I end the week in a level of some despair.
Every home needs masks, so says Ashley Bloomfield. He wanted level two to last longer but the government overruled him. So I guess that indicates that he's running this programme by himself as opposed to being directed by a government that wants us freaking out long enough to reelect them.
But if you believe yesterday's Herald poll, and I do, a lot of people love Bloomfield, a closed border, a broke country, and a sense that what ever tomorrow holds doesn’t need thinking about right now, far less planning for.
What saddens me most is this isn't the New Zealand I know and love. This isn't the aspirational country I thought we purported to be. This isn't the country that boxes a mile above its weight.
It's now a country that thinks getting a good health outcome is enough. That a lockdown was plenty, there is nothing more to do, or worry about. We just sit here, for god knows how long going "look at us, didn't we do well."
Yes, we did do well. But we did well months ago and we have failed to move on. We have fallen for the Grant Robertson trick of reassuring ourselves how well we have done by looking and finding useless people and thinking because they are hopeless, we are less hopeless, therefore that’s plenty.
It isn't. Bloomfield is saying it's not if, but when, and the virus is coming. Why is it coming? Why are we setting our standards so low? Why are we offering up negative fait accompli?
I was fantastically reassured by Helen Clark. Say what you what about her if you're not a Labour luvvie but that’s a woman who, at least, is a globalist. Sir John Key is too, of course, but if you are a labour luvvie you hate him. And he took heat for his comments about rich Americans.
In that is my frustration, why do we hate rich Americans? Why do we now seemingly hate success? Why is what we have enough? Why aren't we desperate for more and better? Why aren't we more like Clark and Sir John, and want more for this country?
Why can one Labour leader be aspirational for us and urge us on, and the current Labour leader coast to the election with no policy, no plan, no desire to be better than what we are? Which is a small country locked off from the rest of the world with seemingly no real plan, and certainly no desire to ever reconnect.
Why is this it? Why don't we want more? Why don't we want to be what we once were?
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