Rhys Jones 🇵🇸
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rgjones.bsky.social
Rhys Jones 🇵🇸
@rgjones.bsky.social
1.4K followers 1.3K following 160 posts
Ngāti Kahungunu. He/him/ia. Public health doc. A/Prof at Waipapa Taumata Rau.

Mai i te awa ki te moana #FreePalestine 🇵🇸
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rgjones.bsky.social
Heartbreaking speeches at the Palestinian Children’s Day rally in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland this afternoon. #StopTheInfanticide #FreePalestine
Palestinian Children’s Day rally in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland. A line of people holding photos of some of the martyrs.
April 5, 2025 at 4:20 AM
rgjones.bsky.social
I mean, this Bill is pure dehumanisation and beneficiary bashing - punishment for the sake of punishment - and the people pushing it are actually evil.
Another paragraph from my submission: The Bill is overwhelmingly punitive, in keeping with the current government’s cruel and inhumane approach to all areas of social policy. It targets a group in society who are already marginalised, oppressed and disenfranchised, and applies additional burdens and punishments. It is a classic example of the powerful and privileged punching down against a group of people who they see as less valuable, less deserving, and – yes – less human than themselves.
January 10, 2025 at 10:12 AM
rgjones.bsky.social
Another submission done (Social Security Amendment Bill). Definitely getting more cynical - but I think still quite restrained for a Friday night. 🙄
A paragraph from my submission: As with each of the countless other bills I’ve submitted on this week, everything in this Bill goes against the evidence and expert advice. Not only have these approaches been shown to be entirely ineffective in tackling the policy problems they are claimed to address, they are well known to create significant harm for the communities involved. I understand that this government views evidence with total disdain (if they had even the slightest interest in an evidence-informed approach this Bill would never have seen the light of day, and nor would anything even remotely resembling it), but I will list some of many adverse effects of the Bill’s provisions based on the evidence.
January 10, 2025 at 10:02 AM
rgjones.bsky.social
Ka rawe - congratulations!
Homer Simpson celebrating, waving his arms and saying Woo Hoo!
December 23, 2024 at 4:23 AM
rgjones.bsky.social
Look at transport, for example. The government's strategies are almost exclusively focused on electrifying/decarbonising the vehicle fleet.
Key actions in the transport sector: • Enabling a network of 10,000 public electric vehicle (EV) charging points by 2030 and facilitating private investment in EV charging infrastructure. • Reviewing regulatory barriers to decarbonising heavy vehicles (eg, EVs and hydrogen). • Promoting innovation through the Low Emissions Heavy Vehicle Fund. • Continuing to support the aviation sector to decarbonise, and working with other countries on low- and zero-carbon shipping on key trade routes by 2035. • Supporting public transport in our main cities.
December 10, 2024 at 8:43 PM
rgjones.bsky.social
These are not the actions a government would prioritise if it understood the climate crisis and were serious about tackling it.
Graphic from NZ's second emissions reduction plan 2026-2030. Eight policies within the second emissions reduction plan that have the greatest potential to lower emissions: - Carbon capture, utilisation and storage - Organic waste management and landfill gas capture - Electrify NZ - Afforestation on Crown-owned land - Waste Minimisation Fund - Agricultural emissions pricing system - Product stewardship of refrigerants - EV charging network
December 10, 2024 at 8:43 PM
rgjones.bsky.social
What’s black and white and red all over?

Te Whanganui-a-Tara today.

#ToitūTeTiriti ✊🏽
A black, white and red tino rangatiratanga flag.
November 18, 2024 at 5:36 PM
rgjones.bsky.social
I see the Correspondence section in The Lancet this week is pure Zionist propaganda and genocide denial.
Paragraph from correspondence with the following sentence highlighted: “We believe that such mitigation can be achieved when Hamas lays down arms, releases Israeli hostages, stops attacking humanitarian relief, and reverts medical facilities to the provision of medical care rather than to combat command, and that such actions would allow the Israel Defense Forces to cease their combat operations, which are carried out in defence of the people of Israel from relentless Hamas attacks, and would allow relief to actually be provided to those in need, unfettered by Hamas malevolence.” Paragraph from correspondence with the following sentence highlighted: “We also know that Palestinian civilians are subjugated by Hamas; that death and injuries have been incurred largely because of Hamas' use of residential areas, schools, hospitals, and mosques as sites for military operations, putting at risk the wellbeing of Palestinians.“ Paragraph from correspondence with the following passage highlighted: “Hamas precipitated this [the tragic situation in Gaza] with its Oct 7, 2023 terror attacks, in which 1200 people were murdered and more than 200 hostages taken, many of whom are still unaccounted for. Hamas has since used the civilian population of Gaza, the territory it has controlled for almost 17 years, to hide behind while it wages war against Israel.“
November 16, 2024 at 8:03 PM
rgjones.bsky.social
There is power in a union. #MarangaAke
Maranga Ake rally in Aotea Square, Tāmaki Makaurau
October 22, 2024 at 11:23 PM
rgjones.bsky.social
Kobe would love y’all to sign this petition.
Our dog Kobe, a medium-sized, tan-coloured Staffy cross, looking up with puppy eyes.
October 20, 2024 at 3:04 AM
rgjones.bsky.social
Yeah, nah. If you can’t focus on people crossing at pedestrian crossings, you shouldn’t be driving.

www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3504...
Excerpt from Stuff article: “Hamilton City Councillor Geoff Taylor said this sounded like far too many crossings, noting that there was only so much that motorists and cyclists could focus on at once.”
October 19, 2024 at 10:26 PM
rgjones.bsky.social
The drugs belonged to the driver of the car, not the kangaroo. #SavedYouAClick

www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/3...
News headline saying “Drugs found after car crashes into kangaroo in Australia”
October 1, 2024 at 7:58 AM
rgjones.bsky.social
I just did the Spotify generation thing…
Spotify infographic telling me my music is Gen Z. Steve Buscemi “How do you do, fellow kids?” meme.
August 14, 2024 at 1:20 AM
rgjones.bsky.social
Kia ora, my awesome colleague Ash Gillon is looking for people to take part in her research. If you identify as fat and Māori please consider participating.
Advertisement for research project: We are seeking people to be a part of a Kaupapa Māori study who self-identify as fat and Māori to talk about their experiences of fatness and health spaces. This study involves a kōrero with Ashlea. You will be offered a koha for your time and stories. For more information, please contact: Ashlea Gillon: a.gillon@auckland.ac.nz
April 9, 2024 at 5:27 AM
rgjones.bsky.social
And of course the whole pandemic response was racist af. A masterclass in colonial fuckery.
There is one other aspect of the pandemic response that was extremely poorly handled by the govt. That is the partnership with tangata whenua, or rather the lack of it. From the outset, the govt led with a paternalistic, colonial approach that failed to engage genuinely with Māori. We saw Māori experts providing advice and willing to work with government, but this expertise was snubbed from day one. The consequences were obvious, as highlighted by the vaccine rollout. In terms of Māori population coverage, the rollout was appalling – until control was devolved to Māori providers, when it became a real success. As identified by the Waitangi Tribunal, many aspects of the pandemic response breached Te Tiriti. As a result, we saw Māori disproportionately affected and the pandemic response as a whole being much less effective than it should have been. If Māori communities had been adequately protected and supported, we could have significantly reduced the burden of Covid-19 for all NZers.
March 23, 2024 at 11:35 PM
rgjones.bsky.social
The government's refusal to take steps to ensure clean indoor air in public spaces was simply inexplicable.
I want to draw attention to a glaring, inexcusable failure of the government’s response. That is its failure to ensure clean indoor air in public spaces. As a result, children continue to spend their days in poorly ventilated classrooms, being exposed to extremely high risk of Covid-19 and a range of other diseases. Many at-risk people avoid going to public places because the air is not safe, and are therefore excluded from full participation in society. Many other people continue to get sick, completely unnecessarily, because they end up breathing in other people’s exhaled pathogens. The absence of government action ... is simply inexplicable. Imagine if our forebears had responded similarly when it was discovered that cholera in the water supply was causing illness and deaths. Imagine if they had said, “it’s too disruptive and expensive to provide clean water, we’ll just have to keep drinking contaminated water.” That is essentially how our government has responded to this issue.
March 23, 2024 at 11:34 PM
rgjones.bsky.social
I had quite a bit more to say. After positive reflections on the initial pandemic response, my feedback got much more critical.
As the pandemic wore on, however, the government lost its nerve and consequently lost its way. The move to the traffic light system and then the gradual phasing out of Covid-19 protections was very disappointing. Inaction on longer-term preventive measures such as indoor air quality regulation has been even more disappointing. The end result is that we are now living with continuing waves of Covid-19 infection, but with no mitigations or proper public health measures in place. What that means is that certain groups, such as people with co-morbidities and disabled communities, are effectively excluded from full participation in society. It seems clear that the government caved in to the business lobby and the ‘let it rip’ brigade, thereby throwing our most vulnerable communities under the bus.
March 23, 2024 at 11:32 PM
rgjones.bsky.social
The NZ Covid-19 Royal Commission wants to hear about our experiences of the pandemic. Here’s my opening paragraph:
Screenshot of the first paragraph of my response: In the early part of the pandemic, my main feeling was one of gratitude. Gratitude for the decisive action taken by the government to protect New Zealanders. We spent most of 2020 seeing news from overseas full of widespread deaths, overcrowded hospitals and broken health systems. I will never forget the pictures of mass graves, the many health professional colleagues who died, and the horrific stories from bereaved families. We avoided all of that, thanks to the protections put in place by our government. Had those protections not been put in place, all of us would have lost friends and family members. In that alternative reality, if I were lucky enough to still be alive, I would now be writing this with a deep sense of grief (mixed with anger) remembering loved ones who died from Covid-19.
March 19, 2024 at 7:43 PM
rgjones.bsky.social
For anyone trying to make sense of this government’s actions:
Something I tweeted earlier today about our government: If you work from the starting assumption that they’re a bunch of evil motherfuckers with no coherent plan or guiding principles other than a singleminded focus on making themselves and their privileged mates even more wealthy, then everything makes sense!
February 28, 2024 at 2:42 AM
rgjones.bsky.social
I feel like this survey question is avoiding the elephant in the room...
Screenshot of a survey question asking, "What barriers do you face to riding to work?" It has a list of nine options, none of which are about safety concerns. It also has an 'Other' option, which I have ticked. In the "Please specify" text box, I have written "People in motor vehicles trying to kill me," followed by some feedback on the survey question: "why is this not a specified option? Concern about safety is BY FAR the most common barrier to cycle commuting."
December 24, 2023 at 2:23 AM
rgjones.bsky.social
I especially liked this paragraph:
The political project of normalizing transmitting COVID and casting basic, scientific mitigations as bad, weird, mean, stupid, and impossible is a fantastic coup for the right. It is the utter rejection of state responsibility for public welfare, paired with the complete shredding of an early-pandemic solidarity that bound those at risk (everyone) together. That solidarity was replaced with a poisonous “us vs them” worldview whereby those who have been and are harmed are weak, lying, lame, unlucky, unusual, uncool, rare, stupid, bad, mean, aggressive, psychologically disturbed and/or crazy. This schism seeps into the bloodstream of leftist organizing and splinters our coalition, shattering our incipient power as, unsurprisingly, the popularity of the fascists surges globally. I would argue it is the most thorough victory of the far-right in living memory, and it has embedded its eugenicist logic into the very foundation of public beliefs about health, disability and who deserves safety
December 24, 2023 at 12:38 AM
rgjones.bsky.social
There were more students from *private schools* in deciles 9 & 10 than there were from *all schools* in deciles 1-5.

The only problematic preferential entry scheme in medical school selection is the invisible one for students from NZ’s ‘elite’ schools.
Graph showing the number of medical students in each school decile, disaggregated by type of school (state, integrated, private). The distribution is heavily skewed towards schools rated as being towards the socioeconomically advantaged end of the 10-point rating scale. In the most advantaged decile there is also a disproportionate number of students from private schools.
December 17, 2023 at 1:16 AM
rgjones.bsky.social
If Seymour wants a debate on the constitutional future of our country, here’s something the Matike Mai Aotearoa working group prepared earlier. This is the kind of constitutional debate we need.

nwo.org.nz/resources/re...
Cover image from the Report of Matike Mai Aotearoa – The Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation.
December 4, 2023 at 11:06 PM
rgjones.bsky.social
I couldn’t possibly say…
Photo of the young boy from The Sixth Sense (movie).
December 3, 2023 at 9:34 AM
rgjones.bsky.social
Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think?
Tweet from Papaarangi Reid: “Dr Shane Reti is a MAPAS alumni.”
November 24, 2023 at 8:51 PM