Andrew Dickens Afternoons

It was fascinating to hear Winston Peters in conversation with Mike Hosking today.It’s been easy to forget with the extraordinary powers granted to Ashley Bloomfield, the Director of Civil Defence and the Police Commissioner to make decisions. Decisions which are then enacted by the Cabinet and sold to us by the Prime Minister and Finance Minister. That Winston is still Deputy PM, Foreign Minister and the leader of a party separate to Labour.That gives him insight.  He’s got a dog in the fight, along with a different point of view.While he’s made some headlines with the trans-Tasman bubble, this is obviously just an aspirational goal rather than a hook to hang your hat on.  As Mike pointed out this morning there’s no way that Scott Morrison is looking at flights between Queenstown and Sydney when Australians still can’t fly from Melbourne to Brisbane for a holiday in the sun.You get the feeling that was always a diversion to keep us fantasising about the happier future to come.Conversation then turned to deba