Winston Peters is right, and disingenuous at the same time.
Are the government, have the government, been “gilding the lily” over our Covid response? Yes they have. But Peters was part of the gilding, he's been in cahoots for three years.
This government is the government he picked, the government he created, and the government he has been a part of. If they gilded, he gilded with them.
The gilding is real.
We had the lockdown that came a week too late as many of us pleaded to close the border. We had the claim that self isolation would work, when it didn’t, because the coppers never knocked on the doors they said they would. We had the mess over testing kits, PPE and flu jabs. The Ministry, namely Ashley Bloomfield insisted we had, but clearly didn’t. We had the testing they insisted we were doing, they clearly weren't.
The border that was leaky, but we were told it wasn't. And don't mention Thelma and Louise, the guards asleep, the recruitment of Megan Woods and Commander Webb, the replacement of David Clark with Chris Hipkins, and last week's shamble over testing.
So when the Prime Minister says Peters does us all a disservice, she once again is covering her own ineptitude by dragging us into it.
We did our job.
Even those of us who argued it was overkill and too driven by epidemiologists at the expense of jobs, the economy and mental health, did our job. Only to be let down by a government so far out of their depth, it's now really all been laid bare and we aren't even out the other side.
So Peters points out a truth. But, it's his truth as well. It's his fault as well. If he wanted the military in earlier, if he was worried about the border, if he felt this hadn't gone the way it should, it was up to him to make this clear. It was up to him to argue his case, to bring it to our attention, to make sure that it went a better way than clearly it has.
So now it's too late, why? Because he's telling us all this, for his own political survival. He didn’t put us first when he needed to. He's only doing it now, when is party is at two percent and looking like it's on its way out.
Yes, they didn’t do it properly. Some of us have been saying that for months. But some of us have been saying it for months, because it was the right thing to say, not because we need votes.
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