Welcome to Covid A Game of Celebrity Charades. Fool The Public Garner Privilege Wealth & A Sense of Self Entitlement.

Say the right things you too can be hanging out with the beautiful people in Telly Land new Celebrity chock competition Covid A Game of Charade where what you say is more important than what you do in this game of two faces.

By BEN VIDGEN “The Dyslexic Detective”

In the new game show Covid A Game of Celebrity Charades you will need form a team of ‘five million’ lead of course by a corporate friendly media, backed by corporate funded politicians (hey those stomach tucks and face lifts don’t pay themselves), who are on friendly terms with Auckland addicted celebrities and sporting folks – who also play sports financed by corporate financed sector — and of course some friendly smiling ‘scientific’ faces who can play nice and look good with all the other ‘kool ‘ corporate enriched kids in the play ground.

Now lock step these malleable rubber pieces together and begin the next phase of Covid A Game of Celebrity Charades a part of the game we call ‘do as we say not as we do’.

Here a few past players from Covid A Game of Celebrity Charades.

The most recent contester is of course the pink haired unicorn Siouxsie Wiles from the Imperial College.

Wiles has put the rock star into bureaucrat press releases as a science communicator whose one job is to make sure the team of five million know the rules.

Wiles hobby include gender neutral mental gymnastic and politically progressive pontification, has done will with her branding skills invited on talk back, given her own newspaper column. She has being invited in general to hang out with her new ‘Kool’ friends in the magical paradise of Auckland Telly land. Busted going for a ride and having a mask-less chin wagon with a mate who then went and had a swim. Wiles caught out claimed the person lived alone and she had brought them into her bubble. All before playing her ‘misinformation’ ‘fake news’ cards as she tried to show she too has the skills to play Covid A Game of Celebrity Charades and get the team of Five Million to do as they are told as meanwhile she does what she wants.

The woman emerged as Dr. Nicola Gaston former President of the NZ Association of Scientists who does not actually live with Wiles OR more importantly “nearby” but in Parnel. Siouxsie lives inner west. Siouxsie rode 6kms on an electric bike to Judges Bay. So again the exercise was not LOCAL and her mate does not live nearby.

Wiles also admitted (Sep 10 tweet -image right) before hand they were meeting for “regular masked” exercise where they masked up.

Yet decided that day to take off the mask and to hell with social distancing, they had obviously being doing just minutes before hand. As they knew full well what was required.

And yes she knew her mate was breaking rules when she went for a swim. “Im not her mum” said Wiles.

No you’re just the person whose job is tell us the rules and your friend’s just a scientist who should have know better. Especially in light of Gaston’s own public record of crying foul against the idea there should not be rule for one group of people and another for those not so lucky to belong to the privilege side of town .

So again FFS if they cant be bothered following rules then what is the incentive for others as the state is arresting folks on constitutionally questionable laws. Oh yeah those folks don’t have friendly faces in the interlocked world of corporate interests, political lobbying and corporate media and can unlike Wiles be expected to be vilified even when the legitimacy of laws used are in question. Again I repeat that official rules state no you cant extend bubbles to those NOT in your house and can only do so if they live nearby.

March 26 2020 “as of midnight last night, the country is in lockdown. The rules are: stay in your bubble for the next four weeks. But what is my bubble and how far can I stretch it? (Daily Spin) This “bubble” is made up of all the people who share your household. That could be your flatmates, parents, siblings, children, and/or partner. Whoever was under the same roof as you when the clock struck 11.59pm. To provide some clarity, here are some answers to some bubble questions that just keep bubbling up. Why can’t we join our neighbour’s bubble? None of us are seeing anyone else, so surely that’s safe? It’s not really “breaking” our bubble, it’s just inviting others in! As per the emergency message, the people who were in the same household as you last night are the ones now in your bubble. Siouxsie Wiles explains how the bubbles work… She says, “if it turns out someone in our bubble is incubating Covid-19, then the virus will be limited to our bubble. It won’t be able to spread any further. It also means if no one in our bubble has the virus then as long as we stay in our bubble, we will stay safe and save lives. So no, don’t go combining your bubble with your neighbour’s family, OR YOUR FREIND DOWN THE STREET. Like Jacinda Ardern said in her Facebook live video, act as though you already have Covid-19. You wouldn’t want to combine bubbles then, would you?” Said Siouxie Wiles

“The prime minister has suggested we think of ourselves as being in a little bubble with the people we live with. Our job for the next few weeks is to stay in our bubble. If it turns out someone in our bubble is incubating Covid-19, then the virus will be limited to our bubble. It won’t be able to spread any further. It also means if no one in our bubble has the virus then as long as we stay in our bubble, we will stay safe and save lives”. Said Wiles.

Wiles end that by clarifying the bubble position. If you live alone, and you have a “NEARBY” friend who lives alone, then the two of you can form a bubble and move between your two homes”.

This of course is based on the assumption Wile’s friend.

A) Does live alone. Which so far we only have Wiles word on this – one feature of Covid Game of Charades is that corporate friendly media will simply take you on your word.

B). If you have flatmates and your partner has flatmates, you can’t form a bubble unless one of you moves in with the other. Wiles does have a partner Steven Galbrait and a daughter so under those rules her college would have to move in with her, Yet her September 10 tweet makes clear that not what occurred.

C) Lives nearby which Gaton clearly does not. In fact that is the most glaring issue here (which is why I repeat this point so many times on this page). Yet dont worry in Covid Game of Charades the corporate friendly media you have aligned your self with at the start wont pull you up on that either.

Chris Hipkins also note “if too difficult to follow safe physical distancing then people should consider whether it was really necessary to exercise at that time..Outdoor activities are limited under level 4. You must stay in your bubble, maintain physical distancing, and keep walks short, LOCAL, and for essential exercise only.

Slater is toxic and very much a right wing political apparatchik. So much like the Lab in Wuhan another feature of Covid The Game of Charades is that damaging news delivered from the opposing the side can be ignored by all your fans. So need not be taken seriously. So have another turn, stay out of Covid jail, do collect $200.00 in celebrity endorsement from your fan base who are soaked in cognitive dissonance.

Wiles of course follow in the foot prints of another of her alumni the March 13th Neil Ferguson Imperial College London (which has a close association to the right wing London School of Economics) report. Ferguson advice that stated if we did not impose a lock down 60,000 people in New Zealand at less would die and even “with controls” (meaning we endure months of lockdown) at less 10,000 New Zealanders would die. Were now in phase two covid delta and those figures are clearly not accurate as meanwhile tens of thousands of kiwi go with out (or are delayed) cancer or other life saving medical treatment.

In England these estimates were immediately identified by follow epidemiologist as drastically wrong.

An error which would brings with it not just an economic cost but the spectre of privatisation to such vital life saving areas as health and social welfare. Rather than save lives it long term impact will end up costing lives.

For that is the price those who support privatisation are willing to have the public pay. Though of course the public will not be consulted on this process. Such is the current status of democracy in New Zealand a we play the Covid A Game of Charades. In England when Ferguson figures seem suspect media and academic rush to ask him more.

Ferguson however explained he had contracted Covid and would need to isolate.

We now know he in fact went home and bonked his neighbour wife. So was caught out telling a bare face lie.

Publicly disgraced Ferguson however was not called upon to explain why the math in his model was so flawed. Instead he was allowed to slink back into the pro corporate advisory board of Boris Johnston the man who gave the UK Brexit (as mean while a civil war erupted in England’s academia as the Covid Advisory Board was outed as being the pockets of lobbyists). Ferguson reinstatement despite some very shaky math (simply accepted at face value along with the claims he had covid to being with by the corporate media).

Come on these are top officials. If they cant lead by example and know the exact rules then how is any one else meant to know.

And as for the pro Labour pro National bloggers and journalist treating this like a game – where you back your own team colours no matter how absurd things get. Seems these day the idea of fair and balance in media is utterly gone and the press are now just cheers leader from the side lines who will back their ream and slagging the other team off as they bend the fact to fit their bias. I am so over this parochial partisanship were media is either team blue or team red. 

The lack of accountability is the most glaring feature of Covid A Game Charades. Take Clark behaviour as the Minister of Health during the elections.

David Clarke was a super keen player as he came back to the game of Covid A Game of Celebrity Charades not once, not twice, but three times. Yet never lost his job and is still a minister (David is Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications, Minister for State Owned Enterprises and Minister of Statistics. He is also the Minister Responsible for the Earthquake Commission).

In the first week of the Coronavirus Health Minister David Clark drove to a Dunedin park two kilometres from his home to ride a mountain bike trail, as New Zealand marked a week in lockdown. Carried out under new laws in which Kiwis’ freedoms were severely curtailed and hundreds who breached its rules were prosecuted. As Clark himself tweeted “New Zealanders, stay home, save lives”. Having being caught out a second time, having originally defended his MT Biking excursion, Clark retains his portfolio. Their in fact was a third case but Clark was able to show the distance he travelled meant he remained local. As opposed to Wiles who made a bubble with some one not near, let her mate go for a swim, and was exercising in an are not local. 3 Breeches and like Calrk and no real slap on the hand.

Now I could use that point to high light why not. I mean when you have a boss who seems equally keen to play Covid A Game of Celebrity Charades (while backed by PR heavy weights from her day as a spin doctor for Tony Blair neoliberal strategies aimed at killing small businesses and general neoliberalism) and also seems unconcerned with obeying the rules were all expected to follow.

Yet it here that the true genius of Covid A Game of Celebrity Charades kicks in.

As Judith Collins David Seymour & Cameron ‘Getting Sued For Slander Is What I Do’ Slater have us on the edge of our seats in a state of shock mock horror. What will the “pretty ‘communist’” and all her ‘pink haired’ unicorn do next. Yet in terms of explaining or focusing on the serious issues we need to as a team of five million all be aware of. Not from a view point of how mad they might make us but from a view of explaining how more complicated and serious things taking place will affect the team of five million, in real life sense, such as the income you earn, the ability to pay your bills, put food in the cupboard. At this point, the ‘opposition’ suddenly become very silent and their own punches also begin to look like celebrity charades themselves.

Fact is this is not a partisan issue. As the Auckland Thursday, September 9, case of William Willis a equestrian and horse stud owner, the son of district court judge and lawyer Hannah Rawnsley, who used essential worker exemptions to cross the boundary and drive to Hamilton Airport, where they then took a commercial flight to Queenstown via Wellington and hired a car to drive to their father holiday home in Wānaka shows. The holiday home is jointly owned by Willis‘ father Robert, barrister Tony Bouchier and his wife, district court judge Josephine Bouchier who gave name suppression in the Roast Buster sexual abuse case, involving the son of a senior police officer, for more than seven years.

When busted the Auckland beautiful people themselves would also seek name suppression (the courts smelling blood in the water backed off). Once name suppression was only issued for serious crimes but now a standard tactic for clients who can afford it and expect rules for them and rules for the peasants below. The Williams are brilliant specimens of the true root issue at work here -self entitlement.

In 2013 Williams mother Mary-Beth Sharp, also known as Mary-Elizabeth Willis, a district court judge, of Auckland, was discharged without conviction and ordered to pay $500 compensation after assaulting a woman while out walking her sons dog. In December 2012 Judge Sharp, aka Willis, refused to let Radio New Zealand tape record a lawyer’s forgery hearing unless the judge herself vetted the intended broadcast before it aired.

Radio New Zealand – which reported the hearing without taping it – refused to be censored by the judge because it would seriously compromise its editorial independence. Judge Sharp, aka Willis, went on to discharge lawyer Anita Killeen without conviction after the ex-Serious Fraud Office prosecutor pleaded guilty to charges of forgery and using a forged document. Judicial Conduct Commissioner Sir David Gascoigne later dismissed a complaint against Judge Sharp, aka Willis, that her decision to discharge Ms Killeen was “strongly biased”. The NBR do a good piece on concerning the culture of self entitlement Sharp is clearly part of. None of which Seymour or Collins seem in a hurry to talk about. And yet the issue of an uncompromised legal fraternity goes directly to the issue of what check and balance actually exist which ensure as the government seeks us to mask up and stay at home that we can be assured were not simply singing up for a new normal of do as we ay not as we or our rich privileged mates do.

In the first lockdown the legality of laws were being criticised by academic and law experts around the country. The Current Covid response Bill has a time lapse to get round this issue but the time has come and gone and the order has not being extended raising the issue many now charged may in fact not be guilty either. At the time of Clark ‘do as we ay not as we do’ David Parker Labours Attorney General maintains he is “satisfied” the Government followed the law and is confident the Bill of Rights Act has not been breached.  Parker at the April 16th Epidemic Response Committee, the Attorney-General refused to allow the public to see the Crown Law legal advice on the lockdown. One of the rules of Covid Charades is the only people who are allowed to know the rules are the one making the rules that way they can change the rules as it suit them. However Crown Law documents, leaked, say the government’s lockdown was unenforceable. Attorney-General David Parker, however then responded saying the leaked document was only a draft – and “not the considered advice of Crown Law”. Another feature of Covid Charades is the authorities having changed their minds can then say oh no that’s not what we meant.

On this point opposition protest were lip service at best.

Parker as Minister of the Environment could then be found urging mayors and councils to clear a backlog of development consents during the lockdown. Parker wrote this was “to pave the way for New Zealand to build its way to economic recovery”. He also said councils should exercise “their discretion wisely” to allow essential businesses to keep running, “even if they’re technically breaking the rules”. Parker told councils this would mean allowing some essential businesses like supermarkets to keep operating outside of the hours that their consents allow. So another feature of Covid Charades is if your a mate of the government then you too can break the rules. Especially if your a massively wealth duopoly making donation to causes the government gets behind. Parker’s letter was sent out to mayors, council chairs and local government chief executives. But the wider public were largely not consulted on this move. Another key rule in of Covid Charades is only give the rules to your mates all other player (e.g. the public) must be kept in the dark that exemption exist for your mates.

Again National were not so quick to point this fact out and during an election year chose to focus on Clark cycle gaffe and not look at the more serious issue that the government was going full speed ahead to advance the agenda of multinationals.

On May 5th Parker oversaw a law change, passed under urgency, that would block the public from the resource consent process. Done in order to “fast track projects that create jobs and stimulate the economy”. Parker’s April 1st press release on the bill also omit the fact the public will not be consulted. (see rule above). Environment Minister David Parker said new legislation was expected to be passed in June to allow for “faster Resource Management Act (RMA) consenting of development and infrastructure projects”. Done Parker said in response “to the damage the coronavirus pandemic was having on the economy”. Under the new powers resource consent decisions for large projects would not go to council and public input would not happen. Instead, a panel of “experts” chaired by an Environment Court judge would determine whether a project could be given the green light, he said.Similar fast tracking, following the Christchurch Kaikoura earthquakes (again zero National protest), under National government were done for the same reason. This was later criticised as it was found that the fast tracking legislation had being exploited by developer to push through projects that would usually be rejected as going against the RMA and needing public consultation. Government decisions are usually accompanied by an RIA published by Treasury, which analysis the impacts of any changes, including an estimate of how much they’re likely to cost. Cabinet minute from 23 March reveals however that the government however has decided to release itself from these obligations, “where they relate to the impacts of the new coronavirus”. This fact was only uncovered after Parliament passed the wrong tax law by accident, bringing into force a multi-billion dollar loan scheme instead “without so much as a select committee to scrutinise it”.  The bureaucratic ‘oopsie’ drew closer media scrutiny but little interest from the ‘opposition’. As for the oversight on such borrowing projects Labour’s cabinet has suspended Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA), “due to Covid-19”.

The Government had intended to pass a different tax law, but a mix up at the Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO) meant a different tax law was tabled and passed through all stages under urgency. The mix up drew the attention of the financial website interest.co.nz. An urgent Cabinet meeting was then held to retrospectively approve the bill making it legal. Despite the wide scope of the loan scheme – there have been no official estimates of how much it will cost. Although it is thought to be roughly $7b, 2 per cent of New Zealand’s pre-crisis GDP. It comes on top of an already 2019 approved 12 billion to be borrowed for infrastructure. While government funding for water and roading infrastructure “to support the timely increase of housing supply” was actually halved without explanation in the 2019 Budget. Meanwhile actual housing projects of significance never eventuated.

Their are around, at the time of writing, 30-40 article on the squabble of National using Wiles ‘Pink hair’ to score points against Labour. Of the forty or fifty articles I cant find one article online highlighting how National has attacked Labour for using Covid to rush through lockstep legislation. This includes the 2020 Public Sector Reform Bill and Public Private Partnership policy under the Infrastructure Act which permits a minister to order staff from another department, extended tender contrast, single handily authorise unreviewed tenders and enhance UN policies that undermine constitutional government. I likewise have found zero response from Act or Greens in questioning these legislative reforms. An utter failing to address the suspension of due process in regards to constitutional reforms pushed through with out first government and then public response.

The few jabs thrown from the right have being pulled punches. Pantomime blows that loudly seek to whip their fan base into an emotional frenzy, giving them appearance of being an opposition political force, without doing any real damage or giving a clue to ‘their’ team of what the deeper issues at hand really are. How these serve not New Zealanders but the beautiful people, who regardless of the packaging on their lolly wrapper, appear each night on our TV too bring us the current game show hit Covid Celebrity Charades. Its a game much deeper and more bipartisan than you might first think.

Published by BENS WORLD – an interesting read with your coffee.

Ben has worked as investigative journalist, researcher and writers for a number of NZ/Australian publications, radio stations, as well as working for universities, NGO and commercial clients, as well as being a best selling author (State Secrets 1 & II [Return Fire]) specialising in organised crime and national security issues. With a degree in history and political science specialising in political violence and counter terrorism Ben spent six year in New Zealand Army territorial (reserves) serving in the Royal Artillery and the infantry with posting in signals, artillery intelligence, field and counter intelligence, reconnaissance and as a rifleman & platoon grenadier. Ben also has decades of experience in all aspect of the hospitality and tourism industry (from kitchen hand to marketing and promotions) through out Australasia as well a having strong root in the arts community of New Zealand’s South Island his beloved home and were he prints his own cafe publications and books . View all posts by BENS WORLD – an interesting read with your coffee.