A huge statue of Jesus Christ is under construction in southern Brazil, and it will be even taller than its famous counterpart in Rio de Janeiro.The "Christ the Protector" statue is being built in Encantado, a small town in Brazil's southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, by a local organization named Friends of Christ Association (AACristo).Made of steel and concrete, it will stand 43 metres tall -- 16 feet taller than Rio's Christ the Redeemer, according to AACristo.The organisation said the statue will be the third-tallest statue of Jesus in the world, after a 249-foot statue currently under construction in Mexico and a 172-foot monument in Poland.The statue is the work of sculptor Genésio Gomes Moura and his son, Markus Moura. Its head and arms were installed on April 6 and the construction, which began in July 2019, should be finished by the end of this year, according to AACristo.It will cost around $353,000 in total, and AACristo is asking for donations to finish the project.An elevator installed inside the statue will take tourists to a lookout at the height of Christ's heart."It will be a glass opening from where people will be able to film and photograph the valley," head project supervisor Artur Lopes de Souza said on the AACristo website.The aim is to boost tourism in the area, which is close to Brazil's borders with Uruguay and Argentina.The Christ the Redeemer statue has looked down upon the city of Rio de Janeiro for almost 90 years and is one of Brazil's most famous tourist attractions.text by Jack Guy, Vasco Cotovio and Rodrigo Pedroso, CNN

Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Brazil is building a new statue of Jesus bigger than Rio's

This weekend saw the one year anniversary of the quarantine system that has now entered all our lives - MIQ. You’ll remember it started in February 2020 with a fleet of campervans on a Whangaparaoa Peninsula Naval base housing a couple of hundred Kiwi refuges from Wuhan. Then New Zealanders were asked to self-isolate, which we proved to be spectacularly unreliable at, so a government mandates and monitored quarantine system was initiated in mid-April 2020 It has been a huge undertaking.  MIQ involves 4500 rooms around the country in 32 hotels. 130,000 New Zealanders have passed through.  There have been 850 cases of Covid 19 in the facilities including 95 active cases right now. There are 4000 staff.  They have delivered 9.1 million meals and snacks, and conducted more than 900 swabs each day. Brigadier Jim Bliss says MIQ had grown into a "massive logistical exercise which runs incredibly smoothly and has served our country very well". He also says what MIQ has achieved is beyond belief And that on the whole is true, but that has not stopped many saying that the process is bad and the government is useless.  Criticisms have included that the government’s lack of business experience has contributed to MIQ’s weaknesses. This despite the system’s oversight coming from the Defence Department which has some of the highest skill levels of logisitic planning in our economy. All this is in the pursuit of accountability which is very important.  But sometimes the people holding the government to account need to be held account themselves. National’s MIQ spokesperson Chris Bishop said that National’s policy would be a purpose built facility and not the 32 hotels currently co-opted. So easy to say and so easily parroted on talkback radio but why does no-one ask him what that means. Is it one facility to cope with the 6000 residents we house every week? Because that is a very large facility.  Very large indeed.  And with a very large price tag. In the billions. Is it only for the active cases which are currently housed at jet Park and which is our most dedicated facility?  In which case we have it already, in essence. It’s a call that I would take so much more seriously if I could see that some serious thought had gone into it. It’s happened all through this year.  David Seymour last week congratulated the government on instituting a trans-Tasman bubble but claimed it was six months too late.  Which is a nonsensical statement as Australia didn’t even have an internal travel bubble six months ago. It’s the same as the National Party election policy that travellers must be tested 72 hours before departure.  A policy adopted by the government eventually. From the moment it was announced I was asking the question on how you police that in another country you have no sovereignty over and how do you ensure there isn’t a black market in dodgy tests. Which has proven to be devastatingly accurate. When we look back on this year of Covid fighting we will see a long string of reckons and crackpot ideas that were not held to account.  Not just from the government but from the opposition and media critics as well 

Andrew Dickens: This month marks one year of MIQ - and the opposition's crackpot ideas

The plight of the unfortunate container ship that has blocked the Suez Canal has provided amusement for millions online, as the global chaos sparked by the incident continues to have massive financial impact around the globe.While progress has been made on moving the ship, with the Ever Given being shifted 30m overnight, it remains fixed in place.The bizarre blockage has been celebrated across the internet.Several websites have popped up offering their own stance on the issue - with one giving users the chance to try and move the ship with Suez Canal Bulldozer (spoiler alert - you won't have much luck). You can also find out if the ship is still stuck at the helpful website istheshipstillstuck.comAnd if you want to see how the massive ship would look if it was stuck at other places around the world.   Helen&#39;s not going to be very happy about this... pic.twitter.com/0q75DIVQ78— Josh Couch (@JoshCouchNZ) March 28, 2021 Hard to know how the ship even got into Lake Taupo in the first place... pic.twitter.com/W8Quc1bkUY— Dylan Reeve (@DylanReeve) March 28, 2021 The incident is also being celebrated in meme-form, with many seeing themselves in a photo of the plucky digger working away at the base of the massive vessel. me just trying my best pic.twitter.com/s1ESpPs0KY— Kim Bhasin (@KimBhasin) March 25, 2021 Today’s Comic: We are all, in our own little way, that ship. pic.twitter.com/GVDjLxzErX— Chaz Hutton (@chazhutton) March 24, 2021 This is my favourite meme format in a long time pic.twitter.com/p7XOuC43PU— Ben Harris-Roxas (@ben_hr) March 24, 2021 My ambitious plan to free the boat is to push a huge cotton swab up the canal pic.twitter.com/ZnY4ehu8fx— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) March 25, 2021

Websites, memes pop up mocking the Ever Given blocking the Suez Canal

It's nice to be on air again after another depressing week hearing New Zealand media, politicians and talkback callers give us their wisdom over how to solve the housing crisis.In simple terms houses cost too much in this country. Currently seven times median income. 10 years ago they were five times the median income. The international benchmark is three times median income.A house in New Zealand is twice as expensive as anywhere else in the world. That's not a good look.But let's also remember that people have been prepared to pay twice the price - because we have no choice.Most markets correct themselves when the price becomes too high and the market realises they don't need to pay that. But when it comes to houses you do. Because everyone needs a roof over their head. And the roof needs to be where a job is.This has been a multi-generational planning failure of epic proportions based on some 1930s utopian view that every New Zealander can live in their five bedroom, quarter acre, pavlova paradise.So now we're here what do we do? We moan and wail at the government to do something about the fact we can't house ourselves.So government after government has tried to put a cap on prices by penalising demand with taxes like the brightline test, or limiting who can buy with LVR rules. Bad people for wanting to buy houses.Anecdotally we've heard that the first week has seem an abrupt decrease in sales and inquiries from investors but let's be honest, these guys needed a break, it's been a busy summer. They'll be back because nothing fundamentally has changed except on the edges of their margins.What will the new tax do? Will it provide cheap affordable homes? No. Will it stagnate an already suffering economy? Yes. Will it halt price growth? Yes. But only temporarily until investors remember that the upside still exists. Happens every time.Will it mean a rise in rents? Yes. If the government increases costs then that's passed on to the people paying for the service.And this is the greatest crime to me. Forget first home buyers. The most vulnerable in our housing market are those who will never have enough money to buy a house and depend on the money bag investors to let them rent a house from themMost importantly, will it build new houses? No. Not at all.Which is why I was amazed how little attention was paid to the one part of the proposal which might create a house or two. The government money to be invested to build infrastructure.Because houses are not built on land. They are built on pipes and wires and roads and shops and service stations and transportation routes and bus services.One expert spoken to by ZB Drive on the day casually said that the government probably needs to spend 10 times that amount. Unless of course you want be like Wellington where you build more and more houses until the streets explode in a fountain of poo. Forget taxes. Build infrastructure. You'll never regret it.And one final note. Why is the housing crisis solely the government’s problem? They are bit players in this market compared to the buyers, the developers and the builders. The private sector has failed to meet the demand of the market.This was driven home by the news that Carter Holt Harvey is to stop providing timber to the independent wholesalers preferring to supply big players like Fletchers.Why? They underestimated the demand for wide timbers used in multi-storeyed developments.They've run out of wood. In a country with the second largest forest plantation in the Southern Hemisphere.It beggars belief.If the people who provider the wood can't keep up with the property market, then what hope is there for the amateurs in the government?

Andrew Dickens: Housing package fails to address the real issues

It’s D-day for bubbles.  Is it really?  Or will it be a day where there is an announcement about a future announcement as is the Governments favoured method of operation? If they offer not one concrete proposal or date or destination there will be considerable anger amongst the tourism industry and opponents of the government at large.  This bubble debate has been annoying as it seems to have been going on forever - which it has.  Weeks after we first emerged from lockdown, there were people advocating for an opening of our borders.  With 20/20 hindsight we realise now how misguided those calls were. In June and July last year we had no idea about just how widespread and rampant the pandemic was going to be.But the calls were understandable because the impacts on the tourism, hospitality and educational sectors have been so dramatic and specific.  Since then the issue has raised it’s head each month, only to be submerged under another break out of infection, governmental pussy footing or a political power play by Australia.  Make no mistake the travel bubble has been used by Australia as a political pawn a number of times. Angered by our anger at their Kiwi deportation policy and other issues, the Aussies have broken off talks a number of times.    They are perfectly aware that this bubble is more important to us than them.  Their economy is not hostage to tourism and education in the way that ours is.  We need Aussies to come skiing in Queenstown this winter while they can do without a Kiwi shopping trip to David Jones in Melbourne.  But now with nine months under our belt and both Australia and New Zealand approaching some stability and expertise about handling outbreaks, it’s time for movement. Five weeks since a community case in Melbourne, you’d think it would not be outside the governments parameters to open up in three weeks time. That's two months of infection cycles done and dusted. A simple step would be to allow travel bubbles with Covid free islands to allow seasonal workers in to help horticulture.  But a word of warning.  Throughout our bubble debates people claim that billions of dollars would resume it’s flow into our economy, but that presumes that we will return to our previous levels of tourism and international students.  And I’m not sure if that demand exists. Well, certainly not to the level before the pandemic. A return airfare to Australia is more than twice what it was bin the days of cheap travel we enjoyed in 2019. We need the bubble as a first step to normality. The government needs to allow a bubble because their caution is becoming increasingly toxic to their popularity. 

Andrew Dickens: Government's travel bubble caution is toxic to their popularity

Engineers want to build an underground lunar ark, filled with millions of seed, spore, sperm and egg samples from Earth's species, hidden in a network of tubes on the moon to provide a genetic backup for the planet in the event of a doomsday scenario.Scientists from the University of Arizona have proposed an ark, dubbed a "modern global insurance policy" for 6.7 million species from Earth, cryogenically preserved and hidden inside a series of caves and tunnels under the moon's surface.They said the vault could protect the genetic materials in the event of "total annihilation of Earth" which would be triggered by a major drop in biodiversity -- but any move to build such a bunker is a long way off."Earth is naturally a volatile environment," researcher Jekan Thanga, a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering in the University of Arizona College of Engineering, said in a statement."As humans, we had a close call about 75,000 years ago with the Toba supervolcanic eruption, which caused a 1,000-year cooling period and, according to some, aligns with an estimated drop in human diversity. Because human civilization has such a large footprint, if it were to collapse, that could have a negative cascading effect on the rest of the planet."Similar "doomsday vaults" exist on Earth: The Global Seed Vault, home to just under 1 million seed samples, is located on a remote island in Svalbard, an archipelago located between Norway and the North Pole.In a paper presented earlier this month, the team from the University of Arizona think their concept could preserve life from Earth in the event of destruction of the planet we call home.The researchers said the project is dependent on advancements in cryo-robotics technology -- to be cryopreserved, the seeds must be cooled to minus 292 Fahrenheit, while stem cells must be stored at minus 320 Fahrenheit. But the team says that at such temperatures, metal parts of the base could freeze, jam or cold-weld together.Scientists also still don't understand how a lack of gravity could affect preserved seeds, or how to communicate with an Earth base.Experts uncovered a network of some 200 lava tubes beneath the surface of the moon in 2013, which had formed when streams of lava melted through soft rock to form underground tunnels billions of years ago.Scientists think the tubes -- 100 meters (328 feet) in diameter -- could provide the perfect shelter for the precious cargo, protecting it from solar radiation, surface temperature changes and micrometeorites.Powered by solar panels, the underground ark would be accessed by elevator shafts, which would lead to a facility storing cryogenic preservation modules.Scientists say that 250 rocket launches would be required to transport about 50 samples from each of 6.7 million species to the moon.Some construction is already scheduled to take place on the moon for another project.Last week, China and Russia agreed to jointly construct a lunar space station, which will be "open to all countries."text by Amy Woodyatt, CNN

Scientists want to build a doomsday vault on the moon

I spent the weekend in Wellington and it was fabulous. I went for my son’s 22nd birthday using the tickets I bought for his 21st birthday that I couldn’t use because some sort of virus was floating around. I arrived on Friday and had a good shop and a great dinner at Havana where the octopus and the gnocchi are to die for. Saturday was a blinder of a day.  The clearest blue with a steady Northerly.  You wonder why they don’t have the America’s Cup in the capital if you’ve got a problem with wind. People were buzzing around doing stuff as only Wellington can on a sunny Sunday.  Maybe it’s the promise of beautiful weather, or the fact that so many public servants are let out of the state architect designed concrete prison cells to do what they want, but Wellington crackles on a Saturday morning the way few places do. We enjoyed the waterfront, went to Makara, had fish and chips on the South Coast as the sun went down behind the South Island. And I thought to myself, who said Wellington was dying? Who said it had lost it’s mojo?  That’d be John Key and our own Heather Du Plessis Allen just a few weeks ago and a host of other commentators. No, Wellington is exactly the same as it’s always been.  And that’s it’s problem. I lived in Wellington in the mid-eighties.  The motorway and roading system is virtually unchanged. The water infrastructure unchanged. Yet the population has grown.  The city is penned in by hills and so to cope the buildings have gone up. But the base the city is built on is 100 years old.  It’s right there on the Mount Vic tunnel.  Built in 1931 with plans for 2 more lanes in a sister tunnel.  90 years later nothing. The problem is not this bunch of local politicians, or the previous bunch or the bunch before that. The problem is the model which is why nearly every city and town in New Zealand face the same fate as our failing cities. I was reminded of that when commissioners in Tauranga took a look at the books and wondered how on earth you run a city on this and promptly suggested a 22 per cent rate rise. For generations out cities bodies have been funded by a tax on households, while central government taxes individuals. That means the local bodies are woefully underfunded compared to central government. For example the average Auckland rates bill for 2020, according to the Taxpayers Union last December, was just under $3500. But in my household we have three taxpayers living in the household paying nearly 30 times that in tax. We give councils a pittance to deal with our roads, our water, our rubbish, and our excrement - the most important things needed to survive - while Central government gets a fortune to pay for our teachers, doctors, cops, soldiers and bureaucrats. We choose our local leaders based on who will cost us the least by promising the smallest rate increases.  It’s self-fulfilling .As long as we give them peanuts, and we elect monkeys, our cities and towns will continue to be circuses. Enjoy the show. 

Andrew Dickens: Wellington's problems the result of the ratepayer model

Let’s try this again - take two on 2021 - because we screwed the first take up. I had high hopes for 2021.  Particularly when the first three day lockdown had the ambition of being a short sharp surgical shock.   I was hoping that the systems and procedures had been sharpened over the previous year to a point where bringing the economy to a screeching halt was unnecessary I was thinking that this was the start of a new normal.  A lockdown that honed in on the viral outbreak like a laser guided missile, quickly identifying those infected and isolating them, cutting any spread before it happened. But I was wrong. We missed three viral vectors. Three people who through either ignorance or disobedience allowed the chance of the virus spreading to a wider community. Faced with learning on a Saturday afternoon that an infected person had been at the gym, the authorities panicked that the gym goers were heading out for a Saturday night to super spread Covid.  So the entire country was punished. I felt for everyone.  But it was deeply sad for the sports fans and art deco festival goers and all the ancillary business outside of Auckland that were closed even though the chances of inter region spread seemed negligible. So here we are back at the beginning and time for a Take Two on 2021. Here’s what I hoped I learnt.  Firstly, the Covid App does work but only if the population uses it. It was the Covid App that alerted the authorities that case M had been to the gym and MIT within minutes of discovering he was positive. Without it would we have known.  Honestly, if you hate lockdowns, use the app. But the Covid app missed the walking ladies and the lodger.  Flat out fibs to contact tracers can’t be tolerated. It is an argument for an amnesty if contact tracing unveils dodgy behaviour. If people aren’t afraid of consequences they will tell the truth.  One undisclosed tenant is not worth a nationwide lockdown. I’ve learnt that this government is exhausted and holding the Covid card too tight to it’s chest. Too often we’re told things are tickety-boo when they’re not. Now we find vaccine press releases branded with Labour Party branding when this is not a political issue. This is no longer an emergency.  It’s becoming even more political than it’s already been. And I’ve come to the view that it’s time for the Prime Minister to step aside from fronting the Covid battle. There are too many other issues that are being put on a back burner that we will pay for for generations.  Whether it’s housing, child poverty or infrastructure.  The PM needs to get back to knitting.  Watching Kiri Allan fronting the tsunami press conference I realised how the Prime Minister has hogged the issue.  When asked for science advice, Allan deferred to a scientist.  When asked about Civil Defence decisions, Allan deferred to Roger Ball.  It looked so easy The Prime Minister likes to think she has all the answers on Covid.  She does not and it’s becoming increasingly obvious.   It’s been a long haul.  Time to delegate and move onto the next stage. So let’s go - 2021, Take Two.

Andrew Dickens: It's time the Prime Minister stopped fronting Covid battle

As I watch the news last night I wondered how the young lad at the centre feels as event after dream after hope gets cancelled.  I wonder why the link between his family and the originally infected family was never revealed to the contact tracers.  Did they know what they did was wrong? Was there some link between the families so powerful it made them forget the rules?  Or did they not know the rules in the first place?I wonder about the motivations of the apologists. The counsellor claiming the messages of a year have gone past people because there are 20 languages in South Auckland.  We don’t have enough translators.  How on earth do any of these New Zealand citizens and resident survive if they don’t understand a rule as simple as stay at home if you’re sick?  Or stay at home if you’ve had a Covid test? Don’t visit another family under Level 3?I also wonder how every other denier and complacent feels. They fuel a climate of dissent and lack of responsibility that results in greater anarchy Day in and day out we hear a constant buzz of disrespect of authority.  The government’s useless.  The goverment’s incompetent. The government’s lazy.   Ashley’s slack.  The contact tracing app doesn’t work.  Covid’s just another flu.  Covid is a myth.  Vaccines kill.  Police don’t arrest anyone any more.  There is a sufficient underbelly of people in this country who don’t care about the rules because they’ve been set by people they don’t respect. The government and the system has it faults but it’s biggest weakness is the population itself.All New Zealanders had to do was assume some personal responsibility to help everyone. Too many of us can’t do that.  I don’t know why. It’s either because we’re selfish, immature, short sighted or stupid. You choose.

Andrew Dickens: Biggest weakness in our Covid response is our population

An Alaska woman had the scare of a lifetime when using an outhouse in the backcountry and she was attacked by a bear, from below."I got out there and sat down on the toilet and immediately something bit my butt right as I sat down," Shannon Stevens told The Associated Press on Thursday. "I jumped up and I screamed when it happened."Stevens, her brother Erik and his girlfriend had taken snowmobiles into the wilderness Feb. 13 to stay at his yurt, located about 20 miles northwest of Haines, in southeast Alaska.Her brother heard the screaming and went out to the outhouse, about 150 feet (45.72 meters) away from the yurt. There, he found Shannon tending to her wound. They at first thought she had been bitten by a squirrel or a mink, or something small.Erik had brought his headlamp with him to see what it was."I opened the toilet seat and there's just a bear face just right there at the level of the toilet seat, just looking right back up through the hole, right at me," he said."I just shut the lid as fast as I could. I said, 'There's a bear down there, we got to get out of here now,'" he said. "And we ran back to the yurt as fast as we could."Once safely inside, they treated Shannon with a first aid kit. They determined it wasn't that serious, but they would head to Haines if it worsened."It was bleeding, but it wasn't super bad," Shannon said.The next morning, they found bear tracks all over the property, but the bear had left the area. "You could see them across the snow, coming up to the side of the outhouse," she said.They figure the bear got inside the outhouse through an opening at the bottom of the back door."I expect it's probably not that bad of a little den in the winter," Shannon said.Alaska Department of Fish and Game Wildlife Management Biologist Carl Koch suspects it was a black bear based upon photos of the tracks he saw and the fact that a neighbor living about a half-mile away sent him a photo of a black bear on her property two days later.That homeowner yelled at the bear but it didn't react. It also didn't approach her but lumbered about its business, like it was in a walking hibernation mode.Even though it's winter, Koch said they get calls all year round about bears being out.And 2020 was a record year for general bear problems in the Haines area. Reasons for that, he said, could include the fact it was a poor salmon run year combined with a mediocre berry crop. "It is also possible a bear couldn't put on enough fat when they go in the den, that they might be out and about more often or earlier," he said.Koch suspects Shannon's wound was caused by the bear swatting at her with a paw rather than being bitten. Either way, the location might be a first."As far as getting swatted on the butt when you're sitting down in winter, she could be the only person on Earth that this has ever happened to, for all I know," Koch said.No matter the season, Erik says he'll carry bear spray with him all the time when going into the backcountry, and Shannon plans to change one behavior as well."I'm just going to be better about looking inside the toilet before sitting down, for sure," she said.

Alaska woman using outhouse attacked by bear - from below

Firstly today my respects to Christchurch.  10 long years. I was at the first memorial in March of 2011, one month after the event.  Prince William was there and spoke.  He told tens of thousands of Cantabrians this: "My grandmother once said, that grief is the price we pay for love. Here today, we love and we grieve." I saw a young lad who had lost his Mum uncontrollably sobbing.   Towards the end of the service we looked towards the Port Hills and saw hundreds of first responders who walked right across Hagley Park to join us and they were given a standing ovation. It was a blue sky day and a kite was in the air saying “Rise Up Christchurch”. I’m sure all these sentiments will be present today.  10 years is no time at all really. But today will also see the Australian cricket side play against the Blackcaps in Hagley Park. Our best venue that was born out of the quake which also shows you how far we’ve come. On the Covid front we have a possible change from Level 2 to 1 for Auckland.  I think this is on the cards.  Chief smarty pants and scaredy cat Professor Michael Baker thinks it can happen so that’s a good sign.No one wants this more than Joseph Parker and Junior Fa who have their living on the line this Friday at Spark Arena.  No Level 1, no fight. Meanwhile, National’s Covid spokesman Chris Bishop has launched the biggest back of an envelope reckon of an idea when he suggested we construct a dedicated MIQ facility. He’s proposed land near the airport. Well, Ihumātao shows you how difficult that is and how expensive.  Cabins with individual air con filtration to be built.  Basing the costs on you basic prison build, you’re talking a billion. All to stop leaks out of MIQ, of which there have been none.  We’ve had returnees return to their homes after MIQ and then the virus flare up again and that’s affected Auckland the most because, newflash, more people live in Auckland.   This is not an Auckland problem.  May I remind you that our biggest outbreaks are the Bluff Wedding Cluster and the greatest death toll was in Christchurch. And this all as we commence a vaccination regime for MIQ workers that will further reduce the risk. We’ve come too far and learnt to much to be subjected to half thought out reckons.  

Andrew Dickens: We've come too far in Covid response to deal with bad reckons

Yesterday morning, I thought I’d start my programme with another call to rationalise or even nationalise our water and wastewater operations. This is prompted by situations facing Waikouaiti, Karitane and Turnberry who have now been joined by Akaroa.  Towns whose basic necessity, water, has been poisoned by lead and opossums.  They join a long line of shameful water management including our capital. If the government wants a shovel ready infrastructure project to get their teeth into then fixing the nation’s water supply should be at the top of the list. But that was yesterday. Today we’re back in lockdowns.  Called faster than ever before, which caused a strange pandemonium. I have a great sympathy for all the Cafes and hospitality businesses, who suddenly had just minutes to hours to sort their stock out.  Frantically trying to save food before being forced to throw it all out and the money it represents. But I understand the need for health services to crack on.  I’ve always found it strange that having decided a lockdown was necessary we delayed the lockdown for days.  It’s not like the virus takes any time off.  It’s always working 24/7. What I don’t understand is the panicked exodus to baches that occurred. I understand that lockdown is better at the beach but what part of Stay Safe Stay Local do the beachgoers not understand?Are they aware that the locals hate the invasion because of the pressure already basic medical services and supply chains for smaller supermarkets?  Do they not understand that they could be just like the woman at the centre of this current cluster who felt she didn’t have the virus.  That meant she felt free to ravel.  That meant she could have introduced the cluster to New Plymouth. Anyone of the bach refugees could be introducing the virus to retired populations in Pauanui, Whitianga, Keri Keri or Mangawhai. Are the bach refugees also aware of the disdain they’re held in by the people whose businesses are forced to shut down in lcokdowns? Their sacrifices are being ignored.  The exodus completely negates the purpose of lockdowns to halt spread, when Aucklanders are spreading themselves all over the island. Finally, we have a vivid example of why you should scan the codes.  The woman at the centre of this cluster thought she was sweet and took a roadie to Taranaki and neglected to scan.  Leaving the good people in New Plymouth in a state of suspended existence waiting for the worst. Will she be able to remember the places she went in a town she is unfamiliar with? Was it so hard to spend five seconds to hold a phone up to a QR code?

Andrew Dickens: Latest lockdown shows the importance of scanning in

I want to talk about governance.Governance is defined in the dictionary is the way rules, norms and actions are structured, sustained , regulated and held accountable. It’s the job of governments in public life and board in corporate life. But I view governance differently.To me, governance is the trick of actually doing something, actually achieving something and actually running something for the greater good.  You know, governing.I’ve been moved to talk about governance because of continuing failures in this nation and overseas by the people who are charged with it. In reality, Governance is not what governments do.  Politicians can’t run a thing.  Sure, they make decisions and plot directions but they then hand the job over to a workforce who are supposed to be professionals at getting stuff done. The professionals at governance. When Phil Twyford said the last government would build 100,000 houses he made an enormous blunder.  But part of that blunder was the inability of the public servants in his charge at making any of it happen. The Simpson Roche report that was sneaked out just before the holidays has ample examples of that failure. The politicians determined the amount of PPE to be purchased and handed the job over to supposed professionals to get the stuff ordered and distributed.  They failed and then fudged that failure to the governing body. I was reminded of all this again with the tragic story of the New Zealander in Japan with terminal brain cancer, who just wanted to come home, but was refused permission. This was decision of a civil servant who brutally applied the criteria without engaging a brain or a heart.  As soon as the politicians heard of the case and how obvious the need was they reversed to bureaucrat’s bad governance. With public servants like these, politicians don’t need enemies. It was the same last week when testing was ramped up for Covid in Northland resulting in fearsome capacity restraints and queues. I don’t blame the politicians for this but the Ministry of Health and DHBs for not predicting the flaming obvious. Where was the flying squad of testers ready to swoop into hotspots at a moment’s notice?  We’ve had nearly a year to figure that out. The failures in MIQ are failures at the ground level.  The people through the government ordered the public servants to design a quarantine system.  It’s full of holes.  Different sites, different systems and no one on the ground using common sense. If they need politicians armed with law or philosophy degrees or just a desire to do good, to tell them how to do it, you have to ask why we have the so called experts in public policy and governance at all. Many people talk about holding our politicians to account. What we really need is the government and the media holding the frontline and our public servants to account. Because they’re the ones who keep letting the so called team of 5 million down. 

Andrew Dickens: Public servants, not government, are letting the team of 5 million down

For as many foes as the superhero fends off, Batman has a formidable team of supporters starting with his sidekick Robin, Gotham City Commissioner James Gordon and his ever-loyal butler, Alfred Pennyworth.But one of the Caped Crusader's most fervent supporters lies not in a comic book, but in the US Senate, and he's known the Bat for more than 80 years.Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont and the longest-serving member of the current Senate, is a Batman aficionado who's turned his fandom into philanthropy. He's even used the comics to forward his legislative agenda.Now President pro tempore of the Senate, Leahy is third in the presidential line of succession. Though it's unlikely he'll ever have to serve as President, his high-profile position shines a brighter light on his colorful resume -- which includes multiple appearances in the "Batman" films.When he's not working in the Senate chambers in Washington, Leahy retreats to Gotham, where Batman fights cartoonish villains and mans the Batmobile. It's a comfort he took up when he was 4 years old."If you live in the real world all the time, it can be kind of boring," the senator told Vermont alt-weekly newspaper Seven Days in 2008.When Leahy met BatmanLeahy declined an interview for this story through his spokesman, but his affinity for all things Batman is well-documented. As he wrote in the foreword of "Detective Comics: 80 Years of Batman," he was born just one year after Batman's first comic published in 1939.He first discovered Batman at age 4, when he received his first library card. He frequented the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier, where he spent many an afternoon poring over comics. While his school friends raved over Superman, Leahy found a "kindred bond" with the Bat."Entering Batman's world through my imagination opened an early door into a lifelong love of reading," he wrote in his foreword.He'd continue spending hours at the library each day until adulthood, and even after he moved to Washington, he'd make time to pop in. He's a vocal advocate for literacy and the preservation of libraries so children can have similarly formative experiences with books."Some of my fondest memories as a child were at the library, where everyone fit in and possibilities were limitless," he writes on his Senate website.Leahy's appearances from page to screenLeahy was elected to the Senate in 1974 and until the mid-1990s, his affinity for Batman didn't have much to do with his duties on Capitol Hill.That changed in 1996, when Leahy collaborated with DC Comics to create "Batman: Death of Innocents: The Horror of Landmines," a graphic novel warning of the dangers of landmines. Leahy has long advocated to end the use of landmines, and he told the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call that he placed copies of the comic on every senator's desk that year.Leahy's first foray into screen acting -- something he does strictly when Batman is involved -- came in 1995, when he appeared in the critically reviled "Batman Forever." The same year, he voiced a character billed as "Territorial Governor" in "Batman: The Animated Series."Since then, Leahy has appeared in nearly as many "Batman" films as the Caped Crusader himself. He usually appears as a scowling politician (though in "Batman & Robin," which his son Mark also had a cameo in, he was allowed to enjoy a raucous party). He even met an explosive end as the curiously named Senator Purrington in "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.""I explain to everybody that getting blown up was OK 'cause my wife's a registered nurse," he joked to Roll Call in 2016. "She put me back together and I never missed a vote."His most notable cameo, though, came in 2008's "The Dark Knight," when he confronts Heath Ledger's Joker and famously tells the villain that he's "not intimidated by thugs." The Joker, true to form, responds by grabbing Leahy's character and menacing him with a knife.Ledger, who died before the film's relea...

Patrick Leahy - third in the line of presidential succession - has been in five Batman movies

With decades of broadcasting experience behind him, Andrew Dickens has worked around the world across multiple radio genres. His bold, sharp and energetic show on Newstalk ZB is always informative and entertaining.

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