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Gordon Campbell - Latest News [Page 37]
Gordon Campbell On Budget 2020
Friday, 15 May 2020, 9:17 am | Gordon Campbell
Welcome to the breadline. Treasury’s best case scenario sees unemployment reaching 9.8% by September and yet… the coalition government seems to have decided it can afford the blowout in welfare numbers only by paying out those benefits at their More >>
On Why We Should Legally Protect The Right To Work From Home
Tuesday, 12 May 2020, 1:02 pm | Gordon Campbell
For understandable reasons, the media messaging around Level Two has been all about “freedom” and “celebration”, but this is not necessarily going to be a universal experience. When it comes to workplace relations, Level Two is just as likely to ... More >>
On Level Two, And Little Richard
Monday, 11 May 2020, 1:30 pm | Gordon Campbell
Level Two will be life Jim, but not as we’ve known it. At 4pm today, PM Jacinda Ardern will announce the Cabinet decision on when the shift out of Level Three will occur, along with – presumably – a bit of finessing as to what its final details ... More >>
On One Of The Shadows Over Level Two
Friday, 8 May 2020, 12:58 pm | Gordon Campbell
For many New Zealanders, the imminent shift to Level Two is going to be a momentous occasion. Here’s another looming landmark likely to be just as important : the moment when our 12 weeks of access to the wage subsidy scheme finally runs out. That ... More >>
On The Hype Around The TransTasman Bubble, And Microsoft
Thursday, 7 May 2020, 11:00 am | Gordon Campbell
Arguably, one of the more irresponsible things the government could do right now would be to throw the doors wide open to non-essential travel next week at Level Two – as the tourism industry is demanding. Such a decision could easily crash ... More >>
On The Trans-Tasman Bubble, And The Future Of Airlines
Tuesday, 5 May 2020, 11:08 am | Gordon Campbell
As the epidemiologists keep on saying, a trans-Tasman bubble will require having in place beforehand a robust form of contact tracing, of tourists and locals alike - aided by some kind of phone app along the lines of Singapore’s TraceTogether ... More >>
On The Dodgy Politics Of Easing Level Three
Monday, 4 May 2020, 11:41 am | Gordon Campbell
As countries around the world tentatively emerge from lockdown, a lot of political noise is being generated by politically-driven arguments that (a) the safeguards need to be lifted faster and (b) the lockdown itself was an over-reaction likely ... More >>
On Exceptions For Tourism, And On The Quest For A Covid-19 Vaccine
Friday, 1 May 2020, 11:51 am | Gordon Campbell
As David Foster Wallace famously pointed out, each of us regard our own precious selves as the realest, most vivid and important persons in the universe : We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness, because it's so socially ... More >>
On The “ Where’s Winston?” Question
Thursday, 30 April 2020, 10:20 am | Gordon Campbell
Deputy PM Winston Peters has kept a low profile over the last month or so, partly because he belongs in the category of people most at risk from Covid-19. Peters turned 75 earlier this month, and towards the end of last year he was reportedly, laid low ... More >>
On Living At Level Three With Residual Anxiety
Tuesday, 28 April 2020, 1:00 pm | Gordon Campbell
Two weeks. That’s roughly the length of time the government has given itself between moving to Level Three, and making a decision on May 11 about how the virus has reacted, with a view then to a wider re-opening. No doubt, the political and economic pressures ... More >>
On Why Governments Are In Effect, Printing Cash To Defeat Covid-19
Thursday, 23 April 2020, 12:57 pm | Gordon Campbell
Part of the psychology of moving to Level Three is the sense of people heading back to work – at least 400,000 more of them – thereby fostering some semblance of normal life returning to the economy. Indeed, National Party Simon Bridges has been ... More >>
On Living With The Extension, And With Edward Hopper
Tuesday, 21 April 2020, 2:07 pm | Gordon Campbell
In the end, it was obvious that the lockdown had to be extended. According to epidemiologist Ayesha Verrall, our tracing systems are still struggling to reach the standard whereby several clusters could be handled at once, and in the context of only a small outbreak ... More >>
On Why We Should Extend The Lockdown
Monday, 20 April 2020, 9:58 am | Gordon Campbell
Impatience can be contagious. The kids in the back seat during the lockdown – Mike Hosking, Barry Soper, David Seymour etc - keep yelling “ Are we there yet” and saying they never wanted to come on this dumb old trip anyway. Hopefully, the ... More >>
On The Search For Covid-19 Vaccines, And Our Media Woes
Friday, 17 April 2020, 11:40 am | Gordon Campbell
The government always ran the risk that if its lockdown succeeded in saving lives, it would be open to the criticism that it cried wolf. Success = overkill. Well, this has to be one of the downsides of being an island nation, and effectively remote ... More >>
On Why We Shouldn’t Be Trying To Emulate Australia
Wednesday, 15 April 2020, 11:42 am | Gordon Campbell
On today’s Coronocast podcast on the ABC state broadcasting network in Australia, New Zealand’s policy of going out hard early with a stringent economic shutdown was being held up by medical expert Dr Norman Swan as a model that Australia should ... More >>
On The Argument Over Whether Lives Or Livelihoods Are More Important
Tuesday, 14 April 2020, 2:33 pm | Gordon Campbell
It is hardly business as usual, but this week is shaping up to be all about business and its needs, how the economy will emerge from lockdown on April 23, and what kind of challenges business will face when we do. Today, Treasury has released seven “ ... More >>
On The Changes That Covid-19 Is Causing, Plus A Spotify Playlist For Y’all
Thursday, 9 April 2020, 1:01 pm | Gordon Campbell
Will life (and the economy) ever be the same again after the Covid-19 crisis is over? Obviously not, even leaving aside the impact on people who may lose family members and friends to the virus. Amongst the small socio-economic changes – yep, ... More >>
On The Rationing Of PPE Gear, Masks And Everything Else
Wednesday, 8 April 2020, 1:11 pm | Gordon Campbell
From the outset, the perceived need to ration our scarce resources seems to have driven the response to Covid-19. Rationing still appears to be limiting the ability of nurses and other frontline workers to access and routinely wear the PPE gear they ... More >>
On The Ethics (and Some Of The Economics) Of Lifting The Lockdown
Tuesday, 7 April 2020, 11:09 am | Gordon Campbell
As New Zealand passes the half-way mark towards moving out of Level Four lockdown, the trade-offs involved in life-after-lockdown are starting to come into view. All very well for National’s finance spokesperson Paul Goldsmith to claim that “The ... More >>
On The Lockdown, Masks And Aerosol Transmission
Monday, 6 April 2020, 10:48 am | Gordon Campbell
Ironically, our relative success in suppressing the exponential spread of Covid-19 is only increasing the pressure to ease back from those measures, on a regional basis at least. We seem set on course to start tentatively emerging from lockdown in about ... More >>
