A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Opinion
The furore around self-proclaimed “women’s rights” activist Posie Parker dominated the weekly news cycle as a campaign was mounted against her anti-transgender views. Forced to abandon her Auckland speech by thousands of trans rights supporters and doused in tomato juice, Parker left in a police car and cancelled a plannedWellington rally to return to England. Despite her ignominious retreat, she did succeed in getting some of her messages across by the media coverage — something that would not have happened if she was ignored, as many believe she should have been. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling called the protest scenes “repellent” and National leader Christopher Luxon said she had the right to free speech regardless of her views. Coincidentally, while Parker was on her Australasian tour stirring up the culture war, World Athletics banned trans-gender women athletes from elite competitions for women. Last week saw the third anniversary of New Zealand’s first Covid lockdown. Sir Ashley Bloomfield, the face of the lockdowns, said the worst of the pandemic was behind us but added that lockdowns “may have a place” in the future. After stopping most community transmission in 2020 and 2021, more than 2.2 million have been infected here now. It had been a bumpy journey but recent travel overseas had shown him everyone’s life was sort of getting back to normal, which was a good thing, he said. He was also greatly satisfied that three years on, New Zealand still had negative excess mortality — less deaths than would have been predicted based on previous years. He also welcomed the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the pandemic, which would look at “what we need to do to be even better prepared for the next time”. Greens co-leader Marama Davidson was knocked down by a motorbike at a pedestrian crossing while attending the Parker protest. Her co-leader James Shaw warned of the risk of violence at the coming election. Veteran politician Winston Peters was back into the fray with a state of the nation speech taking aim at a “cultural cabal”, promising to crack down on gangs, and saying vaccine mandates were unconstitutional. Minor parties could play a major part in the election result; will that include NZ First? To end on a happy note, next Saturday (April1) 1.6 million New Zealanders will be better off financially, and that’s not an April Fools’ joke.
