“Oops I did it again”, reads David Farrar’s headline on his Kiwiblog, referring to our naughty Health Minister David Clark’s other (concealed) breaches of the isolation rules, as daily laid down by his PM. I laughed out loud at the accuracy of Farrar’s reference.
Lucky Clark has been able to hold on to his job, thanks to his kind and caring boss, and pay the price by slipping down the cabinet rankings (not sure if Dr Bloomfield will approve the downgrading of his crucial ministry), and he has lost his associate finance minister role.
The PM’s explanation at Tuesday’s press conference unintentionally revealed Clark’s real reason for coming clean. She said whilst preparing for his appearance at the select committee on Tuesday he remembered his other breaches and phoned her Monday night.
Translation: His 20/20 memory occurred at the prospect of appearing before the Epidemic Response Committee on Tuesday. Under the close questioning of National MPs, if he concealed his other indiscretions, he would be lying to a government select committee. Our flakey minister, not averse to breaking the rules, drew the line at that.
So he came clean and did his big mea culpa in front of the media at the beginning of the Committee’s session on Tuesday morning.
The Epidemic Response Committee (along with the media and experts) is having an important influence on the Government response to the epidemic.
Professor of Epidemiology Sir David Skegg emphasised twice during his appearance on Tuesday, the importance of quarantining the border. Ever the brilliant communicator, he said that the current border status is “like emptying a bath with a cup and leaving the tap dripping.” Love this man.
Fast forward an hour to Tuesday’s press conference where Dr Bloomfield said he was providing “active advice” on border security. That is a euphemism for “I have been nagging the government for weeks to impose full quarantine at the border.”
(Bloomfield is my personal hero of this crisis: restrained, respectful of the media, a total professional, striving to retain objectivity under the impossible restraints of the government’s spin.)
And yesterday after David Williams on Newsroom’s concern that journalists were not getting answers, suddenly Ardern was there bright-eyed at the 1pm briefing with Dr Bloomfield, announcing they would “linger longer” taking the media’s questions.
Now Ardern is using phrases like the border must be “watertight”, is an “ongoing” area of risk and “more announcements will be made shortly.”
This is an about turn from last week, where, willing to leave things to ‘trust’, she was flippantly resisting journalists’ questions around fuller quarantine. What a difference a week makes!
Ardern looks like the pressure is starting to take its toll. But she is holding up well. She sets a better standard than her minister.
Tony Ryall, National’s Health Minister during the 2009 global swine flu pandemic, gave two media briefings a day. Beside him Clark looks like a dying duck in a thunderstorm.
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