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NZ First leader Winston Peters lashed out at the government’s response to the coronavirus when he relaunched his election campaign this morning, saying Labor ministers could have done a better job fighting the virus.
Peters said New Zealand had not been the best in the world and could have done much better, particularly if his suggestion to quarantine newcomers on military bases had been followed, which would have made it difficult for them to infect the Auckland population.
Ross Giblin / Stuff
Winston Peters restarts his campaign in Upper Hutt.
“We could have done better with Covid-19. That’s a fact, ”Peters said in front of his field bus after a visit Wednesday morning to Upper Hutt’s Brewtown.
“You will never get anywhere if everyone thinks we have done the best job in the world. We haven’t done as well as we could have done. “
Ross Giblin / Stuff
Peters said the military should have gotten in earlier.
“If we could compare ourselves to Taiwan, we have not done as well as we could have done. We let our guard down. Too many things fell through the gaps, or rather, through the hole left by the bureaucracy. The fact is that the Ministers of Labor are the only ones in charge of all this ”.
Peters said “mistakes” were made and people should admit it.
“Don’t keep gilding the lily and saying that everything was fine. It wasn’t going well. The tests were not continuing, the surveillance was not continuing, the supervision and scrutiny that should have been carried out by the military were not happening. And no masks were used. “
Ross Giblin / Stuff
NZ First leader WInston Peters said Covid’s response could have been much better.
He suggested that the military should have been involved earlier and arrivals should have been quarantined at military bases away from large populations.
“If my ministers, if the defense minister had been involved, and we had put them in defense bases where they should have been, then they would not have had a chance to infect the largest population base in the country, namely Auckland. “
The Ministry of Health has indicated that managed isolation hotels should be close to large hospitals that are mainly located in urban areas.
Peters made his comments after a tour of Brewtown in Upper Hutt, a shopping center built from a former Dunlop factory.
He blamed the fourth Labor government, specifically Finance Minister Roger Douglas, for the fact that the factory had closed in the first place.
Ross Giblin / Stuff
NZ First leader Winston Peters logs into the Covid Tracer app during a visit to Brewtown in Upper Hutt as he relaunches his election campaign. Actually, it didn’t seem to scan the code.
Peters toured a brewery, a whiskey distillery, an ice rink, and a go-kart track.
He did not participate and noted that he rarely drank beer due to how heavy it was, but he liked an Asahi when he did.
Peters made sure to pull out his phone when he first saw a Covid-19 registration QR code, but did not appear to scan it with his phone.
Your field bus will now take a tour of the South Island, after crossing the Cook Strait on Wednesday.
Most political campaigns stopped after the Covid-19 community group emerged in Auckland.
Peters said he had no regrets about missing Parliament’s last day to return to the election campaign, and laughed at any suggestion that he might miss his last day in the chamber.
“I’ve had people make those kinds of comments my entire career. And I’ve seen them come and go, ”Peters said.
“I have fired nine prime ministers. I’ve seen so many leaders outside of whom it’s not worth talking about. “
His party has been languishing below the 5 percent threshold in recent polls, but Peters has called them inaccurate.
ACT leader David Seymour attacked Peters as “powerless” after the comments.
Peters today condemned his own government’s response to COVID-19. But he is one of the seven members of the COVID-19 Cabinet Committee and the Deputy Prime Minister, ”said Seymour.
“It is not surprising that his ideas have not been taken seriously within the Cabinet. Winston Peters is the man from yesterday. “
