An irritated businessman put an advert in New Zealand’s most popular news magazine last week.
It stated that “The following countries don’t ban their citizens from returning home to their homeland country,” and listed many nations such as Afghanistan, China Australia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, among others.
A different headline stated that ‘The following nations effectively prohibit their citizens returning to home countries,’ and only one was New Zealand.
It was a rare public riposte to the country’s ‘Be Kind’ superwoke-but-authoritarian Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern whose behaviour becomes crueller and more twisted by the day as she continues on an increasingly desperate quest to keep my homeland a Zero Covid hermit kingdom, just as the highly transmissible Omicron variant begins to spread in the community.
Many Kiwis have become so brainwashed by Ardern’s incessant spin – swallowed whole by a compliant liberal media – that they reacted with a mere shrug when her government at the weekend revealed citizens who are household contacts of anyone who tests positive for Covid will have to self-isolate for a whopping 24 days as part of her ‘stamp it out’ policy approach.
Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, announces that New Zealand will be imposing new restrictions on Wellington yesterday
Ardern placed the whole country under red alert. A form of lockdown, which bans large gatherings, mandates masks, requires Covid passports to ensure that you can live in a normal society, with ‘two-tier’ societies, after nine Omicron confirmed cases.
Ardern even cancelled her long-planned wedding to TV star fiancé Clarke Gayford in the ultimate act of virtue signalling aimed at showing New Zealanders she’s going through the hell of lockdown too.
Although most governments attempted to stop panicked public over Omicron due to its mild nature, Ardern has done exactly the opposite.
Parliament’s Speaker Trevor Mallard – an Ardern loyalist from the ruling Labour party – warned panicked citizens to prepare as if they were facing an ‘earthquake’ by stocking up on emergency supplies, which helped spark an inevitable run on toilet paper.
Do you remember panic-buying? While most of the world realizes the necessity to live with Covid for the long term, New Zealand is still trapped in March 2020. Paranoia and terror surround a nation that once was known for creating hard men such as Sir Edmund Hillary, Everest climber, rugby legend Jonah Lomu, and AJ Hackett bunjee jump inventor.
Socialist Ardern has been preparing for the unthinkable over the last two years rather than being prepared.
A frustrated businessman published an advertisement last week in New Zealand’s largest newsmagazine. The headline read, “The following countries are not banning their citizens from returning home to their country,” and it included a list of diverse nations such as the USA, Australia (China), Australia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudia Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia and many others. Another headline read, “The following countries ban their citizens from returning home to their country,” and it only listed one: New Zealand.
Perversely, she has banned international doctors and nurses from travelling to New Zealand – even Kiwi ones wanting to return home to work – meaning there are chronic staff and resource shortages.
Although Ardern won’t admit to it, she is terrified that her long-term decision to pursue Zero Covid policies will lead to serious consequences.
New Zealand is almost without natural immunity making it more susceptible to Omicron.
Nevertheless, the message Ardern is sending to Kiwis about eliminating the virus has been received well.
It is impossible to instill confidence in most Kiwis, even if they are 90% vaccinated. This is because Ardern has manipulated them into thinking that Covid was a black plague.
Personally, I have been deeply affected by Ardern’s narrow response to the coronavirus epidemic.
I’m proud to be a dual citizen of New Zealand and Britain.
My mother was born in Essex, and my father, who was the son of Geordies parents, was born at a British military base in Malta.
Their descendants emigrated to Down Under as “ten-pound poms” in the aftermath of World War Two; I was born in New Zealand, but I moved to London at 21. I’ve lived there ever since.
I have always had a strong sense of pride about my dual nationalities and both the UK and New Zealand felt equally like home…until Covid struck and New Zealand slammed shut its borders, with even Kiwis holding passports banned from the country.
It might be tempting to ask, Why is it important?
My family members are alive and well – and New Zealand has just 52 deaths from Covid?
Because such a policy approach is never ending, it matters.
For the first couple of months I reluctantly agreed to Ardern’s Chinese-inspired hardline approach. It kept Covid from entering the country, before too much information was available about the virus.
Two years later, with Kiwis getting jabbed for the third time, I am still separated from my dear mum, father, and sister, who along my partner are my most important friends by some distance.
The world finally wakes up to the insane New Zealand approach, as Ardern’s policies become more extreme.
It is illegal to keep passport holders, like mine, out of the country. The Immigration Act of New Zealand guarantees that every New Zealand citizen, by virtue or his or her citizenship has the right to enter New Zealand and remain there at all times.
Ardern instead instituted a national lottery, modeled after the sick Squid Game. This determines when we are allowed to return home.
Each month, around 50,000 desperate Kiwis – many trapped overseas in countries where their visa has run out or desperate to see sick relatives – have been forced to sign up online to enter a waiting room where they are placed in a virtual queue.
There are only around 1500 winners per month who can win tickets.
That’s not all. Once you ‘win’ the lottery, you have to pay for an exorbitantly expensive flight and then about £1,500 to spend 14 days in government run hotel quarantine, where the army has been sent in to ensure no one absconds.
Just this week Ardern’s government rejected a bid from Adriann Richards – a man suffering from motor neurone disease who has been told he has just six months to live – for a medical exemption to self-isolate for the two-week period at his home because he is unable to safely sleep using the equipment provided by the government in his quarantine prison that he says could cause asphyxiation
My hometown’s Wellington facility has fallen short of the UN Convention on the Crimes Against Torture standards. According to the chief Ombudsman, the law in New Zealand requires that the facility be in compliance with these requirements. The underground parking garage allows only one hour per day for detainees.
This is worse than jail. It’s for people who just want to see their loved ones.
As Ardern locked them up, imagine the pain two close friends suffered when their mother died. For such an inhumane lack of humanity, I will never forgive the PM.
Just this week her government rejected a bid from Adriann Richards – a man suffering from motor neurone disease who has been told he has just six months to live – for a medical exemption to self-isolate for the two-week period at his home because he is unable to safely sleep using the equipment provided by the government in his quarantine prison that he says could cause asphyxiation.
Richards only had left the country to see his wife and say farewell to his dying mother and father, who were 91 years old.
“I don’t know why you’re not eligible to be exempt from the MIQ. He pleaded for help with a newspaper.
Omicron’s emergence meant that the entire lottery system was scrapped this month.
It is clear that I cannot return to New Zealand as it is right now.
New Zealand’s August 2020: People line up early in the morning at a supermarket located in Hobsonville, Auckland
The most shocking thing is the fact that, in order to keep locals happy foreign DJs and musicians have been allowed into their homes to carry on with normal life.
The miracle of it all, Lorde, the Kiwi-pop superstar, won one of Ardern’s Squid Game spots (my mum did not). This meant that she could return to New Zealand just in the time to perform in Ardern’s now cancelled summer wedding spectacle. I apologize for not being fair about the lottery.
Grounded Kiwis lobby has been crowdfunded to sue Government. Stranded Citizens are considering sailing boats to Australia for their only way to travel to Australia after having all flights cancelled.
New Zealanders might think this column is deeply dishonest.
Some people will harass me via social media. They have also attacked the vulnerable Kiwis abroad during this pandemic. They say that we chose to move out of country. If you believe the many local radio calls, then we are’sewer rats,’ a group that aims to spread the fearsome ‘rona’ to healthy Kiwis.
Local media covered my achievements like they were distant relatives. My parents were delighted that I reported the Megxit story in their Wellington living room. This was in 2019 when I returned to my home country.
In August 2020, cars waited in line at the Auckland Covid-19 testing centre.
Because I’ve been critical about Arderns Covid policies, any reference to me in the media is made as a foreigner’.
Criticizing Ardern or her policies should be taken as an attack on New Zealand.
Protests and civil resistance are common and strong, however all those who disagree are often ignored by the pro-Ardern media and portrayed as anti-vaxxers.
Ardern uses hysteria as a kind of smiling soothsayer to create a sense of perspective.
A shameful decision by Ardern to not criticise China in the pandemic is also barely covered, most likely because he wanted to keep a trade deal with the despotic communist government.
She has also criticised the UK’s attempt to learn to live with Covid.
Trevor Mallard (President of Parliament) warned citizens not to panic if there was an earthquake.
There are rumours that Ardern wants to allow the border closures to continue for as long as she can. If she is able to keep Kiwis from the country for more than three years, they won’t be allowed to vote at the next general elections. It is widely believed they plan to attempt to boot her out of office.
Ardern tried to unite New Zealanders during the Covid crisis using the slang phrase “We’re five million”
However, she is wrong because six million Kiwis live all over the world.
A million of them have been effectively banned from their own country for over two years – and we’re never going to forget it.
It is time for international media not to portray Ardern only as a Covid hero.
She has been a sham for Kiwis stuck abroad and now her country shows that Zero Covid’s isolationism can be dangerous.