[This is being simultaneously posted on my other website, too: The View from Right Field]
In December 2016, I wrote a post entitled “New Zealand: The Lucky Country – In Politics”.1 Well, it is still true. New Zealand has closed its borders and will be instituting a shelter-at-home order Wednesday at 11:59 pm, New Zealand time. But what makes them a “lucky country” is two things.
One, the Labour-led government’s plan seems pretty decent, and they now seem to be doing it reasonably well.2,3 Two, in the words of The Spinoff, a New Zealand website:
“[T]the [opposition center-right] National Party has offered the PM their full support in moving to Level Four [i.e., shelter-at-home] restrictions, saying the country is facing an unprecedented crisis …. [National Party] Leader Simon Bridges has also instructed all of his MPs to suspend campaign activity [for the election coming in September], and has offered the services of MPs and staff in providing any support that they can. Bridges also warmly welcomed the removal of the cap on how much businesses can claim from the wage subsidy. The [libertarian] ACT Party has also welcomed the government's measures, with leader David Seymour saying the government had made the right call, and New Zealanders needed to get behind the efforts.”
All in all, one has to agree with Alex Braae at The Spinoff: New Zealand is “very lucky to have political parties across the spectrum who put the country’s interests above politics at times like these.”
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1 I’m not going to restate that post here. You can read it here and see why.
2 Before the shutdown order, there apparently were questions about what the government was doing and how. And the government, like governments pretty much everywhere, was upset when opposition parties raised questions about what they were doing.
3 On the other hand, perhaps because New Zealand is so much closer to China, the Kiwis had their toilet paper panic before the United States did.
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