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Since January, I have been following international coverage and debate about Covid-19 closely. Looking back over almost three months now, what seems extraordinary is how flat footed the international response has been. An exception to that has been that of the much-maligned World Health Organisation (WHO), which from the outset has endeavoured to provide information and advice as soon as it could. That is not easy in contexts where not all…

Day 14 Update: Delivery of face masks & face shields, online sales from butcheries & fresh produce stores, thanks to Blooming Hill Flowers for gifting flowers to hospitals, and update from IRD Commissioner on what do with changes to child support/family assistance payments and paying PAYE and other taxes.

The Health Ministry must be more transparent with the information it's giving to the public. · Like all journalists in New Zealand right now, I've been covering stories day after day, all of which relate to our current coronavirus crisis. · It's the longest-running, bulletin dominating story I've ever known and is impacting every single Kiwi, young and old. · Given the ongoing significance of this epidemic, we as journalists need swift,…

To all Dutch New Zealanders, · While we work from home, walk in empty streets, wait in lines to do our shopping in supermarkets in compliance with the 2 m social distancing, life in New Zealand and the rest of the world seems to be on hold. No plans are made, many worry about their health, the health of vulnerable relatives here and in The Netherlands, and what the future will bring for their jobs and business. · Health should be priority nr 1…

Day 10 and we are making great progress - together. Supplying face masks for our health workers and horticultural growers across the electorate and our 17 community response teams working really well now. New food arrangements for the vulnerable taking shape now.

He was recognized for his method of spontaneous prose covering topics from catholic spirituality, drugs, poverty and travel and best known for his novel, On The Road, he was a pioneer of the Beat Generation movement alongside Allan Ginsberg and William Burroughs. A former football star turned literary iconoclast and poet, Jack Kerouac. Born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac on March 12th, 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts, the third child to French…

With the Corona Virus pandemic sweeping the world it was only a matter of time before New Zealand would be affected. Since the first confirmed case in New Zealand we have had constant media thrashing on the subject and as the world has started shutting down country by country the media hype has heightened. Is it hype or is it precaution? Is it a virus or is it politics? There are so many points of view about it all – it’s a case of taking the…

It’s hard to believe that when I signed off my article for the March edition of Elocal, on 11 February, I didn’t mention the words ‘pandemic’, ‘coronavirus’, or ‘Covid-19’. In the four or five weeks since, the media – and I mean all the media – have talked about almost nothing else. What I write now, for publication at the beginning of April, could also be totally blind-sided by events over the next two weeks. At the moment, it appears as if…

Waikaretu in 1920 was the back of beyond – an isolated place with a single, often impassable, unmetalled road to connect it with the outside world, no power, no telephone and no school. It was a long way from the high society of Sydney, the Paris fashion houses and a finishing school in Belgium. But this was where Clyde Aston brought his new bride Gladys – to a tiny cottage that had been the Mission House. Gladys and Clyde would raise six sons…

There’s only one show in town right now, and it’s a chart-topper. I’m actually somewhat loath to launch into coronavirus, given that it’s such a rapidly-moving piece of theatre and I’m writing this a week ahead of publication; but regardless of how the spread of the world’s newest and most popular disease unfolds over the next fortnight, there are truths interwoven through the entire subject that won’t be going away. Firstly, it’s actually…