Second, it was revealed on Radio New Zealand that two Northland GPs are publicly opposed to vaccination.
It's difficult to comprehend how a medical professional who has been taught that vaccination has obliterated killer diseases like polio and smallpox can be anti-vaccination.
It is equally hard to know why a generally well-regulated profession like medicine tolerates such dangerous foolishness in its ranks.
Some very good news this week was the confirmation by the World Health Organisation that a vaccine for malaria had been developed following many years of trials. More than 260,000 African children die from malaria every year, so this breakthrough is long overdue.
Folly can and does happen on a grand scale. The 2018 New Zealand census switched to an online data collection method, abandoning the door-to-door approach that had served the country well since 1871.
This approach ignored the fact that a significant proportion of the population including elderly, poor and disadvantaged people do not have regular internet access and could not easily participate.
This fact surely ought to have been known to the officials who have daily access to such information.
The result of this was an unseemly scramble to capture the missing information by other less reliable means and the resignation of the government statistician.
My attention was recently drawn to another apparent folly.
The Retirement Commissioner's campaign to change the Retirement Villages Act has the potential to damage a rapidly growing sector of the economy which now houses nearly 50,000 residents in 450 villages.
Readers should know that I have a personal interest in this matter. One of my best friends was a pioneer in the industry in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and a close relative, recently deceased, spent his last three years in an Auckland retirement village.
At the age of 95, this relative who had lived alone for more than a decade decided he could no longer cope with his Tauranga property and moved to the Auckland village to be closer to his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
He paid $300,000 for a licence to occupy his suite and a monthly fee of about $450 which gave him comfort, security, meals, and on the spot medical attention. The most important aspect of this life was the company of people of his own generation and regular visits from his family.
When the suite is sold a deferred management fee of 20 to 30 per cent of the original cost is deducted.
These conditions are spelt out in Occupation Rights Agreements (ORAs) and the current Retirement Villages Act makes it compulsory for the prospective resident to have independent legal advice before signing up.
Research shows that the overwhelming majority of residents are happy with their decision to move into such villages and having dined with residents on several occasions I can attest to this.
One resident told me that she and her husband began their residence in a unit, moved to a suite which she was then occupying while her ailing husband was hospitalised in another section of the same village.
Nearly all of the residents, like my relative, sell their houses to move into a village so this industry is a large part of the solution to the ongoing shortage of houses.
It's not entirely clear what the Retirement Commissioner wants to achieve by fiddling with the Retirement Villages Act, passed in 2003.
The purpose of this statute is clearly spelt out in the act: "To protect the interests of residents and intending residents of retirement villages: to enable the development of retirement villages under a legal framework readily understandable by residents, intending residents and operators."
In the 19 years that this act has been in force, it appears to have achieved these stated purposes.
Part of the Retirement Commissioner's function is to receive complaints from retirement village residents.
A summary of these gripes are published on the commission's website. They amount to a tiny trickle of discontent.
There's a old adage that the Retirement Commissioner should heed in her dealings with the retirement village industry: If it works, don't fix it.
Mike Williams grew up in Hawke's Bay. He is chief executive of the NZ Howard League and a former Labour Party president. All opinions are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today
