Articles in ‘Opinion’

Small businesses have really done it tough over the last 18 months, with numerous lockdowns and long periods of being unable to operate. When all the outgoings have been paid, only then can the business owner take what’s left for themselves. We are a nation of small businesses. They can be found in every sector of commerce and in every industry. They are often referred to as the…

Over the last year or so, I’ve read a lot of books (or more accurately, listened to a lot of books on Audible) on the US political situation – some by partisan authors like Adam Schiff, the Democratic congressman who chairs the House Intelligence Committee and who led those who argued for the impeachment of Donald Trump over his attempt to blackmail Ukraine into helping him win…

###Today Jacinda Ardern had her booster shot and warned us all to do the same. If I was charitable I might say that she must be unaware of figures from overseas including Denmark, the UK, Israel, and USA which call the effectiveness of the booster into question. Even the CEO of Pfizer admitted to the media this week that his shot was all but ineffective. More than this, is she…

The REINZ House Price Index fell 1% in December breaking a record 20 consecutive months of house price gains. The REINZ House Price Index fell 1% in December breaking a record 20 consecutive months of house price gains. Annual house price growth reached 23.3% at the end of 2021 from a recent record high of just over 30% in August. House price growth is forecast to fall fast in…

D-Day for vaccinating 5-11 year olds is upon us. If as a parent (or a politician) you do a google search “Is Covid vaccination of 5-11 year olds safe?” you turn up a host of articles not only assuring you that it is safe and effective, but also urging you that it is necessary. First among these are the official NZ government information web pages. If you have doubts and persist…

Today I reviewed my 2021 diary and correspondence and had an aha moment. Up until September most of my exchanges and the press articles I read involved discussion and interpretation of the relative merits of published scientific papers. After that the official dialogue reported in the media subtly changed and started to assert that ‘science’ was on the side of vaccination without…

There are lots of ways of measuring how New Zealand is doing, and none of them is perfect. We stack up very well on measures like life expectancy, unemployment, infant mortality, and car ownership. Not so well on the quality of our education system – an area where we have been going backwards in recent years, at least in comparison to other developed countries and many of the…

Yesterday morning I woke up to some unwelcome news. My best friend from university days has passed away. He was an active fit man looking forward to enjoying retirement. Early on he had a mild stroke, his heart became inflamed and the valves were damaged, unfortunately his immune system was too depleted to respond to treatment. His story is familiar in these Covid times and…

Quite a few years ago the phone rang in my office, but I refused to answer it. I had “hit the wall.” In the space of one year, I lost my mentor, my assistant left, my father died, we began home schooling, and we lost a child before it was born. Eventually, I didn’t want to answer the phone - I could not face another problem or loss! Whether it was emotional burnout or…

I suspect that most New Zealanders don’t give a lot of thought to the size of the government debt. But every now and then the media reports that the Government is spending vastly more than it takes in in revenue, with the result that the amount the Government has to borrow goes up by billions more. Surely this is mortgaging our future, and the future of our children and…

The Port Waikato electorate spans the alert level boundary between Auckland and Waikato. This has been the battleground of the lockdown and as the elected MP I have seen at first-hand the incredible stress and anxiety the changing alert levels have placed on people. Since the country was plunged into Alert Level 4 on 18 August, MPs across Auckland and the Waikato, and their…

David Lange is one of the most tragic figures of our modern political history. Highly articulate and entertaining, he was ushered into power in a landslide in 1984 during an economic and financial crisis. Feted as the youngest Prime Minister of the 20th century, he dazzled the nation with his wit and intellect. By the time he resigned in 1989, however, he was seen as a weak and…

In the middle of October, something astonishing happened: the Government and the National Party held a joint news conference to announce that they had agreed on the way to make housing more affordable. According to many opinion polls, the ludicrous level to which house prices have risen in New Zealand is the issue which is of greatest concern to the New Zealand public. And…

Thank you very much to the committee for allowing me to present on behalf of NZDSOS. I represent New Zealand Doctors Speaking out with Science who see the covid-19 response as exaggerated and profoundly harmful. Instead of mandating experimental vaccines and ongoing lockdowns, our group advocates for returning to protection of the elderly, increased capacity in hospitals and…

Sue Grey speaking at the Health Select Committee to share her view on the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill (No 2); 14 October 2021.

During a real pandemic people know it is real because most extended families and most small communities experience multiple deaths, although if it ever happens again most of the people who get sick will recover because most of us have a healthy adaptable immune system and because we now have much better medicine. It is unclear what killed people during the Spanish flu a hundred…

By the time this column sees the light of day, the Labour Government – now freed of the constraint of New Zealand First – will have been in office almost exactly a year. And to look at the opinion polls, they are doing a fine job – or at least the Prime Minister is. But the reality is very different. The Government has made absolutely no progress in key areas like replacing…

Communities and councils around the country are starting to make their voices heard around the effects the Government’s proposed Three Waters Reforms will have, with several mayors calling for the programme to be ‘paused’ on the grounds that there has been insufficient public consultation. The Government’s Three Waters Reform Programme was launched in July 2020 and aims to change…

Sex, politics, and religion. When I was growing up my families conversations were always economic, but there seemed to be an unspoken rule that these three topics, were a no-go zone. They may have been too awkward or perhaps they were just subjects to avoid when talking with neighbours. However, in the last fifty years I’ve found that sex, politics and religion contribute a quite…

The most recent twist in the covid-19 saga is forcing hard-working New Zealanders to believe in the story of the ‘deadly virus’ and ‘saviour’ vaccine. This will inevitably mean many will now be forced to choose between their jobs and their sense of autonomy over their own body and health. The death of the elimination strategy has meant that the accelerator has been applied to the…