John MacDonald: The sting in Covid's tail for our politicians

Do you think the last government spoiled things for everyone? There’s a question!

Let me clarify that a little bit. Do you think the last government spoiled things for every politician from here on in, with the way it handled the COVID-19 pandemic?

Because if we believe the COVID report which came out yesterday, then Jacinda Ardern, Grant Robertson, Chris Hipkins etc ruined the party for every other politician - current and future - because of the damage they did when it comes to the public's trust.

It says, if a similar pandemic happened now, the public would have less trust in the Government and there would be less willingness to comply with the rules. And I have no doubt that would be the case.

I think that trust in the government will never be restored to what it might have been before COVID-19. And there are two reasons why I think that. One is connected to how Labour ran things. The other isn’t.

So, yesterday, we knew the report on the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into New Zealand’s COVID response was being delivered to the Government. What we didn’t know was when it was going to be released to the public.

All the talk ahead of yesterday had been that it was going to be next year before it saw the light of day. But the Government probably assumed that trust was going to feature in the report big time and knew that, if it was going to have a chance of restoring that trust, then sitting on this report for months wasn’t the way to go.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Canterbury Morning's Podcast with John McDonald
from News Talk zb AH.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Answer me this, Answer me this. Do you think the
last government spoiled things for everyone? Now there's an open
question to kick the morning off, ah, let me clarify
that a little bit. Do you think the last government
spoiled things for every politician from here on in with
the way that it handled the COVID nineteen pandemic. Because

(00:35):
if we believe the COVID the report which came out yesterday,
then to Sinder, I turned Grant Robertson, Chris Hopkins, all
of those guys. They ruined the party for every other politician,
current and future. Why well, because of the damage they
did when it comes to public trust in the government.

(00:55):
This report says if a similar pandemic happened now, the
public would have less trust in the government and there
would be less willingness to comply with the rules. And
I have no doubt, absolutely no out that that would
be the case. And I think that trust and government
this is government with a small G by the way,
so I'm talking about all governments or the government generally.

(01:18):
I think that trust and government will never be restored
to what it might have been before COVID. And there
are two reasons why I think that. One is connected
to how Labour ran things and the others and I'll
get to them in a second. Actually, remember till it
wasn't just just Sindra doing Grant, Chris Sipkins and Grant
Robertson doing the damage. Let's not forget David Clark. Come

(01:40):
on in, David Clark. He was the Minister of mountain
Biking who drive two kilometers from his house and to
lead into a local mountain bike park. That was when
we were just one week into the first lockdown in
twenty twenty. Actually he wasn't just Minister of mountain Biking
remember this, He was the Minister of Health. What a

(02:02):
muppet that guy was. So yeah, he did the damage
as well, just as Anie. Do you know what he's
doing these days? David Clark is a registrar at Itaga
University working for his old mate Grant Robertson, who's the
vice chancellor. Anyway, back to this report. This time yesterday
we knew the report on the first phase of the

(02:23):
Royal Commission of Inquiry into a COVID Response was being
delivered to the government. What we didn't though, was when
it was going to be made public, and all the
talk ahead of yesterday had been all about it going
to be next year before it saw the light of day.
I made that prediction yesterday, though, did you hear it?
I predicted that the government would fast track that and
we'd see it before the end of the year because
of public pressure, and then blow me down yesterday The

(02:47):
government went and released it pretty much at the same
time as it received it. So go with the government
on that one big tick. To be fair, though they
probably assumed, didn't they that a lack of trust in
government was going to feature in the report big time,
and knew that if they were going to have any
chance of restoring that trust, then sitting on this report

(03:07):
for months on end wasn't going to be the way
to go. Not that I think it will do much
good on that front as I as I said before,
there are two reasons why I don't see trust in
government ever getting back to what it used to be.
Let's start with the one, the one that isn't related
to Labour's handling of the pandemic, and this is to
do with the global shift that we've seen in the

(03:30):
last few years where people have said, we've just had
enough of governments telling us how to live our lives,
largely because they don't trust governments and politicians. So that's
one reason. The other reason why I think that public
trust in the government will never be what it used
to be here in New Zealand is specific to the
way labor handled the pandemic response. I think I think

(03:53):
most of us would agree, wouldn't we that in the
early days, at least we trusted Jacinder Ardun's government to
do the right thing in the face of what was
significant global uncertainty, wasn't it. You know, you didn't know
what is going on. You know, like most crises, COVID
just went on and on and on, didn't it. You know,

(04:14):
we had all the different strains of the virus, We
had different countries doing things differently. We had people losing
patients with all the lockdowns and the mask wearing and
the COVID cards and all of that. So we had
we had all that volatility and all that change. But
the Labor government just stuck to the planet started with
in the first place. You might have heard doctor Murray

(04:35):
Horn from the New Zealand initiative. Talking to Mike a
couple of hours ago, he was saying that this is
where the government went completely wrong. Here's a little bit
of what he had to say about that.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
If the government takes over the execution and wants to
claim the best in the world and monopoly untruth, best
spin on everything, marginalized criticism and monopolos execution, which is
what they did, and none of that, none of that
sort of chest beating and propagandizing is conducive to admitting shortcomings,

(05:05):
to learning from them, to adapting your response. So you know,
it leads to a sort of ad all you know
where we got to a sort of a feared based
at all cross type approach.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
And it was that know all, we know best approach.
That was the Labor Government's downfall. That's why people stopped
trusting them, and it's one of the reasons why I
don't see trust ever being restored, trust in government ever
being restored thanks to the Labor government.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
For more from Category Mornings with John McDonald, listen live
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