I haven’t watched New Zealand TV for months. With the election coming up, I thought I’d try just once more to watch this apology for current affairs called Q & A. I’ll post my thoughts later but for now maybe you will have some.
JT Why do you want the election moved?
JC Well I think it’s the right and fair thing to do because I’ve just heard Chris Hipkins say that it really only matters if people aren’t unsafe um undertaking election
JT (Interrupting): That’s not what he said that’s not what he said, sorry to interrupt you I actually only asked him about safety so ah he said that the Electoral Commission has plans to operate at an alert level 2 I didn’t ask him anything with regards democratic fairness is it the democratic fairness you’re concern
JC Well democratic fairness is absolutely crucial so for instance, people who are voting should be able to have access to candidates to policies to be able to get the sort of scrutiny of those policies and of course its not just about 19th of September, it’s the fact that we have….. people should be able to know what the policies are for not just this – that day but for the year after that, the year after that and the year after that. There are plenty of opportunities for the government to do this, it’s the Prime Minister’s call, she’ll make the decision apparently tomorrow.
JT So, we could be back at level 1 in a fortnight, that would give you three and a half weeks to campaign is that not enough time to sell your vision?
JC Oh well I think people might expect that if we ahhh certainly have more than a week before the polling booths open because I’m sure you’re aware Jack that the polling booths open around three weeks before the actual date of polling date so I would have thought most people would think about more than a week – you’re talking about people who of one point seven million New Zealanders who are in lockdown at the moment who can’t go about their normal business and they’re actually worried about their health and their businesses – not worried about the conservation policy of the Green Party.
JT There’s a week before – before between the potential end of the lockdown and early voting beginning, if people don’t feel like they are well informed enough to make a vote at that stage, they don’t have to make a vote until at least until September 19th – I don’t understand why three and a half weeks isn’t enough for all parties to present their ideas to voters.
JC Well, obviously Jack, if you’re ever out on campaigning, you’ll understand that people do actually sometimes want to go to public meetings, we can’t hold public meetings at the moment people love to come to those, but also, it’s even getting out pamphlets to people – so it’s not just though Jack is it, I’ve been presented with a list of seventy one countries where the voting has actually been delayed because of COVID-19 this year – what is the problem with it being delayed out?
We can certainly do it through the Electoral Commission has given us legal advice on that, as they’ve given the government, but also we would help the government to push it out to next year – we have a three-year term, it’s not like a five-year term it’s not like ahh we’re worried about oh the government being in there too long and the other thing is Jack, what happens if the Prime Minister says “we’re going ahead on the 19th of September” and two weeks later we’re back in Level 2 or Level 2 lockdown…
JT This is – this is about your polling though isn’t it – I mean you would not be making this argument to me if you were polling in the high forties
JC No what I’d be saying to you Jack is imagine if it was a National government that was saying we’re going to charge ahead with an election when we’ve got the level of anxiety in the public particularly as one point seven million New Zealanders, a third of the country, locked down, I just imagine what you and many other people would be saying if it was say a John Key led government that was ahh saying that they’d just charge ahead.
JT I’d be saying the opposition has three and a half weeks to make their argument is it possible to have a one hundred percent secure border?
JC Well it actually is when you live in a country like New Zealand we’re a very isolated country
JT (Interrupting) – why does your health spokesperson Shane Reti say it’s not possible to have a one hundred percent secure border
JC What he’s looking at is the fact that there is human failure and clearly there is a systemic failure in this case the fact that…..
JT (Interrupting) Nah nah so you and your health minister ahh you and your health spokesperson disagree then you just said it’s possible to have a hundred percent secure border he said there’s always going to be some level of human failure
JC Well he’s talking about human failure, I’m talking about systemic failure……. when we’ve got the government had one job and what we’re finding is some days later they still can’t tell us how this COVID-19 came into the country…. I mean I heard Chris Hipkins saying well we don’t know where it came from ….. well Megan Woods, the Minister of um for the border … she’s told us it’s either come from the UK or Australia, so clearly they’re at odds and the fact that they can’t tell us what’s happened should be very concerning to every New Zealander
JT So what would you be doing differently if you were Prime Minister today, if you were on the ninth floor of the beehive today, what would you be doing differently right now
JC Well right now I’d make sure that I had a system that worked at the border and I would also be
JT (Interrupting) OK they say they’ve done that now so what would you be doing – give me some specifics, what would you be doing differently
JC They told us they had that before as well, for instance, I think it’s a shame Jacinda Ardern kept in place a Minister of Health, David Clark, who clearly did not have the authority to do anything or to keep it safe so that would be one thing
JT (Interrupting) OK so hindsight is great, but what would you be doing today
JC I don’t think you can just say hindsight’s great. I think it’s also important to understand that we were told by Jacinda Ardern and her government, every New Zealander was told that we had beaten it, that a hundred and two days of no COVID transmission in the community so number one…..
JT (Interrupting) They also said it was likely to come back the the the health spokespeople said there was a good good chance it would come back I mean you look at all of the countries where there’s been a second wave the likes of South Korea and Singapore it clearly this is a highly infectious virus .. I just ahh give me some specifics … what would you do differently if you were Prime Minister today
JC Today – Well for instance, we have a border policy coming out this week that we will not be making promises without being able to deliver on it which I think will be a comprehensive policy that people will say
JT (Interrupting) But why is that policy not out before now
JC What do you mean why is it not out before now
JT Well wha why I mean like you just said we’ve had a hundred and two days where we’ve had no community transmission, why are we still waiting for your border policy
JC Well, let’s put it this way Jack, we believed, like five million New Zealanders, when the government said and the Prime Minister said that they had a secure border, it turns out that it took a journalist from a media organization to be able to uncover it but the other thing too to have a delayed election is that we must surely have to have parliamentary scrutiny now. The fact is is if it wasn’t for someone like that particular journalist, we would not know about the massive failures ….t the Jetpark for instance
JT (Interrupting) Um ahhh again, you haven’t given me anything that you would do differently today .. I’m going to give you an example, would you make ….. would you make face masks compulsory in Auckland as of today
JC If that was the advice from the medical experts, yes, but that would depend on the advice. What you need to understand Jack, and I’m sure you do, is that we’re not getting the information that the government has. We’re being told it like the media, in some cases a couple of minutes beforehand, so it is really important that we would share that information, so the one thing that we would do, which is what we did during the fuel crisis umn ahh issue in 2017 before that election, was to keep the gov um the opposition fully informed, we would make sure that they had that information because…
JT (Interrupting) You’ve been complaining about Shane Reti not getting not getting debriefed has he has he not been briefed sufficiently in the last few days
JC Well he’s now getting um quite cursory briefings but better than he was and the thing is Jack, it’s not about us, it’s the fact that we need to be able to um assure New Zealanders or the government needs to be able to assure New Zealanders and they need to be able to trust that advice that when they say that they’ve got the borders secure, they have, but clearly Jack, they can’t even tell us where this has come from
JT Trust is very important we’ll get to that in a moment. Do you have confidence in Ashley Bloomfield. Would he stay in that role if you were Prime Minister
JC Well of course. And he’s appointed by the State Services Commission, not by a minister
JT If you were in charge, would you continue with this elimination strategy so that in the future if, heaven forbid, there was another outbreak or outbreaks in New Zealand before we have some sort of vaccine available we would go into a lockdown
JC Well I think it’s important to have the elimination strategy, we have no chance of any herd immunity in New Zealand ahhh we but we cannot continue to be in lockdown yo yoing in and out of lock down
JT (Interrupting) OK well hang on, you can’t have both ….. you can’t have the elimination strategy but then not go into lockdown if we have an outbreak
JC Well, we have far more confidence than than you do Jack, and the reason we have confidence is that we will have confidence in our borders but we’ll also have confidence in the contact tracing. We will have confidence that we will have enough masks and gloves for our front line workers which is something that again, the government has failed on. So Jack we’d have a far more competent system and we’d make sure it worked
JT (Interrupting) But you haven’t been able to articulate anything you would do differently for that much more competence but let me ask
JC (Interrupting) Well …. But Jack that’s very unfair isn’t it – that’s very unfair
JT (Interrupting) Well I don’t think so I’ve given you many opportunities to explain what you would do differently and you’ve said oh well months ago we would have done that differently no I’m asking you what you would do differently today and you haven’t been able to articulate anything other than to say you’ve got a border policy coming out soon
JC That’s unfair, that’s very unfair. What is fair is that we would not promise and then fail to deliver and that’s the big issue here. So we’ve got a government told us that the COVID-19 tracing App was working, they told us that the masks were in place, they told us all these things they failed …. So we would be able to deliver on what we promised
JT So we are to trust the party that just weeks ago leaked private patient information for people with COVID-19 that is the party that we are to trust
JC That’s a ridiculous comment isn’t it Jack
JT (Interrupting) I don’t think so – you were the one who said that trust is important
JC We did not it was not the party that did that
JT (Interrupting) It was a former party president, it was one of your MP’s and your health spokesperson at the time also had access to that information and he used the fact that that information had been leaked to attack the government even though he knew the source of that information
JC Starts to reply – inaudible
JT (interrupting) and you’re the party to trust
JC Actually Jack, would you let me answer. I dealt with that issue. So the former party president was a party president of months twenty years ago. The person who actually leaked the information is no longer is no longer standing for us and will be gone at this election and the health spokesman who I thought should have passed on the information straight away to the minister of health. I said that. That’s backed up by the Herron report. He’s no longer the health spokesperson
JT Interrupts Let’s put that issue to one side
JC (continues) So that’s been dealt with
JT OK
JC That is a long way Jack from promising to actually put in place all the security round the border
JT (Interrupting) These are issues of trust that you brought up so do you have evidence that the government knew about community transmission before that transmission was made public
JC Well we don’t have that evidence but
JT (Interrupting) So why did your deputy repeatedly imply that the government knew more than it was letting on
JC Well Gerry Brownlee was simply, and he’s apologized for choosing his words unwisely, he was simply reflecting the level of anxiety and concern the public … he and I and all of our MP’s are receiving a lot of concern from the public and they also
JT (Interrupting) So he had no evidence –
JC Hang on
JT He had no evidence but its ok to raise that
JC Only concern for the public but then again what we know is that the government wasn’t telling us the truth about the level of security they had at the border or the level of security they had for the staff who are working there. To be told, as we were by Chris Hipkins, that it’s a very heavy-handed way to have people being tested for ahh COVID-19 when they’re staff and that implies that staff are refusing. We have staff coming forward now saying they were never asked and when they did ask, they were refused it so actually, people should ask questions and one of the reasons to have parliamentary scrutiny is so that those questions can be asked and answered.
JT Tuesday night – how long before the Prime Minister’s press conference were you briefed about the COVID-19 outbreak?
JC I was briefed at quarter to nine by the Prime Minister and that was another thing too Jack is that I had all sorts of allegations made against me by members of the Labour party (Tame underneath “what were the allegations”) that I must have known earlier. Well you know very well Jack otherwise why would you be asking me
JT (Interrupting) I’m just interested you were the one who said that you didn’t have information soon enough who did you tell after you were told
JC I told my deputy Gerry Brownlee just before the press conference because he wasn’t available when I first called him and that was the person I should be calling but also
JT No one else?
JC No one else – why are you asking me that Jack?
JT I’m just interested to know
JC Well ask me – can you just tell me why?
JT Because you were the one (J because I can tell you) you were the one (no you’re the one who’s raising it) you were the one asking for the information I’m just interested to know who you would tell, again it’s an issue of trust isn’t it and you want to be trusted with this information and I’m just interested
JC No Jack I think Jack that you are actually doing exactly what you accused Gerry Brownlee of doing
JT I’m just asking questions after all – these are the concerns that the public have – thanks very much for your time we have to keep moving, National Leader Judith Collins.
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