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Mike Hosking: Lockdown and water restrictions reveal we're a nation of narks

Author
Mike Hosking,
Publish Date
Wed, 20 May 2020, 3:50PM
(Photo / Getty)

Mike Hosking: Lockdown and water restrictions reveal we're a nation of narks

Author
Mike Hosking,
Publish Date
Wed, 20 May 2020, 3:50PM

One of the great regrets of the lockdown was the massive inconsistency in government messaging.

The government that told us to be kind then told us to dob people in, and my god did we get a gold medal in dobbing.

Special phone lines to call for people who might have wandered a metre or two outside a designated area that didn’t actually have a designation, apart from in someone’s head.

The mad theoretical measuring going on as you eyed up what constituted social distancing. Price gouging allegations, the rip offs being perpetuated in super markets up and down the land; we became an obsessed little nation of nark and Karens as we put an unhealthy amount of energy into finding fault in others.

And now it rolls into another crisis as the country’s biggest city enters water restrictions due to the ineptitude of those that run it.

There would be very few businesses that run their operation with no control over the inputs required. Most know where to source the material, what price they pay, where it comes from, what the supply chain is, what are the alternatives if they need them.

Auckland seems to run on rain  and not a lot else.

There is the pipe into the Waikato river that got produced last time it didn’t rain, but here we are years later and still they’ve not put in place the essentials for a non-rainy day

The processing required for extra water has not been completed. They astonishingly operate under the broad guideline that extension of capacity isn’t required for another eight years and they have their application stuck at the council in Waikato where it has been for 7 long years.

And then to add insult to injury, the narks are back out whining about people breaking the rules.

100 complaints and growing. What is the matter with us?

Jobs will be lost out of this, businesses already damaged by the level 4 and 3 lock down will be furthered damaged if not finished simply because of the ineptitude of those charged with making the basics of life available in a 21 century fashion and yet failing.

Of course, in a perverse way, if businesses collapse, that helps their problem. A closed business no longer turns the tap on to wash the house or clean the car or clear the gutters.

This, by the way, doesn’t deal to the absurdity of indoor water that isn’t restricted. Some businesses run through gallons of the stuff but because it’s done indoors no restrictions – outdoors, you pay the price.

Personally, I couldn’t bring myself to nark on someone dob someone in, and it says something about people who can and do.

For a country that was asked to be kind, the phone traffic seems to indicate we have and are failing miserably.

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