The surreal occupation of Parliament's grounds and environs and the increasingly objectionable behaviour of at least some of the protesters is understandably dominating the news cycles at present. 

Whatever else it is doing, it is distracting attention from other arguably more important developments in New Zealand's struggle against Covid19 and its variants.

Next week New Zealand resumes its slow and hitherto spluttering reconnection with the world. From 27 February New Zealanders who are fully vaccinated, and eligible travellers from Australia will be able to enter the country and self-isolate, rather than go into MIQ. Two weeks after that fully vaccinated New Zealanders and other currently eligible travellers from the rest of the world will be spared the ordeal of MIQ, if they are fully vaccinated, in favour of self-isolation.

Overseas students will be able to return from early April and it is likely by July, if not sooner, that New Zealand will be effectively open once more to all those visitors from countries with visa free entry here. By October, at the latest, it is intended travellers from all countries, with or without visa free entry status, will be allowed back to New Zealand.

These shifts are taking place against the backdrop of the rapid escalation of the number of Omicron cases showing up in the community, with the outbreak expected to peak over the next three to six weeks and decline quickly thereafter. Based on overseas experience, most of those contracting Omicron are likely to experience mild symptoms, akin to those of a heavy cold.

However, at the same time as this slow shift to normality is underway, and the emphasis shifts to living with the virus and its consequences, rather than eliminating it, there are still public health messages that paint a far grimmer picture. Some epidemiologists are still warning that Omicron is serious, and that people should be cautious about more normalised contact with others.

Therefore, it is no surprise that public opinion on what to do next remains divided. A recent Ipsos poll found that about half the country supports the current red traffic light approach, with the other half split between those who think it is too rigid and those who think it is not rigid enough. A Research NZ poll reported that people are evenly divided between getting on with their lives as usual and going into a personal form of Level 4 lockdown while Omicron is around.

Overall, the government moves to reconnect New Zealand with the world notwithstanding, there is no doubt that many people remain wary of doing so. Despite high vaccination rates and the international evidence that Omicron’s impact on the health of vaccinated people is generally no more than an inconvenience, many New Zealanders are still too frightened about the potential risk Omicron poses and are therefore reluctant to resume life as usual.

Against this backdrop, comments last week from the medical director of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, Dr Bryan Betty, are worth noting.

Dr Betty has been a vocal supporter of the government’s approach to the pandemic but says it is now time for a “change in mindset” in how the country lives with Covid-19 and to move on from the fear and anxiety that had been built up about Covid19.

He wants to “focus on other health issues and illnesses that are waiting in the wings.” With winter on the way, he said, influenza is a “big concern” because lockdowns and border closures have reduced the public’s exposure. (It is worth noting that around 500 people die from influenza each year in New Zealand.)

He also said more attention needs to be given to non-Covid child immunisation rates, because falling jab rates could trigger outbreaks of whooping cough and measles. “The pandemic will come to an end in the next six to 12 months. That’s not to say Covid-19 will disappear - it won’t. However, we will learn to live with it in the same way we do with colds and flu … We need to be de-escalating this down to get into a position where most of us are just going to have a mild to moderate illness, that we're going to get through like any respiratory illness in winter, and we need to be moving on, and perhaps the way we're approaching it at the moment is causing more problems than good, and we may have reached a pivot point with that,” he said.

His comments were echoed earlier this week by Dr John Bonning, chair of the Council of Medical Colleges, who said that while many public health measures needed to stay, and changes should be step by step, Omicron, combined with high vaccination rates, was causing much less serious illness among vaccinated people. It was time to start to reduce some of the public anxiety that has built up over the last two years, he said.

Implicit in both the Betty and Bonning comments is the suggestion that the continued hyping up of the Omicron threat is not helpful to New Zealand’s management of this phase of the pandemic and may even be counter-productive in terms of the public response.

These are telling criticisms from experienced medical professionals that deserve far wider attention and consideration than they appear to have received. As New Zealand stands on the cusp of becoming connected once again to the rest of the world, and there is clear public apprehension about that, commentary from senior Ministers along the lines of Betty’s and Bonning’s remarks would be helpful in reassuring a jittery public. Unfortunately, there have been none so far, suggesting the government, like its epidemiologist advisers, still sees maintaining a high level of public fear of the current state of the pandemic as useful, while it goes about the reconnection process.  

Drs Betty and Bonning have raised important issues that deserve debate and consideration, greater than the ongoing focus on the occupation at Parliament and the gridlock it is causing in the nearby streets. Whatever other impact that circus may be having, it is not reducing the fear and anxiety many people retain about the impact of Omicron. The focus needs to shift to addressing the far more important issues Drs Betty and Bonning are drawing attention to.

The government should heed their message and change its messaging to reflect what they are saying to reduce the fear and consequent anxiety many New Zealanders still have about returning to a more normal way of life.

 

 

In the early years of the twentieth century United States President Theodore Roosevelt described his approach to foreign policy as “speak softly and carry a big stick.” He stood, he said, for “the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis.” 

Our Commissioner of Police might well have considered Roosevelt’s dictum as he contemplated how to respond to the occupation of Parliament grounds that is becoming more entrenched as each day passes. While he has certainly spoken softly enough – indeed, some would say far too softly and even then very belatedly – since the protest began, it is now woefully clear he carries no big stick. Nor does it appear there was any forethought ahead of the protest about what might eventuate and how it could be intelligently and decisively handled. 

To date, none of the steps taken by the Police have worked. The early resort to mass arrests looked chillingly like the dragging away of protestors during the Bastion Point occupation in the 1970s. It petered out after only a day when it became obvious that it had done nothing to weaken the resolve of the protestors, and that there was not sufficient cell space available to hold large numbers of people arrested this way. Nor were the Courts likely to appreciate having their already hopelessly overcrowded timetable further burdened through the large number of cases likely to arise as a result. 

So that approach was abandoned, giving an unwanted pyric victory to the protestors. Then came the clumsy plan to allow people to shift their vehicles to a specially established safe haven at Wellington’s nearby Sky Stadium. That failed when protestors became wary that it was primarily a thinly disguised device to get them off Parliament grounds, rather than the traffic management response it was promoted as. It was therefore hardly surprising that the uptake of the offer was minimal. 

Only after a week of the occupation, when tempers and public tolerance had become extremely frayed, did the Commissioner of Police make his first public comment. That time delay was extraordinary enough but just as extraordinary was the limpness of his eventual statement, described by Newshub’s political editor as a “joke.” 

The Commissioner intoned the protest was “no longer tenable”, something those living and working nearby had been saying for days beforehand. He then issued his ineffectual warning that obstructing vehicles are about to be towed away, confiscated, and anyone who impedes that process will be arrested. While that might have sounded good, he seemed to overlook that it is one thing to make such grand statements, but something else to enforce them.   

For whatever reason he has not got the co-operation of the towing industry to start towing away vehicles. Nor does he yet have the commitment of the Defence Force. There have been loose suggestions that the Defence Force might be utilised to assist in the removal of vehicles, but nothing more specific has so far been forthcoming. Nor, based on experience, is it likely. 

Over the years, the Defence Force has been very wary of becoming involved in law-and-order situations, for obvious and proper reasons. Where it has assisted the Police it has been in responding to civil emergencies like earthquakes, floods, or severe storms, where its logistical and recovery skills can be employed to best effect. From the time of the Springbok tour, though, the Defence Force has generally and prudently shied well clear of becoming a back-up law-and-order agency to the Police. 

All of which leaves the Commissioner’s tardy response looking hesitant and pleading, rather than decisive. That is sadly more grist to the protestors’ mill. It also places the front-line Police who have been doing a thankless but professional and vital task holding the line in Parliament grounds in an impossible position. They have been left in the meantime to carry on their tedious task of holding the line almost indefinitely while their leaders continue to flounder around in search of a viable solution. 

When added to the vacuum of political leadership now exposed, the situation is rapidly being reduced to the level of farce. Politicians are happy to stand loftily to one side, saying while they respect the right of people to protest, they will not talk to them because they disagree with the cause they promote, and that, in any case, the matter is for the Police to resolve. For their part, the Police leadership seems bereft of any viable strategy to do so. Worse, what steps they have taken to date have neither worked nor been sustained. The Police now look as impotent as the government has proven itself to be. 

Inevitably, there has been airy talk of changing the law to prevent this situation ever recurring. But that is a meaningless and unnecessary diversionary tactic. The law as it stands is sufficient, if properly enforced. The erection of the first tent should never have been allowed, let alone the proliferation that followed. Letting that occur legitimised the occupation that has followed. 

The real solution lies in Roosevelt’s warning of the need for “intelligent forethought” followed by “decisive action” to bolster soft talk. In recent years we have become far too focussed on treating speaking softly about how things should be as end of itself. However unpalatable it may currently be, there needs to be more focus ensuring there is a workable big stick to back up the rhetoric. In his current predicament, the essentially earnest and well-meaning Commissioner of Police would likely agree.

 

 

 

At first glance, Andrew Little’s admission that he does not know when the country will move to the orange traffic light system, or even what it will take to make such a move, seems utterly disingenuous. After all, he is the Minister of Health, and a senior member of the Cabinet. It would be expected he would be receiving the same briefings from the Director-General of Health, his departmental chief executive, that the Prime Minister is getting. 

By way of contrast, throughout the Covid19 crisis, the Prime Minister has projected a consistent image of confidence and certainty about the course of the pandemic and the risks it posed. Whenever she has seemed momentarily uncertain she has quickly been bolstered by the Director-General, lest the mask of omniscience slip. The pair have never allowed themselves to be caught or derailed by the uncertainty, basking in the description by another Minister that their daily press conferences are “the podium of truth”. 

Their absolute determination to always be right has led on occasion to the ridiculous extent of saying something, just for the sake of saying it. This week’s earnest Prime Ministerial observations to Parliament that Omicron “will not be the only variant” and we can expect ‘to face new and different variants this year” told us nothing new. Even worse was the comment after the protests at Parliament that vaccine mandates will be removed “when they’re no longer needed’! But a lapping media duly reported these “profundities” faithfully and uncritically as new facts, despite the fact they were hardly deep insights nor even news. Overseas commentators and experts have been saying the same for months now. 

The Prime Minister’s determination to always appear in control is at increasing variance with what others close to the inner circle are doing. Dr Bloomfield, it seems, is having increasing difficulty remembering whether his Ministry disrupted or not the purchase of Rapid Antigen Test kits by New Zealand businesses, and his role in it, changing his recollection from day to day almost, leaving the Covid19 Minister struggling to know what to believe. 

Meanwhile, the various teams of modellers allegedly modelling the likely course of an Omicron outbreak produce different sets of figures and explanations every time they offer a prediction, leaving the public confused and uncertain as to what is likely to happen if or when Omicron takes hold. Little over a fortnight ago modellers and epidemiologists were predicting thousands of Omicron cases in the community by the last weekend, with the public health system teetering to cope. Now, when the actual figures are so far much lower, Professor Michael Plank says the original projections were overseas figures that did not take account of the level of vaccination in New Zealand. 

Be that as it may, they were still trotted out from the “podium of truth” as authoritative evidence of the immediate risk Omicron posed to New Zealand when the government’s top health advisers and the modellers knew they were at the very least not the full story as far as New Zealand was concerned, if not completely wrong altogether. 

Against that backdrop of obfuscating and trivialising the situation all the time so that the government and its advisers always look to be in control, Andrew Little’s honest admission is refreshing. He deserves to be congratulated, not pilloried, for his candour which appears as a genuine recognition that we are still in challenging and constantly changing times, the likes of which we have not seen before. The one thing all the reputable international experts agree on is that there is a while to go yet before Covid19 in all its forms is either controlled or gotten rid of completely. All of which makes the singular absolutism of the New Zealand government that much harder to keep taking seriously. 

However, there is no shame in admitting there are things that we do not know, or that have not worked out quite as expected or intended. Yet the government and its advisers seem to think that only they know what they are doing and that to admit otherwise is some form of failure. Given the mounting criticism that the government is shutting out people, from business leaders to the wider community, who do not accept its position uncritically, there is much to be gained from a more open and honest approach. 

New Zealanders have endured a lot over the last two years – from the lockdowns and restrictions on personal freedoms, to the separation from family and friends, family events without loved ones present, businesses closing and jobs lost – and are increasingly impatient for the return to more normal circumstances which the Prime Minister foreshadowed last week. It is hardly surprising though, that given the tortuous path she set out, public impatience is now giving way to public fatigue. 

That is likely to intensify over the next few months, particularly once Australia re-joins the world. The tolerance for continuing trite statements and instructions from the “podium of truth” will continue to erode, no matter what the situation is. In that environment, more of Andrew Little’s blunt honesty could be just the antidote which the country needs to the platitudes and half-truths we are being fed at present.    

 

Christopher Luxon can feel well pleased with how things have gone since he picked up the previously poisoned chalice of leader of the National Party just over nine weeks ago. 

For the first time since going into Opposition more than four years ago the party has started to look as though it is serious about being a real contender for office again. It has begun to sharpen its focus on the main areas where it sees the Labour government as vulnerable – the ongoing management of the pandemic response and New Zealand’s reconnection with the world, and the deteriorating economic situation. 

However, it has not all been plain sailing. The continuing mini controversies surrounding Harete Hipango are at this stage simply an irritant, but they could become more problematic if they continue, and Luxon is forced to act more bluntly than he has done so far to bring her into line or remove her altogether. 

The first opinion polls of the year suggest Luxon is making headway with the public, at the expense of both the Prime Minister and the government. Also, they show mounting pessimism about the state of the economy and the overall direction of the country, normally fertile ground for an Opposition to hoe in its quest for votes. 

Nevertheless, it is still very early days in the Luxon leadership, and a lot will change before the country goes to the next election in about eighteen months’ time. Luxon will not want to get too far ahead of himself but can feel satisfied about the progress he has already made. People are starting to talk once more about the prospect of the National Party leading a future government, not just continuing to tear itself apart. National’s challenge now is to build on that emerging conversation and solidify the new interest in what it is saying into real support before the next election. 

When Parliament begins sitting for the year next week the underlying dynamic will consequently be different from the last few years. If the Luxon momentum continues and builds, the government will be tested in the House in a way that it has not been since pre-pandemic days. And with the public becoming increasingly grumpy about aspects of the pandemic response, things are unlikely to be as plain sailing for it as they have been. The unprecedented partisanship of the Speaker notwithstanding, a more effective and hungry Opposition might force Ministers to give proper answers to Questions in the House for a start. 

Moreover, based on recent polls, a large number of Labour MPs, in the main those who came in on the back of the big swing in 2020, face losing their seats in 2023. Many of the 15 electorate seats won by Labour from National in 2020 will likely flip back to National, although some of those Labour MPs will probably make their way back to Parliament via the party list. Nevertheless, on current polling about a quarter of Labour’s present MPs are at risk of not being re-elected next year. 

As that reality starts to sink in over the next few months, those MPs and others who might also feel threatened will inevitably start to focus more on what they need to do to secure their individual re-election than they have needed to do so far. That will place pressure on the government to be responsive to their needs, to ensure they keep playing for the whole team and not just themselves. It will make the internal management of the Caucus to retain a sense of unity, cohesion, and purpose that much more difficult. This will be especially so if Labour’s fortunes continue to deteriorate – as they have been for the last few months – in the opinion polls. 

Luxon and his team will be keen, if they can, to establish in the public mind the contrast between a National Party on the way up, and a Labour government increasingly hunkered down and looking inwards to protect a shrinking patch. In short, Luxon will be seeking to promote the vision of a positive National Party versus a stuck in a rut Labour government. Achieving that will require a level of internal party focus and discipline the party has not demonstrated since the halcyon days of the Key/English era. 

Of the other parties, ACT, the Greens, and Te Paati Māori will all be seeking to consolidate their support to give them good platforms for the coming election year. But each will have their own way of going about achieving that. 

ACT will be wanting to lock in its gains of the last two years, knowing all the while though that at least some of National’s rise will be at its expense. It will therefore most likely continue to be the government’s most aggressive Covid19 critic to shore up the libertarian vote to National’s right. ACT will also seek to promote itself as Luxon’s reliable support partner, whose ideological rigour will be needed to underpin a future centre-right government. 

Likewise, Te Paati Māori will be focusing almost solely on its constituents, aiming to win at least one more of the Māori electorate seats, and boost its party vote support at the same time. While the party says it has ruled out working with National in a future governing arrangement, a careful reading of its position suggests a more ambivalent approach. All it seems to have ruled out is a repeat of the previous 2008-2017 governing partnership with National, which still leaves a range of possible support options open to it, if it wished to use its influence. 

The Greens are probably in the most awkward position of all the smaller parties. Although not in a formal coalition with Labour, the Greens’ fortunes are nevertheless inextricably linked to Labour’s. Having emphatically ruled out ever working with National they have left themselves nowhere else to go. Consequently, the Greens will suffer more so than most support parties the taint of being bound to a government whose support is waning. Compounding their problem is that if Labour’s support continues to slip, Labour will start to look towards cannibalising soft Greens support to bolster its faltering position. 

These changing political fortunes confirm that the abnormal circumstances that shaped the political environment at the time of the 2020 election have passed, and that politics are now returning to their more normal state. While Covid19 will continue to be a significant influence, at least for the short to medium term, other more long-term issues like the state of the economy and climate change are starting to reassert themselves. That means the convenient excuses of everything being on hold due to Covid19 are no longer relevant or credible. Political parties are being expected once more to offer their plan for New Zealand’s future. 

This change creates Luxon’s opportunity to brand National as the party for the future. The early polls suggest the public might be ready to listen to what he has to say. But there is still a long way to go to solidify that early public curiosity into something more tangible and lasting. That will only happen if National can develop a clear and attractive message to put before voters before the next election.