On Monday at the 1pm COVID stand up, the media appeared to have finally grown a spine. And I was transfixed. Led by Herald political reporter Jason Walls, whose repeated questioning of the Director-General showed he would not be denied, he and others were relentless in searching for those elusive answers being presented as spin.
So thorough was their questioning, Dr Bloomfield, was forced at one point to opine in his poetic way, “There is a desire to look for a point of blame here” Translation: They actually want an answer and are daring to demand someone take the blame. (And it won’t be me)
Bloomfield showed an ability to fight dirty when his boss was elsewhere. Without the PM present to protect him from rabid reporters by shutting down questions with her death stare, Bloomfield went on the defensive and threw the PM under the bus when he said (to get reporters off his back),
“There was clearly a dissonance between what the Prime Minister thought was happening and what was happening on the ground, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t providing full information through.“
Oops, brave man. But Ashley was clearly not prepared to take the blame this time.
The muddled inept border management has a lot to answer for. For example, forcing Ardern to delay the election through Act, National, NZF and public demand. They have only themselves to blame. The virus got in through the border. It did not mutate under a rock and leap into a passer-by’s bloodstream.
Minister of Nearly Everything, Hipkins whining, “I was told border testing was being done”, is not good enough in answer to questions about a failed testing regime. Giving staff a high level of trust (PM’s modus operandi) in a crisis situation is bound to fail again and again.
Judith Collins put it succinctly when she said, “We need someone to check the checkers”. Of course she hopes, come October, that someone will be from the National party. She knows having been minister across multiple agencies that there needs to be close scrutiny in crisis situations with daily reporting and questioning of staff by the minister to keep abreast of everything.
Actually, being a minister is hard work if you are doing your job properly and setting an example to the rest of your team.
Unfortunately it seems the ministers in this government think once they have got the gig they can leave the spade work to the proletariat, have long lunches in Bellamys and spin like a top, deflecting the blame when things turn to custard.
Or as media commentator Heather du Plessis-Allen put it, “They put the system in place and went away and (I don’t know) had a picnic or something?”
A though to ponder:
The 60% (or so) of people who according to (the Herald and unscientific AM Show) polls in the last few days wanted the election delayed may give an indication of a change in public thinking. Those supporting Ardern definitely didn’t want the date changed. And if you take a stab at the average MSM polling figure of National, Act and NZ First combined, over the past few months, it may just reach the late 30s. So who are all these people who supported their call for a delay?… Just saying.
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