May the force be with you – and it will be when tourist taskforce’s vision (influenced by Te Ao Māori) is turned into policy and practice

At a NetHui in Auckland in 2015, Māori discussed and shared their ideas about whether tikanga Māori crossed over to the internet.

A Lincoln University philosopher said it does, according to one report of the proceedings.

Indigenous Digital Philosopher, Karaitiana Taiuru says, “We’re kanohi ki te kanohi, you know their mauri, you can touch something and get the mauri and the internet, it’s nothing, it’s te kore and it’s hard to try and quantify that.  But if you use the internet for the right purposes then it will have mauri.”

Here at Point of Order we trust we are putting the internet to the right purpose by drawing attention to the cultural and spiritual thrust of the recently released Tourism Future Taskforce Interim Report. It says:

This is a taskforce and report that from day one has been inspired by the Te Ao Māori perspective.

The wisdom and guidance received from Māori leadership has been incredibly significant to the thinking along the journey towards these [the taskforce’s] recommendations

The concept of “mauri” looms large in the taskforce’s vision for the tourist industry. 

Govt funding for Air NZ is among the big issues around future of our tourism industry

As  reports pile  up on the success of  vaccines against  Covid 19, is  it  time  for  New Zealand  to think of how  it  will  return  to   normal?

The  vaccines  will  not  simply eradicate  the virus, so governments will need to  start thinking about  how  to live with it.

The London “ Economist”  last week pointed  up the problem for NZ, a country which it  said had  sought to be  Covid-free by bolting its  doors  against the  world.

“ In this  way it has kept registered deaths to just 25, but such a draconian policy makes no sense as a permanent defence.   NZ is  not  North Korea. As vulnerable Kiwis  are vaccinated , their  country will come  under growing pressure to open its  borders—and  hence to  start to tolerate endemic Covid-19 infections and deaths.”

The task  for  governments is  to  work out  when  and how  to switch from emergency  measures to policies that are  economically  and socially  sustainable indefinitely.  The  Economist reckons the  transition  will  be  politically  hard   in  places  that have invested  a  lot  in being covid-free.

Coronavirus – analysing the data makes you think we could do with more of it

If you want to understand some of the thinking behind the policy response to the spread of coronavirus, you might want to read the paper from the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, which is credited with accelerating the introduction of the current lockdown measures in the UK.

The paper builds a mathematical model for the spread of the infection and then applies another mathematical model for hospitalisation, treatment and death rates (both based on what experts think they might know so far about the virus’s behaviour and impact).  It models possible outcomes for three options: doing nothing, mitigation (ie, slowing down the spread), and suppression (ie, stopping the spread until a vaccine is developed), using judgements on the effectiveness of policies and actions by governments and individuals to achieve these effects.

To simplify, the assumptions put into the model suggest that more than 500,000 people in the UK could die prematurely if the virus is ignored.  Mitigating its spread could reduce this by half. The modelling suggests that suppression could reduce this into a range of 5,000 – 50,000 (compare this to the 10,000 deaths predicted for a typical flu season or the 616,000 annual deaths in the UK ).

Will a New Zealander also be the last on Everest?

The Times newspaper reports that the Nepalese government is planning to make trekking companies responsible for removing dead bodies from Mount Everest.  This raises the question about how long the lucrative climbing business is going to last in its current form.

It is barely 65 years, less than an average lifetime, since Ed Hillary summited but he surely would not have imagined quite what it would become.

A previous view of White Island

Those reflecting on the aftermath of the White Island eruption might take a little time to study this article in Discover Magazine by Erik Klemetti.

Published in August 2012, he asked the question “How Dangerous is Visiting New Zealand’s White Island?” and offered some sober opinions.

The tourism portfolio: if the minister isn’t doing his job, the remedy – surely – is to sack him

Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis was reported by Radio NZ as saying he will not challenge the Prime Minister’s decision not to appoint an associate minister.

Whether he said this because he is confident he can do the job without assistance or because he did not want to be publicly disagreeing with his boss is something we might muse on.

According to Radio NZ, Tourism Industry Aotearoa recently approached Jacinda Ardern saying the country’s largest export earner needs greater representation at the Cabinet table, but she turned down the request.

Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis said he supported the prime minister.

“We’re well aware of the interest from the tourism industry around having an associate minister but, you know, that’s a decision that the Prime Minister will make.

“We’ll wait and see what decisions she makes if and when there is a reshuffle.”

Tourism is the country’s largest export earner and was recently valued at $39.1 billion.