Author: Curwen Rolinson

Last night’s Reid Research poll – coming as it does upon the heel of last week’s Colmar Brunton and seeming to confirm the party’s down in the margin-of-error thickets of circa two percent – should be worrying for them.

Like many New Zealanders, I felt that the news coming through yesterday that some “science-disbelieving” Evangelical church had produced itself a sub-cluster of Covid-19 seemed a cold slap in the face.

On Friday, Singapore made an announcement – New Zealanders heading there would no longer be required to self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival. Instead, Kiwis will simply be given a Covid-19 test and assuming it’s negative, they’ll be allowed to go on their way. 

Over the next few days, you are going to see an escalating tide of “I think National should be part of the Government” as applies health decisions, because people “don’t want playing politics” with the crisis-response.

There are bad news cycles, there are poor news weeks lacking in cut-through – and then there’s whatever’s happening with the Opposition. Wherein they’ve transcended mere mediocrity to start showing their true colours in the most inadvertent and unintentional of ways, splashed across our headlines. 

Over the weekend, NZ First did something rather remarkable for a smaller party. They turned 27. 

1. Michael Woodhouse alleges Government has inadvertently housed the homeless 2. Government carries out full-scale investigation to determine whether they…

Phrased another way: I have no reason to doubt that Bloomfield et co, and even the hapless David Clark *genuinely* believed they were in possession of the facts. That procedures were being followed. That we *were* in possession of what we said we were, doing what we said we were doing, things working basically as they almost ideally should.

I am slightly surprised that Todd Muller’s big speech as leader of the National Party, is summed up by the Herald as:

So for the past day or so, I’ve been watching developments in the Seattle “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone”. It’s kinda amazing.