug of baby photos and vapid witterings about “kindness”. Ardern has consistently avoided the hard work of stuff like building houses, in favour of populist fluff like legalising cannabis.
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.
While many people are able to enjoy the occasional spliff with little ill-effect, the documented link between heavy use and psychosis is damning. But, it seems, as long as the Ardern government gets to bask in the warm, green glow of “progressive” smugness, who cares about the actual cost in broken lives?
Why do I raise all this? Because it’s election year, and the only thing getting political coverage right now appears to be Covid[…]
Here’s the rub, post the election, it conveniently won’t be about Covid anymore, because the news will all be bad. The economic haemoRrHaging will have worsened, more people will be getting made redundant, the rubber will be hitting the road[…]
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.
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.
Why not? Why is she not leading by example?
Jacinda Ardern’s much-vaunted “kindness” and “empathy” look more and more like a truncheon wrapped in a sparkly, pink ribbon. It may look pretty, but you’re still going to have a sore head in the morning.
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