Yesterday we broke the news that the Crown Law advice to the Police gave them few if any legal powers to enforce the lockdown.
Jacinda Ardern was clearly briefed that something was coming because during question time she rolled out her defence of the document.
There is a real problem with trying to use that defence. And this is why we put the details of the document into both the leaked email story and the leaked advice story.
The problem Jacinda Ardern has by calling this a draft opinion, is that upon receiving that opinion, the Deputy Commissioner Mike Clements, thought it was good enough to send and attach that document containing advice down the pipe to his line officers and regional commanders. He even provided his own summary of it when sending.
The next problem Jacinda Ardern has is that when they discovered that Mike Clements’ email had leaked, they’ve done what any office would do and gone after the documents, and then clutched on to a single line in a large document as their defence, without realising that the document had been disseminated widely to other Police. [The Crown Law reference for those wanting to OIA the document is POL055/2475].
This was what she used in parliament. So much for the most open and transparent government ever and also her claim to be able to exist in politics without ever telling a lie.
Wouldn’t the sensible answer be to release the final version? Instead we got flannel.
It was no surprise that Stuff ran a story earlier on Thursday and that the story matched exactly what Ardern said in the house. Her answers in the House and the Stuff story were pure flannel, attempting to distract from what they knew was going to be very embarrassing.
Which brings us to the bullying. When it became clear that the smoke and mirrors strategy had failed, Ardern got her functionaries in the Prime Minister’s Office to start hectoring the NZ Herald and NewstalkZB to pull the story because it was “wrong”, based on their claim the document was a draft. Ignoring of course that Mike Clements had sent the “draft” to his subordinates as gospel.
The problem with the “draft” story, apart from Mike Clements sending it everywhere, is that it presumes that there is a “final” version. If that is the case the Prime Minister must now clarify what the differences are between the “draft” and the “final” version.
And therein lies a further and rather an insurmountable problem, the laws quoted in the “draft” haven’t been changed. Therefore the advice cannot have been changed either. We know this to be the case because the subsequent Health Act notice made significant changes, which are now subject to a judicial review, in order to try to comply with the powers Police could use under the Health Act.
Furthermore, the Attorney General, David Parker, announced yesterday, that there would need to be law changes, required to support level two rules. Those rules are unenforceable under either the Health Act 1956 or the CDEMA.
So, if there were no problems and everything is all hunky-dory, why then the need to amend the law?
Occam’s Razor, that the simplest answer is most likely the best answer, suggests that the government knows they’ve been caught pants down and that they need to fix it.
Now, if they were really honest with us all, like they pretend they are, they’d say ‘we’re so sorry, we did what we had to do, and although we broke the law it was necessary’.
And you know what, most people would accept that.
What they won’t accept, though, are coverups and being lied to.
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