Another day with so much going on submerged under the tsunami of reckons that is Covid.  

4pm today we find out the next phase.  It really is six of one and half a dozen of the other.  

Pure health theory would be to wait until the magical 90 percent is reached.  But political reality is that compliance is waning. Unless you bring out the water cannons and the rubber bullets there will be an erosion of standards tomorrow whichever way the decision goes.  

Fun fact.  Wales.  Population 3.2 million people had a 7-day average Covid case number of 2700 this past week.  10 people died.  6140 have died in the pandemic and they have 71% double jabbed.  Yet 70,000 screaming Welsh fans without masks gathered in the Principality Stadium and then flooded downtown Cardiff.  As a matter of comparison NZ is currently 75 per cent double jabbed and Auckland is 80% and yet shut down.  

Meanwhile other stories are pushed aside.  NZ this weekend made a pledge to cut Carbon emissions in half by 2030.  Just 8 years. But it’s a game of smoke and mirrors. The Government thinks that spending $1.5 billion of borrowed money to plant forests in Asia is called cutting emissions.  No, it’s not. It’s called offsetting emissions. It is of minimal help to the planet.  

The whole thing has become an artifice where governments struggle to look like they’re doing something when they’re not. That’s not a problem, except it’s all so freaking expensive. A freaking expensive nothing.  

Three Waters staggers on.  A government determined to centralise and give honourary seats on the board to iwi.  The thing about Three Waters is that authorities with good water systems don’t want it and don’t need it.  To drag them into dysfunctional regions is classic socialism. Dragging all down to a lower overall level.  

What was needed was investment in poorly performed regions, while not fixing places that weren't broken.  

My suggestion was always to set up an Infrastructure Bank to lend the capital to the places that are under invested because they had too few ratepayers, or they had ratepayers who hated paying fair rates.  

And finally, the Assisted Dying regime comes into effect this weekend. Despite the fact we don’t have any nurses because of Covid and we haven’t had training because of Covid.  In New South Wales they have the same problem and they have postponed the rollout. Why haven’t we?  It’s reckless.  

Three issues alone that could dominate talkback.  

Yet all we get is Covid, Covid, Covid. It is the most corrosive disease