It’s been a week since problems at the New Zealand border first emerged, but the cloud hanging over Health Minister David Clark’s career hasn’t lifted.
It’s a big deal calling for someone to resign. Despite much jeering and jibing, the Opposition doesn’t often call for people’s heads, as National now is for Clark’s. They know if they did it too much they’d be the ones who looked ridiculous, not the minister.
But any opposition still calls for resignations far more than they should. That’s politics of course, and no-one sees it changing any time soon.
The question over whether Clark should actually fall on his sword or be sacked is at once excruciatingly complex and painfully simple.
There’s the issue of what Clark knew, what he should have known, and what he was responsible for. That’s the complicated bit. Then there’s the simpler side of things: politics and optics. Does it hurt the Prime Minister to continue to have an unpopular minister continue to serve in her Cabinet?
The latest phase of the Clark saga is over whether the Minister should accept some responsibility for the fact the Government’s strict border measures weren’t actually being implemented on the ground. The director-general of health has accepted responsibility for the failure, but there are calls for Clark to accept some responsibility also.
This, Clark refuses to do. His argument is that the issue was one of implementation and operation, which sits squarely in Bloomfield’s wheelhouse, not his.
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