Category: Democracy
Is New Zealand’s Covid-19 track record really the envy of the world? And did Ms Ardern’s Captain’s Calls improve or worsen the outcome? With Parliament suspended during the crisis, the Prime Minister adroitly leveraged her celebrity status and thespian talent.
Minister Parker’s claim that the changes he introduced represent a “significant milestone in reforming the RMA that would reduce complexity, increase certainty … and makes significant improvements to environmental outcomes” is a gross misrepresentation - an absurdity that is patently untrue.
Consenting processes are already slow enough and councils are hardly well positioned to assess the carbon effects of anything. Consultants providing climate impact assessments may do well, but it won’t help New Zealand’s net emissions where those emissions are already covered under the ETS.
The border fiascos have confirmed the widely held view that while the Ardern Government is great at rhetoric, they are hopeless at delivery. It’s an accusation that has dogged them ever since they were elected.
Andrew Borrowdale, a former parliamentary draughtsman and author of respected law texts, alleges that the “special powers” delegated by section 70 of the Health Act 1956 cannot provide Parliamentary authority for the entire populace to be locked up at home.
New Zealand is not immune from the consequences of protests over the tragic death of George Floyd at the hands of US Police being captured by political extremists pushing their own radical agendas.
The smear that the west is institutionally racist is designed to both facilitate and obscure the real agenda of overturning capitalist society because it is white and therefore deemed intrinsically evil – which of course is itself a racist agenda.
So, there we have it – an evidence-based narrative indicating New Zealand could have managed the virus by sticking with the Ministry of Health’s advice to stay at Level 2. Like Australia, we could have pulled through without needing an “ineffective” lockdown that has wrecked the economy and created devastating consequences for so many New Zealanders.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is now looking foolish after thousands of people took to the streets in protest on Monday, thumbing their nose at her lockdown rules, while the Police watched on doing nothing.
What this highlight is that when a government acts outside of the law during the term of a Parliament only the courts can hold them to account. Only they are the custodians of the Rule of Law.
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