I have to admit, being retired and something of a night owl, I am rarely up in time to catch the Hosking/Ardern segment on a Monday morning. This week, due to an 8.15 am meeting en residence, I had exited the boudoir in time to catch the entire audible mismatch of human intelligence. Ardern’s performance was an affront to the office she holds and also to my ears. Abominable.
What the interview showed was that this lady is not capable of carrying out the duties of the role that has been thrust upon her. Mike asked her very direct simple questions relating to COVID which, had she been across the detail, she could have answered. Instead, she left it to the Health Department to release numbers to do with quarantine testing as, she said, “they are still being worked through”. If that is so, it immediately brings into question the efficiency of that government agency. Deplorable.
Mike pointed out that she couldn’t know how many who haven’t been tested in quarantine are out in the community. She tried to argue that she does. He persisted in saying that she can’t, which is stating the obvious; but still, she argued that she can and then she started talking about community testing. He quite rightly pointed out that it had nothing to do with it. Having backed herself into a corner through her own BS she then told Mike he could make his point and she could make hers. Lamentable.
She talked about the new procedures put in place last week with the military man now in charge. We understand he’s been in the job about a month but that’s presumably just a minor detail. She gabbled on about the rigorous testing procedures which Mike pulled her up on saying that we now know that was never the case. It obviously still isn’t but she would have us believe otherwise. Witless.
He finished up by asking her about the ridiculous slide being placed at Parliament and the exorbitant cost involved. Well, she said, I am happy to answer questions on anything and everything but in this case, the slide is purely the domain of the Speaker. That’s a laugh when both of them, metaphorically speaking, have been on the slide for some time. But, as usual, she refused to take any responsibility. She can do a Captain’s Call to shut down an entire industry but not make a call on a slide. Comical.
Mike Hosking deserves credit for not cutting the lady any slack. His persistent line of questioning is what any good journalist should do. She’s in the top political job at half a million bucks, that’s our bucks, and each one of those bucks stops with her. If her game plan is to abrogate responsibility to the extent that all blame lies everywhere else except at her door then the honourable thing is for her to resign. Not a chance. Zilch.
While the interview was in one sense entertaining it was galling to once again realise that the incumbent holder of the highest political office in the land is little more than a hack. We, the taxpayers, deserve better. I don’t suppose the thought occurred to her while baking her daughter’s piano birthday cake just how out of tune she is becoming with her “team of five million”. She needs to learn to avoid hitting bum notes. Not a chance. Impossible.
Hopefully, come September, the keys, those that belong to her office, will be in someone else’s hands.
