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Awrrr
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#2512444 25-Jun-2020 17:51

Fred99:

MikeAqua:

I have genuinely lost some respect for Ardern over this.

Your words:

Praise in public
'Scold' in private
What's it going to be - or do you have access to what's going on in private?

I'd be surprised if Clark has a future in politics. The "DCM" would have applied in business, but an electorate MP can't be "fired".

He should "do the right thing" and fall on his sword. Getting rid of him will be messy.

Clark should go. If he had any honour he would resign. I don't know why Ardern continues to put up with him, but I do not accept the argument that she is incompetent/corrupt/over her head. I believe she is an outstanding leader. She has proven that many times over. Foreigners get it, even if Kiwis do not.

I am also a fan of Dr Bloemfield. I think he is a straight shooter caught between a rock and a hard place. He is doing the best he can in the circumstances. Of course that is only my opinion.

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GV27

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#2512455 25-Jun-2020 18:35

Rikkitic:

Foreigners get it, even if Kiwis do not.

Foreigners get it because Ardern-friendly puff-pieces are an export earner for local journalists and there is very little scrutiny of the fumbles the Government makes.

Take a look at the Guardian at the moment - there's not too many articles about how the government is fumbling isolation, light rail, housing, but when it's something positive about PM Ardern, it's wall to wall coverage of just how great she is.

David Clark giving Bloomfield a kicking has gotten attention, but very little of the issues with isolation and quarantine make it to the international media, and not nearly with the same level of association with PM Ardern as the successes of the lock-down did.

Rikkitic

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#2512456 25-Jun-2020 18:38

Some people in this country just don't like the PM for political reasons, and will always try to put the worst possible interpretation on anything she does. Fair enough, but that doesn't make it so.

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Handle9

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#2512459 25-Jun-2020 18:50

GV27:

Rikkitic:

Foreigners get it, even if Kiwis do not.

Foreigners get it because Ardern-friendly puff-pieces are an export earner for local journalists and there is very little scrutiny of the fumbles the Government makes.

Take a look at the Guardian at the moment - there's not too many articles about how the government is fumbling isolation, light rail, housing, but when it's something positive about PM Ardern, it's wall to wall coverage of just how great she is.

David Clark giving Bloomfield a kicking has gotten attention, but very little of the issues with isolation and quarantine make it to the international media, and not nearly with the same level of association with PM Ardern as the successes of the lock-down did.

Clark is gone from health and probably cabinet after the election. Ayesha Verrall is the health minister in waiting.

Bryce Edwards is fairly even handed in the Guardian.

Ardern clearly loves the international coverage and she clearly has weaknesses. Ardern is admired internationally for the same reason as Obama. Regardless of their domestic faults they come across as authentic and speak clearly and with a purpose. She also clearly has strengths in acting decisively in crisis situations.

That doesn't excuse her weaknesses.

Rikkitic

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#2512467 25-Jun-2020 19:06

Handle9:

Ardern clearly loves the international coverage and she clearly has weaknesses. Ardern is admired internationally for the same reason as Obama. Regardless of their domestic faults they come across as authentic and speak clearly and with a purpose. She also clearly has strengths in acting decisively in crisis situations.

That doesn't excuse her weaknesses.

No, it doesn't. It also doesn't mean everything she represents is a lie, or the values she is associated with are worthless. I remain an unabashed fan.

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gzt

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#2512468 25-Jun-2020 19:10

GV27: David Clark giving Bloomfield a kicking has gotten attention,

I looked into this today after reading headlines for a few days. I may have missed something here but this seems like a non-story to me. Two neutral sounding short lines from Clark in a press conference, and similar shortly afterwards is all I saw. This doesn't qualify as a kicking or much else to me. Did I miss something?

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GV27

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#2512470 25-Jun-2020 19:13

gzt:
GV27: David Clark giving Bloomfield a kicking has gotten attention,

I looked into this today after reading headlines for a few days. I may have missed something here but this seems like a non-story to me. Two neutral sounding short lines from Clark in a press conference, and similar shortly afterwards is all I saw. This doesn't qualify as a kicking or much else to me. Did I miss something?

It became a thing following this brilliant piece of camera work:

https://twitter.com/TovaOBrien/status/1275684416975777793

dejadeadnz

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#2512507 25-Jun-2020 20:28

Rikkitic:

I remain an unabashed fan.

That's cool but it doesn't do much for the prospects of any meaningful discussion, unless we are just here to "debate" who's a fan of whom. And that's really a bit puerile. Objectively speaking, the western world's political leadership has been startlingly poor during this crisis -- basically many "leaders" just decided that they don't give a crap about science. However, what was required and what needed to be done was in fact fairly obvious and getting that done should not per se elevate someone's leadership to borderline sainthood level. Compared with, say, the performance of the President of Taiwan, who faced difficulties like massive exclusions from international health management frameworks, extremely close geographical distance from Wuhan, and very close trade links with China, but nonetheless managed to keep her country's cases incredibly low by taking extremely early and decisive steps that are well in advance of what NZ managed, Ardern is behind. This is a fact and the ongoing pretense that NZ is world-leading by many in the Ardern fan club is tiresome.

Another thing that Ardern must face scrutiny for is the intellectual dishonesty and mendacity behind some of her publicly expressed views/nonsense. This includes (but not limited) to crap like the women who came back from overseas in March who hopped onto a domestic flight and also presented herself at a GP clinic in Westgate whilst displaying symptoms (and then later confirmed as having one of the first cases of COVID in NZ) as having done nothing wrong; same thing for those two dumb tarts arriving from the UK who went driving to Wellington with one displaying symptoms etc. The theory is that she's being kind. Equally plausible is the view that it's just an attempt at shutting down debate/scrutiny of the contribution of the bureaucrats/the governments' failure in leading to these people becoming a public health threat.

Now I don't for one moment believe that National would have done better; nor do I think that their usual boring playbook will be suitable for handling the post-COVID social and economic crises. But this doesn't require me to believe that Ardern is amazing when there are many indications that her leadership is increasingly failing.

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#2512516 25-Jun-2020 21:06

GV27: It became a thing following this brilliant piece of camera work:
https://twitter.com/TovaOBrien/status/1275684416975777793

That is one very impressive combination of panning and commentary.

GV27

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#2512580 26-Jun-2020 08:34

dejadeadnz:

Now I don't for one moment believe that National would have done better; nor do I think that their usual boring playbook will be suitable for handling the post-COVID social and economic crises. But this doesn't require me to believe that Ardern is amazing when there are many indications that her leadership is increasingly failing.

I think it's very easy to be amazing when you're not expected to live up to your own hype. The Government's track record on core Labour home-ground policies like housing, transport and benefit reform is pretty abysmal, by anyone's standards. I've seen Muller getting more scrutiny for his stupid hat than has been given to some of the comments made by Ardern or Robertson around the Covid19 response (hard and early, the commercial rent relief that wasn't, etc).

It's hard for me to accept it as a somehow preferential situation to what we had previously, which was dithering and ignoring (probably until English got his feet under the desk and social issues became more of a priority). It seems like people are happy to trade one brand of inaction and inattentive government for another, provided it's coming from a party they like as opposed to one they don't, but they'll fiercely insist that it's overwhelming better in almost every single way somehow.

Until Covid19, Ardern was going to have to defend a track record of getting almost nothing done that they promised in 2017. I'm not convinced National's talent pool runs any deeper than Labour's at the moment, but if Muller can make the campaign about broken promises and incompetent ministers then he has a real chance at getting National over the line.

Fred99

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#2512619 26-Jun-2020 09:31

dejadeadnz:

Another thing that Ardern must face scrutiny for is the intellectual dishonesty and mendacity behind some of her publicly expressed views/nonsense. This includes (but not limited) to crap like the women who came back from overseas in March who hopped onto a domestic flight and also presented herself at a GP clinic in Westgate whilst displaying symptoms (and then later confirmed as having one of the first cases of COVID in NZ) as having done nothing wrong; same thing for those two dumb tarts arriving from the UK who went driving to Wellington with one displaying symptoms etc. The theory is that she's being kind. Equally plausible is the view that it's just an attempt at shutting down debate/scrutiny of the contribution of the bureaucrats/the governments' failure in leading to these people becoming a public health threat.

I don't agree with this. People shouldn't be subjected to "trial by media" for being dumb / doing dumb things.

The cock-ups were with policy / implementation / interpretation - gaping holes that allowed people to do stupid things. The policies should have been watertight, factoring in what the stupidest "least compliant" people might do to - and eliminating that risk. With slack policies / poor implementation, then what happened was inevitable. If everybody could be guaranteed to voluntarily abide by rules, then there'd be no problem allowing people to own machine guns or play with plutonium.

Ardern was clearly very very angry - as she should have been - and action to eliminate risk was immediate.

Media should have been a bit more critical and objective - they got hijacked by all kinds of crazy things - opposition politicians inventing - or passing on invented stories - about "homeless man having free holiday in quarantine resort hotel" - they never fact-checked the story, never adequately retracted / apologised.

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Rikkitic

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#2512731 26-Jun-2020 11:16

dejadeadnz:

That's cool but it doesn't do much for the prospects of any meaningful discussion, unless we are just here to "debate" who's a fan of whom. And that's really a bit puerile. Objectively speaking, the western world's political leadership has been startlingly poor during this crisis -- basically many "leaders" just decided that they don't give a crap about science. However, what was required and what needed to be done was in fact fairly obvious and getting that done should not per se elevate someone's leadership to borderline sainthood level. Compared with, say, the performance of the President of Taiwan, who faced difficulties like massive exclusions from international health management frameworks, extremely close geographical distance from Wuhan, and very close trade links with China, but nonetheless managed to keep her country's cases incredibly low by taking extremely early and decisive steps that are well in advance of what NZ managed, Ardern is behind. This is a fact and the ongoing pretense that NZ is world-leading by many in the Ardern fan club is tiresome.

Another thing that Ardern must face scrutiny for is the intellectual dishonesty and mendacity behind some of her publicly expressed views/nonsense. This includes (but not limited) to crap like the women who came back from overseas in March who hopped onto a domestic flight and also presented herself at a GP clinic in Westgate whilst displaying symptoms (and then later confirmed as having one of the first cases of COVID in NZ) as having done nothing wrong; same thing for those two dumb tarts arriving from the UK who went driving to Wellington with one displaying symptoms etc. The theory is that she's being kind. Equally plausible is the view that it's just an attempt at shutting down debate/scrutiny of the contribution of the bureaucrats/the governments' failure in leading to these people becoming a public health threat.

Now I don't for one moment believe that National would have done better; nor do I think that their usual boring playbook will be suitable for handling the post-COVID social and economic crises. But this doesn't require me to believe that Ardern is amazing when there are many indications that her leadership is increasingly failing.

New Zealand does not have an executive president (unlike America, and you can see where that got them). Our Prime Minister does not have absolute powers. She has to work within the limits imposed on her by our MMP system of government and her party’s own internal procedures. That is not an excuse but it is an explanation.

What is puerile is calling people ‘dumb tarts’ and other derogatory names and making sometimes quite nasty personal comments about those who disagree with you on these forums. It is possible to say someone is wrong about something and that you disagree with them without also adding pointless gratuitous observations on their intelligence, judgment, lack of legal training, character, and whatever else you can think of to slander them with. Maybe that makes you feel superior, but it doesn’t add to ‘the prospects of any meaningful discussion’.

Sure, some of the media commentary on Jacinda Ardern is over the top, but so what? Most media commentary is not to be taken seriously anyway. People are quick to forget things but she is rightly revered for her outstanding leadership during the Christchurch shootings. That alone is enough to make me a fan.

She has also done extremely well in the current crisis, despite some failings and much recent criticism from certain quarters. As I have mentioned previously, I am in the extra vulnerable category for Covid 19. If I get it, I will likely suffer a very unpleasant death. Thanks to the very effective measures undertaken by this government, I can go into town and do my shopping and visit friends and engage in other normal activities without the fear that I am risking my life by doing so. I am very grateful for that.

I do not think Jacinda Ardern is a saint, above all criticism, but I do think she is an exceptional leader and I am definitely a fan. Bill English is a decent man and would not have handled Christchurch badly, but he could never have achieved the healing and international credibility that Jacinda Ardern did. Simon Bridges doesn’t come close to either of them and I shudder to think where we would be today if he had been PM when Covid 19 hit our shores.

I believe Jacinda Ardern will be looked back on as an outstanding figure of the 21st century. As you say, most world leaders have responded poorly to the pandemic. A few have done much better. Jacinda Ardern certainly belongs with those few. What other leader anywhere, maybe at any time, has thought to ask her people just to be ‘kind’? No-one is requiring you to find her amazing. But I do and I am happy to say so.

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GV27

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#2512752 26-Jun-2020 11:32

I guess I'd feel more charitable about the PM as a leader if it didn't seem so much of her mythos was centered around disaster responses - at some point, the actual day to day business of government, implementation of policy, fulfillment of campaign promises has to be carried out. Leadership is so much more than having a soundbite during a national disaster, or a compassionate word.

Those things are important, but they're not a substitute for execution and accountability. A good leader does some of these things but a great leader does all of them. IMO we're yet to see that from Ardern.

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#2512873 26-Jun-2020 14:07

Rikkitic:

I believe Jacinda Ardern will be looked back on as an outstanding figure of the 21st century. As you say, most world leaders have responded poorly to the pandemic. A few have done much better. Jacinda Ardern certainly belongs with those few. What other leader anywhere, maybe at any time, has thought to ask her people just to be ‘kind’? No-one is requiring you to find her amazing. But I do and I am happy to say so.

I think that's a little over the top thinking of her as possibly outstanding over a century. Maybe a decade or so and then only in NZ. She has done a pretty good job whenever a crisis has arisen but as for the day to day stuff her government has performed poorly.

It's also relatively easy running a country of 5 million people (way less than the population of New York or London) on islands miles from anywhere. I don't believe she would have been seen to have performed as well if she was, for example, the UK Prime Minister dealing with the virus.

Despite the fact she has grown in to the job she is still a lightweight.

Rikkitic

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#2512908 26-Jun-2020 14:30

SJB:

Despite the fact she has grown in to the job she is still a lightweight.

Her run isn't over yet.

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