The New Act, The Budget and Auckland's Water

Good Morning and Welcome to this week’s Gospel and Culture update, by Alan Vink

Monday 18th May 2020

The COVID19 Public Health Response Act 2020.

Here is The Purpose Statement of the new legislation passed last week Wednesday.

I quote:

4. Purpose

The purpose of this Act is to support a public health response to COVID-19 that—

(a) prevents, and limits the risk of, the outbreak or spread of COVID-19 (taking into account the infectious nature and potential for asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19); and

(b) avoids, mitigates, or remedies the actual or potential adverse effects of the COVID-19 outbreak (whether direct or indirect); and

(c) is co-ordinated, orderly, and proportionate; and

(d) has enforceable measures, in addition to the relevant voluntary measures and public health and other guidance that also support that response.

Though we can debate the detail of this legislation which of course we should, I find it very hard to see how anyone could conclude, given the above four points, that The Government has ‘over reached’ or worse still that some sinister socialist plot is at work. I just can’t see it.

If you believe this idea then how would you explain the incredibly good job Dr Bloomfield, our PM and our Government have done to date in protecting us all from this killer virus. Was that Government over-reach or some kind of socialist plot at work dressed up as compassion?

And let me add. If you have had a close friend or family member infected by this virus or worse still die from it then both you and I would all be whistling a completely different tune. It is the fantastic efforts of our Government that so few of us have had to live through that ordeal. If they were good for it then, why not now?

Isn’t it the right Christian response to continue to adopt a co-operative attitude and do what is asked of us? There will come a time in the near future that we can have a debate about the broader and bigger issues.

What will be the future economic cost of coronavirus?

Here is an excellent article (mostly in graphs) that explains to non-economists the state of the nation’s books after the Budget last week compared to what it would have been without coronavirus. Sobering!

Auckland’s Drought

Since the start of this year, the Auckland Region has received significantly less rainfall than normal. This is having a big impact on their water supply. On 15th April, the total volume of water stored in the dams dropped below 50 per cent for the first time in more than 25 years. It’s at 44% today. They desperately need to preserve what’s left. It’s definitely time to pray and ask God to intervene with rain and lots of it.

Source: Watercare Ltd. https://www.watercare.co.nz/Water-and-wastewater/Drought-response