Queue at McDonald's in Akoranga Drive in Northcote caused a traffic jam. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Queue at McDonald's in Akoranga Drive in Northcote caused a traffic jam. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Opinion
COMMENT:
I know I'm about to be judgmental. I know that some people will say you shouldn't impose your beliefs and values on other people who are doing nothing wrong.
But - I think the people who thought it was a valuable exercise to queue at 4 in the morningat a Merivale McDonald's would be well advised to go home, look in the mirror, and reappraise their life goals and aspirations.
I know you're a burger aficionado, I know it's been a long five weeks, but seriously? Stressing your body and it's immune system to wake outside your temporal zone to ingest a tasty snack of debatable nutritional quality just seems to be nuts to me.
Speaking of judgmental, I am over the pile on to Deborah Russell. Not because I approve of her inappropriate question asked at an inappropriate time but because it's an insignificant scuffle as part of personality politics and not at all helpful to getting back on track.
To make the claim that her question in a committee, that was promptly shot down by the man in charge of our finances, is indicative that an entire party does not understand small business is drawing a long bow.
In front of the same committee, the Leader of the Opposition also said something stupid when he asked the CEO of TVNZ why the Government funds them. TVNZ is, of course, a self-funding commercial entity. In fact, it funds the Government through any dividend that they pay in a good year.
Using the Deborah Russell example we could say the National Party is too incompetent to run a Government because they don't understand the basics of Government finances.
But we didn't. We said silly old Simon made a mistake. So did silly old Deborah.
But all this judgmental assumptive flannel took up so much time this morning that the most critical question was never asked.
What will happen to get to alert level 2? Yesterday the PM said we'll review the levels on May 11. Two weeks from now.
But if conditions are appropriate to drop to Level 2, will we be able to do that on May 12?
I ask this because when we went from alert level 4 to 3 there was a five-day transition period which extended the lockdown period. If there is a similar transition period it will effectively extend the lockdown from seven to eight weeks.
In my opinion that extension would be even more damaging to business than the one we've just had. And for businesses planning for the transition, this sort of surety is necessary.
We know we won't know whether we can go to level 2 until May 11. But if, we can, I want to know we can do that on May 12.
