12 LISTENER FEBRUARY 29 2020
G
ET
TY
IM
AG
ES
We won’t know whether the Government got it
right with its China travel and mail ban for weeks,
maybe months. According to the World Health
Organisation’s assessment, we’re erring on the
gratuitous-panic side of the ledger, and there’s a
distinct economic cost to that. The more restric-
tive our response, the bigger the foreign-exchange
income loss. But the Government has to balance
that against the potential illness and death risk of
being more relaxed.
The only immediately clear aspect to the deadly
new virus outbreak is, it’s a further opportunity for
us to aggravate China.
As the Chinese ambassador, Wu Xi, made clear
this week, our border restrictions are already
another black mark, alongside our resistance to
letting Huawei in on 5G network development, our
anxiety about aggressions in the South China Sea
and against Uighurs, Tibetans and others, China’s
not necessarily beneficial (to the Pacific) Pacific-aid
programmes and its history of goods dumping.
In a relationship deterioration from the BFF
free-trade-deal days, China has been punishing
these affronts by making a dangling-cat toy of our
wish for a fuller trade deal. Bilateral-talks invites
are issued and rescinded.
Our Covid-19 stance
just added another
umpteen sleeps to
the wait.
A further stinger
has been the
parallel China
drew in remindingNew Zealand and Australia of their
responsibility for the deadly spread
of measles through the tragically
under-vaccinated Pacific, for which
the two countries have a duty of
care.
Further Chinese Government
retaliation seems unlikely, but
we’re already suffering reduced
tourist numbers, suspended imports
and the potential for a globalpanic to bring a big, squelching
Monty Python foot down on all
trade.
That’s just the temporary incon-
venience. The wider implications are
rather harder to address.
Had Covid-19 originated in any
other country, other nations would
openly be saying such things as,
isn’t it time humans stopped over-
intensive livestock farming, cracked
down on unhygienic markets and
legislated against putting the entire
carcasses of every animal species
they can get their hands on into the
food chain?
Hideous contagions so often
stem from humankind’s seemingly
innate propensity to over-exploit
resources and cut corners. Were we
not so stingy as to feed cow bits back
to cows, we may not have coppedmad cow disease. Careless handling
of poultry gave us bird flu. Hunters
putting infected chimpanzees into
the African food chain is probably
what brought us the devastation of
Aids.FAMINE AND GRINDING POVERTY
It’s a touchy subject to raise with
a nation that, although now an
economic Godzilla, has famine
and grinding poverty in its citizens’
living memory.
Such is the complexity and
confusion that even the Opposition
has lately wound back its rhetoric
about the Government’s pandemic
responsiveness to a mild edict to
“act according to the facts”.
As we’re seeing with the New
Zealand First donation kerfuffle, few
things are harder to do in politics
than awaiting the facts.
Seldom has there been so much
reflexive bloodlust from the Mes-
dames Defarges on the sidelines as
since the Serious Fraud Office (SFO)
began investigating the party’s
finances. According to the ghouls’
chorus, Jacinda Ardern’s prime min-
isterial Kryptonite has been mortally
depleted by her not immediately
decapitating the party’s leader,
Deputy Prime Minister Winston
Peters. She should, apparently, tear
strips off him in public and park
him on the naughty step at the very
least.
His being deputy and sometimes
acting PM does put him on a loftier
pedestal than he occupied as Foreign
Minister outside Cabinet in Helen
Clark’s administration when, inP
oliticians are often at their best
in a crisis – but only if it’s clear
what the crisis is. With corona-
virus, aka Covid-19, no one can
yet be sure of its scope, so every-
thing the authorities do lies on a spectrum
between dithering and overkill.
POLITICS
Alleged wrongdoing should not be punished in advance.
Facts and fairness
JANE
CLIFTON
Ardern should,
apparently, tearstrips off Peters in
public and park him
on the naughty stepat the very least.