Aussies: Football, Meat Pies, and Rampant SARS

[The Marquis de Leech]

19 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Who does NZ run to in the case of aggression from a stronger antagonist though, if not the US and Australia? Seems like they want to have their cake and eat it.

Edit

But the bigger concern is probably that Ardern seems to have used the nuclear excuse as a convenient way to subtly join her Chinese masters in signalling displeasure at this submarine deal.

(By the way, has she managed to grudgingly condemn the Chinese actions against the Uyghurs as genocide yet?)

Ever noticed New Zealand's location - 2000km away from any sizeable landmass? Quite apart from the fact that we lack Australia's mineral wealth, and as such invading us would be a logistical nightmare for zero pay-off?

As for China: New Zealand is a dairy farm with a country attached. All we care about is having someone to buy our milk powder. China does that. Ergo, we're only ever going to nibble the hand that feeds us.

[The Anti-Targ]

12 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Well, New Zealand's geographical location on a monstrous fault line - and natural hydro suitability - really mean we've got no real business dabbling with nuclear. 

I don't agree. Environmentally we are more or less tapped out on hydro generation. We should not be putting in more dams, and wind and solar take up a huge amount of land for the power that's generated. There is a lot more safety with newer reactor designs, like molten salt reactors, which will not be in danger of a repeat of the Fukushima situation. If we want to electrify our transport fleet then we need a substantial increase in generation capacity. I would say one or two nuclear plants for base load generation can absolutely be part of NZ's energy future if we just get out of our own way.

 

[The Anti-Targ]

14 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Ever noticed New Zealand's location - 2000km away from any sizeable landmass? Quite apart from the fact that we lack Australia's mineral wealth, and as such invading us would be a logistical nightmare for zero pay-off?

As for China: New Zealand is a dairy farm with a country attached. All we care about is having someone to buy our milk powder. China does that. Ergo, we're only ever going to nibble the hand that feeds us.

If someone is going to invade NZ there will already be a big war going on, and NZ will have been dragged in on the US / UK side (assuming they are on the same side), before China / Russia / Indonesia / India ever decide to try to land boots on the ground here. Even if Aussie didn't give a crap about us, they would not want an enemy on its right flank. The US also does not want an enemy getting their hands on infratructure and easy access to Antarctica.

Rank hyperbole the dairy thing is, the fact remains China is our biggest customer for every commodity we export in large quantity: China takes 33% of all the meat, fish, dairy fruit and vegetables we export. And the reason for that is we have a free trade deal with China. If we had free trade deals with the USA, UK and Europe that balance would shift substantially back towards our historic allies. If countries who want us to be less in China's pocket want to change our relationship with China, then fast tracking a free trade deal that has reasonable conditions for us would be far more effective than being all pissy about us not marching in lock step with them.

[karaddin]

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

The US also does not want an enemy getting their hands on infratructure and easy access to Antarctica.

This is also entirely true of Aus. The original comment in the thread was certainly snarky and implying that NZ isn't pulling it's weight, but the fact of the matter is that the US isn't our ally and defence partner out of the kindness of their hearts. It's in their interests to have these areas as allied with them, and for them to be the dominant military power with us beholden to them. We're all operating in our own self interest.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

This is also entirely true of Aus. The original comment in the thread was certainly snarky and implying that NZ isn't pulling it's weight, but the fact of the matter is that the US isn't our ally and defence partner out of the kindness of their hearts. It's in their interests to have these areas as allied with them, and for them to be the dominant military power with us beholden to them. We're all operating in our own self interest.

Technically you are our only formal ally. The US and UK gave us the boot as allies when we said no to their nukes. But your point still stands. I guess it remains to be seen if ScoMo decides to pack a sad and put us in the friend zone too. Maybe we should let the Wallabies win a couple of Rugby games to appease him...yeah nah!

[karaddin]

Just now, The Anti-Targ said:

Technically you are our only formal ally. The US and UK gave us the boot as allies when we said no to their nukes. But your point still stands. I guess it remains to be seen if ScoMo decides to pack a sad and put us in the friend zone too. Maybe we should let the Wallabies win a couple of Rugby games to appease him...yeah nah!

I'm pretty sure he only cares about any sport for it's perceived marketing value, so probably not going to help yeah.

[Free Northman Reborn]

A Pacific alliance against Chinese aggression is crystallising - The US, India, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and probably others as well.

It is a shame that NZ chooses to be a Chinese client state instead. Quick to lecture Australia on every perceived human rights violation, from immigration to nuclear submarine choices, while remaining utterly silent on the elephant in the room - China.

Guess every left wing value has a price.

[maarsen]

2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

A Pacific alliance against Chinese aggression is crystallising - The US, India, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and probably others as well.

It is a shame that NZ chooses to be a Chinese client state instead. Quick to lecture Australia on every perceived human rights violation, from immigration to nuclear submarine choices, while remaining utterly silent on the elephant in the room - China.

Guess every left wing value has a price.

Considering Canada has been left out also, even as we are having issues and blowback from China, tends to show that the architects of this alliance have other reasons for doing what they do rather than your silly observation of New Zealand being a Chinese client state.

[The Anti-Targ]

Ironic since it is the right wing former PM of New Zealand who's nose is most deeply buried in Xi's arse speaking most loudly against NZ getting too critical of China. And it's the left-most party in parliament that is the most brazenly critical of China and the govt's attempted balancing act. If there is a reason for NZ to go soft on criticizing China it is pure, naked capitalism motivating it, a very left-wing value indeed.

[Paxter]

Pretty pleasing vacc numbers now in Australia. The first dose take-up is quite high and second-doses are catching up at a decent clip. Should be in pretty good shape by the end of the year and not significantly worse than peers. 

I'm proud to say we are (broadly) not a nation of vaccine sceptics. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

9 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Ironic since it is the right wing former PM of New Zealand who's nose is most deeply buried in Xi's arse speaking most loudly against NZ getting too critical of China. And it's the left-most party in parliament that is the most brazenly critical of China and the govt's attempted balancing act. If there is a reason for NZ to go soft on criticizing China it is pure, naked capitalism motivating it, a very left-wing value indeed.

Interesting. Didn’t realise NZ had a right wing. But I guess it’s all relative. Right of Ardern, maybe. 

But point taken.

[Impmk2]

5 hours ago, Paxter said:

Pretty pleasing vacc numbers now in Australia. The first dose take-up is quite high and second-doses are catching up at a decent clip. Should be in pretty good shape by the end of the year and not significantly worse than peers. 

I'm proud to say we are (broadly) not a nation of vaccine sceptics. 

Yeah jabbing is happening at a decent rate now supply is here. The uptake numbers in Sydney are truly impressive. Of course the outbreaks plus the bit of coercion the NSW and Vic governments are employing (get jabbed or you won't get to go to the pub when the lockdown lifts) is probably helping too!

Now SA, Qld and WA need to get a move on too. Going to be a mad rush when the inevitable outbreak happens otherwise.

[karaddin]

1 hour ago, Impmk2 said:

Now SA, Qld and WA need to get a move on too. Going to be a mad rush when the inevitable outbreak happens otherwise.

Yeah that's been a real problem in this country - complacency about vaccination due to the perception that it's not currently a problem "here". The impactful change is when it's become a problem here, it lights a fire under most people's arses. 

But one of the biggest points of maintaining the zero covid environment is meant to be that we use that time to prepare, not to relax and do nothing and still find ourselves up shit creek.

Which is maybe a little uncharitable as the deaths in NSW are a fraction of what they would have been with the same case numbers last year, there has obviously been a whole lot of improvements - we've just squandered some of the opportunity to do even better.

[lessthanluke]

So my IG feed is filled with videos from Aussoes of videos of police violence.

How much attention is this picking up over there?

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CUMjBFrj02a/?utm_medium=copy_link

 

One of quite a few examples.

[Paxter]

14 hours ago, karaddin said:

Yeah that's been a real problem in this country - complacency about vaccination due to the perception that it's not currently a problem "here". The impactful change is when it's become a problem here, it lights a fire under most people's arses. 

I still think the laggard states (QLD, WA, SA) will catch up. While they are behind the locked down states right now, they have smaller and, especially in SA and WA, very concentrated populations, which are advantages in distribution.

An imperfect parallel would be Atlantic Canada, which had more or less eliminated COVID and initially had low vaccine rates, but caught up and now leads the country. 

[ithanos]

Bees swarm inside Sydney man's car. The old fella who came to the rescue is a legend. Though if I'm cynical for a sec, these bees could've been trying to escape his apiary in the first place.

 

[karaddin]

9 hours ago, Paxter said:

I still think the laggard states (QLD, WA, SA) will catch up. While they are behind the locked down states right now, they have smaller and, especially in SA and WA, very concentrated populations, which are advantages in distribution.

Yeah. I also don't think we have the level of cultural drift between states (unlike the US) to see dramatically different ceilings on vaccination uptake, and the ceiling in NSW is looking like the anti vaxx numbers are still relatively low. We might get there a bit later than I'd like but we will get there.