New Zealand Post-Covid: What Positive Changes Do You Expect To See?

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#2453884 3-Apr-2020 15:50

Sweden hasn't locked down (the last I heard), so I tend to doubt that.

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

rb99

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#2453887 3-Apr-2020 15:58

Fantasy land. Hope not expect. Probably mentioned before, but be more self sufficient instead of relying on tourism and Fonterra. Make our own cheap crap instead of importing it. Or, i (obviously) dunno, convert a bit more of that aluminum that gets made doon south. Make more, import less. Diversify. Learn something.

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

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DarthKermit

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#2453901 3-Apr-2020 16:00

Maybe people will be less materialist? Time will tell.

mattwnz

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#2453905 3-Apr-2020 16:05

I hope it leads to major changes. NZ has quite a few problems leading into this, including our house price problem, which was way of of proportion to our earnings, making our prices some of the highest in the OECD compared to wages. They largely relied on 2 people incomes. Some households are going to, or have already lost an income. These things all have knock on effects, so hopefully it results in lower prices and less people buying multiple homes to rent out. Hopefully the Airbnb bed houses will also return to the housing stock to buy or as rental.

NZ has also dramatically increased the population, partly due to previous worker shortages in businesses. But when the number and size of companies contract, and the tourism sector disappears for a while, we can't then quickly react by decreasing the population to account for that.

Likewise the environmental effects of a larger population in our cities, which has already shown to have reduced, due to less people traveling. Hopefully more people in the future will be able to work from home. Just hope it doesn't lead to councils charging people commercial rates if they work from home.

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#2453914 3-Apr-2020 16:22

rb99:

Fantasy land.

Ah...I have fond memories of Fantasy Land in Hawkes Bay, back in the 70's

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rb99

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#2453938 3-Apr-2020 16:45

Handsomedan:

rb99:

Fantasy land.

Ah...I have fond memories of Fantasy Land in Hawkes Bay, back in the 70's

Unfortunately I'm only familiar with Fantasy Island 😃

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

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antonknee

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#2453945 3-Apr-2020 16:52

frankv:
antonknee:

we are ranked the third best/safest country to be in during this crisis.

Just wondering who did this ranking. And who is 1 & 2.

Fantastic question... I am trying to track down where I saw this. It was on an infographic-type thing, and listed either the top 3, 5 or 10 in a callout on the right hand side of the graphic. Once I find it, I’ll share it.

Honestly though I have no idea how they would have arrived at that conclusion, or who the source was, so have been a bit hasty and unwise in phrasing it as I did “we are ranked third...”.

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floydbloke

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#2453952 3-Apr-2020 17:00

mattwnz:

I hope it leads to major changes. NZ has quite a few problems leading into this, ...

Saw a headline today that some DHBs or health services (can't recall exactly sorry) are often at near peak without this pandemic. Would be nice to see some additional funding going into the health sector and directed at staff welfare and medical services (as opposed to admin and red tape, still can't figure out why we need 15 lots of administration of a population of only 4.5 million).

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NumPy

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#2453954 3-Apr-2020 17:02

antonknee:

Fantastic question... I am trying to track down where I saw this. It was on an infographic-type thing, and listed either the top 3, 5 or 10 in a callout on the right hand side of the graphic. Once I find it, I’ll share it.

Honestly though I have no idea how they would have arrived at that conclusion, or who the source was, so have been a bit hasty and unwise in phrasing it as I did “we are ranked third...”.

I think we need to be very careful when throwing around phrases like that. It gives out the impression that 'She'll Be Right'. You should delete your post unless of course you can back it up.

rb99

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#2453963 3-Apr-2020 17:07

floydbloke:

mattwnz:

I hope it leads to major changes. NZ has quite a few problems leading into this, ...

Saw a headline today that some DHBs or health services (can't recall exactly sorry) are often at near peak without this pandemic. Would be nice to see some additional funding going into the health sector and directed at staff welfare and medical services (as opposed to admin and red tape, still can't figure out why we need 15 lots of administration of a population of only 4.5 million).

Presuming you're talking about DHBs and not 15 layers of admin, I would politely disagree. I'm all for more regional control and less centralisation. My 2 cents (if its work even that much).

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

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antonknee

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#2453982 3-Apr-2020 17:42

frankv:
antonknee:

we are ranked the third best/safest country to be in during this crisis.

Just wondering who did this ranking. And who is 1 & 2.

Unsure if this is the source of the original graphic I saw - does look different to what I remember. However it is making the same/similar claim.

Deep Knowledge Group - https://www.dkv.global/covid-19-health-safety

I actually think in fairness NZ’s response has been pretty good really - especially compared to the floundering taking place in AU, the mixed bag of the US, confusion in the UK etc etc. Is it perfect? No probably not. Is it better than most? Absolutely. I’d far rather be here than most other countries right now. Are we out of the woods yet? No, but there are early signs we are handling things reasonably well.

frankv

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#2453999 3-Apr-2020 18:05

floydbloke:
mattwnz:

I hope it leads to major changes. NZ has quite a few problems leading into this, ...

Saw a headline today that some DHBs or health services (can't recall exactly sorry) are often at near peak without this pandemic.

If you want a service to be efficient (in terms of production vs cost) it needs to run at (or very near) full capacity all the time. If you think about it, unused capacity is at best a lost opportunity to produce, and at worst an extra cost. Another strategy is to have queues of elective (I.e. optional or delayable) patients for every service. This way, any unplanned unused capacity can be soaked up doing elective treatments.

Think of it like a car engine: you can choose to have a large engine, which runs relatively inefficiently most of the time, but has plenty of power to spare for overtaking or climbing hills. Or you can have a small engine which is efficient most of the time (running nearer to full throttle most of the time) and therefore uses less fuel, but you have to change down at every hill (or into a headwind).

The health services have been pared away over the decades to minimize cost and maximize productivity. We are *very* fortunate that covid-19 has hit now rather than at peak flu season, when hospitals are always stretched. I think that the impending flu season was probably a strong motivation to dealing with covid-19 sooner rather than later. However, you can expect waiting lists for elective surgery (e..g. knee and hip replacements) to balloon out over the next few months. Or, in keeping with the government's goal to minimize waiting lists, the threshold for actually getting onto the waiting list to go up. So lots of people whose lives would be hugely improved by getting a joint replacement will not get their operations.