An Oz & NZ list

of things

A list.

• nobody is taking any notice of Covid in either country. Except the 4% of maskers in both. They need to be laughed at, parodied, ridiculed.

• There are very few who think Covid is dangerous, most seem to think that it’s much like the flu.

• despite this Melbourne CBD only has 60% of the foot traffic it had before COVID. It is not out of the question that this will break every retail business with the exception of the hundreds of cafes/restaurants catering to the asian students (north of Bourke St Mall you’ll be lucky to find any other type of eatery).

• those who used to work in CBD offices are not returning. The models being trialled (they will fail) are either 100% work from home or a hybrid model, 3 days at home and 2 days at the office.

• New Zealand is far more woke than Australia. And further down the path of differential rights based on race. Race is far too often an issue for those virtue signallers who are guilty of giving it too much credence.

• the new variant, you’re kraken me up, is not getting much movement in either country.

• ram raids are a big issue in the North Island and Christchurch.

• former gang leaders found dead in burnt out cars in Canterbury are apparently not suspicious events at all.

• supermarket prices in Australia are often higher than they are in NZ (not known for its low prices) even for Australian manufactured items. Except for mangoes.

• the price of flights between the two countries is often quite absurd.

• Asian students have returned to Melbourne. Consequently rentals of apartments are hard to come by and more expensive.

• corporates in Australia are fond of gaslighting you with variations of the “we give acknowledgement to aboriginal elders past present and future yada yada yada”. They’re also likely to gaslight you about respecting their staff. Retailers such as Hagues Chocolates, Ikea & Birkenstock love this sort of thing. So do the banks.

This ANZ bank took several days to get rid of the ‘hypocrites’ written underneath their poster here. I’m in full agreement with whoever wrote that.

• despite the efforts of these wonderful corporates there are a lot of homeless in Melbourne. They are white Australians in most cases and aboriginal otherwise (in a city with few aboriginals). Other ethnicities seem unrepresented.

• spoke to a guy who trains these Corporates recently and he reads Substack. Thinks much like I do.

• There is one guy who walks around the centre of the city in Melbourne shouting his politics for hours on end. He’s not impressed.

• Heard nothing of Dan Andrews in a month in Melbourne. Despite that the chances of him resigning are nil. He’s making far too much money from this lark (millions in my view, possibly more). There is a question though about who voted for him. Nobody seems able to find anyone who admits to it.

• There are still few international flights into NZ that do not go to Auckland (save for those from Australia) which is a long way to go for any South Islanders.

Ok that’s about all that I can think of right now. Hopefully will have some more substantive posts soon, still too busy here (Dunedin) to put in the hours of research needed for those sort of posts.