Gratuitous Authoritarianism

A correspondent to the ‘Northern Advocate’ claimed last week that the enduring legacy of COVID-19 in New Zealand will be “the period of gratuitous authoritarianism it brought from the political left.” And he might well be right.

This newspaper has no great criticism to offer regarding the government’s efforts to minimise the impact of the virus in this country, apart from agreeing that the borders should have been closed sooner than they were, and that arrivals should not have been trusted to self-isolate for a couple of weeks. It has, however, noted the somewhat random rules that were put in place to prevent further spread, and agrees with the view that we should have gone to alert level 1 some time ago.

We have been told ad nauseam, and continue to be told, that this is no time for complacency. There might have been no new cases of COVID-19 in more than two weeks, and there might be only one known case of the virus in this country, but experts tell us there could be a second wave, and that restrictions must remain in place to minimise the chances of that.

All would agree with those, including the Prime Minister and Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield, who say the last thing anyone wants is a return to lockdown level 4.

Whether or not the arrests made by police, and charges laid against those who allegedly breached the lockdown rules in the early stages of this potentially calamitous pandemic are finally determined to have been illegal, and result in legal action against the government, remains to be seen, and will effectively be irrelevant. New Zealand, according to overseas modelling (that has largely been discredited), we were believed to be facing a pandemic on the scale of last century’s Spanish flu, and whatever measures were taken to avoid that were justified on the grounds of saving lives.

We are no longer living in such fear, however, and need not be. But still a 31-year-old Tikipunga woman who allegedly ignored police advice and chose to drive during lockdown, and was charged with intentionally failing to comply with a direction under the Civil Defence Management Act by undertaking non-essential travel on April 11, is before the court, and in jeopardy of three months’ imprisonment or a fine of up to $5000.

How her ‘offence’ threatened to spread COVID-19 isn’t clear. It has never been clear how driving more than a short distance, for reasons that were not deemed essential, ever threatened the health of any other person. The rules were the rules, and everyone was expected to obey them, just as we are expected to obey the rules under level 2. Aren’t we? Well, it depends who you are.

Dr Bloomfield, who is not at all keen to rush the move to level 1, clearly doesn’t believe that the level 2 rules are important. Less generously, his actions might be interpreted as suggesting that they are important but don’t apply to him.

Bloomfield was well within the rules that he helped to shape, and insists are obeyed, when he went to a restaurant last week with nine others. Parties of 10 are allowed under level 2. Everyone went through the contact tracing process. Another tick. He later said, however, that one couple had cried off because one of them was ill. That, he said, was exactly the right thing to do. How lucky was that? Without that illness there would have been 12 of them, which would have breached the rules.

At the end of the evening, however, he posed for a photo with restaurant staff, clearly breaching the distancing rule. His explanation, that by that stage of the evening the staff were “not really strangers,” and that they were in close proximity only briefly, was derisory.

At no time, as far as the writer is aware, has he told us that we can mix and mingle with others outside our slightly expanded bubbles providing they are not regarded as strangers, a term that can apparently be defined as those we have known for the time than it takes to order and consume a meal. Nor has he told us that we are free, and safe, to breach distancing rules providing we do so only briefly.

He has been very clear. Social distancing must be maintained if we are to be sure that this virus has been beaten, and if we are to reduce the possibility of a fresh outbreak. He does not practise what he preaches.

Jacinda Ardern has also been accused of breaching the social distancing rule, her explanation being that sometimes people get closer to her than they should to be photographed with her. That’s the sort of story that might appeal to a third former who finds herself in the principal’s office for breaking school rules, but it wasn’t even sincere. Anyone who has watched television news since we went to level 2 will have seen Ardern, and other politicians, breaching the distancing rules willy nilly. No senior politician goes anywhere these days without a coterie of acolytes, and we’ve all seen them, standing shoulder to shoulder.

Most are also still happy to be interviewed in parliament’s corridors by a pack of journalists who make no effort to keep their distance from others.

So why is this important? Because it reveals that those who have made the rules don’t necessarily comply with them. Why not? Either they don’t believe that they, unlike the rest of us, represent any risk of catching or spreading COVID-19, or more likely, they believe that the social distancing rule is no longer necessary.

Count on it, if they thought they were at risk of catching this virus every time they stepped out of their bubbles they would be taking much greater care. And by continuing to impose this social distancing rule on us lesser mortals, they are wiping out our economy.

While Ardern rubs shoulders with all and sundry, and Bloomfield poses with waitresses who he no longer regards as strangers, businesses are dying, people are losing their jobs and incomes. We are told there is worse to come. We are told that the economic fallout of this virus is going to be brutal. We are told that we cannot relax the rules, because if we do we risk going back to lockdown level 4. For some, delaying level 1 by a single day has compounded their disaster.

Clearly, those who are leading this message don’t believe it. Clearly, they believe the crisis is over. What we are seeing is not the continuation of rules that are needed to save lives, but gratuitous authoritarianism.

They just don’t want to let go, in some cases to return to addressing much more mundane issues that desperately need attention, in others to slip back into the obscurity whence they came. And Bloomfield warned last week that if businesses don’t try harder at contact tracing “we” will look at “requiring” them to do so under level 1. He seems to be hoping that this will never end.

Ardern and Bloomfield have told, us over and over again, as signs of complacency become ever more obvious, that Covid-19 still stalks our borders, looking for a way to get in. Their actions make it clear that they don’t believe that. So why should we? And why should a Tikipunga woman still be facing the prospect of imprisonment?

And given that they have clearly breached the social distancing rule, why didn’t Ardern and Bloomfield get at least an ‘educational’ visit from the police? Northland MP Matt King did after he posed for a photo with restaurant staff. And if enough people turn up at a protest, the police, and the government, look the other way.

Consistency has long been an issue in terms of our COVID-19 response, but now it’s become a farce.

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