The incoming New Zealand parliament needs to be different to the last one

 Among the most pressing tasks facing the government is to find out what happened during the last three years. The outgoing parliament has been secretive in the extreme to our detriment. Many of our politicians have been re-elected. We are a trusting nation and this trust has been exploited to our cost. It will not be possible to find a safe way ahead until the extent of dissimulation is fathomed and corrected.

Our health service has fallen into disrepair and disarray as unprecedented ill health has affected the nation. As we have been reporting with official figures, we currently have the third-highest excess death rate in the OECD. Rates of hospitalisation for heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, reproductive disease, cancers, and inflammatory illness have soared. The number of people unable to work through disability has similarly ballooned. A mental health crisis is unfolding.

Yet we have been left in the dark about the true extent of these problems and their causes. Throughout the last three years, the health landscape has been dominated by the pandemic and the government’s response to it. Pandemic policy has enjoyed cross-party support, but a comprehensive assessment of policy outcomes for health is missing.

Universal mRNA covid vaccination has been and continues to be the mainstay of government pandemic policy. Incredibly, we have been denied access to data which differentiates between the health outcomes of the vaccinated and the unvaccinated....<<<Read More>>>...