Welcome to your new normal
It won’t be a classic Christmas, but here are some tips for the rest of December as restrictions ease and Aucklanders can soon begin to travel
Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Friday, December 3, by Justin Giovannetti. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
In today’s edition: Pharmac review faults cost focus; housing bill to be weakened; Luxon names Bridges to finance portfolio; but first, it’s freedom day in Auckland.
A few precautions can make sure you have a safer summer. (Toby Morris)
Our new colour-coded lives. Starting today, the few remaining weeks of this year will look different for New Zealanders. After months of lockdown, Aucklanders will feel a return to something approaching normalcy with the start of the traffic light system. You can now sit inside your favourite café and slowly enjoy that flat white. For those who are unvaccinated, immunocompromised or in regions with low vaccination levels, the easing of restrictions could add to your anxiety. Despite the promise, it won’t be a classic Kiwi summer. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it.
Should I travel? One of the main questions people might have right now is whether they should be booking flights and preparing to head out, especially after the Auckland border lifts on December 15. The traffic light system really means a shift towards personal choices. The era of one big decision for the team of five million is gone, now replaced by five million small decisions every day. The researchers at Te Matatini o te Hōrapa have tips on The Spinoff about how to keep safe and reduce your exposure risk. Their main advice: prioritise your plans over the two weeks before you leave on holiday. Do you really need to go to that indoor office Christmas party?
While Rhythm and Vines has been postponed to 2022 (see RNZ for details), there’s a lot Aucklanders can do closer to home. Throughout 107 days of lockdown, there have been a lot of cinema releases. Stuff has written a guide to which movies you should watch first. Most of your plans will involve a vaccine pass. If you need help sorting that, The Spinoff has easy instructions to get you started.
There will be checkpoints heading into Northland. Police confirmed yesterday that they will work with iwi in Northland to manage checkpoints after the Auckland border is relaxed, RNZ reports. The checkpoints will enforce vaccination and testing requirements. Some Pacific leaders have also called on people not to travel, telling Stuff that holidaying should wait until Māori and Pacific vaccination levels increase.
There have been warnings that case numbers will rise. The NZ Herald reports that schools in Waikato have been warned to expect a surge in cases by the end of the year, up to 91 a day. If case numbers increase as expected, New Zealand’s outbreak will enter uncharted territory. Contradicting that advice, health minister Andrew Little said yesterday that he doesn’t expect overall case numbers to increase in the coming weeks, but he does expect them to appear in new places. As a sign of that, there were long lines in Nelson yesterday as people went to testing centres after two new clusters were detected. According to the Nelson Mail, it isn’t clear where the outbreak began. A few hours later, three cases were reported in New Plymouth. Despite the warnings, Covid-19 is unpredictable. Auckland’s outbreak has plateaued, far below where many experts had projected. The health ministry declined to share its projections earlier this week. Sir Brian Roche, speaking with the NZ Herald’s Derek Cheng, said that the health system has coped well so far and he has no reason to believe it won’t continue to do so.
Traffic lights aren’t without some controversy. Investigating the new Covid-19 system, The Spinoff’s Toby Manhire made a discovery about the officially understood colour of physical traffic lights. Despite appearing orange, they aren’t actually orange, according to traffic officials.
The best way to read The Spinoff
As you will have noticed, The Spinoff has had a glow up–a full redesign and incredibly fast new platform across mobile and desktop (read Toby Morris explaining it here). What’s even better is our two amazing new apps, one for iPhone, the other Android. They’re probably the best way to stay across everything we’re doing–and if you turn on push notifications you’ll get the Covid-19 numbers as soon as they come out, plus our best story of the day, every day. Plus they’re totally free.
A review of Pharmac has diagnosed a ‘fortress mentality’ too focused on cost. The drug-buying agency is putting savings over lives, an interim review of Pharmac has concluded. It’s a damning report according to Newshub, that has found too little transparency and compassion at the agency. Stuff’s Bridie Witton reports that Māori, Pasifika, disabled people and those with rare disorders are also disadvantaged by Pharmac’s practices. A final report is due in February and the health minister said he noted concerns raised in the interim findings.
The Covid numbers: There are 86 cases in hospital and 9 in ICU/HDU. There are 8,745 cases in the delta outbreak. 142 new community cases were reported in Auckland yesterday, 15 in Waikato, 9 in Nelson, 2 in the Lakes district, 1 in Bay of Plenty and 1 in Manawatu. 39,617 people were vaccinated on Wednesday.
The Spinoff’s Covid data tracker has the latest figures.
A bipartisan housing bill will be weakened in response to complaints. Stuff reports that power won’t be returned to councils, who are losing a lot of their control on where townhouses can be built, but the density standards will be reduced. In its initial form, the bill would allow three houses up to three storeys tall on any plot of land. There could be changes to height restrictions near property lines. With five sitting days left this year, there will be long sessions at parliament to hammer through the changes.
Luxon names former rival Simon Bridges to key portfolios. Bridges will now by National’s finance and infrastructure spokesman, as well as ranked third in caucus, in a major promotion by new leader Chris Luxon. While a reshuffle of caucus portfolios won’t be announced until Monday, Luxon said he has absolute trust in Bridges. Only days ago the two men were nearly tied for the party’s leadership. According to the Bay of Plenty Times, Luxon also opened the door to former leader Todd Muller standing again in 2023.
Freeze on new visas extended to late 2022. The government’s decision to completely open the border from April 30 to fully-vaccinated tourists might be more restrictive than it seems. Politik (paywalled) has learned that a freeze on issuing visas has been extended to August 2022. Other than essential workers and partners of New Zealanders, Immigration largely stopped issuing new visas after Covid-19 hit. The move means that even tourists from countries that need visitor visas, like China, won’t be travelling to Aotearoa any time soon.
How do we make housing affordable without crashing the market? That’s the question facing Bernard Hickey in the latest episode of When the Facts Change. He speaks with Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick, economist Kirdan Lees and urban design columnist Jade Kake to see if politicians can pull off a magic trick, creating affordability without upsetting the apple cart. Earlier this week, When the Facts Change was also named one of Apple Podcasts’ top 10 new shows in Aotearoa for 2021. Well done Bernard and The Spinoff podcast network.
Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news?
Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey (Getty Images/Tina Tiller)
Right now on The Spinoff: Duncan Greive looks at how the myth of the founder is seductive, corrosive and taking us nowhere good. Stewart Sowman-Lund has Auckland’s nearly four month lockdown by the numbers. Charlotte Muru-Lanning speaks to hospitality workers about how they feel about today’s shift to the traffic light system. Cassie Withey-Rila explains what to do when your name is wrong on your vaccine pass. The review of books has the Unity Books children’s bestseller chart for the month of November.
For a longer read, the coming dilemma that is climate engineering. To put it bluntly, the world isn’t on track to avoid the worst of climate change after the Glasgow summit. While the political will isn’t there to change human behaviour, it might be there to hack the atmosphere. As Wired writes, someone will eventually do this. There’s no law that says a country can’t unilaterally just spray an aerosol into the stratosphere to cool the planet down. The magazine has a Q&A with a climate scientist that eventually gets to this:
“I'm having a hard time seeing how we're not going to do it at this point, actually, because it's so inexpensive. Already the impacts of climate change are looking to be so disruptive that I don't see in this world how such a low-expense solution doesn't get implemented by someone. There's just nothing else in the world that can cool the planet as quickly.”
Wellington Phoenix ready for first game tonight in women’s A-League. The team was founded a few months ago and only secured a shirt sponsor yesterday. Stuff reports that some of the Phoenix players put on their kit for the first time earlier this week, days before their first game in Wollongong this evening. Only four players have any previous experience in the women’s A-League and one was signed in the last 24 hours. To call the team massive underdogs might be an understatement, but they are called the Phoenix, so they’ve got a good name for beating expectations.
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