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Home > Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive > Andrew Dickens: I believe in a day beyond the virus


	Podcast:		Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive
	Episode:		Andrew Dickens: I believe in a day beyond the virus
	Category:		News & Politics
	Duration:		00:03:28
	Publish Date:		2022-04-05 04:51:15
	Description:		So, the fight against Covid continues just when we thought that maybe we were getting closer to an end. Maybe it's a case of an abundance of caution or maybe they were just looking at what's happening across the Tasman, where hospitalisations doubled over the second half of March as a second wave came through. Or maybe that second wave is just the first wave given a chance to build up again as Victoria and New South Wales over-loosened. Maybe that's something we shouldn't do. And maybe there is another variant waiting just around the corner for us. I receive emails daily from people railing against the blindness of our commentators about the arrival of new variants around the world. They chastise me for daring to hope that the acute stage of this pandemic is coming to an end. But I'm not going to let the prospect of something that may or may not happen in the future get in the way of my thinking. If the unthinkable happens and another deadly variant emerges, I'm confident we can adapt and adapt well, because frankly, that's exactly what we've done over the past 2 years. So today, I believe in a day beyond the virus and to that end, it's important to keep an eye on the day-to-day business of running New Zealand. So, it was last night speaking with Finance Minister Grant Robertson. We were discussing Kiwibank's negative view of the economy and our prospects. They're worried about inflation; very very low consumer confidence and the opening of our borders will make our labour shortages worse rather than better as skilled labour flows out of the country for healthy pay packets elsewhere on the planet. The Minister was not so bearish and talked about our resilience and that our borders will be open for highly skilled workers to flow in sooner rather than later. So, I asked him about the immigration reset and how many will be allowed in. 25,000 a year. It seems a paltry number. When you consider all the health professionals, construction experts and horticultural workers we need. Especially when you look to pre-Covid when we had net inflows of 70,000 a year. Cast your mind back to the election before last when both Labour and New Zealand First campaigned on reducing immigration which was seen as a key driver in house prices. Well, the last 2 years have put paid to that notion and we have become aware of just how much we need imported Labour. It appears as though reducing immigration is a manifesto promise that they campaigned on and so it's here to stay. I have no idea why they want to shoot us in the foot like that. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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