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Let us not pretend that Charlotte Bellis is not totally responsible for the promised opening up of the borders that had been slammed shut indefinitely in December.
For reasons I have constantly failed to understand, our ‘open and transparent government’ has ridden roughshod over New Zealand’s citizens for the last two years. It has prevented citizens and residents from coming home to New Zealand, even though it has no right to do that… but it seems to think that a Health Order trumps everything else.
It doesn’t, as the legal challenge from Groundswell NZ will eventually demonstrate.
The government has a lot of support, and frankly a lot of nerve. But once Charlotte Bellis appeared on the scene, the game was up. Some of the comments against her have been extremely nasty but she knows how to manipulate a situation to her own benefit, and also, as it turns out, for the benefit of many others too.
Some of the comments from commenters on Bellis’s situation are completely unacceptable. She is, and was, always allowed to come home to give birth. But because she is a journalist, with a lot of contacts and a real knowledge of how the world of journalism works, she managed to embarrass the New Zealand government really badly. She talked to Fox News, she talked to The Guardian and suddenly… she has a place in MIQ.
The Labour Government can postulate as much as it likes, but she has caused enormous embarrassment to them, and to Jacinda Ardern herself… and that is what caused the U-turn, allowing her a place in MIQ when previously she was just another case of ‘collateral damage’.
No New Zealand citizen should ever be treated as a case of ‘collateral damage’. I don’t care who you are or who you think you are. All New Zealanders have irrefutable rights that this Labour Government has tried to destroy. Charlotte Bellis has made it clear that they cannot do that.
And nor should they be able to. Given an enormous mandate at the last election (only 15 months ago), they seem to think they can do anything they like. But now, they are starting to realise that they cannot do that… or at least, they act at their peril.
They have been acting at their peril and guess what? They have lost.
So yesterday Jacinda Ardern announced the (prospective) end of MIQ and all border restrictions… but we have all been here before. Nobody trusts her, nor do they trust the government. We have heard these promises before, only to have the borders slammed shut against all New Zealanders living overseas, who are not going to trust the government now.
It may happen; it may not. Let us just say that no one is betting the house on it just yet.
Jacinda, toothy smile and all on Seven Sharp last night (I watched it so that you don’t have to), thought she had turned the tide against her. Honestly, I doubt it. She tried to give reassurances that, yes, it is all real and will not be reversed.
For those who have been stranded overseas for months, who have relatives who died, children that were born, family that they have been unable to see, Jacinda Ardern is an evil leader who stopped them from doing normal things… for no good reason.
Nobody believes that these restrictions will be lifted.
They have been there too many times before; thinking that they could come home, only to have their hopes dashed again; and to find themselves in difficult situations, possibly even stateless, thanks to a government that thinks it can ride roughshod over everyone.
Ardern has not saved herself. Charlotte Bellis, a journalist vastly more skilled than anyone who works for our MSM, has shown her to be a corrupt, despotic leader. She may have solved her own situation, but don’t think, for one second, that she hasn’t brought the whole dastardly house of cards falling around the head of this awful Labour Government. Finally, they have got what they deserve. Well done Charlotte.
