Below an article in the top Aussie newspaper, The Australian, published a few days ago.
As said before, the true devastation will not be evident until the utterly unnecessary lockdown is finally recovered. It’s a social economic horror story lying ahead, attributable to the most appalling misjudgement, abysmal leadership and too many New Zealanders’ passive gullibility.
Flightless economy to land with a thud
Jacinda Ardern might have popular support, but the facts are she is pushing the NZ economy off a cliff.
- From Commentary
May 27, 2020
- 4 MINUTE READ
No national leader has been as feted as Jacinda Ardern during this pandemic. Young and progressive, New Zealand’s Prime Minister was popular before the crisis. Since she imposed the favoured pandemic solution of the left — a hard lockdown, shutting practically all business and no socialising with anyone outside your home — her star has only risen.
“Laughing in the face of seismic shakes, she has calmly steered her country in the face of a massacre, an eruption and a pandemic,” The Guardian cooed on Tuesday. Steering it into an economic abyss, perhaps.
New Zealand’s economy is in strife. Without major change, our constitutional cousin is in decline. Its public finances are in tatters, its biggest export, tourism, has been obliterated — Air New Zealand announced 4000 job losses this week — and New Zealand police now can enter people’s homes without a warrant.
“New Zealand is going backwards, falling behind the vast majority of our OECD partners in virtually every social and economic measure that matters,” said Roger Douglas, a former New Zealand Labour treasurer and the famed architect of Rogernomics.
New Zealand ranks fourth last in the OECD for labour productivity growth, and last for multi-factor productivity growth, according to economist Michael Reddell, based on OECD data. Health and education are gobbling up more of the budget as the population ages, with less and less to show for it.
The country’s Massey University reckons economic activity will tank 16 per cent in the second quarter, while government forecasts pencil in a 4.6 per cent decline this year ahead of an 8.2 per cent rebound in 2022.
“I doubt the economy will bounce back as the government hopes; and the Treasury forecasts, as bad as they are, will prove optimistic,” former NZ Treasury secretary Graham Scott said.
In one year, New Zealand has blown 30 years of hard-fought fiscal rectitude. Its public debt will explode from the equivalent of 19 per cent of gross domestic product last year to 54 per cent by 2022, on the government’s own figures.
Scott said expanding the deficit, expected to blow out to 10 per cent this year, was the right thing to do. “But looking further out, comparisons with other countries, such as the US and UK, are no basis to justify our large debt ratios; we’re a small, open economy with vulnerable export industries,” he said, noting the share of exports in GDP had been falling steadily for nine years.
That makes Labour’s ban on oil and gas exploration all the more bizarre. With 0.3 per cent of global GDP, New Zealand can only shoot itself in the foot by shunning fossil fuels. The Prime Minister and Finance Minister, who have not worked in the private sector, spruik the totems of modern left governments — renewable energy, trees, higher tax, equality — but without much to show for it. Plans for a billion trees and 100,000 houses have come close to almost naught, and a capital-gains tax was dumped. Labour made a song and dance about reducing child poverty too, but on six out of nine measures tracked by Statistics New Zealand it is unchanged or worse since 2017, including the share of children living in “material hardship”, which has risen to 13.4 per cent.
It’s hard to see how shifting to a four-day working week, the Prime Minister’s latest reform idea, will fix the country’s problems.
“The real problem with the Ardern government is they have no idea whatsoever apart from how to throw money at things,” Douglas told The Australian. The targeted “investment” approach to welfare pioneered when previous prime minister Bill English was treasurer has been junked in favour of open slather. “Our $12bn wage subsidy, for instance; about a third was a donation to people who don’t need it,” he said, explaining how well-off lawyers and accountants had obtained the payments.
New Zealand’s international investment position was negative $171bn at the end of last year, more than half its GDP. “To keep international investors’ trust, we must remain squeaky clean in our fundamental economic institutions,” New Zealand Initiative chief executive Oliver Hartwich said. “Even Mexico, Nigeria and Venezuela are not as indebted to the rest of the world as New Zealand.”
The nation’s draconian response to the coronavirus was questionable, given it is an island with a massive moat and a small population spread over an area the size of Italy. Despite those obvious advantages, the stringency of its lockdown was higher than practically any other country, according to Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government. Deaths per million were the same as Australia’s — just four.
In any case, it wasn’t outsized compassion that drove the lockdown sledgehammer but the brutal reality of an underfunded health system. With about 140 intensive care unit beds and few ventilators — far fewer than Australia per capita — it was woefully underprepared. Ardern is more popular than ever, and by all accounts is a good person and a great communicator. But if a COVID-19 vaccine remains elusive, New Zealanders may come to question her wisdom as they fall further down the global pecking order. Without economic growth, there won’t be money for more ICU beds.
If we want to fete other countries for their response to the virus, how about Japan? It didn’t smash the civil liberties of its people for weeks yet it managed to keep deaths very low. Eschewing big-government solutions, Shinzo Abe would have had to “transition” to get the left’s attention.
ECONOMICS EDITOR
35 Comments
This is just the beginning, too. People miss the fact that we won’t see much of a recovery when investors are too spooked to put their money down on anything new. I made a video on that if I’m allowed to link it here? https://youtu.be/sPRHFY480Po
Watched your Vid Andrew A. Thanks for putting that together. At one end of the adult population we have people that think the most important thing in life is queuing up for KFC after having been deprived for so long and at the other end we appear to have many well (university) educated (indoctrinated) individuals that believe socialism is fair, kind, balanced and just. I’m not sure what we’ve got in the middle, maybe we find out on election day. I take my hat off to all you business owners out there. You’ve got balls of steel….and that goes for the ladies as well. We need a government that is business friendly. Business creates jobs and makes the economy what it is. I don’t regard government as a business. It’s there to ensure a few vital checks and balances are maintained…..law n order, defense, freedom of its citizenry. It’s foot print should be small so that the economy can have the opportunity to become large. We don’t need rock starts in parliament or people thinking for us as though we are simpletons. Our prime minister said she went into politics because she wanted to help. You can’t help anyone without money and you can only extend your credit so far before the bar owner closes your tab and you get dragged out into the street by the bouncers. Is that what’s going to happen to us?
Powerful piece.
On the political front, after a decent first speech, Muller is looking a complete flash in the pan.
Disappointing.
We’ll have to see won’t we.
Sadly Muller’s strategic ability seems worse than Bridges’. Totally missing in action re opening the economy his only thought seems to be outspending Labour while claiming to be better managers. Meanwhile Winston is taking all the opportunities he is missing. Hopeless.
Reblogged this on Utopia, you are standing in it!.
The Kiwi media, our bastions of “truth to power”, committed as they are to holding our government to account will no doubt be headlining this article. Perhaps some local follow up with Roger Douglas and Michael Reddell?
No, thought not.
Yes. Says it all. Left wing academic extremists with utterly no experience and the petted daughter of a cop.
Winston’s ego and more inexperienced 4th estate girls preventing any truth from reaching the public…(as i’d mentioned in previous rant, the lies spread about the thousands of kids dying of starvation all over the country prior to the last election , just shameful lies).
A perfect storm.
This hopefully will bear out in time and we should remember the culprits.
Its just sad to see all the previous years of hard graft thrown away and watch the catastrophic consequences. I really don’t like this government. …Hope the stasi don’t knock on my door!
Sorry to disappoint. They took our guns and now they are going to arm the police. Oh yea, the Stasi don’t have to knock any more, either.
Quarntine – restricting the movement of sick people,
Tyranny – restricting the movement of healthy people.
Alcatraz is an island too.
Yes agree with you Andrew A . Good point. I would think the mere thought of this lot getting back in will have the same “no friggen way” effect anyway. Keep up good work mate.
Yes this is all true Sir Bob. But, in your opinion, what should we do? Yes I know vote and hold our breath but if the unthinkable happens? Entrepreneurial kiwis are my hope, and some sort of spiritual awakening.
We have had the media studies’ textbook theory of spin well deployed, now the fix in real-world time is to be read in Woman’s day and the NZ Women’s Weekly but no… both have gone.
I wish to add the following: 1. A context for the above was my reading of an article by James Dellingpole about the state manipulation of behaviour by media: https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/05/26/the-mainstream-media-are-bought-paid-for-and-doomed/ 2. The selling of the shut down was excellent and it had great public support but that doe sot mean our critical faculties should be dispensed with. 3. The road to marketing spin and propaganda is a direct one. Conflating spin which knocks into MSM op-ed and then with fact, risks truth. The Australian article-adn teh comparator- was timely so as to put a contrary view and not take everything that is served up uncritically. I was unemployed before the lockdown and my situation is now far worse given my age (and possibly gender) as it is for others in my cohort, who either are not eligible to be resitred with MSD and certainly not eligible fort eh UIEB double payment. The “flyover” folk are not in the purview of MSM; (4) The recent redundancies of engineering apprentices in Nelson along with AirNZ’ engineering staff et al points to a serious technical skills shortage down the track. The coups in Fiji denuded Fiji of its techno class and the same will happen here. I appreciated the posting of the article as some hard realities need to be confronted which eh feminisation of politics obscures.
If the Nats really want to make statement they should be getting the young Nats to organise protest marches demanding the country is put on Level 1 immediately. The dictator would hate that, people openly disagreeing with her bullshit. I’d be in the front of the line if their was a protest and I bet I wouldn’t be alone.
Good thought!
Ardern will just grow the mess more by bringing in yet even more immigrants and raise taxes to create “equality” and punish “white privelege”. More people makes GDP look better even though unemployed is huge, we have a drought and cannot continue to sustain such unmitigated numbers of people arriving. She is also continuing to suckle from the teats of China way too much who will soon have complete control over NZ.
Yes, Michael Reddell who is quoted in the article has long been arguing that productivity gains from Rogernomics are swallowed up by population growth driven by immigration policy targets. Labour and National both appear beholden to
interest groups that prevent them from reducing the annual target.
https://croakingcassandra.com/2019/08/29/immigration-and-nz-economic-performance/
Why has no journalist in NZ put together an article like this?
Because they are scared that if they are not in jacinda’s camp they will be in oblivion.
They are probably right which means the thoughtpolice are out in force
Just a thought . Whats J Key or B English think about the figures?…don’t really know if thats a sensible thing to ponder or not….just from your average surf like me….Sir Bob may have their thoughts !…and/but maybe not care….ha ha you rascal.
I’d like some more opinion from other experienced economic people…we promise to keep it underground.
The western economy is based on debt. A category of the mind. The end of this fictitious world, this world of fake money, of man, is coming to an end. Keep your family safe.
Adam Creighton is the worst of Murdoch media (think Fox News). This is the guy that basically said we should let old people die to protect the economy. Also said Sweden was the model to follow re COVID response. Low and behold Sweden is now completely screwed because of their strategy.
Adam Creighton is the worst of Murdoch media (think Fox News). This is the guy that basically said we should let old people die to protect the economy. Also said Sweden was the model to follow re COVID response. Low and behold Sweden is now struggling because of their strategy.
We all die, and old people more than most.
What happens if there is another virus next year?
Well we can all pick various articles from around the world to support our point of view regarding if we should have had a lockdown. Here is one.
“Economists at the University of Copenhagen have found lockdowns have had little impact on consumer spending habits and that the true dampener of purchasing activity is the coronavirus itself.
The findings of the preprint paper, which may not have been peer-reviewed, call into question the premise of the much-touted Swedish strategy, in which the Nordic country has shied away from entering lockdown, suffering thousands of deaths as a result, in order to preserve the economy.
Transaction data for 830,000 Danes and Swedes from the second-largest Scandinavian bank found aggregate spending dropped by 25 percent in Sweden and 29 percent in neighbouring Denmark, which instituted a lockdown. Denmark has had 10,713 cases of Covid-19 and 537 deaths, while Sweden has seen 28,582 cases and 3529 deaths.”
Denmark clearly made the wiser decision by having a lockdown.
Sweden has double the population of New Zealand but also double the land size, although many Swedes do live in apartments. Even if you discount the Swedish per capita death rate due to New Zealanders predominately living in houses and arguably therefore being less prone to infection, we certainly would have had considerably more deaths than what we have had.
The question is what is the economic value of a New Zealand life given most of the people who would of died from Covid 19 would have been elderly. I remember I once met a couple who were complaining about Transit NZ’s refusal to alter a road as someone had been a roadside fatality outside their property. Transit’s position was that they required 2.5 deaths first. I’m not sure how you arrive at half a death, perhaps an amputated arm? The point is, here is the Government refusing to spend money on altering a road until it equates to the economic value of 2.5 lives, yet clearly the same calculation has not been applied to Covid-19.
Due to the psyche of the average Kiwi, I believe the Government had little choice but to enforce a lockdown, otherwise they would have lost the election and the National Party would now be subjecting them to something similar to what Donald Trump is having to deal with, the Trump Death Clock in Times Square.
This certainly reiterates some of points I have made in the past about bottom-up emergent behaviour and governmental popular obligation. Interesting to see.
When my Folks arrived in NZ in the early 1970’s it was practically impossible to buy a car or anything made overseas. The country was a basket case of socialist theory designed to “level the playing field”. Any risk taking or wealth creating activity was seen as trouble making. I fear we are heading right back down that path of grotesque controls over every day life. The total lack of life experience to fall back on and the generally naive view of the current PM just reminds me of the proverb about “The road to hell is lined with good intentions”
There will be no vaccine.
We went too far with the lockdown. We should have tried to obtain Herd Immunity, after locking up the oldies and infirm of course.
No one can read the future.I have book marked some commentators predictions for the share market to see how accurate they are.A number were fanciful rubbish ie predicting annihilation of markets etc.I see the latest advice from the RBA States no one really knows how the current situation is going to evolve.On Thursday a relation of mine was advised to consider bank stocks,on Friday same stocks were retreating.A number of years ago some brokers were advising clients to ditch BHP,some time later Australia went into a prolonged mining boom.Years ago I had a small cluster of ANZ shares,my broker said I may as well sell them because ANZ shares didn’t seem to be doing much,at 12 midnight ANZ Australia launched a takeover.The rest is history,no one has the crystal ball and Fabbionci retracement is not a substitute IMHO.
“Bob is wonderful , Bob is brilliant and I hang on his every word.”
But how I hate those dreaded words ” your comment is awaiting moderation”
I often feel like R.J.Hadlee must have felt when he bowled a perfect ball , but an outstanding ‘leave’ by A.R.Border allowed it to pass harmlessly through to I.D.S.Smith.
The lunatics are running the asylum.
Another gem from Bob.
How does he do it ?
It is time for the Sunday sermon of CAKE FACE.
The Prime Minister is supposedly a “progressive”. What does it all mean?
Never fear, dear reader, CAKE FACE has solved it all.
I suppose we should start by looking at what Ms Ardern said she wanted to achieve, and perhaps we could work out this “progressive” definition in this way.
Ms Ardern came into Parliament saying that she valued human rights, social justice, democracy and the role of communities. She supported our welfare state as a necessary safety net. She was particularly concerned about child poverty reduction.
How has she done? Ms Ardern’s extreme lockdown has defecated daily, with impeccable regularity, on human rights. Her extremist lockdown may or may not have been illegal, but the fact that she has been pissing on our justice system for months is not in question. Every day, the Prime Minister spits on our democratic process, with a giant glob of centralised hoick. The welfare system is on track to go bankrupt within a decade, due to her vomiting vandalism on the economy. Child poverty? You do the maths. And so it goes on…
Perhaps this wasn’t part of Ms Ardern’s “progressive” political plan? Let’s delve deeper.
CAKE FACE previously wrote a post where I explained that in terms of economic substance, the “progressive” philosophy simply amounts to the 1970s dystopia known as Muldoonism. Of course, Ms Ardern’s style is very different to Muldoonism, and this is where I should elaborate.
Ms Ardern has, it seems to me, copied the “communication” style of an extremely successful 1970s advertising campaign. The current government is identical in style to McDonaldland. For those of you who are old enough to remember, this was a 1970’s McDonald’s advertising campaign.
The Prime Minister is the Ronald McDonald of NZ politics. Ms Ardern, with her fixed leering grin, all teeth and lipstick, is truly terrifying to behold. Her garish look is amplified by her banal blabbering, which in totality creates a sinister, disturbing vision. In her, we see ourselves, reflected and distorted. She represents degenerate desires, deviant cravings, and an abiding love of teddy bears. Her sidekick, the Finance Minister, is clearly representing Grimace. He is the demiurge, or the creator. From him all the terrible financial things in this dystopia have sprung. Our rogue’s gallery also includes the Minister of Health, who acts and speaks like hamburglar, both bungling and incoherent.
Of course, if the government are simply old fashion socialists, with a McDonaldland marketing campaign, why don’t they just say so?
This question is the starting point for understanding the tenets of the “progressive” ideology.
Professor Nietzsche famously said we create our own Gods. This is an interesting way of looking at the world. Accordingly, many socialists worship Karl Marx, Lenin or Trotsky.
Bernie Sanders describes himself as a “democratic socialist”. Of course, this is an oxymoron, given the socialism can’t be democratic, and socialists are virtually never elected. Irrespectively, he is honest about being a socialist. The problem for anyone brave enough to call themselves a socialist is that they will be called to account for the horrors of Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, Joseph Stalin, and numerous other totalitarian monsters from the 20th Century. Indeed, Mr Sanders copped huge amounts of well justified criticism for his support of Fidel Castro.
The “progressive” rebadging of socialism should be seen for what it is – a dishonest marketing ploy to pretend that their socialism is softer than the socialist tyrannies of the past. They propose the same road to serfdom, but they insist that they support new Gods, and new methods. Gone are Marx and Engels. In are the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy, and Santa Claus. The new Gods of progressivism are, they assure us, far kinder than Stalin. But can it really be so? Can you steal people’s human and property rights, in a kind way, with no cost to anyone?
That everything is costless and free – that there is no responsibility or accountability for anything – is the first tenet of the “progressive” politics. Everything leads remorselessly from this fake premise.
The second tenet of “progressive” politics flows naturally from the first. Again, let’s look to history, for an analogous situation. During the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette was incorrectly attributed with saying “let them eat cake”, in response to the peasants starving for lack of bread.
The Prime Minister’s “Let them eat cake” moment was suggesting a four-day week for the peasants – and there is no misattribution in this case.
Of course, the common man simply can’t survive on 80% of his wages, so what is she talking about? Is the Prime Minister so out of touch, that she doesn’t realise the common man is on the bones of their arse?
Being completely out of touch to ordinary people is then the second key tenet of “progressive” politics. Of course, poor people might not be able to afford to work four days a week, but Ms Ardern certainly could. Entitlement is a third tenet of “progressive” politics. We will come back to this later, with regards to the hypocrisy of champagne socialism.
Perhaps Ms Ardern thinks that employers should pay their employees the same amount for a four week day, as they paid for five days? This, in “progressive” terms, represents a “free” win for all. It will cost the employer 25% more for the same work, but employers don’t vote for the government, in any case…
This then is the heart and soul of “progressive” politics – the concept that everything produced by someone you don’t like can be justifiably taken, and is somehow rightfully given to the recipient.
This belief is illustrated recently by the disaster that is the governments so-called “Healthy Homes” policy. The government requires rangehoods, extractor fans, moisture barriers et al for every rental property in the country (although not for owner occupied properties). I suspect that Ms Ardern believed that these upgrades would be magically free to impoverished tenants, because the landlord would pay for it all. CAKE FACE did indeed pay for it all – at least initially.
Alas for Ms Ardern, as there is inelastic supply and demand for rental accommodation, these costs are simply passed onto the tenants. If the tenant would rather pay $100 bucks a week less and forego the rangehood et al – tough luck, you’re having this crap, and the rent is going up up up! Complain to Princess Kindness about that.
Not to be beaten by pesky demand and supply calculations, the Prime Minister has now frozen rents. CAKE FACE is down but not out. In the end, the Mum and Dad investors bear the brunt of this regulation.
Anyway, the idea that everything can somehow be magically “free” is a key tenet of the “progressive” politics. We now go full circle. Earlier in the sermon, I pointed out that the “progressive” Gods weren’t Marx and Lenin. The “progressive” Gods are the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. These characters are famous for giving away free stuff to the masses. Who better is there to emulate? And what could possibly go wrong in worshipping a mythical entity when you’re over six years of age?
If you’ve got this far, you may be thinking – this is stupid. If so, you’re on the money, because the next key tenet of “progressive” politics is stupidity, to the point where their arguments are simply illogical and irrational.
The Prime Minister is clearly slightly mentally defective, but let’s not hold this against her. The common man does not necessarily have a brilliant scholastic record, but can typically make up for this by having quite a bit of common sense. This is why democracy works, at least relative to any other system mankind has tried (paraphrasing Churchill). The common man gets his common sense from bitter experience. He has learnt basic truisms. If he wants to spend, he has to work and earn. He learns this from the ordinary business of life.
This brings me to the next key tenet of “progressive” politics. It is wholly and exclusively propagated by people who have never had a real job in their entire lives. Their “career” progression begins with a bogus degree in communications or some other such nonsense, then they get a non-job in the so-called “meedja”, or as a public relations advisor, or some other such drivel.
In essence, I would say the average McDonald’s worker has more relevant work experience to be in charge of the government, than the current Prime Minister has. Of course, the jewel in the Prime Minister crown (and the only real job she has had in her entire career) was working at a fish and chip shop. I would be quite impressed, but it’s the only real job she ever had, for a short period of time, and she held a junior position. She should have stuck at it.
In summary, the typical “progressive” supporter has no life experience. Nonetheless, this does not stop the “progressive” speaking in an incredibly patronising and condescending fashion. If you want evidence of this, check out the gurning Prime Minister with the autistic savant Rain Man Dr Raymond Bloomfield in any press conference, if you can possibly bear to watch it. Of course, what makes this condescension a particularly bitter pill to swallow is that Ms Ardern is essentially vacant, vacuous and gormless. Condescension from a genius is annoying enough, but patronising comments from a village idiot is even more irritating.
But wait, as the infomercials will say, there’s more.
You might be thinking that there must be something good about the so-called “progressives”? For example, aren’t they supposed to be liberal and tolerant?
CAKE FACE has strong libertarian tendencies, and would prefer limited government. However, I’m quite flexible. I’m happy to pay the kickbacks, if the government will just leave me the hell alone.
Alas, the “progressive” is incredibly earnest, and won’t accept an agree to disagree type approach. They want to lecture you. They want to convert you.
This leads to the next nasty tenet of “progressive” politics – huge intolerance.
If you don’t know what I mean, listen to the poster child of eco-fascism, the Swedish truant schoolgirl. How dare you! As a student of history, I realised that I’d heard her speeches before, on the Discovery and History channels. Herr Goebbels and Herr Schicklgruber used the same rhetoric to rail against scapegoats such as Jewish people. The National Socialists also disdained the democratic process.
“Progressives” do not like democracy, because it seldom delivers socialist governments (hence the rebrand, in the hope that voters will be fooled into thinking they were offering something new and different).
The “progressives” are the most authoritarian members of society (see the extreme lockdown for evidence). Furthermore, they broach no dissent. A conservative might believe many things are right or wrong, but I have not typically seen conservatives being as zealous or fanatical as a typical “progressive” in demanding others follow their diktats.
The type of rules the “progressive” imposes also distinguish them from competent people. Generally, their rule making is of the pointless type, such as we are seeing now in Level 2. The problem with this approach is that people eventually stop respecting the laws, because they are childish, which can eventually cause corruption. Nonsense law-making is a slippery slope, which NZ is now sliding down, slowly towards the abyss.
In order to try to succeed electorally, “progressives” often try to co-opt the votes of the working classes. Generally, the working classes are pretty much repulsed by the “progressives”, which is easy to understand. After all, the “progressives” are typically a repugnant, repellent, reprehensible bunch. This leads to the champagne socialism style hypocrisy. A “progressive” would do anything for the average Joe. Except live near him. Or speak to him. Or make any attempt to understand his concerns at all. Hypocrisy is a key tenet of “progressive” politics.
It is my contention that if we let the terrorists win, every day will look and taste like the cake face of Ms Ardern.
What a choice we have this election: between a government that is just utterly hopeless and a wishy-washy opposition that aspires to be “New Labour-lite”. Economic collapse won’t be evident enough before September 19th to prevent a Labour victory and I suspect Jacinda will be able to jettison one of her coalition partners. The result, a radical progressive Labour-Greens government for the next three years. Boy, are we in for an treat? I predict a huge push for immigration (to artificially grow a stunted GDP), new taxes and in 2023, another huge surge in government spending/bribes to try to steal a third term.
To give this some perspective, Roger Douglas has been making the same prophecy of woe since…Jim Bolger replaced Ruth Richardson as his Minister of Finance in 1993. Indeed, Douglas famously predicted the impending proverbial economic wails of doom and gnashing of teeth on the night John Key won the 2008 election just after the GFC.
I can’t help but comment that this supposed ” foreign objectivity ” is more a kin to ” foreign subjectivity ”
I think there may be some NZ commentators saying something similar that I would be more inclined grant with credibility.
” Get your own house in order first ” is a saying that comes to mind.
Still some water to pass under this bridge. !