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On the AM show this week Garner asked Jacinda Ardern how she felt about the last 75 days (it feels sooo much longer to me). Ardern was in her usual toothy form, saying it was “a massive team effort”. Give yourself a round of applause dear reader, she means you, except that in her usual deprecating fashion she actually means her.
Ardern said we lead the world in eradicating Covid. Quite how she figured that one out with eight other countries free from the virus is anyone’s guess. Marketing 101: the message matters but the facts don’t?
This week Ardern made her big announcement that we would leap quick smart to level one in six hours time after telling us a week ago we’d get the usual 48 hours notice. The timing of the good news came after Ardern dragged her heels for weeks about moving down a level, and is suspiciously close to the black lives matter protests. The ultra-fast decision reeks of political housekeeping to lessen criticism of her government that turned a blind eye to blatant social distancing rule breaking by the demonstrators.
The good news was announced with the proviso that “we have eliminated a Covid-19 for now”. Does this mean that we, the team, must man the borders to catch people trying to sneak in with the virus? Most disconcertingly, Ardern says she does not believe the border is watertight.
Ardern:
“…this pandemic is still with us. Aah… a significant number of new cases every day globally.
Elimination is not one point in time (Ardern points one finger skyward to indicate just one) It’s an ongoing campaign. It is very, very, very likely that we will see cases in NZ again”
Delivery of this bad news was accompanied by her very, very, very annoying toothy smile. I will spare you the rest of her infantile marketing campaign because it bears no relationship to the facts. But why did we rush to level one yesterday, rather than moving down a level earlier, Garner asked?
Ardern:
“Oh, look, actually the reason is quite straight forward. We made… we make these decisions at cabinet generally on a Monday. We have tended, when we’ve moved alert levels to give roughly 48 hours um that’s often been because we’ve had to have enforcement provisions around it.
So, for example when we’re in level two, we needed to be able to make sure that we didn’t have mass gatherings over certain sizes which means we have to make some changes um that apply for our… our legislation.
So, we need that little bit of time. When it comes to level one, the only restriction we still have in place is at our border which is obviously staying the same so no enforcement provisions required. So, no need for the extra 48 hours.”
Ardern creates the impression of being on top of lock down legislation despite going into lockdown without the correct legalisation which was eventually passed in hind sight. This was clever wallpapering over her mistake. Jacinda Ardern and the phrase “knee jerk” are forever linked in my mind to the COVID-19 saga.
But Ardern told us yesterday all arrivals into the country would be tested for the virus twice during the current 14-day quarantine period. Why didn’t she remind AM show viewers of this important fact?
Despite the fact that we are virus free and the prime minister says COVID-19 will return via our borders, Garner asks when border restrictions will be lifted.
Ardern:
“Well of course we are looking to try and do that with Australia aah as soon as we are able to. For the moment we just need to make sure they’re in a similar position to us in terms of how they are tracking with cases. That’s our first um… our first… our first cab off the rank there.
Australia and some of our Pacific Island nations…”
Nice catch at the end. Someone has reminded Ardern about the Pacifica countries she completely overlooked a month ago when she was busy arranging a tourist deal with Australia whose tourists constitute 40% of our foreign arrivals.
On 6 May ABC reported:
“After weeks of speculation, Australia and New Zealand have now formally begun work on setting up a “COVID-safe travel zone” between the two countries.
That means Australians and Kiwis might — within months — be able to get a plane and fly across the ditch in the “travel bubble” for a rare overseas holiday.”
The Cook Islands has been chewing on that for at least a month and are understandably aggrieved at being neglected. They have every right to feel that way given Australia reports new cases daily while the Cook Islands, plus Samoa and Niue, are virus free.
The Ardern government once again proves itself incapable of proactive leadership. Unfortunately, knee-jerk reactivity is its modus operandi.
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