PM Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins go head to head over no extension to the wage subsidy and Covid-19 testing. Video / Parliament TV
COMMENT
It was the week in which National Party leader Judith Collins finally needled Labour leader Jacinda Ardern into biting back.
The moment came on Tuesday in Parliament as Collins and Ardern danced yet another two-step over the handling of Covid-19.
Collins had set her stage in advance. She saidin the media earlier in the day that if she were Prime Minister, the buck would stop with her. If Covid-19 got back into the country on her watch, she would be accountable for it.
Ardern first said individual ministers were responsible for different strands of it and then that Cabinet as a whole was responsible for the overall response.
Collins asked again: was there not a single minister in her team that Ardern could rely on to take overall responsibility?
It delivered the rare bared-teeth moment: "I would happily have reference to my team on a billboard," Ardern jabbed at her.
It was a reference to National's partial disintegration since March – defying its billboard claim to have a "strong team".
Collins was ready for it. "Then why doesn't she?" she asked, pointing to Labour's Ardern-centric campaign.
To that, Ardern could only muster up an "it's implicit" by way of response.
Whether Ardern will say it out loud or not, in the eyes of the public it is she who is accountable for the entire Covid-19 response – not her team, implicit or otherwise – and certainly not the team of five million she talks about so much.
Ardern will be keeping an eagle eye on popular opinion. Labour ministers have taken to talking about the "Tricky Virus" as if that is its new name.
It seems designed to remind people the virus is to blame, not them.
When Ardern stood on the podium on Monday to announce Auckland's lockdown would be extended until Sunday night, she made sure everybody knew it was the result of director general of health Ashley Bloomfield's recommendations rather than her own caution.
She mentioned it was Bloomfield's recommendation three times when setting out the decision: an extra week of lockdown for Auckland and ongoing restrictions on mass gatherings.
It is little wonder Ardern invoked the doctor's name.
She was making that announcement against a backdrop of Auckland businesses groaning under the strain, and waning tolerance for the "kindness" sermon she delivers.
Other parts of New Zealand wondered why they were kept at level 2.
Bloomfield is obliged not to take politics into consideration when making his recommendations.
It must be almost irresistible for Ardern to take politics into consideration when she is acting on them.
Covid-19 will govern the election, but the election cannot govern the Covid-19 response.
It was Bloomfield who set out the risks in a press conference this week: saying recent surveys showed a high degree of acceptance of the lockdowns both in Auckland and outside.
However, he also indicated willingness was not as high as it was the first time around, when the whole country was involved.
He added there was a greater risk of fatigue if the lockdown went on for a long time, or kept happening in the future.
He was speaking of it as a health risk – lockdowns are effective at containing community outbreak, but only if people abide by them.
But lockdown defiance is also a political risk for Ardern.
The failings may not yet be as significant as the successes in the Covid response but they get a lot of attention. The discovery that testing of border and isolation staff was not as extensive as the Government had directed, has bedeviled Ardern for the past two weeks.
The delay of the election means there are still another eight weeks to go. That gives Ardern longer to secure that second victory against the virus.
She was widely given credit for the first victory.
But, to mis-paraphrase Sir Robert Muldoon, it also gives her opponents more time to emphasise any failings that may let in the virus again and result in future lockdowns.
In the past, political leaders were only half-joking when they said an All Blacks loss on the eve of an election was the greatest threat to their re-election.
Election dates have been carefully chosen not to coincide with a major test – lest the All Blacks lose and the people enter the slough of despond and vote for change.
It is an irony of this election that such a risk calculation is now redundant – an even greater risk has grounded the All Blacks completely. And Covid-19 has not put out a handy schedule around which to make decisions.
