Yesterday saw the first post-COVID-19 parliament, and to kick it off there was a ministerial statement from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
We don’t need to torture you all with her speech. It was her usual speechify, sloganeering and fake news about how hard and early we went and how we are world leaders in testing when we aren’t. It seems to have escaped her notice too that we now have more recovered people than those advised to WHO as infected.
What was more interesting was the responses from the party leaders.
First up was Simon Bridges:
It was excruciating, a whole bunch of ham-fisted slogans broken into illogical sound bites. He finally managed to get his “medicine” quote right after a week of delivering it improperly.
New catchphrase of Bridges. “We’ve flattened the curve; we don’t need to flatten our country”. I wonder how many times he will say in the next few weeks?
Next up was Winston Peters, and boy was he making a play for the nationalist vote.
It was a strong speech and one where he obliquely signals how he is going to fight the next election.
No one should have to listen to Marama Davidson, so we won’t.
The stand out speech of the day was from David Seymour, the real leader of the opposition:
I think that David Seymour really shone, but so too did Winston Peters. If those two campaign on what they said in their speeches then both National and Labour are going to be found wanting.
Jacinda Ardern, after fronting and hogging the limelight nearly every day, is going to find herself painted into a very tight corner as the impact of her forcing us into a draconian lockdown is revealed. The delicious irony is that she used her own brush and her own paint.
That is why her phraseology is all about “we” and “all” because she is trying to say we all went through what she and Ashley Bloomfield imposed on us like we had a choice. We didn’t because they never gave us one. Not once were we asked if we wanted to wreck the economy to save a few who might have died anyway. The statistics are now rolling in and lo and behold the death toll is no worse than a hard winter flu. But she fronted it all and now she has to cop it all.
In about three months a hundred thousand people are going to find themselves unemployed. The five-week lockdown that they thought was an extra holiday will turn into an economic nightmare. More people will be harmed by Jacinda Ardern’s actions than saved. Jobs will be lost, businesses will fail and houses will be lost as banks move. Suicides and mental health issues will rise. That’s on her.
Voters will seek strong leaders, ones who will roll their sleeves up not want to go around hugging everyone. Politicians who have had real jobs, not faux-jobs nor who have spent a lifetime as professional politicians, will gain favour. It will be their time.
That is why I wanted to show you those three videos. Like the old Sesame Street song, one of these things is not like the others.
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