Yesterday, I wrote about how Simon Bridges cannot get any hits on the prime minister because she is surrounded by henchmen who immediately leap to her defence, and will pull out the gender card if necessary, as Grant Robertson did on Tuesday.
Calling Jacinda Ardern a “part-time Prime Minister” is a desperate measure from a National leader struggling to resonate with voters, Government Minister Grant Robertson says.
And he has suggested that Bridges was dog-whistling to voters who don’t think Ardern can be a full-time Prime Minister while being a mother at the same time, suggesting the comment had “sexist” overtones.A Newspaper.
Bridges never suggested that Ardern could not be both a mother and a prime minister at all. He was commenting on how many holidays she has had. Even her trip to Tokelau, claimed as an official visit, is clearly little more than a jaunt, and the fact that she went with her father adds to that image.
But when I said Bridges can’t get any hits on the prime minister, I was wrong.
Simon Bridges won’t back down over his comments calling Jacinda Ardern a part-time Prime Minister, going as far as to say the Government itself isn’t putting the work in.
The National Party leader made the comments on Tuesday while criticising the Prime Minister’s trip to Tokelau.
Ardern left for the trip last week and had to spend 24 hours on a navy ship to get to the New Zealand territory for the first visit from a sitting Prime Minister since 2004.
Bridges says she should have gone during the recent Parliamentary recess and isn’t backing down even though his comments were labelled as disrespectful and sexist.It’s more than part-time Prime Minister, it’s a part-time Government,” he told The AM Show.
“I mean yesterday at Parliament in an important week… the Prime Minister’s not there, Winston Peters is not there, the deputy leader of the Labour Party is not there. They’re MIA.”Newshub
Meanwhile, over on Twitter, the hashtag #parttimePM has really caught on, with over 150 tweets by Wednesday morning.
But wait! There’s more!
Oh dear, Jacinda. Have people started to see through your little charades?
Yes, many of the comments are from the usual suspects, but this is an issue that is really gaining traction.
The left is not happy about it, of course.
Always nice to see a balanced and reasoned discussion on the issue. If the left is not happy, then Simon must have struck a nerve.
This will put our #parttimePM under even more pressure, as the criticisms will not go unobserved by the Labour faction of the government. We are used to prime ministers who work hard, who put the country first, and who answer questions in the house, which is an important part of the job.
Let’s face it. We are used to prime ministers who actually want the job. Jacinda never did, and while she enjoys the fawning and the photoshoots, she clearly does not relish the parts of the job that involve running the country.
Keep it up, Simon. We need someone to hold this government to account. Right now, that person is you.