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I try to be logical and analytical. I don’t make decisions lightly and I spend a lot of time thinking through all the consequences of any action I’m about to take. There’s one thing that really does get me riled and to very high levels. That is being pushed around by someone who clearly hasn’t a clue, yet insists on doing it their way when every step they take confirms how clueless they are.
This government and its advisers are well out of their depth with regard to managing this crisis in every sense of the word. I don’t like their attitude, their tone or their level of competence. I implore them to prove me wrong. I so want to be wrong on this one.
On Friday, the Director-General of Health issued an order pursuant to s 70(1)(f) of the Health Act 1956, outlining (yet again) what we should and/or should not be doing during this lockdown. The more I read it the more I wonder what the point of it is and how it changes anything. Those who are following instructions will continue to do so and those who are flouting the instructions will continue to do so – but the police evidently now have yet more powers which they can exercise without anybody having a clue what the real rules are, and the order itself looks constitutionally suspect to me (not that I’m a lawyer but I’m also not clueless). What an unnecessary shambles. We don’t need to be threatened by the DG or anybody else.
Most of us got the drift from day one and have been doing our best to keep our lives going and functioning while adhering to the obvious, though often confusing parameters outlined by the authorities. As usual, a minority of halfwits haven’t. Of course, they are centre stage in the MSM, on social media and in the attention of police and the politicians, including Health Minister David Clark, who really does have to go down as tool of the week. “I think I’ll take a ride on my mountain bike and I’ll go in my sign-written van to set a good example” (not an actual quote).
Early statements made by the prime minister as we embarked on level 4 were soon contradicted by the police commissioner, and it became clear very quickly that they were singing from different songbooks. Nevertheless, we got it and we did it despite being talked down to and treated like five-year-olds.
Here’s a simple message for the police and our leaders. Do your bloody jobs. Telling us off at press conferences and writing memos chastising us and threatening us will achieve nothing other than to get us offside. You already have all the powers you need to deal with those that are not cooperating. Deal with them and stop lumping us all in together. We are not them!
Dr Bloomfield inspires such faith. Four attempts to explain what “recovered” means. Four fails by international standards. We’re still none the wiser about that (and a lot of other things) while this catastrophic screw-up continues to bumble down the track. Which track? Well nobody seems to be quite sure.
Twelve days in and all the PM offered us on Sunday (in her usual sing songy voice and appalling diction) was a list of how wonderfully well we’ve done, thanks of course to her efforts in going in so hard and so early. Like a good school teacher, she complemented us saying she has seen statistics that reflect “impressively high levels of compliance by New Zealanders with the requirements of being at level four and reducing contacts with others”.
Where does that fit alongside Bloomfield’s order on Friday?
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