The worldwide dimensions of the coronavirus pandemic have provided the opportunity to compare how well different countries have responded to its challenges.

Already, some commentators are concluding, not only that some countries have done better than others, but – further – that some political systems have handled the crisis better than others.

The evidence for these conclusions is said to be that a number of Asian countries – Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore – have been more effective in bringing the crisis under control than have been a number of Western democracies. While a number of European countries – Italy, Spain, France and even the UK – have struggled to contain the problem, and the US has succumbed to becoming the world epicentre of the outbreak, Asian countries have shown, it is said, how it should be done. Even China, it is said, despite being where the virus originally took hold, has succeeded in reining it in.

The speculation is that there is something about the culture in those Asian countries, or perhaps about their political systems, that accounts for their apparent greater success in dealing with the problem. And the speculation goes further; will the differing responses and success rates persuade us that the Asian model offers the best way of running a country, and will that perception benefit China’s worldwide standing – at the expense of their American rival and of other Western democracies?

A number of caveats have to be made, however, before such conclusions can be reached. No one doubts that a totalitarian government like the Chinese is better able than democracies to impose draconian restrictions on its population. We all recall video clips shown on our television screens of Chinese police and soldiers entering homes and dragging the occupiers out into the street, prior to being sent into compulsory quarantine. Yes, it may be effective in making people do what they are told but is hardly a model we might wish to follow.

And, on the other side of the coin, the US – having saddled themselves with a delusional would-be dictator who is paranoid about his failures – is not really the best example of the democratic response to the crisis that we could choose. The idiosyncratic “leadership” provided by Donald Trump – with his self-serving doubting of scientific evidence, refusal to listen to advice, and preoccupation with getting himself re-elected – is hardly the best measure of a democracy’s ability to meet a crisis.

Yes, there is no doubt that the mess, confusion and uncertainty of the American response
will damage the standing of the US in the eyes of the world. But Trump is so much an outlier that his example hardly provides a fair test of a democracy’s capacity for decisive and effective action.

A better and more representative example of a democracy at work must be found – so let me suggest here a candidate that will come as no surprise to most readers – our own New Zealand. This small country in the South Seas has performed at least as well as any other, irrespective of the form of government we have.

These are early days yet, but the initial evidence suggests that New Zealand has enjoyed more success than most other countries in stopping the outbreak in its tracks – and that, despite having to contend with a high rate of cross-border travel as thousands of New Zealanders – the world’s greatest travellers – have returned home from virus-infected countries around the world.

The necessary lockdown arrangements, the border controls, the quarantines, have all been put in place and, with few exceptions, complied with – and all with the cooperation and endorsement of the New Zealand people. Our Prime Minister, with her Ministers and senior officials, speaks directly to the New Zealand public every day on television and every afternoon to individual citizens who engage her in person on Facebook.

The lockdown, with all its restrictions on freedom of movement and interruption of normal business activity, is supported voluntarily by almost everyone. Parliament continues to sit in a truncated form and the Opposition participates in an all-party committee whose function it is to hold the government to account. When the dust settles, is this not the model that should earn the plaudits?

Bryan Gould
18 April 2020

The Queen’s coronavirus broadcast, with its overtones of Winston Churchill and Vera Lynn, prompted me to reflect on the tribulations my parents’ generation suffered during the Second World War – and I imagine that those parallels, given her own wartime experience, were very much in the Queen’s mind as she delivered her address.

The two crises have been of course very different in nature, but the Second Word War generated the same losses and stresses to family life, and the same social and economic dislocation as we are now suffering. In important ways, however, what was at stake in the War presented an even greater threat to our way of life – a virus is dangerous enough as an existential challenge to our civilisation, but is not in the same league as that presented by the possible arrival of invading foreign troops on our doorsteps. Such an ending to the Second World War would have meant “game over”; following such an outcome, there would have been no “lifting of the lockdown” in sight for my parents and their contemporaries.

As we fight our own present-day battles, it behoves us therefore to draw strength and learn from the example set by those earlier generations, and to emulate the courage, fortitude and resolution they showed.

As the Queen indicated, now is the time to pull together – and while that requires shoulders to be put to the wheel by each of us as individuals, we should note that in both wartime and in dealing with the coronavirus crisis, it was on the state (or government) that the real responsibility fell. Whatever we as individuals could manage, in the face of either the threatened foreign invaders or the virus, neither could be effectively repelled without utilising the organising and leadership power of our governments.

It is only in such circumstances that we see clearly the true role of the state. That role is to do what none of us in our private capacities can do – that is, to set national targets and goals, and to mobilise our resources and to focus and organise our efforts as a nation to bring about what needs to be done. Only government has the authority and legitimacy to deploy our resources in that collective and united fashion.

Only government has the ability to legislate, prescribe, proscribe and regulate, to compel compliance and to punish those who break ranks. We accept these constraints on our freedom to do (or not to do) what we like because we understand that such restriction is a small price to pay for the greater good of us all.

It could be argued (as I am inclined to do) that these fundamental truths have just as much force in ordinary times as they do in moments of crisis. It is always the case that governments have the power to act in the public interest in a way that is beyond individual or private entities.

Only governments are able to take the wider view and then to act for the common good. Their objectives in normal times may not be so clearly matters of life and death as in times of crisis; but they will almost always be guided by a perception that our lives can be made better and our affairs can be organised more constructively and with less friction.

So, the next time you hear that “a bonfire of regulations” is needed – a proposal apparently made with no regard for the purposes served by those regulations and in the belief that a regulation is by definition an unjustifiable intrusion into a “free-for-all”, ask yourself if our lives are better or worse by virtue of the government doing what it is elected to do – that is, to set standards in innumerable matters such as conditions at work or making buildings fire and earthquake safe.

A proposal to judge regulations (or other governmental actions) by their number rather than their value and purpose is a statement of political prejudice rather than a careful analysis of what is required by a successful and well-run society. When the crisis is over, we should not forget the vital and indispensable role played by our government.

Bryan Gould
8 April 2020

The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking only of our political leadership but of our senior public servants as well.

There can be no greater test (apart, perhaps from wartime) of the competence of our government than the current crisis – and every country, faced with the same challenge, is in the course of finding out whether it enjoys what is the basic requirement of a developed and civilised country – that is, a government that can function effectively under pressure.

Some countries, including some unexpected ones, like the United States, have already failed that test. But we have had daily evidence, through the informative and therefore reassuring daily televised briefings provided to the public, that we have calm, decisive leadership to guide us through the crisis.

I think particularly of Dr Ashley Bloomfield, the Director General of Health, who – like his colleague, Sarah Stuart-Clark, the Director of Civil Defence – has shown that, even in such a fast-moving situation, he is fully on top of his job. And we can add to that list Mike Bush, the Police Commissioner, and John Ombler, the head of the Civil Service, who have also been rock-solid sources of good sense, advice and action.

And we have had the benefit of skilled professional service from the broadcasters on whom we rely so much for accurate information and interpretation of what is going on. Simon Dallow, Katie Bradford, Jessica Mutch McKay, and others, have been dispassionate, intelligent, accurate and helpful in all that they have done. And a word, too, for those stalwarts who have provided sign-language interpretation for the hard of hearing.

Ministers, too, so often in the firing line for supposed failings, have stepped confidently up to the mark. Grant Robertson, David Clark, Stuart Nash, Chris Hipkins, Peeni Henare, and others, have all offered safe pairs of hands and engendered confidence that they know what they are doing.

Most of us will by now have become well aware, too, of the hundreds – rather, perhaps, thousands – of health professionals and carers who are fighting the virus in the front line. These often unseen and unsung heroes are essential to the workings of a competent administration in such trying circumstances, to say nothing of the lifeline they provide to those most at risk from the virus. Nor should we forget those workers, in workplaces like supermarkets, who are keeping essential services available.

And then, of course, there is the Prime Minister. We had already learned, from the Christchurch massacre, that she is good in a crisis, and she has again demonstrated a remarkable clarity, calmness and decisiveness, and – above all – an empathy with all those thousands currently afflicted with anxiety and uncertainty.

We are lucky to have her – little wonder that the Australians would like to take her over.

We should also recognise the role played by the Opposition. Simon Bridges has commendably decided to forgo the role usually played by an opposition and has lent his and the National Party’s support to the efforts the government is making to resolve the crisis – yet another indicator of a mature and well-functioning democracy.

When the crisis is finally over, we will be able to look back on the whole episode with renewed confidence that our political leaders and our senior public servants were up to the task, and that we enjoy a governmental system that would be the envy of many other countries. We might also manage to give ourselves a big tick; with very few exceptions, Kiwis have shown a remarkable ability to pull together, and voluntarily to subordinate their individual and short-term interests to the common good – the true mark, after all, of a society that knows how to look after all of its members.

Bryan Gould
7 April 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has of course had a major impact on individual lives and on societies as a whole. But, long after the crisis has passed (assuming it does), we will begin to realise that its real and lasting significance lies in the lessons it has taught us, if only we can be bothered to learn them. It behoves us all to understand what those lessons are and are likely to be.

We have been taught, first, that we are just another part of the natural world and are subject, like any other creature, to the way it works. We may think that we are the “lords of creation” and that we live at a more exalted level than other creatures do, and that, accordingly, natural laws do not apply to us. The virus has shown us, though, that we have no protection even against a life form as lowly as a virus, and, bearing in mind that the virus seems to have originated with wild animals offered for sale as food in a Chinese market, we might conclude that it would be a good idea to treat other creatures with more respect.

And, similarly for the environment – we might note that the air in New York is suddenly much cleaner because the economic slowdown has reduced the number of cars in New York streets. Again, the finger can be pointed at human activity – activity that we can and must change.

The virus has been no respecter of ethnic or cultural differences. It has infected us all, with a fine disregard for the differences that seem to matter so much to us. For the virus, we are all just humans; it is that “human-ness” that unifies and defines us – and our shared “human-ness” is evidence in turn that we are all born equal. If we are all equally vulnerable to the virus, what makes us think that some of us are “more equal” than others in supposedly more important respects?

We are not only born equal – but, as the virus has demonstrated, we necessarily share with others the tribulations that life brings to us all. The virus has crossed national boundaries without a missed step. We need no better demonstration of the fact that, on this Earth, “we are all in this together”. Those in distant lands who have succumbed to the virus are our brothers and sisters and are deserving recipients of our love and concern. And, in purely practical terms, the virus has shown that what befalls them will befall us as well.

We should also register that the virus seems to have taught our leaders a practical lesson or two about the task they undertake. After decades of being told that the central purpose and duty of government is to balance its own finances and to produce a “surplus”, we now see that government has a much wider and more important responsibility – to manage the economy as a whole and to ensure that it continues to function and serve us all.

As government after government across the Western world has resorted, not only to borrowing but to “printing money” as well, in order to keep their economies functioning, we are entitled to ask why it has taken them so long to understand that a sovereign country need never be short of money. We may, in particular instances, be short of the materials, skills, and labour needed for production, but governments can create money whenever we want and wherever it is needed.

At least the penny has dropped and governments have come to their senses when it was most needed. But let us remember this lesson when, at some future date after the crisis is over, we are again told that we “cannot afford” adequate investment in public services and infrastructure.

But, on a more positive note, how uplifting and refreshing it has been to hear our leaders – and notably our Prime Minister – urging us to “look after each other” in this time of need and danger – and to “be kind” to each other. The capacity for “kindness” is perhaps the most human and important of all human attributes – and kindness in all its many forms is never more needed than now, when our fellow humans have their backs to the wall and are struggling to survive. That is one lesson, taught by the crisis, that we must learn.

I am not easily shocked – and certainly not when it comes to anything to do with Donald Trump. But I confess that I was shocked – and not only shocked, but disgusted and contemptuous as well – when I saw the headline reporting that Trump had offered large sums of money to a German company for access to a coronavirus vaccine they had developed – and not just any old access, but “exclusive” access, so that only Americans would benefit from it.

The President’s handling of the coronavirus crisis and his evident unpreparedness had already come under heavy criticism from the American public and media. He had, as one of his first acts on taking office, closed down the federal body set up by President Obama to deal with any possible pandemic situation; the fact that it was an Obama creation was apparently enough to guarantee its abandonment.

He then asserted that the coronavirus outbreak was a “hoax”, and that it had more or less been invented by his political rivals. He then assured people that it would “go away” and that there were in any case very few cases, and even fewer fatalities, in the USA.

But a few days of turmoil on the stock exchange were enough to persuade him that he had to take the crisis seriously – hence his addresses to the nation from the Oval Office and his interest in a “foreign” vaccine to deal with what he had described as a “foreign virus.”

But, even then, why was it not enough just to obtain access to the vaccine? Why did it have to be “exclusive” and available to Americans only?

The answer to those questions tells us a great deal about how his mind works (assuming that it does), and about his priorities.

To just deal with the virus was apparently not enough. In light of the criticism that he had been ineffectual in dealing with it, he needed to show that he was in charge and able to deal with the crisis and that he could resolve it in a way that would deliver a benefit and a solution to the American people that was not available to anyone else.

In this way, he presumably calculated, he could turn what had become, for him, a bad news story, into a good news story, and thereby improve his chances of re-election later in the year.

What seems to have been at the front of his mind, in other words, was not relieving Americans of stress and the threat to their lives and livelihoods, but showing himself in a good light, and earning their gratitude for a solution that he could assert was not available to anyone else. “Only I could have delivered such a solution,” is what he wants to be able to say.

It takes a particularly warped mind to develop such an order of priorities – and it takes an even more warped and narrowly focused mind to deny a remedy that could be available to everyone worldwide, but to ensure that it was restricted just to those in his own country. The corollary of restricting it to Americans only is to deny it to the rest of the world.

The world is in a truly parlous state if one of its most powerful leaders is able to think and feel in such a distorted fashion. What happened to the “moral leadership” that the USA claimed to exercise on behalf of the “free world”. Where is that sense of common humanity and “goodwill to all men” (and women) that we might expect from those who claim to lead us and to look after our shared interests?

There are many reasons for regarding Donald Trump as unfit for his high office. But none is as compelling as the one he has exemplified in this unhappy episode.

We can only hope that the American people can overcome their usual introspection and will be as shocked at their President’s self-obsession and lack of a moral framework as we – and, surely, the rest of the world – are.
Bryan Gould
16 March 2020