CIRCUS IN WELLINGTON
- Michael Bassett
- Feb 20, 2022
- 2 min read
There’s something symbiotic about the protestors outside Parliament Buildings and the ministers inside who won’t talk to them. Both are motley, arrogant and short-sighted; they radiate confusion and specialize in messaging that is hard to understand. Virtually everything ministers have promised over the last four and a half years has crumpled in their hands, from building 100,000 new houses, abolishing homelessness, lifting people out of poverty, improving education, fixing the country’s creaking infrastructure, and enhancing race relations that have never been in a worse state. Yes, they have managed to get more than 90% of people over 12 vaccinated and citizens, overwhelmingly, are happy to carry a vaccination pass. But MIQ eventually became an expensive disaster and fewer and fewer people are contact tracing lest they become caught up in time-consuming, bureaucratic wrangles. Ministerial messaging is getting increasingly out of line with what people are doing.
The protestors are similarly confused on everything from a clear purpose through to whether they even want to talk to those who don’t want to talk to them. Most in this diverse assemblage of New Zealand’s modern underclass are engaged in a rumble with an “up you” message to the rest of us. As well, there’s a thin layer of brighter ideologues who are worried about the creeping shroud of authoritarianism that Jacinda Ardern is encasing us in. But, for the most part the IQ level on both sides is about equal. Some protestors would have happily joined Trump’s January 2021 Capitol riot; others are drawing welfare rather than having any work obligations. Both sides are mostly on the public payroll. The current ministers have similarly impoverished educational backgrounds and narrow life experience. Both sides seem ill-equipped to talk to produce a constructive dialogue, even if anyone wanted to.
Trespassing and randomly parking vehicles would normally be dealt with quickly by Police. But the Commissioner is a Jacinda clone who doesn’t want to upset anyone. “Be kind” seems to have become the Police’s mantra too. Meantime, Wellington’s Mayor and councillors, all of whom face elections in a few months’ time, would like to free up the streets and return their city to some form of normality. Small businesses without customers face closure because protestors are thumbing their noses at authority and won’t clear thoroughfares. There are probably more people whose livelihoods are in danger as a result of what is happening in their neighborhood than there are protestors whom Andrew Coster doesn’t want to risk roughing up. But with law and order gradually breaking down, more and more people are joining the throng at Parliament, excited by a sniff of anarchy and the fairground atmosphere. Political poseurs like Winston Peters can’t resist joining them. By doing nothing to enforce the law, the Police are growing the problem.
With Parliament in recess for a week there is a chance for ministers and the Police to come to their senses and work out some way of clearing the streets. If similar scenes in Ottawa, Canberra and Paris are any guide, force of some kind will be necessary. And after this is all over, the Police and the Defence forces will need to purchase new equipment like tow-away vehicles because the behaviour of the last couple of weeks will be repeated, nothing surer.
Hi otway1. You are a great twister of what was said. If you were to read carefully what I said, I asked a question only not implied anything. Basically, the question was: if you say that the 6m rise in sea level xxx years ago was due to melting glacial spreads, is this the same reason that spreads and retreats happened numerous times over the next millions of years ? That was a question, not a statement. So now you have clarified that your example only applied to that one event, kindly explain what caused multiple subsequent similar events.
Please do not take a holier than though approach to other people: you are not the Solomon of climate change. And…
In reply to alexandracorbettdekan, who asks if I think the present warming does not have an astronomical cause, I would say 'no' because, judging by the 100,000 years cycles ice age over at least the last 800,000 years, we are at the peak of an interglacial period and due for another ice age, not an exceptional warm period on top of the warm period we are now already in.
You will all be relieved to hear I'm now signing off as I'm out of time. I have made my position clear, as have the my various 'sparring partners'. Looks like never the twain shall meet, but at least we all tried! The platform is all yours now. Good luck!
Responding franksharp's lack of scientific understanding, that, because I suggested the trigger for the 6m sea level rise 3 million years ago may have been enormous volcanic eruptions, I might be implying that 'natural volcanic eruptions caused all of these spreads and retreats over the billions of years. .I don't know which 'spreads and retreats he's referring to, Looking back over billions of years, multiple big events were taking place as whole continents moved around and collided, coupled with the occasional disastrous meteorite strike, so volcanoes were possibly just one element. But if he's taking about the rise and fall of sea level coupled with CO2 and temperature changes over the past 2 million years as ice ages came a…
Larry.hill, I agree that ACT, as good citizens, should be concentrating on what can or can't do without ruining our economy but first ACT has to decide whether climate change is real or not, rather than declaring that, just because the Greens say it is, you all automatically denounce it as a myth and a ploy by them for more power. To me, that's the wrong way around. Study the science from reputable sources, clear of politics, first and then decide on your best policies to address whatever problems you honestly find. (Judging by all the blogs over the past few weeks, all I can say is 'Good luck on that one!')
You are not wrong Larry.
I have visited the USA quite a few times and agree that many not only don't know where NZ is they have never even heard of it.
I recall meeting a lady who owns a silver store in La Jolla CA. Who said when she heard we were from NZ " Oh you are very brave aren't you "
I asked how so.
'Well don't them there mayorioes have to kill a white man when they turn 21 and eat him. "
Mayori is how many of them who have heard of us pronounce maori."
quite often I receive goods from the USA addressed to me " New Zealand Australia.. They think we are part…