Clark caught up in ‘movergate’
AND to think Tuesday started so well.
Dunedin North MP David Clark, out of his bubble in a way no member of the Opposition, or the media for that matter, could complain about, was back in Wellington and back at his job being Minister of Health.
Two parliamentary questions were responded to with little fuss, and the health section of the Annual Review debate was well handled; in fact, there was a bit of swagger in some of his answers and it almost looked like Dr Clark was enjoying himself.
A couple of hours later, though, and things all came crashing down, with the revelation that yet another eagleeyed Dunedin North constituent had seen their local representative out in his electorate when he should have been in lockdown.
As scandals go there was very little, in fact possibly nothing at all, to see here: Dr Clark had moved some items from his former house to his new residence, a couple of hundred metres away.
But given the roasting Dr Clark had undergone after revelations of his two unwarranted excursions during Alert Level 4, you would not have wanted to be in his shoes for any money when he had to ring the ninth floor of the Beehive and explain that yet another issue had come up.
In this case, all appears above board; possession date and moving day were confirmed before New Zealand had a Covid19 case and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was prepared to back Dr Clark at her press conference the following day — albeit with the caveat that her stance was ‘‘based on what I have been advised’’.
It was notable that the Opposition made no mention of ‘‘movergate’’ shortly afterwards at question time.
It was left to Dr Clark himself to raise his previous indiscretions; when asked by Whangarei MP Shane Reti if he stood by all his statements and actions regarding the coronavirus outbreak Dr Clark replied: ‘‘In their full context, yes, except for those actions taken in a personal capacity for which I have already apologised to New Zealanders.’’
Despite this answer leaving the way clear for Dr Reti to take a free swing at Dr Clark if he had wanted to, he and his National colleagues refrained from playing the man, instead taking on the ball — in this case the provision of personal protective equipment and the adequacy of quarantine provisions.
There are a few possible reasons for this; National might think the latest revelation was a storm in a cardboard box, National might be wary of hounding Dr Clark and encouraging public sympathy for him, or alternatively the Opposition might just like the devil they know as Health Minister rather than the devil they don’t.
National health spokesman Michael Woodhouse has been sparring with Dr Clark for two and ahalf years now — longer if you add in Dunedin North electorate campaigns.
He knows where his opponent is vulnerable and honed in on those weaknesses during his contributions in the Annual Review debate on Tuesday; screening programmes for acute diseases, Holidays Act provisions and health board deficits.
These were high enough last year, thanks partly to oneoff costs, but will be stratospheric this year — already
$340 million before the Covid19 crisis shredded all DHB chief executives’ budget projections.
‘‘The Health Committee heard in an annual review of financial ruin, parlous situations of just about every single health organisation in his stable,’’ Mr Woodhouse thundered.
Dr Clark ducked the issue of deficits but came out swinging on the Holidays Act, robustly challenging Mr Woodhouse’s assertion that the problem really lay at the feet of the previous Labour government.
‘‘We’ve accepted that that’s a problem we’ve inherited from the previous government and we think it’s right to make sure those workers are paid correctly, so that’s what we intend to do as a
Government.’’
Thanks to Dr Clark’s spending Alert Level 4 in Dunedin — and lest we forget all ministers bar Grant Robertson were staying at home — there has been a perception that Dr Clark has been sidelined from the fight against Covid19.
The ministerial diaries for March have just been released and show on the 23rd — the day it was announced New
Zealand would move to Alert Level 4 in two days — that Dr Clark was at a range of ministerial meetings in Parliament, including Cabinet, and met with directorgeneral of health Ashley Bloomfield twice.
In the following eight days, Dr Clark digitally attended five ministerial briefings, was part of six pregovernment press conference briefings, had three individual calls with Dr Bloomfield, spoke to DHB chairpersons, did various media interviews and fronted up before the epidemic response select committee.
These are only the diaried ministerial meetings; no doubt there were other Covid19 conversations too, given nobody was talking about anything else.
Whether that workload denotes being on the sidelines or at the heart of the matter, only insiders know for sure.
Southern solidarity
Mr Woodhouse put up a united front when grilling Immigration Minister Iain Lees Galloway in Wednesday’s continuation of the Annual Review debate.
‘‘I should also underpin this with conversations that I and my colleagues Jacqui Dean, Sarah Dowie, and Hamish Walker have been having with the mayors of the southern regions, from Waitaki to Invercargill, over the looming crisis particularly in the QueenstownLakes area, of the thousands of people who are now stuck,’’ he said, raising the plight of tourism, hospitality and agricultural workers seeing out Covid19 far from home and unsure of their legal status.
Keeping it clean
No dirty politics on Speaker Trevor Mallard’s watch, with him reminding MPs on Wednesday that there were bottles of disinfectant placed around the debating chamber and he expected them to be used by politicians using other member’s seats in their absence.
Sadly, the cameras did not capture whether Mr Lees Galloway obeyed this edict before swapping to Dr Clark’s seat.