This is Robert McCulloch’s Down To Earth Blog post on this subject about an hour ago.
The Australians Make it Official: Labour Leader Hipkins, aided by his henchmen in the MainStreamMedia, Wrecked NZ’s Economy by Ordering Vaccines Late & Destroyed Trust in our Government
Days after this Blog released its Two Minute Covid Inquiry, which argued Labour Leader & former Covid-19 Minister, Chris Hipkins, together with former PM Ardern, and Health Chief, Ashley Bloomfield, ordered the Covid vaccine late, which crushed the NZ economy and smashed trust in government as it forced them into an over-reliance on lock-downs in 2021, the Australian Covid Inquiry has released near identical findings, almost word-for-word:
The first wide-ranging inquiry into the nation’s pandemic response has found delays procuring COVID-19 vaccines cost lives and delivered a $31 billion hit to the economy.
In NZ’s case, it was a $15 billion hit, which is why our health system is now underfunded, infrastructure crumbles & teachers underpaid. Australia & NZ matched each other in terms of snail’s pace vaccine roll-out, probably because we copied each other, and didn’t match world best practice. This Blog, and myself, were savaged by the Labour Government at the time, mainly via by its henchmen in the Main Stream Media, for daring to argue the late order had caused a calamity for NZ. Sir John Key defended us. NewsTalk ZB put me on their show. Noone else. The following lines from the Sydney Morning Herald are most telling:
Australians don’t need reminding of what it feels like to be subject to stay-at-home orders, .. five-person picnics, made to wear face masks outdoors or get vaccinated to go to work. Most lived through it. What is now clear is that they won’t do it again.
Not according to Mr. Bloomfield’s editorial in the latest NZ Medical Journal. He says we need even more stringent lockdowns next time around, involving NZ’s “security services” and full “security apparatus”, which I presume means the army and SIS intelligence services. At least the tell-it-as-it-is Aussies state in their Inquiry that the main lesson is how the Ardern-Hipkins-Bloomfield style approach destroys society as we know it. These lines from the Australian Inquiry can be photocopied to the NZ experience:
Australians’ trust has been eroded, health systems are struggling & inflation pressures from government pandemic stimulus are still hurting the economy five years after the first COVID-19 case was detected, the first wide-ranging Inquiry into the national response has found .. The most disturbing finding from the Inquiry released on Tuesday is that trust among Australians has been eroded. Its so broken that surveys find 1 in 5 people would not get a vaccine offered by the government in a future health emergency. Only 3 in 10 had high trust in the federal government to have done the right thing at the height of the pandemic. This will be its most damaging legacy.
The latest Trust surveys in New Zealand record a similar across-the-board erosion of trust.
The Inquiry delivered a resolute verdict about how our leaders failed us. Trust started high. But as the months wore on and sacrifices piled up, they didn’t explain their actions. Nor were those actions based on evidence. Widespread school closures, for example, were never recommended by the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee. Children are still affected by hits to their mental health, school attendance and academic outcomes. Vaccine mandates are an even more concerning case study.
NZ doesn’t need to waste money on Covid Inquiries. The Aussies have done ours for us. It matches what this Blog argued since 2021, as evidenced by our writings & radio interviews. Maybe more than any other institution, our Main Stream Media – Radio NZ, One News, Herald, Newshub (who phoned me to get stuck into my late-order-vaccine claims & discredit me) and Stuff – should take a look at themselves & ask why they sold out Kiwis by not objectively scrutinizing NZ’s government during those times. No wonder you’re bankrupting. Noone likes you or trusts you anymore.
Sources:
No Minister 
McCulloch is still under the illusion that the covid vaccines had any merit. Forget ordering them late, they should never have been ordered at all.
Interested to see Bloomfield once again proving himself to be a loathsome tyrant deserving public execution.
Harry… Indeed, but at least Robert is anti mandate. There would have been plenty of folk begging to be jabbed of course.
Dark times for NZ and only a while ago. While the perps got gongs.
As we learned during Covid, if there’s one thing “experts” hate, it’s being told that they were proven wrong. Instead of learning, adjusting, and apologizing, they move to censor, criticize, mislead, then double down.
Harry that first paragraph of yours nails it totally.
Unconfirmed your post , also
Hipkins is a moron who couldn’t find an exit in a paper bag, and like Kamala uses word salads to hide his ignorance.
Bloomfield was an evil little lickspittles, every day enjoying his 2 minutes in the sun even though his nose was covered in shit, reading out the daily statistics. He reminded me of Himmler, not good enough for the top job but happy to be number 3, with the glitter of empty rewards there at the end to cover his total absence of ethics. IMHO.
The only joy was that there were people in the MoH actively undermining him.
i have a Masters in Economics with Stage 1 maths and Sage 3 Statistics. After 4 or 6 hours research on the world statistics sites I had formed an educated opinion on the virus and it’s impacts on society. Protection of those over 75 was the clear logical policy choice.
in truth a fucking moron like Hipkins may have worked that out with good policy advice, but as he only has a Pol “science ” degree that maybe a logical thought to far.
Instead we nuked everything in site, and here we are are, Bloomfield happy with his useless gong and the rest of us up shit creek .
The balance doesn’t seem quite right…does it.
Trump is saying the US military will be compensated…
https://x.com/MTGrepp/status/1851008665630994500