Jacinda Ardern's unhappiness filled the room. Photo / Marty Melville
Jacinda Ardern's unhappiness filled the room. Photo / Marty Melville
COMMENT
There was enough Covid-19 anger at Parliament to power the national grid for an hour or two.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was angry that the Ministry of Health had given consent to two women to leave quarantine to drive Wellington on compassionate grounds, only to test positive when theyarrived.
But it gave her the opportunity to show how decisive she can be when required, promoting the Defence Force's second in command, Darryn (Digby) Webb, to head the whole isolation system and bring in the troops if necessary.
It was a solo affair. Neither of the two men ultimately responsible for the isolation and testing problems, health director general Ashley Bloomfield, nor Health Minister David Clark, was present.
It was a relief not to hear them for the umpteenth time treat a failure as a great job which has gone slightly off-course.
Ardern filled the room with appropriate unhappiness, and announced a command structure that clearly should have been in place from the outset.
Todd Muller received a standing ovation. Photo / Mark Tantrum
National leader Todd Muller was also angry at the failures of the system, and the failure of Ardern to sack Clark.
The one thing Muller must have been privately pleased about was the opportunity it gave him to finally behave like the Leader of the Opposition.
Having had a lacklustre month in the job since ousting Simon Bridges, he finally delivered a performance in Parliament worthy of the position, and worthy of the ovation most of his MPs gave him.
Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier also expressed fury while appearing before the Government Administration select committee.
He said he was livid that a few weeks ago his staff had been forced to mix with people at a hotel who were being put into quarantine.
His staff had arrived at the hotel to inspect a prison the next day and suddenly people from overseas arrived to go into isolation and were mixed up with everyone else.
The cause of his anger was the more worrying because it pointed to a pattern of mismanagement.
Ardern's stressed that the decision to let the women out without testing had been a failure that should never happen again, giving the impression it had been a one-off.
The Boshier complaint suggests that laxness pervades the isolation regime.
It was like the day in lockdown when former Police Commissioner Mike Bush conceded that the police had not done the check-up on those self-isolating that everyone thought they had.
Newshub has just reported a case in Christchurch in which 10 people appear to have been let out of isolation to attend a burial.
Director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield at a press conference during lockdown. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Bloomfield, meanwhile, did not give explicit approval for the two women to drive off without testing but his staff did. Getting clear answers from the ministry is difficult.
On top of that, the Auditor-General today released a damning report on the management of personal protective equipment by the Ministry of Health.
The one piece of good news is that Boshier is now going to inspect and monitor the quarantine and isolation facilities to make sure they are functioning properly.
