Dear John,
Yesterday morning I put party politics aside for the morning and joined my fellow Hutt Valley MPs (and Mayor Campbell Barry) at a vaccination site in Waiwhetu to send a joint message to the Hutt: let's Vaccinate the Valley! We're doing pretty well - some suburbs are over 90% single dose already - but we need to get every suburb up over 90%. This Saturday is "Super Saturday" and there'll be heaps of sites open if you want to go and get your first or second shot! Check out my little video with Chris Hipkins here. And you can see how each Hutt suburb is doing here. I've been contemplating what I could do if the Hutt gets to the magic figure of 90%.... suggestions so far include bringing back the mullet, shaving my head (opposite extreme), doing a "manu" off Eastbourne Wharf again, and a sausage sizzle. What do you think?
When I last wrote to you just over two weeks ago, National had just launched our comprehensive COVID-19 Plan, called "Opening Up". The government criticised it and said we would allow "Covid for Christmas" that it didn't have any expert support, and that they were sticking with elimination as our strategy. Well just two weeks later case numbers continue to rise, the government has given up on elimination and all but accepted COVID will be here for Christmas; it's looking at isolation for people with COVID at home and self-isolation for travellers back to New Zealand, and they refuse to say the names of the experts who support their change in approach. How quickly things change!
What is pretty clear is that after a successful 2020, the government doesn't know what to do next. Each day the 1pm press conference brings more bad news and the government hasn't had a back-up plan to elimination - they assumed it would work and it didn't. Now it's not at all clear what the pathway is from here - numbers are rising (and will continue to do so) but a return to Level 4 has been ruled out. What we need - particularly Aucklanders, now in their tenth week of lockdown - is a plan and a pathway. That plan should be based on vaccination rates linked to a lessening of restrictions, and it should be based on rewarding people who get vaccinated by giving them greater freedoms, like NSW is doing.
The government is now belatedly picking up parts of National's comprehensive plan we released a couple of weeks ago - 300,000 rapid antigen tests are being imported and the government has bought some stock of the exciting new treatment molnupiravir - both elements of National's plan. But there's so much more we could be doing: saliva testing continues to be a debacle, for example, and rapid testing could play a much greater role. And we urgently need to order vaccine boosters.
Summer is just around the corner, and we should be aiming to allow fully vaccinated travellers from overseas to come to New Zealand with a pre departure and post arrival COVID test. This week the Bay Dreams music festival was cancelled because they couldn't secure spots in MIQ for the overseas performers - there'll be more cancellations like that unless we fix the human misery lottery that is MIQ. We're about to put people who test positive for COVID into home self isolation, while people who don't have COVID but who come from overseas spend 14 days in MIQ. It doesn't make sense.
Turning away from COVID, it's been good to get out and about in the Hutt in the past couple of weeks, even under Level 2 conditions. I enjoyed judging the "Hutt's Got Talent" show the other night - sadly the live performances had to be cancelled due to Level 2, so my fellow judges and I gathered together to watch them on the big screen at the Events Centre, with a smaller crowd.
Finally this week, Youth Parliament is coming up next year and I'm looking for a Youth MP! Many moons ago I was a Youth MP and I know it's a fantastic opportunity for a young person to help shape the future of our country. Each MP selects someone from their area and so if you know a young person who might be interested, please let them know. They can find all the details here and they need to to apply by 12 November.
Enjoy the weekend and please get vaccinated tomorrow if you haven't done so already!
P.S I'm hosting a wee fundraiser with Nicola Willis and Erica Stanford in early December - details below if you'd like to come along.
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Let's Vaccinate the Valley!
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Putting politics aside yesterday morning to send the message - let's get vaccinated!
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If you'd like to come along to Christmas Cocktails with Erica, Nicola and I at the end of the year then please head here. Would be great to see you.
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I'm on the hunt for a Youth MP for Youth Parliament in 2022! Do you know someone aged 16-18 who lives in the Hutt who might be interested? Then get them to head to chrisbishop.co.nz/youthMP to apply by 12 November. They need to send me a 2-5min video or up to 500 words on:
- Why you want to be my Youth MP
- What leadership experience you might have
- What changes you’d like to see to make the Hutt a better place to live, work and play.
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Can Lower beat Upper Hutt?
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Lower Hutt is just ahead at the moment - who will be first to 90% double vaccinated? I've got a bet on with Cr Dylan Bentley of Upper Hutt - first to 90% buys the other a dozen Panhead and a meal at Brewtown.
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This week I caught up with Nishan who has just opened Lakdiv Foods on High St - a specialty Sri Lankan food store. Lots of delicious treats in there - pop in! All the best with the new venture Nishan and welcome to the Hutt!
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Judging the Hutt’s Got Talent competition at the Town Hall! Brought to you by Goodtime Music Academy.
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They spent $51m on it though. What transport project would you spend $51 million on in Lower Hutt?
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This is a critical project for Lower Hutt.
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A massive congrats to Hutt local and super talented chef Josh Ross. He’s got TWO burgers in the final five of the Wellington on a Plate burger competition. One at Bellamy’s by Logan Brown and one at his new venture, Twenty Eight, in the Professionals building in Cornwall St. Awesome stuff, go Josh!
This is the burger at Twenty Eight: Pickle juice-brined fried chicken with white kimchi slaw, pickles, cheese and Hoots hot sauce in a Brezelmania milk bun, with shoestring fries. Wish I'd tried it now!
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Great to see the Kelson School Envirogroup fundraising at Bunnings Petone a couple of weekends ago.
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We've had a couple of stunning evenings recently.
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