David Clark Resigns: Winners & Losers

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So David Clark resigns, the decision reeks of politics over capability but should help Labour move on.

WINNERS:

Labour – They’ve clearly had market research that shows every time David Clark appears on TV, most of the nation erupts with anger. Dumping him cauterizes that wound and helps re-establish a path towards majority Government for Labour.

Nigel Haworth’s Defamation Team – They will look at how and why David Clark was forced to resign and then compare that to Haworth resigning as President of the Labour Party because of a false rape complaint published by The Spinoff and propagated by Fairfax Feminist Journalists and be gleefully rubbing their hands in anticipation of sending their defamation claim the day after the 2020 election.

Ashley Bloomfield – Never before has a public servant managed to kill of their own Minister with such ease, David Clark is a lung, Ashley is the Covid Virus.

Tova O’Brien’s Gotcha School of Journalism – We have to remember that Tova is a disciple of the Patrick Gower school of Gotcha Journalism, and it was her Gotcha with Bloomfield pulling puppy dog eyes that helped seal Clark’s fate. The sleepy hobbits of muddle NuZilind love a public lynching and the Gotcha school of Journalism delivers every time.

LOSERS:

Jacinda – She should have sacked him when he did the bike ride, or when he threw Bloomfield under the bus, doing it now looks politically expedient and as such makes Jacinda look weaker.

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Chippy – Poor bugger now has State Services, Education AND Health.

Health – Because you have a Minister running so many other huge departments, he can’t have all his attention on Health and that matters during a pandemic.

David Clark – In the end he failed that most Kiwi of tests, taking responsibility for a team fuck up. No one expects perfection, but if you are the person attempting to put distance between yourself and the cock up, NZers fucking hate that!

National – They don’t have a whipping boy any longer.

 

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22 COMMENTS

  1. Clark resigning was a good and correct move. Tova O’Brien’s relentless crusade against him was successful. What a shame her “enemy” targets are always Labour.

    Clark’s crimes were not as bad as they were portrayed but his defence was. He never recovered and set himself up as a very soft target. Nobody mentioned his presentation at a hospital recently where he clearly hadn’t done his homework. He spouted off to media what great value the equipment was yet when predictably asked about the price tag he looked like a stunned mullet and admitted he didn’t know. That would be inept but forgivable for a minister with a spotless record but for a health minister under the spotlight in an unprecedented pandemic, it was unforgivable. He made Muller’s comments about empty chairs seem on point. Ardern has enough to deal with without taking even more heat for a minister who wasn’t improving at all and was a liability. That’s a euphemism of course for “distraction”.

  2. Plenty more targets out there – Twyford and Davis to name a couple. What I don’t understand is why he will stay in Parliament unless there is an ‘arrangement’ for him to come back as a junior minister sometime during the second term.

    • Frank the Tank,

      Clark has a career in politics ahead of him. Deserves to be demoted or encouraged to resign but not end his career. That aside, the last thing Labour needs in an election campaign is to start looking for a suitable last-minute replacement.

      • And you are correct Jacindafan Clark’s crimes were not as bad as they were portrayed. He did not physically assault a female, i.e. tug her ponytail etc, he did not train spies, drive over a protester and what ever did happen to Mike Sabin?

        So Frank the Tank just a little bit of perspective regarding Clark.

        • Actually he committed the greatest a politician can commit: arrogance to level of hubris.
          First he flipped the bird at the Govt directives, went biking and driving around when we all didn’t, like good little lemmings: “Fuck You All – I am special, I am a Minister!
          The popped back up on the scene and suggested: ‘Ashley fucked up so I am untouchable.”
          So Bert, just a little bit of perspective regarding Clark.

  3. It didn’t require any market research to discover that Clarke was not going down well with the public.
    I think Jacinda has handled the awkward situation as discreetly and as kindly as it could have been done.
    It does highlight the paucity of options that Chris Hipkins has to add it to his responsibilities though.
    Maybe Jacinda’s leadership will attract some talent to the labour candidates lineup.
    D J S

  4. There are far worse idiots in Labour like Phil Twyford and Iain Lees-Galloway. Hasn’t anybody noticed that since those two (Phil and Iain) have kept mum during Covid on their pro construction industry and pro immigration stances, Labour’s popularity has improved… so I don’t think David Clark is nearly as bad as most of the other MP’s in Labour from a public perception point of view… The fact he resigns also shows he has more character than some…

  5. He (Clarke) will stay in parliament because he has a mandate didn’t he win his Dunedin electorate unlike many others. Also this morning on the news Winstone was saying his appointed Ministers are good, actually no! they aren’t. Tracey Martin has allowed Oranga Tamariki to become a bloody circus. OT is run by a foreign bully appointed by the National party to make cultural changes and to reduce bureaucracy. Now this clearly hasn’t happened and why is that ? OT have at least 10 chief executives with no experience or qualifications in the area of child welfare or social work. And these Chief executives wages are sucking the life out of government organisations,while at the same time they are failing to deliver favourable outcomes. In fact OT under Moss are hurting the very people they are suppose to be helping and then blaming them.
    I suggest instead of picking on people like Clarke who has paid the ultimate price (namely due to peoples angst over the covid) start by looking in your own backyard and clean up your own shit cause its starting to stink.

  6. All good points Martyn.

    I would add that health is notoriously difficult to run thanks to Labour’s monumental historic own goal of installing a neo liberal model inclusive of contracting out, fractured DHB fiefdoms, and out of sight Admin bloat. The parallel private health sector cherry picks and undermines constantly behind the scenes, as the sight of National MPs running private hospitals or scuttling off back to them when it suits.

    In the end Mr Clark who is being defended by Labour loyalists, but really any Minister can dole out funds agreed to by Caucus. I thought he had bad instincts during the Nurses and Junior Doctors disputes, in the latter he seemed to accept the position of CEOs that the involvement of yellow union STONZ was a reason for not settling with the Doctors.

    Mr Clark received some nasty abuse on both the lumpen cowards forum–Facebook–spiteful types from the provinces, and bitchy urban counterparts on Twitter. But he was ultimately sacked for being a plonker at totally the wrong time. Plonkerism is a totally self inflicted condition. Jacinda should indeed have accepted his resignation first time around.

  7. Labour already have plenty of talent some of them just need to be given an opportunity. It’s all about opportunity in this world. And even though we in little NZ like to believe we have equal opportunity in our country, that is a load of bullshit. People can only gain experience when they are given a chance and are supported by good leadership and mentoring to guide them. National had some very inexperienced Ministers pull the benefit being one and look at all the damage she did to her own people. Yet she (pulla) still ended up as deputy of the nasty national party, mostly for doing there dirty work. And like the yukky person she is, she lapped it all up. She needs to remember we are a very small country.

  8. Saying that, David Clark placing the blame on poor Ashley Bloomfield while he stood behind, visibly tired and upset was an extremely low blow by the minister.

    • And Key’s defense for tugging on a ponytail was “it was just a bit of fun” was an abuse of power.

  9. He (Clarke) will stay in parliament because he has a mandate didn’t he win his Dunedin electorate unlike many others. Also this morning Winstone was saying his appointed Ministers are good actually no they aren’t. Tracey Martin has allowed Oranga Tamariki to become a bloody circus. OT is run by a foreign appointed bully and National appointed her to change the culture and to reduce bureacracy, now this hasn’t happened and why is that ? OT have at least 10 chief executives with no experience or qualifications in the area of children welfare, social work or tikanga. Now when NZers particularly non- Maori NZers gripe, bitch and moan and some even sink low enough to make ongoing racist comments about Maori neglecting their kids. Do these same people detest the huge amount of money going into running this organisation and are they aware where all the money is going and to who. The money is being siphoned at the top. We have a CEO on 500k and her 10 CE officers probably on at least 100 – 200k. I would like to know why aren’t there roles being reviewed given the recent reports highlighting there many inefficiencies and ineffectiveness. In my view this is wrong, particularly when they haven’t been doing their job. Far too much money is being used to pay big fat cats salaries when the bulk of the money should be going on service delivery. Now if Jacinda and her party really want to deliver transformational change this matter and many other government departments need to be sorted immediately. The department staff in our government organisations need to reflect and be more representative of the people they are trying to help. We cannot carry on with the same old shit. And we cannot keep saying this issue is complex, nor can we keep making excuses and say it will take years to implement and make the necessary changes. Change needs to happen now and it needs to start at the top.

  10. Winners and losers?

    The winners are the two women who were given compassionate leave, the invisible upmarket hotel homeless man and Michael Woodhouse. I realise they’ll have to go over countless hours of CCTV footage again to identify the invisible homelesss man so they can give him his reward.

  11. “Tova O’Brien’s Gotcha School of Journalism” – You have a great point there Martyn. She is such a vindicative person. She did the same against Simon Bridges also. So I think she is out to get anybody she can from both sides of the political spectrum.

  12. Poor David is a victim of the dreaded covid at least that is what we have been lead to believe.
    We need to change our stance on dealing with this dreaded disease. Firstly we have eliminated community transmission of the disease and lets pat ourselves on the back for this achievement. Now we are dealing with overseas transmission, this is NZers returning home from high risk countries like India, UK, USA etc. Now we need to accept the fact covid will arrive from overseas, there is no way we can stop this, it is inevitable. So we need to put measures in place to deal with it not getting back into our communities and spreading. We have already shown we can do this on a smaller scale. Soon we need to deal with it on a larger scale. And I believe we can do this. We have the expertise in our country we have proven this. To do this the main parties need to work together and stop trying to score brownie points, after all we are dealing with peoples lives and peoples anxieties. We are in unprecedented times we need to get moving and we need to keep NZers informed just as we did during the lock down.

  13. While a little sad to see Minister Clarke resign his position, and doubly hard in the spotlight, he deserved it.
    I had never heard of Dr Bloomfield prior to Covid19, but we sure know who he is now. I bet he is a lot more responsible for the 5 millions success that Jacinda is as he is the man with all the health knowledge and the PM leaned on him very hard I’d say. To have a jumped up twit like MP Clarke take a dump on him on national TV is humiliating one of NZ’s very best Professionals to save his own miserable skin, and it backfired. Well good
    f…..g job. Clarke is the very definition of idiot. Bloomfield on the other hand is a geniune nice humble kiwi who just happens to be a health expert. Simply no contest.

  14. What we need to know is;
    WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR IGNORING OUR ADVICE TO NZ HEALTH IN JANUARY 20TH WHEN WE AT CEAC BLEW THE WHISTLE ON THE CORONA VIRUS PANDEMIC, AND IT TOOK TWO MONTHS UNTIL MINISTRY OF HEALTH TOOK NOTICE??????

    YOU JUDGE HERE;
    https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2001/S00041/ceac-calls-for-ministry-of-health-to-be-cautious.htm

    CEAC calls for Ministry of Health to be cautious
    Monday, 20 January 2020, 2:31 am
    Press Release: Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre
    Monday 20th January 2020

    “CEAC calls for Ministry of Health to be cautious of mystery viral pneumonia spreading from China.”

    CEAC calls for Ministry of Health to be “cautious” of mystery viral pneumonia spreading from China, of a new ‘coronavirus’ that’s in the same family as SARS, MERS and the common cold, health officials said Friday; – https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/407631/new-wuhan-virus-cases-emerge-in-china-but-no-plans-for-screening-at-new-zealand-airports-yet

    (1) https://abcnews.go.com/Health/us-airports-screen-passengers-chinese-city-virus/story?id=68358416

    Since the US (CDC) “Center for Disease Control” has just placed Three airports in the United States under screening for this new global virus.

    According to the CDC they will screen passengers arriving from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of an outbreak of a new coronavirus that’s in the same family as SARS, MERS and the common cold, health officials said Friday.

    Quote; (1)

    US authorities have said they would start screening at three airports to detect travellers arriving via direct or connecting flights from Wuhan who may have symptoms of the new virus.
    In Asia, authorities in Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand have stepped up monitoring of passengers from Wuhan at airports. Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines say they have strengthened screening at all points of entry in response to the outbreak, as well.
    Japan screens all incoming travellers for high temperatures and started displaying notices at airports around the country asking passengers to come forward if they have travelled to Wuhan and have become sick.

    A report published by the London Imperial College’s MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis asserted there are likely “substantially more cases” of the new coronavirus than the 45 currently announced by Wuhan authorities.
    A summary of the report on the centre’s website says its baseline scenario estimates that there would be 1723 cases showing onset of related symptoms by 12 January. The full report was not available, however.

    Unquote;

    • NZ is a large transit point for Chinese visitors and immigrants,
    • So we are already effectively in harm’s way.
    • So we support the Otago University Health Department calling for NZ Ministry of Health to be wary of danger to the new virus that could threaten the health of NZ citizens as stated I n the report below.
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/407631/new-wuhan-virus-cases-emerge-in-china-but-no-plans-for-screening-at-new-zealand-airports-yet

    End.

  15. The fact that Clark has gone as a Minister is already yesterdays news. The issue now is what happens next. Yes Muller and the nats have lost one “whipping boy” but the loading up of Chris Hipkins with health as well as education state services and leader of house only serves to confirm Mullers statement of “17 empty chairs” in cabinet. Jacinda has confirmed that she has few competent, reliable, gun proof troopers to put on the front line. Hipkins and Megan Woods are “it”

  16. Some good points Bomber. I agree this departure makes Jacinda & Co. look weak. It’s a repeat of the Nigel Haworth fiasco except he’d done nothing wrong unless recognising someone is not credible who is later proved to be a liar, is an offence. Scapegoating Nigel was worse and in my comment at the time,I quoted Jacinda to show she led the posse. She is now reacting to pressure from Gnats and their media allies. Pathetic.

    Perhaps she read Chris Trotter’s blog but not the comments from his critics like Michelle. They pointed out the whole result of policy and practice on Covid-19 has been a big success which we should celebrate. Instead our govt is running scared under an avalanche of dirtytricks/political posturing. These need a counter attack. There is evidence to show some underhand moves. Even the way Woodhouse put making a political point before letting the authorities know those strange women were infected. Suspicions over how they escaped quarantine with Bishop’s help. Gnats are blaming Labour for a series of problems they have orchestrated.

    Following their demands gives out a message they are right. You need to get some backbone Jacinda, urgently.

  17. People in the US want him: People in the US Desperate to Hire David Clark
    On Twitter, readers [of NYT] noted that Clark might still be a better performer that their own politicians in the fight against Covid-19.

    “So you’re saying he’s available? Asking for America,” wrote one man, while another noted that at least Clark had “honour” for stepping down.

    “Wouldn’t it be great if Terrible Trump followed his example and did the same thing. OK, back to our nightmarish reality,” wrote another.

    “Can he come here n help us out?? We’re the worldwide leader in missed steps,” one desperate American noted.

    Maybe we could do a deal with them: They can have Clark if they take a whole swag of our media along as well? Eg Hosking and his wife, Soper and his, Duncan Garner maybe? And Damien Grant for sure. (Ah well, we can dream…)

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