PM Jacinda Ardern says Govt shouldn't be focused on 'witch hunt' after Winston Peters' comments

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters under fire from the Opposition. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is distancing herself from comments made by her deputy, Winston Peters, who is advocating tracking down and identifying those responsible for the Covid-19 border blunder.

She also said that restoring New Zealander's confidence in the Government, after the most recent Covid-19 blunder, is a major priority for her.

Her comments come after it was revealed that two Covid-19 positive women were allowed to travel to Wellington to visit their dying mother.

Speaking to reporters this afternoon, she said the Government should not be focused on "a witch hunt".

"This has been a failure of the system; I'm not interested in going down into individuals and finding out exactly who."

Just moments before, Peters was advocating for the exact opposite approach.
But Peters said this does not amount to a witch hunt.

"What would you do in this case?" he rhetorically asked reporters on his way out of the House.

"Would you just say 'well I'm just going to make some spiritual statement, or I'm going to find the person that did this?'"

He said that if people who were responsible for the blunder are not identified, "then they are liable to do it again."

Ardern this afternoon reiterated her frustration in the failures in the system which led to the blunder.

She said that ministers had received assurances around border checks, testing and retesting and accepted those assurances that all precautions were being taken.

"To find out that was not, of course was hugely disappointing for all of us – we have all be let down, but our job is to fix it."

She said the "whole team of five million" feels let down.

"Our job, though, is to restore people's confidence."

Asked if this would undermine public health, Ardern said director general of Health Ashley Bloomfield himself acknowledged that what happened "absolutely upset the public, and rightly so".

"Both our jobs now are about making sure we restore confidence in the system – that is what we are utterly focused on."

She said she retains confidence in Bloomfield.

But she stopped short of personally apologising for the blunder – "of course I feel huge remorse about what happened. But I am making sure that we are fixing the system.

"If I had any personal responsibility for what happened here, of course, I would take that by my job is to lead," she said.

"I wear that and keep going."

Going forward, Ardern said a number of things need to happen at the border.

"We need to ensure it is rigorous, we need to ensure that there is discipline in this system and we need to restore public confidence and indeed confidence in the Government and Ministers."