One of the things that Jacinda called for as the COVID-19 crisis worsened was the end to all political parties campaigning and scoring political points. It seemed to be a reasonable request; the government needed to be able to make sensible decisions and having the opposition shout down every move as they normally would is counter-productive at a time of crisis. The opposition has complied; most of the discussions coming out of the panel on COVID-19 have been constructive and well-intentioned. Kudos to National and ACT for that.
The problem with this is that the government is effectively still campaigning. It is the advantage of being the incumbent, of course, that we see Jacinda on TV practically every day, and there is nothing the opposition can do about that. But her language every day is a party political broadcast; we went ‘hard and fast’ when actually, they didn’t; ‘trust us, we are your only source of truth’ (thank you, George Orwell), and every decision foisted on the government by Simon Bridges’ panel is taken as a genius idea of the government itself. No one else gets a look in.
And if that isn’t bad enough, take a look at this:
No, that’s not electioneering. Describing their actions as taking ‘decisive action’ is not self praise, is it?
Then there is this:
Self praise, or praise from a fawning media, is no recommendation. We never heard Boris praising himself over COVID-19.
We never heard the British chancellor praising himself either:
Or how about this?
Again, not true. Our borders were porous until the pandemic committee forced quarantining of all returning citizens, which has only just been implemented. Jacinda works on the principle that, if you say something often enough, it becomes a truth.
And attacks on the leader of the opposition are not electioneering, are they? Noooo…
Most of these have been produced on NZ Labour headings, rather than the New Zealand Government, which reinforces my view that it is plain old electioneering. And if Simon Bridges were to respond to the above in kind, he would be chastised for being mean spirited and trying to score political points at a time of crisis.
But, as we all know… it is Ok if the left do it. Isn’t it, comrade?
