The gloves are off and the race is on to make up for all the time lost in fighting the virus foe.
Ardern’s daily health announcement has now become her soap box to promote her party ahead of September’s election. If that is going to continue, Simon Bridges should get a right of reply! Or at least be questioning the legality of Ardern using both TV channels daily as a means to electioneer under the guise of a health update.
Bridges has been a bit of a thorn in the government’s side this week. He was on the public’s side with his opposition to Ardern’s inhumane stance on small numbers for funerals, which saw Ardern back down, sending her hapless health minister to make the announcement.
Also, National’s opposition to the new law passed under urgency giving police unprecedented powers to enter premises at least saw a backdown from a 2 years duration to 3 months with automatic reassessment.
It also saw Michael Woodhouse, when speaking on this issue label Ardern as ‘Robert Muldoon, with slogans and kindness’.
Ardern certainly has a loyal cheerleader, the embarrassingly ardent, Chris Trotter. Fretting his “saintly” one may lose in September, Chris Trotter is encouraging Ardern to go to the polls early, praising her party-political 1 pm broadcast on Tuesday. He references her “go early, go hard” (oft-repeated, misleading) line regarding the government’s epidemic response.
Trotter’s reasoning is to go early, while spirits are high with people returning to work and social life, before the rot sets in and reality bites: unemployment, austerity, long dole queues and growing social deprivation.
Knowing her cautious approach, of which we all have first-hand experience, with her enforced incarceration in ‘lock down’ longer than necessary, my money is on her not going to the polls early.
Also, with her rather large ego and narcissistic personality propped up by daily dollops of social media exposure, she will have supreme confidence that her “team of 5 million” will stick by her through thick and thin
She did go hard, definitely, and decimate our economy (which Robertson completely put the kybosh on with today’s lolly scramble budget). But a little research will show she did not go early.
Full quarantine on 7 April three weeks after border lock down is only early in relation to the UK who have not done it yet.
Trotter also makes the unbelievable statement “these opinion-formers of the Right have waged an increasingly destructive campaign against the Prime Minister’s near saintly status” in his article, “The Right’s Full-Court Press.”
Is this man for real? All I can say is thank god for Slater, Hosking and Hooton whom he is referencing, who have the temerity to speak out about the obvious flaws of our lightweight leader. However, they are not the only ones. Our largely left-leaning press do surprise us from time to time with some scathing assessments of her dodgy decision making and propensity to hide and deny stuff.
Bridges ended the week well with an impressive response to the budget. I agree with his plan to “get NZ working again”. But whether National will be able to get the public’s attention with the government brazenly throwing money around like drunken sailors until the election, is another matter.
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