About those protests

I’m of two minds about protests generally.  On the one hand freedom of assembly and freedom of speech come together in protest marches, and so they are a key part of a free society, especially protests which challenge Parliament, an institution which derives power directly from counting heads (in this case heads that choose representation). They are particular potent in societies that are not free because people literally risk their lives in order to get the attention of others, so that they might just break down the order of the system of power.

On the other hand I’m not a great fan of protests in liberal democracies, because they rely on the idea that because you can get a few hundred or thousand people to walk with some signs that this grants greater legitimacy to a political position than if it were held by one person. I’m no fan of counting heads rather than what is in them. Yet there is a place for them to highlight injustice which isn’t being reflected through mainstream discourse, through the media or through politics more generally.  

The protestors in Wellington would put themselves in that category, because their views are not supported by most politicians or media. Beyond debating vaccine mandates, I don't support much of the other rhetoric that seems visible.

I don’t support vaccine mandates for private property and private businesses, it should be the choice of individuals as to whether they get vaccinated, and whether their staff or customers must be vaccinated or not on their premises.  However, the health system is dominated by taxpayer funding and state owned institutions and as such, the state must decide as to whether it simply wants to promote vaccines or require vaccines for its employees in such facilities.  It has the right to do that, based on evidence and if you don’t like it, then you should be free to work privately, for others who wish to pay for your services.  There is a case for doing all that is reasonable to protect the vulnerable in a pandemic.

I’d be much more sympathetic if the protest was against how opaque this government is, how evasive it is over OIA requests, Parliamentary questions and the effort involved in managing narratives. This is everything from MIQ to Three Waters to inflation. For a government that has largely had support because it kept Covid19 at bay, the litany of other outcomes are worthy of protest. Housing costs that have skyrocketed (because of monetary incontinence and decades of supply constraints), inflation spiralling at nearly twice the rate of Australia, ICU capacity that is second bottom in the OECD per capita (after Mexico), at mediocre educational performance by global standards, and much more. Imagine the fear of this government (or any) if tens of thousands marched for housing.

I don’t have time for those who think there is some grand conspiracy around vaccines, or who tout quackery. Those engaging in quackery deserve to be challenged as much as they challenge others. Yes, there are also a few flotsam and jetsam that joined the protest that are vile and distasteful, including actual fascist/racial supremacists inciting violence, and some anti-semitism, and they deserve to be challenged, they ought to be confronted by protestors, and anyone who threatens violence should be arrested.  

What protest do you want to be on with this sort of vileness?

There is good reason to be wary of such people given Christchurch, but I am loathe to condemn the majority of protestors with such a label, although it has become a common trend to simply treat those they dislike as being “fascists”. Don’t be mistaken, such types deserve to be ostracised, condemned and monitored, and the protestors ought to know by now that letting such elements be tolerated utterly decimates sympathy they will get from many people. Yet what of those who oppose vaccine mandates and find that some of their fellow travellers are Nazis? What do you do if a largely anarchic protest attracts totalitarian eliminationists? You kind of have three choices. Confront the Nazis, ignore the Nazis or don't go and surrender the issue. To do the former requires some collective effort and will, the do the second is damaging and evasive, and to do the third might seem like surrendering the issue that matters to you. None of those types believe in individual freedom, not remotely.

Other protests do go down dark paths of promoting violence though, and it doesn't get the same attention from the left when it's not in power.

You see when lefties go on a protest that results in paper face beheadings of John Key, Bill English and Judith Collins 

… a protest backed by Labour and the Greens (called Aotearoa is Not for Sale), you’re just meant to blank that out. Meanwhile, Jacinda Ardern thinks there is something sinister about the anti-mandate protests to be "imported" (in that they are no doubt inspired by similar protests overseas), but it is just fine for BLM and climate change protests to be inspired by similar protests overseas. You see implying the anti-mandate protestors aren't "real" Kiwis is just the sort of noxious rhetoric seen by some of her nationalist opponents against Ardern and other leftwing politicians. It's not only mindless, but toxic as well. 

See it's awfully ironic when organisations like the Victoria University of Wellington Student Association (VUWSA) (which once warmly defended forcing students to belong to and fund it) openly take a conservative view of protest. when it almost certainly wont support this approach to protests when it comes to backing its own causes, which almost always are about demanding more of other people's money and more government. 

There are good reasons to arrest anyone who is threatening anyone, or vandalising property, and those inciting violence, but the recent trend for some politicians to treat the protestors as being somehow lesser citizens is both unfair and counterproductive. It’s hard to spin your way out of this, and people who feel treated as second class citizens (literally) are much more willing to hold out when they feel they have nothing to lose. They are also more likely to be aligned to seriously sinister types when they are the only ones giving them any form of succour. 

Unfortunately no MPs will talk to the protestors in part because they are fearful of violence from the protestors, but also because they know they will be hounded and vilified by media and other politicians for doing so. The only way to nullify that would be for one MP from each of the parties in Parliament to agree to talk with a few representatives - that would help to reveal whether this is just about mandates or not. 

It might also give the protestors some reason to move on, because they might feel that they have been heard.

UPDATE: David Seymour does appear to spoken to someone at the protest, and while the cynic might say it's because polling is looking not too great for ACT given Luxon seems to resuscitated the Nats, I'd like to think he actually is embracing the idea that mandates need to be phased out.

Mandatory vaccines?

First let me be clear, I'm in favour of Covid 19 vaccines.  Sure, a tiny minority have severe side effects and a small number of people can't take the Pfizer vaccine (and that's important, because government should not act in ways that are harmful to such individuals), but by and large it is highly beneficial for there to be widespread vaccines to reduce deaths, hospitalisation and illness from Covid 19.

The bigger philosophical and political question is whether they should be compulsory or whether the state and private businesses and citizens have the right to require vaccination status to be demonstrated to access their services or property.  This is where individual rights collide, and the role of the state SHOULD be to ensure the proper delineation between those rights.

For any owners of private property it should be very simple, it should be up to the owner as to whether or not to require vaccination status to enter that property, whether as a customer or not. It is your property after all.  The basis for your decision should be up to you and the public will decide whether or not to go there. Assuming New Zealand achieves vaccination rates in at least the high 80s%, then many will decide that it isn't safe to enter some premises that are laissez-faire about vaccinations, other may be relaxed about doing so. So be it.  It is private property.

What about employment? Any private employer that wants to only hire people who are vaccinated, should feel free to do so, as long as it is explicit in the employment contract that vaccination is required or that the employer may, from time to time, require employees to take preventive steps to protect other employees or the public. This should be clear for any new hires or any existing hires with such a term in their contracts. For existing hires with no such terms, it is problematic to require vaccination, but it is not problematic to take other health and safety measures voluntarily if there is concern about a non-vaccinated employee, or indeed if there is a risk to the business because customers do not want service from a non-vaccinated employee.  Ultimately, a business should not be able to force an existing employee to get vaccinated, but that employee also cannot force the business to act in ways that undermine it.

So what about the state sector?  If it is treated like the private sector, then the same rules should apply to employment. New employees can be required to be vaccinated and existing ones cannot, unless there is provision in their contract to enable it. However, given the state imposes lockdowns on the entire population and businesses because it treats Covid 19 as a national emergency, it seems only reasonable that those that work on the frontline, for the state, in enforcing this, are required to take steps to minimise transmission of Covid 19.

Those working at the border, Police and other emergency services, managed isolation and quarantine all should be vaccinated, as they are at the frontline of the state's strategy to contain Covid.  Beyond that, it is rational for all working in the public health system to also be required to be vaccinated (although it should be possible for private medical professionals to operate, without taxpayer funding, without vaccinations if they so choose).  Taxpayer funded private facilities should be little different, except that a private facility should be able to opt out of receiving taxpayer funds if it wants to operate sans-Covid vaccines.  That's private property rights.

What about everything else? Teachers and school staff should be a matter for the owner of the schools. The state can mandate vaccines for state schools and require those who want to continue receiving taxpayer funding to have such a mandate, but it should not mandate it for fully independent schools (or anyone providing private tuition).

Why does this matter? Because private property rights, contract law and personal sovereignty matter. You should absolutely be able to prohibit anyone from accessing your property, including business, without being vaccinated (or if you so wish, if they are vaccinated), but you reap the consequences if nobody wants to go there.  You should absolutely be able to choose only to hire people who are vaccinated or who are not, but existing employees should not be forced to be vaccinated, unless there is provision in their employment contracts enabling this.  Employers might change the duties of the unvaccinated, and take steps to protect other staff or customers if need be, and if the business loses customers because it doesn't have a fully-vaccinated staff, it might also decide if it needs to make staff redundant as a result, but it shouldn't come to compulsion.  

Further to that, whilst it is entirely consistent with the defence of a country that entry into it can be made dependent on both Covid tests and proof of vaccination, it should not be necessary for citizens or permanent residents (but other options, such as managed isolation, can be used to protect the country from infection). It should also not be necessary to have a "vaccine passport" within the country's borders, except for businesses that choose to use it to enter their property (that includes airlines and bus companies).

So no, there should be no mandatory vaccines for private citizens not employed by the state, nor mandatory vaccine passports to travel internally, but property owners and individuals have every right to impose their own rules on who they allow onto their property, who they hire, trade with and interact with.

You don't have a right to force someone to get vaccinated, but you also don't have the right to force someone to employ or trade with you if you choose not to.

Covid testing and quarantine : Is it causing people to NOT get tested?

I have had three Covid19 tests all up, I had two when coming through managed isolation in 2020 and a third in Australia when departing earlier this year, and they were qualitatively different in terms of experience.  The standard New Zealand PCR test is akin to "nasal violation" with a swab taken through the nostril to the back of the throat. It is invasive, painful and highly unpleasant. However, the PCR test in Australia was a throat swab followed by a nostril swab which was only around a centimetre or so inside.  Heaven help those who get the nasal violation swabbing regularly because of their jobs, but is there a good reason why the former and not the latter is used in NZ? Certainly saliva testing is less reliable, but can be done more frequently.  

So are people who have had one nasal violation test LESS likely to have more? Is NZ's unwillingness to adopt more patient friendly tests reducing the rate of testing? I'd be very reluctant to get tested (in NZ) unless I was clearly symptomatic, are others like this?

Then there is what happens if you are found to HAVE Covid. There is a fair chance you get shipped off to a quarantine facility rather than being able to isolate at home.  What does the fear of THAT do to people to cause them to hesitate being tested?  If you had rent to pay, and a job, would you want the state taking you away from your home and family for several weeks?  Wouldn't you be MORE likely to get tested if you knew you could self-isolate at home (bearing in mind you may have already passed it onto those you live with, if you haven't then it is another story)?

Does the unwillingness to take a more patient centred approach risk more people having Covid, not being tested and not isolating?

Labour's greatest asset is its past success, its second greatest asset is a divided National Party

We all know the story, New Zealand achieved enormous success in isolating itself from Covid 19 in 2020. With a very low death, hospitalisation and infection rate, the Ardern Government was able to feel vindicated in having a hard lockdown, putting up walls around New Zealand and subsequently being able to open up the economy and life to relative normality after a few months. Sure, part of it was because the geography of New Zealand made it much easier to block foreign travel than say Ireland or Switzerland, but it was also a series of policy decisions, albeit blunt as they were.  There can be little doubt this saved both lives and illness from Covid 19.

Furthermore, it was that handling that predominantly drove Ardern and Labour to a historic victory in the 2020 general election. For the first time since 1951 a party obtained over 50% of the vote (party), this remarkable mandate is built on that record, and don't they know it.

Following opening up to Level 1 conditions, New Zealand got complacent. The assumption being that putting all overseas visitors into managed isolation would stop it entering the country. Indeed, as Australia looked like it reached similar (although inferior) levels of success, the "Trans Tasman Bubble" opened up the countries to one another, giving a vision of what the future might look like. 

Meanwhile, as New Zealand basked in people overseas wondering at how sports matches, concerts and other events could be undertaken unhindered, New Zealanders watched at hospitalisations and death elsewhere. In the USA, UK, and elsewhere, the outside world looked unsafe, especially as some faced lockdowns of months long, albeit leakier with foreign travel. However, in parallel some other countries engaged with vaccinations, and ordered vaccines quickly and started vaccinating as their pathway towards less death and more freedom.  Israel and the UK were great success stories.

New Zealand, despite the claims of the Government was never at the "front of the queue" for vaccines, but few cared. It seemed through early to mid 2021 that NZ was free of Covid, and vaccines could be rolled out slowly, focusing on those working at the border, health workers and the vulnerable. To be fair, Australia was moderately better.  Then came Delta.

Then Delta leaked from MIQ (it seems) and now New Zealand is in full-scale lockdown, as cases grow.

The Government and its supporters continue to focus on well the country has done up to now, with so few deaths.  This is all fair enough, but that time is over.  What is clear though is that in the time after the first lockdowns, little government attention has been paid on how to cope with a second lockdown and moreover how to move beyond the Little Aotearoa Hermit Kingdom model of how to live in a world that is learning to live with Covid.

There are big questions that deserve answers. 

However, this is a Government, that whilst wielding unheard of powers of command and control over people and their property, wants everyone to trust it.  It doesn't want to be questioned too much about how it exercises those powers and why it hasn't learned much from the past lockdown and moreover its basis for making decisions at all.  

You see it prefers to present Jacinda Ardern, the Mother of the Nation, at press conferences that spend a good 15 minutes providing background to the announcement 90% want to hear about - which is what level of heavy-handed control will the country be living under and from when.  The strategy is elimination "indefinitely" with lockdowns "indefinitely".

What are those questions?

Here are a few...

1. Is the real reason NZ has been slow in obtaining vaccines because it "didn't want to compete" with others that needed it more, or was it just bureaucratic or political inertia?  After all, Australian PM Scott Morrison apologised for not ordering enough vaccines, why is NZ different? Is it because Pharmac didn't order them?
2. Isn't the real reason contact tracing is a nightmare the complacency encouraged by having "kept Kiwis safe" with less than 10% QR code scanning and having planned not at all for a ramp up of contact tracing for a future lockdown? i.e. didn't most people treat Level 1 as Level 0?
3. Why wasn't their planning for ramping up testing if there was another outbreak and why did vaccinations have to halt because there had been no planning to take into account vaccination in an outbreak?
4. What is the basis upon which Cabinet decides to change Covid lockdown levels? Is it infection rate, is it case numbers, is it contacts? If there isn't some objective basis to start from, how is this decision made?
5. Why were frontline emergency workers not regarded as a priority for vaccination?
6. Why does NZ continue to only use the highly invasive version of PCR tests instead of less invasive (not back the nose) versions seen in Australia or use saliva testing for those being frequently testing, as recommended in the Simpson-Roche report?
7. If high vaccination rates are reached, and vaccines remain effective in preventing death, hospitalisation and serious illness from Delta (and any other variants), why should NZ not end nationwide lockdowns in response to outbreaks?
8. Why does there remain a MIQ booking system that is blatantly unfair and not even linked to booking air tickets? 
9. Why are lockdown rules not shifting to an outcome based approach (meeting performance standards for minimising infection) rather than ad-hoc rules based?
10. What are the conditions for NZ opening up home-quarantine for fully vaccinated travellers from overseas?
11. On what basis does Cabinet decide to allow people to get access to MIQ bypassing the system for everyone else? Is it just a case of who has the greatest political pull?

Or is it just that keeping New Zealanders safe from Covid 19 has ended up being greatest asset the Ardern Government has ever had, and if New Zealand moves on from it, and gets back to normal, and there are never any lockdowns, and foreign travel and tourism returns, that it no longer looks that special anymore? Then more attention will be turned to the other elements of the health system, to the housing shortage, to poor educational outcomes, to the dramatic economic and social impacts of policies designed to look like it is combating climate change, to the pursuit of highly illiberal policies around speech, centralisation of water management and taking outrageous Critical Race Theory approaches to treating vulnerable Maori children. 

You see Ardern and the Government have a strong preference for intervention in the economy and in people's lives. It is the most leftwing government since the Kirk era, and it has hired an expansive public sector to implement it.  Consider the micro-management of Covid regulations, that ban private imports of Covid tests (despite them being available in pharmacies and supermarkets in Europe), that ban butchers and greengrocers opening. This Government believes its interventions can fundamentally change the country for the good, by ignoring how markets work, by ignoring personal preferences and choices and by not relying on competition and choice for consumers and taxpayers, but rather central direction and control.  They've swallowed structuralist leftwing identitarianism wholesale, and it is hard to believe that this thinking, which does not gain widespread support in other liberal democracies, is the mainstream of New Zealand thinking. Finally, it has embraced not just meeting the Paris Agreement commitments on climate change, but taking a rigid central planning role to reducing emission through the Climate Change Commission.   The effects of these policies will be to increase energy prices, to increase taxes and have zero discernible impact on climate.

So pardon me if I don't think the Ardern Government believes people's freedoms are that important. It has proposed making political and ethical beliefs protected from so-called "hate speech".  It has a vision of a "kind" state "providing" for people's needs, and caring for the environment, and fixing unfairness. Although it is notable that in recent months the pursuit of this agenda has seen the massive political lead of the Labour Party get halved, it remains ahead.

So keeping everyone safe is part of that, and Ardern can easily argue that, for the past year or so, she has kept people safe, and being seen to be doing that is an asset to Labour.  

Peter Cresswell has a worthwhile list of what wasn't done with the time available after the last success to suppress Covid in NZ. Government supporters may want the debate to be some banal "oh you want thousands to die like in Britain" retrospective, when no one is arguing that.  What IS being argued is that a Government that is philosophically committed to a highly activist state, that spends, regulates and micro-manages more than any in the past 38 years, has been lazy and incompetent in improving its performance.  

However, the Government and its army of supporters can keep looking backwards at the success of last year, paint those challenging it as "destabilising" the current efforts to eliminate the Delta variant or "wanting thousands dead", and still get some traction. The past success is their slowly eroding asset.

But their second greatest asset is a divided and distracted National Party. They have a fairly obvious choice - have a clear, consistent strategy of messaging around what can and should be done to reduce and eliminate the need for lockdowns, and a positive vision looking forward, based on better outcomes for the whole country. An open, outward looking vision of a largely vaccinated, prosperous country, that confronts failings in housing, healthcare, education and water, that encourages diverse responses to those challenges (yes, that includes Maori-based delivery for those who want it).  A government that is fleet of foot, innovative and doesn't tolerate poor performance, and doesn't default to having to command and control to address problems.  Can Judith Collins deliver that? I don't know, but the National caucus needs to develop a strategy and decide who is best to front it and lead it politically. Chris Bishop has been doing a decent job of taking the Government to task over issues like vaccines and saliva testing.  How hard can it be for the Opposition to focus on demanding better from a Government that has had nearly a year to prepare for the risk of a second outbreak?