Focus: SkyCity has revealed the ‘incredibly difficult’ decision to slash 700 jobs as the Covid-19 fallout hits. Video / File
COMMENT:
There is good news ahead for National this week.
Yes, the Budget will be a torrent of money the likes of which we have never seen. But it's the key to where we go next, it's the answer - or partial answer - to the real story of the virus.
We move now to the economics of it all. Health is done. The overreaction - or the length of reaction - have all played their part in putting our economy on its knees.
So as a result of this week, it's the economy front and centre. And what's the problem with that for the Government? Phil Twyford, Kelvin Davis, Jenny Salesa, Julie-Anne Genter, Carmel Sepuloni, Iain Lees-Galloway, to name a few.
These are the people who have been hidden away for nigh on two months as Jacinda Ardern, Grant Robertson and Dr Ashley Bloomfield - under possibly illegally enacted orders - have run the country, largely devoid of any traditional critique.
The advantage of that is that Ardern and Robertson are two of Labour's best operators.
(The other one that popped up mid-crisis was the Health Minister. All David Clark and his bike did was remind us what a bunch of inexperienced, gobsmackingly incompetent types sit around the Cabinet table when times are more normal.)
These are the people who are going to be back, front and centre.
These are the people with extraordinary power and responsibility on their desks, using all the skills, experience and acumen at their disposal to rebuild this country.
We should be very, very afraid.
The entire country's economic development is under the auspices of Phil "let me build you a house" Twyford. He hasn't been seen for weeks; now he's got the future of our economy on his desk and in his hands.
If they can't look at that, and do something with it, they don't deserve to be in government.
If they can't offer a viable, genuinely well thought through, cohesive blueprint for resurrecting this place, they may as well give up now.
As much as we want our country back, it has been decades, if ever, since we have had such an inexperienced, worrying lot doing it. If Twyford is the best we have, if Genter is top notch, then Simon Bridges should be licking his lips.
The polls may not show it right now for obvious reasons.
But given this is now about money, debt, taxes and our future, if you line up National in terms of experience, both in government and the real world, against the people running the place, I'd be champing at the bit for the flag to drop.
