This is such a failure of management and leadership.

The Government was told that it should be testing frontline staff weekly. But it turned not only wasn’t it testing them weekly, it wasn’t even testing most of them at all.

A really good Minister would have been insisting on daily testing reports which include testing of frontline staff. That is how you ensure it is done – require officials to report to you progress.

Hipkins is implying Ministers were misled over the extent of testing. If that is the case, then I am sure he will produce the reports from officials that were wrong, and then of course ensure the officials responsible are held accountable.

Or maybe it is that Ministers never asked for regular reporting on how many front line staff had been tested.

If I was a Minister, I would identify the say ten largest threats to keeping Covid-19 contained, and then make sure that I am getting reports on each area at least once a week, if not daily.

With the decision that Auckland remains in Level 2 for a further 12 days, it really is a no brainer to delay the election. But not just because of the impact on campaigning. Here’s my five reasons why the election should be delayed (as 71 other countries have done).

1 We need Parliament in sessions scrutinising the Government

There has never been a more important time for Parliament to be meeting so Ministers can be questioned in the House, and Ministers and officials in select committees.

It is scrutiny of the Government’s performance that leads to improvements and changes. Take for example the revelation by Michael Morrah that two thirds of border and isolation workers had never been tested for Covid-19, let alone weekly as recommended. That totally changed the dynamics around border testing.

But the Government did not release this information voluntarily. Derek Cheng in the Herald reported media had been asking for this information every day for the last two weeks, and the Government had refused to supply it. Morrah managed to cobble the data together from other sources.

OIA requests don’t have to be answered for 20 or really 40 days. But oral questions in the House must be answered within five hours. Written questions within five days and select committees can question officials and Ministers on the spot.

We need Parliament to be sitting to make sure the Government is doing all it can to prevent further outbreaks. It is clear that without scrutiny, they don’t.

2 We need Ministers focusing on Covid-19

The Prime Minister is also the Labour Party Leader. I want her focused on the former role at the moment. The Minister in charge of isolation facilities is the Labour Campaign Chair. Ditto. The Minister of Health will be on Labour’s campaign committee. We want them all focused on Covid-19, not campaigning in their electorates or nationwide.

3) Auckland is locked down

A third of the population is in a Level 3 lockdown until 26 August. Voting opens for overseas residents seven days after that and for everyone else 10 days.

Election campaigns are about debates, meetings, speeches, policy announcements, door knocking, transport assistance to polls, events, launches etc. The vast majority of that can’t happen in Level 3.

4) It’s crass to hold an election while we have community transmission

The public are worried. Stress levels have hit boiling again for some people. Families have to worry about job security, about can they work and look after their kids, about if their parents will get sick etc etc.

What the public don’t want is politicians in their faces asking them for their vote. They want the politicians focused on Covid-19.

The public are not going to tune in to the latest conservation policy release from the Greens, or consumer affairs policy from National etc. They are focused on Covid-19.

5) The media coverage of an election will be strained

In the main the journalists who cover Covid-19 are also the journalists who cover the election – the press gallery. Not 100%, but in the main.

Normally in an election most of the gallery would be covering the election, and out on the road with MPs covering their speeches and events. But if the election proceeds with voting opening in 18 days, then the coverage will massively be about Covid-19 and not the election.

We do not have a set election date. The original date of 19 September was chosen by the PM, as is her right. And at the time it was a perfectly fine date. But it would be madness to continue with that date with Auckland in Level 3 lockdown for a further 12 days.

If the PM does continue with 19 September, I predict it will be a near record low turnout.

A transcript of his interview on Australian TV:

Patricia Karvelas:

“Your country’s top health official, Ashley Bloomfield, says the first case in this outbreak could have been in the community several weeks ago. Does this suggest elimination was really never truly achieved – that it was – sure, you were saying you’d eliminated it, but clearly you hadn’t?”

Winston Peters:

“Well, unfortunately, a lot of the conversation and a lot of the narrative is speculation. What we’d like to know is what we should know, and that is the exact details of what happened. And it is possible, with modern science and all the tracing that we’ve got, to find out what this – what the first origins were. And I could almost tell you right now what I suspect it is, because I’ve got inside information, but until it’s confirmed, I’m not going to say.

Karvelas:

“You’ve piqued my interest, obviously, because you’re Deputy Prime Minister, I imagine your inside information isn’t just innuendo or rumour. Can you give some indication about what those officials are telling you?

Peters:

“It wasn’t an official, I found out from somewhere else, but I think there’s been a breach inside our quarantine system, and I think, when that comes out very shortly, in a matter of maybe less than a day, we’ll find out that was the case.

“But you don’t always find out from your officials. You don’t always find out from the experts. It’s something you sort of find out by contact with other people. I’m not trying to be – trying to avoid your question, but these things are so difficult, and I just heard the New South Wales Premier expert talking – we went hard and we went early, but the question is, did we go hard enough and ensure that the policing, that the scrutiny and the quarantine was as tight as it could have been? And we need to know that.

Karvelas: “Ok. This sounds like what may have happened in Melbourne as well. Are you saying the hotel quarantining is what you understand to be the problem?”

Peters: “No, I don’t know where this quarantine breach may have happened, but I think you can eliminate it being some new strain of Covid-19 that hitherto my country hadn’t seen.

“In Melbourne’s case, of course, it was – how shall I say it without being too critical? – pretty slack oversight and supervision, where it was put in the hands of private industry, which was a disaster. In our case, we got the army in early enough to know that that wouldn’t have been the problem. But there’s been a breach, and we’ll find out in a matter of hours, or within a day.”

Karvelas: “Ok. You say you haven’t got it from officials but you are, as I say, the Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand, so – who are you getting this information from?”

Peters: “(Laughs) I – I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t answered that question.”

Karvelas: “I have to ask – who’s providing this information about quarantine breaches?”

Peters: “A source that was usually very reliable. Dare I say, it was one of your colleagues.”

Karvelas: “An Australian official?”

Peters: “No, no, no – a New Zealand colleague of yours.”

Karvelas: “A New Zealand colleague? A journalist?”

Peters: “A journalist, yes.”

Karvelas: “So there’s a story that’s about to break, you’re telling me, that there’s been a quarantine problem?”

Peters: “No. It won’t be breaking, because we want to know – he wants to know, and I want to know, and so do all my colleagues want to know. Are we going to be speaking with factual evidence when we do go public?”

So let’s take this in order:

1. Winston says he has inside information but he won’t say what it is until it is confirmed
2. 15 seconds later he says what the information is, that the latest outbreak is due to a breach inside our quarantine system
3. His information comes from a “usually very reliable” source
4. The source is a journalist

This is our Deputy PM.

AP reports:

Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced Thursday they are establishing full diplomatic relations in a U.S.-brokered deal that required Israel to halt its contentious plan to annex occupied West Bank land sought by the Palestinians.

The historic deal delivered a key foreign policy victory to President Donald Trump as he seeks re-election and reflected a changing Middle East in which shared concerns about archenemy Iran have largely overtaken traditional Arab support for the Palestinians.

This is a win-win. Israel doesn’t annex West Bank land, and they get peaceful relations with the UAE.

Well done to Trump, Netanyahu and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The Herald reports:

Auckland University Professor of Medicine Des Gorman rated the Government’s response as “somewhere between two and three” out of 10.

“I’ve seen health systems manage medical emergencies worse than this but it takes some doing,” Gorman told Hosking. “It’s like we’re living in a parallel universe.”

He was particularly astounded that only a third of border workers had been tested up until this week. “I thought someone was pulling my leg.”

The failure to test two thirds of border and isolation staff is beyond belief.

On Radio NZ, Sir David Skegg said:

• The lack of testing was “extraordinary”
• Was shocked to hear DG say aiming to test every two or three weeks as even that would be inadequate but turns out most have never been tested.
• There was a report recommending weekly testing and it was not implemented.

And so why has the Government not been testing frontline border and isolation staff. Stuff reports:

Moving to mandatory testing of staff at the border was a relatively heavy handed thing for a government to do, Hipkins said.

My God.

Mandatory testing of front line staff is not heavy handed.

Closing down almost every business in auckland is heavy handed.

Closing down the schools is heavy handed.

Banning groups of more than ten is heavy handed.

All of these heavy handed things could probably have been avoided if the Government was testing frontline staff weekly – which they were told they should be doing.

They made a deliberate decision not to test all front line staff. It was the wrong decision, and now businesses and families are paying the price.

1. Anguilla
2. Australia
3. Austria
4. Argentina
5. Armenia
6. Bangladesh
7. Bolivia
8. Bosnia
9. Botswana
10. Bougainville
11. Brazil
12. Cameroon
13. Canada
14. Chad
15. Chile
16. Colombia
17. Czech Republic
18. Ethiopa
19. Falkland Islands
20. France
21. French Guiana
22. Gabon
23. Gambia
24. Germany
25. Ghana
26. Gibraltar
27. Guernsey
28. Hong Kong
29. India
30. Indonesia
31. Iran
32. Isle of Man
33. Italy
34. Kenya
35. Kiribati
36. Kosovo
37. Kyrgyzstan
38. Latvia
39. Liberia
40. Libya
41. Maldives
42. Mexico
43. Moldova
44. Montenegro
45. New Caledonia
46. Nigeria
47. North Macedonia
48. Northern Cyprus
49. Oman
50. Pakistan
51. Paraguay
52. Peru
53. Poland
54. Romania
55. Russia
56. Serbia
57. Slovakia
58. Solomon Islands
59. Somalia
60. South Africa
61. Spain
62. Sri Lanka
63. Switzerland
64. Syria
65. Tunisia
66. Uganda
67. United Kingdom
68. United States (26 states or territories)
69. Uruguay
70. Zambia
71. Zimbabwe

This is a real test for the Prime Minister about whether she is making decisions for the public good or Labour’s good.

If the election is not delayed, voting starts in just 19 days. A third of the population is in Level 3 lockdown and the rest of NZ may follow. All political parties and candidates have suspended their campaigns. There is no door knocking. There are no public meetings. There can be no campaign launches. Rest homes are locked down. Schools are closed. Most people (in Auckland) can’t go to work.

71 other countries have decided that you want elections to be held at a time when you can maximise turnout, and decided to delay their elections. Labour for years has said it is vital to make it as easy as possible for people to vote and pushed through law changes allowing same day enrolment and voting etc.

So the decision to be made by the Prime Minister is a very important one, that will tell us a lot about Labour’s priorities.

Michael Morrah reports:

Newshub can reveal that just one week before our current community outbreak, 63.5 percent of all border and hotel isolation workers in Auckland had never been tested for COVID-19.

The Prime Minister says all staff will now face compulsory tests, but a public health expert says it beggars belief this wasn’t already happening. 

They’re part of our most high-risk group: airport staff like Customs and Immigration, hotel workers like security.

All work in the vicinity of recent returnees, yet only a fraction had been tested prior to this outbreak.

This is beyond belief.

141 days ago the Government declared Covid-19 to be a national state of emergency and closed the country down.

We spent weeks in Level 4 and Level 3 and then came out if it and the Government assured us it was doing everything it could to stop Covid-19 having community transmission.

We just all assumed they were even partially competent and that all staff who worked at the border or isolation facilities were being tested regularly. Maybe not weekly, but certainly say fortnightly.

But it turns out two thirds of them have not been tested even once, despite having regular contact with returning travellers.

“It beggars belief that in an environment where the border is your major protection against a second wave that you are not exhausting every possible opportunity to mitigate risk,” said Professor Des Gorman, Auckland University public health expert.

It is pretty much the sole point of entry.

Jacinda Ardern says all staff will now get a test. 

What is the old saying – too little, too late.

On Patreon I have exclusive results of a poll of 700 New Zealanders on whether the voting age should remain at 18 or be lowered to 16 as the Greens want.

This morning the Herald reported:

Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield confirmed today a Mt Albert Grammar student in Auckland had tested positive – a person who was a close contact of the family whose members have tested positive.

He did not know if the student was one of the four probable cases announced yesterday. He said some of the original family who had tested positive were in quarantine – but not all of them.

“We don’t round up people in New Zealand, Mike,” Bloomfield told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking this morning. “We round up sheep, we don’t round up people.”

So that was a categorical rejection of mandatory quarantine or isolation for people who test positive. In fact it was rejected as degrading and akin to rounding up sheep.

Then at 1 pm this afternoon the Government announced mandatory quarantine for all new Covid-19 cases. So this is a total u-turn in around six hours.

It doesn’t give confidence that the Government has a well developed strategy in place. It looks knee jerk. This is not to say the mandatory quarantine decision is wrong. But this morning the Government is dismissing it as ridiculous and this afternoon they are announcing it.

TVNZ reports:

The Ministry of Health is under pressure over whether it misled the New Zealand public about this year’s flu vaccine.

Officials have repeatedly denied there was a shortage, but a six-month investigation by 1 NEWS has uncovered the ministry knew about it – and even warned the Government – despite telling the public a different story.

Ministry of Health emails, released under the Official Information Act, reveal a number of conversations explicitly discussing low stock levels and struggles to fulfil orders.

That includes a Pharmac staff member emailing the ministry saying on April 29: “…have you been briefing the Minister’s office on the flu vaccine stock levels, including that we are very low on stock now until the next delivery?”

“Yes we have been,” the ministry replied.

The next day an email to the ministry said: “I am not sure there will even be enough stock to over last nights’ orders.”

It came as Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield encouraged Kiwis to get the vaccination on April 29, and Finance Minister Grant Robertson assured there was availability on May 1.

However, there were also waves of emails to the ministry from doctors struggling to get their hands on stock.

This is just the same as with PPE gear etc. The Ministry says no problems or shortages and all the front line health workers are saying they can’t get hold of it.

Stuff is continuing its campaign and writes:

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has admitted he made a mistake in 2017 when he was part of the Parliamentary committee that forced Martin Matthews to resign as auditor-general.

Matthews was forced to resign after a report by Maarten Wevers found he didn’t act soon enough to detect and respond to a $726,000 fraud at the Ministry of Transport.

What was known to few back then, and has only since come to light publicly, is that Harrison was not the unsophisticated fraudster portrayed in the Wevers report, but a sophisticated repeat offender.

It is unbelievable that Stuff report a dubious assertion as fact.

There is no dispute that Harrison is a repeat offender, but the assertion that her offending was sophisticated, implying it was impossible to detect, is laughable.

A former MOT staffer has compiled a timeline of events and MOT staff raised issues around Harrison on multiple occasions. Matthews never investigated them, he just asked her for a response and accepted it. Go read the entire timeline.

He even got told the Victorian Police wanted her as a person of interest, and accepted her lie.

Her offending was detected early on by MOT staff. Not in the sense they knew it was criminal, but in the sense proper procedures were not followed. The sort of procedures an Auditor-General wannabee should be rigorous in demanding are followed. Staff kept complaining about invoices for services that had no contract in place, and got nowhere.

There will be types of fraud that no CE could detect or be expected to detect. This was not one of those.

Stuff reports:

Teenage binge drinking has “dropped off the cliff” in the last 20 years but, until now, no-one really knew why.

A new paper, “What explains the decline in adolescent binge-drinking in New Zealand?”, comes up with some answers but the reasons are complicated, surprising and sometimes contradict themselves.

The data is no surprise to me as I have often blogged on it. However those who keep pushing for increasing the drinking age to 20 always portray the opposite – that youth drinking is getting worse.

Judith Collins has called for the Prime Minister to use her powers to delay the election until November, or failing that for Parliament to meet and vote on delaying it until 2021.

Collins points out that early voting is due to start in two and a half weeks and opposition parties are unable to campaign or even have their campaign launches.

It seems that following some complaints Facebook has pulled down Sir Bob Jones’ Facebook page for his No Punches Pulled Blog. If correct, just another example of the insidious politically correct censorship on social media. On Twitter you can get banned for referring to someone by their biological sex instead of their gender identity!

Anyway a reminder that if you want to read what Sir Bob writes, best place to do so is directly on his No Punches Pulled blog.

I have now profiled on Patreon the 13 general electorates in the Lower North Island and the two Maori electorates. The full profiles are here.

The summary is:

• Safe National: Rangitikei
• Leans National: Tukituki, Otaki
• Too Close Too Call: Whanganui, Wairarapa, Hutt South
• Leans Labour: Ohariu, Te Tai Hauāuru
• Safe Labour: Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, Napier, Palmerston North, Mana, Remutaka, Wellington Central, Rongotai

So Lower North Island is an area where Labour has several potential pickups.

This graph shows the election dates for every election since WWII. Basically up until 2014 every election was in November except for the three snap elections (and the elections just after them, as they must be held within around 38 months of the last one).

It was only in 2014 that it was held early, and that was to avoid the G20 meeting NZ had been invited to.

So if the election is delayed until November, that is not a big issue. November is the traditional month anyway.

There is a very serious question to be answered about how Covid-19 got back into the community.

I think almost everyone would agree with Dr Bloomfield that it hasn’t been sitting here undetected for 100 days, as we have had so much testing during that time.

So a safe assumption is that the virus originated with someone who returned from overseas. But they are all in isolation for 14 days until they have two negative tests. So it is unlikely they directly infected the family member – especially as there is no known contact.

So what is extremely likely is it spread though someone who works at the border or an isolation facility, who caught it from a traveller. And there have been stories by Newshub about how staff are not being routinely tested. Off memory a number of bus drivers who transport the travellers said they had never been tested.

So this outbreak (unlike the earlier ones) may well be due to a failure at the border or isolation facilities. What is concerning is they can’t even trace it back to someone there.

So the Government needs to be held to account (not the same as blame) for this, but we have a problem.

• Parliament is due to be dissolved today
• There is no question time to hold Ministers to account
• There are no select committees to question officials
• The Government abolished the specialist Epidemic Response Committee chaired by Simon Bridges

The Government is making major decisions such as locking Auckland down, with no ability for the Opposition to hold them to account.

This suggests that at a minimum Parliament should not be dissolved today. In fact it should be summoned to meet.

The wider issue is whether you can proceed with an election when campaigns have been suspended and a third of the population is locked down. National’s campaign launch in Auckland on Sunday will inevitably be cancelled or postponed I’d say.

A decision on delaying the election doesn’t need to be made today but I would say within a week max. If Auckland goes to Level 1 within a week, can possibly carry on. But if Auckland remains under restrictions for more than a few days, it would be grossly irresponsible and unfair to continue.

Ministers and MPs should be focused on Covid-19, not on campaigning. But campaigning is a vital part of elections.

As I said at a minimum the dissolution of Parliament should not proceed today, and a special sitting should be scheduled for say Friday.

Stuff reports:

Some books about the Treaty of Waitangi on the shelves of Tasman District libraries are “very right-wing extremist”, says Tasman District councillor Dana Wensley.

Some material “that I know we’ve got in our library … is by a publisher that is not academically robust,” Wensley last week told a meeting of the council operations committee.

Oh God. Politicians should not be deciding what books people can and can’t access in libraries.

The irony is that Dana Wensley is the PEN (NZ) representative for freedom of speech!!!

“There’s a number of these books in our library that are actually very worrying to me because they’re free of charge,” she said. “The academic presses are more expensive for those books to buy but I think there’s something to us having a mind to making sure that material in our library that has gone through that academic rigour of peer review is readily accessible.”

Libraries are not just for peer reviewed books. They are for books that members of the public want to read.

Wensley said she was concerned people were “picking up these books on our shelves that are very right-wing extremist … and I think we should have zero tolerance for that”.

“I’m not talking about censorship, I’m just talking about making sure that the books that are free are also academically robust because at the moment there’s a bit of an imbalance and I think that people might be getting the wrong view of our obligations to our treaty partners because of the material they could be accessing from our library, and that concerns me.”

I suspect the definition of “Very right-wing extremist” is takes a different view on what the Treaty means. And it is censorship when politicians demand books are removed because they disagree with the views in them.

Karl Marx’s views have led to tens of millions of avoidable deaths. But do right wingers sit around demanding his books be banned?

The Prime Minister and DG of Health are holding an emergency press conference regarding Covid-19. Details to follow.

• Four cases outside isolation facilities in one family in South Auckland
• Has been tested twice, and both positive.
• Going to (finally) test all workers at the border and isolation facilities
• Multiple workplaces involved in different suburbs
• As of midday Wednesday Auckland moves to Level 3 until midnight Friday
• Aucklanders to stay home
• All non essential businesses in Auckland to close
• Gatherings banned
• No travel into Auckland unless you live there
• Rest of NZ in Level 2
• Wear masks in Auckland and outside Auckland on public transport

Stuff reports:

Asked about the National’s commitment to get tough on gangs, Ardern said the best way to deal with gangs and methamphetamine in the community was to support the police. The Government had done that by adding more than 2000 police, she said.Ardern criticised the previous National government, she said that under Judith Collins – who was police minister from 2008-2011 – there was a decrease in the number of police.

Two whoppers here.

The first is they have now added on more than 2,000 Police. There are 1,260 more Police now than in October 2017. She is trying to claim every new Police recruit as “adding Police” but that is nonsensical.

Imagine a CEO who had 300 staff quit and then hired 100 new staff and claimed they had “added more than 100 staff”.

The second whopper is her claim police numbers decreased under Judith Collins. Here are the FTE sworn Police numbers from Police annual reports:

• 30 June 2008: 8,453
• 30 June 2009: 8,776
• 30 June 2010: 8,789
• 30 June 2011: 8,856
• 30 June 2012: 8,940