This situation at the border has now got to the point where the government is frankly taking the piss.  

Not only is it repeatedly allowing basic errors to occur time and time again, like allowing security guards to go work for five months without a Covid test, but the Government is also, and more egregiously, withholding information from us .

That is now no longer a debate.  It is a fact. The performance of Labour MPs in that health select committee yesterday put that on display.

It is very rare for Opposition MPs to get a chance to grill officials like the ones who run MIQ . But Labour MP Dr Liz Craig, the chair of that select committee, wasted valuable time asking patsy question - like requesting the “basic science” behind MIQ

Lady, if you don’t know the basic science one year in, what are you doing?  

After Ashley Bloomfield had talked about airborne transmission, and Megan Main talked about the ‘customer journey’, Liz appeared unhappy that they hadn’t used enough time up  - so she asked for a recap of the presentation they had just given.

That’s filibustering. It’s using up time to stop opposition MPs asking harder questions which is designed to prevent you and I finding out what is going on.

What they did manage to find out is that the security guard hadn’t been tested in five months  - that information was squeezed out under pressure.

This is how it consistently plays out. It’s only under pressure that we get a glimpse of the holes in the system.

If this guy hadn’t got sick with Covid after Easter, and had a bunch of journos and opposition MPs asking questions, we would probably still believe that all the border workers had been vaccinated and that all the border workers were being tested regularly.  

We have been given so much false information that it’s not got to the point where I actually do not believe what these ministers say.

When Chris Hipkins says 90 plus percent of border staff are getting tested regularly, I don’t know that I believe him.

When the Prime Minister says that a security guard has lied, I don’t know that I believe her.

My first reaction lately is to think ‘they are making that up’.

For that reason, I support the call for the opposition to be allowed to resurrect the Epidemic Response Select Committee that they ran during the lockdowns.  

They need to put fire under the feet of this lot, because clearly what we’re being told is not always the truth.