Nat MP blasts ‘desperate smear from incompetent Govt'
Two sisters with Covid-19 who were released from border facilities on compassionate grounds were allowed out after representations from Chris Bishop, the National MP for Hutt South.
Health Minister David Clark, asked in Parliament by Labour MP Chris Hipkins whether Bishop had raised the matter, Clark replied: “Yes I am aware of that”.
On Tuesday, it emerged the sisters, who later tested positive for the virus, were allowed to leave managed isolation in Auckland in order to travel to Wellington after their mother had died.
More than 300 close contacts of the pair have been identified and will be tested. The pair had flown from the UK.
Bishop told RNZ he believed he was only doing his job as an MP to help by forwarding an email from the women to authorities.
He said a mutual friend, whom he regards as an acquaintance he hasn’t seen in years, messaged him on Twitter about the women’s situation.
“I said [to the mutual friend] they should send me an email,” Bishop said.
“I was contacted on Friday night by the two women via email, when I saw the email on Saturday afternoon I forwarded it to the email address provided to MPs for that purpose, and asked the officials to look at it ‘expeditiously’. I think [that] was the language used.”
Afterwards, he said he emailed the women to let them know he had passed on their request, and their correspondence ended with the pair thanking him.
Bishop did not believe there was anything in his email that could be regarded as a personal appeal or open support for the women to be granted an exemption.
“These women should have been tested after three days. They weren’t. They should have been tested before being released. They weren’t.
“This is a desperate smear from an incompetent Government keen to hide its own failings at the border.”
National health spokesman Michael Woodhouse – who earlier revealed the women had been in contact with friends who had “kissed and hugged” them while helping them – said advocating for constituents was “what good MPs should do”.
“It never would have crossed Chris Bishop’s mind to ask officials to cut corners, which is what the inference to this scandalous slur is.”
He hadn’t seen the letter, but said Bishop should “not be implicated in officials failing to do their job”.
Woodhouse called Hipkins’ question “scandalous” and called it an “absolute outrage” to infer Bishop had asked for corners to be cut.
The women initially said they had not contacted anyone on their roadtrip. But it was revealed on Wednesday they came into contact with at least two friends who helped them after they became lost on the Auckland motorway.
Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield said it was a “fleeting interaction” and both those friends had been tested and were now in isolation.
He said one of the people who went to help the duo had put their “arm around them”, the only contact they had.
Compassionate leave for anyone in quarantine or managed isolation has since been suspended.
New Zealand now has 1507 confirmed and probable Covid-19 cases.