Look, it usually takes me a long-ish time to get riled up about something, especially when it is in the public domain…but this time it is personal.
On Saturday you see, I spent a long, tiring yet fruitful day giving my old R31 Skyline some love – with the expectation of a day out at Hampton Downs on Sunday at Mad Mike Whiddett’s first Drift Force day of the year.
Then, just as I was enjoying watching The Breakers basketball team putting in a textbook demolition job on the Adelaide 36ers on Prime my daughter Kate raced into the lounge demanding that I change the channel, because; “there’s going to be a big COVID-19 announcement on TV at 9.00pm.”
“Yeah, whatever,” I remember thinking. ‘As long as I get to go drifting tomorrow Jacinda can do what she likes.”
WRONG!!!
As the NZ Herald’s website reported later Saturday night (after Ardern and her Labour Party Cabinet’s hastily convened meeting earlier that afternoon) “Aucklanders are back in Level-3 restrictions for a full week and the rest of New Zealand is at level 2……after a 21-year-old MIT student – known as Case M – visited various public locations before testing positive. He then went to the gym when he should have been in isolation.”
Not surprisingly, his mother also has the virus (Case N) as now does a third member of the bugger’s family (Case O). What really ‘got my goat’ (aka ‘beggars’ belief’) however, is that despite finally feeling shit enough to decide he really did need a third test, old Case M went back to his gym afterwards for a final workout…
As one of my Facebook friends posted on Sunday; ‘They say you can’t fix stupid, turns out you can’t quarantine it either.’
While Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern admitted she was ‘angry’ with the way all members of both Papatoetoe families at the heart of what has become known as the Valentine’s Day cluster have behaved, it was the casual ignorance and what I can only describe as bordering-on-criminal negligence of old Case M-boy which really drew her ire.
For good reason. Because if he hadn’t wantonly gone out and done his own selfish thing, what……oh that’s right, Auckland’s iconic Ports of Auckland Round the Bays fun run, which this year was set to host over 34,000 entrants all keen to raise money for their respective charities, would have gone ahead first thing on Sunday morning.
Instead, it was one of the first major gatherings around the country either to be postponed, cancelled altogether, or must have its date rescheduled. Add to the list on Sunday was the second day of Sky Zhou’s 2012 MSC Drift Challenge at Genesis Massive drift park at Meremere, and both big motorsport meetings due to be held in the greater south Auckland area NEXT weekend; the Speed Works Events’ ‘National car meeting’ at Pukekohe Park Raceway, and the annual Motofest motorcycle one at Hampton Downs.
Mad Mike was still able to run his Drift Force day because Hampton Downs is nominally in the Waikato, but he had to do so without his usual contingent of Aucklanders.
Each a direct result of Ardern and her Cabinet’s decision to put Auckland back into full Level 3 Lockdown mode for 7 full days.
And all because old mate Case M and his Mum, Case N, decided that the rules were for the rest of us, not them.
Acknowledging the widespread anger and frustration the rest of us felt about the whole sorry situation Ardern said yesterday that “Plainly, everyone is paying the price,” and that “No one in Cabinet…thinks that this is tolerable. What has happened is a clear breach and everyone is frustrated by it.”
So far, so good. So, the PM is actually going to do something about it?
Ah, (in a word) No!
So – bar feeling like shit for several days, Cases M and N, are going to get away with… ‘facing the judgement of the entire nation.’
Seriously Jacinda, you are going to have to get out more.
Both these rogue operators have already proved that they either can’t read or comprehend the many messages produced by the Dept of Health’s ad agencies and they both either withheld key pieces of information (or lied) about their whereabouts until dept officials have been able to tease it out of them.
Yet PM Ardern reckons it is not the job of politicians to make decisions about prosecutions…
“People do dumb things but we’re not going to get through this if people pillory them to the point, they do not tell the truth….”
To which all I can say is tell that to some of the 23,000 people caught out in the ‘Police cordon’ on SH1 at Mercer trying to get back’ home’ to Auckland on Sunday.
It took a bloke I know who works at the Spring Hill Corrections Facility (Jail) just down the road from Hampton Downs 5 hours to get home to Pokeno (usually 20 mins max) thanks to that heavy-handed piece of Police PR.
And we all know who sets the cops’ agenda don’t we…that’s right, Jacinda and her Cabinet buddies…
Which is where my – admittedly short and at the time controversial – time as a Court Reporter on The Ensign newspaper in Gore has come in handy.
In theory everyone had to do a ‘turn’ as the paper’s Court Reporter and I was no different when I started work on my hometown newspaper in early 1983.
Fortunately, or unfortunately (depending on your perspective) my tenure on the reporter’s bench was mercifully short, something my colleagues put down to the way I quoted verbatim a defence lawyer explaining to long-serving local wig-wearer, Judge Anderson, that drinking then driving was an ‘occupational hazard’ of his hapless client’s job as ‘a leading local horse trainer.’
I knew better however, because after my very first day ‘on the bench’ Judge Anderson was on the blower to his ‘fellow Rotarian/Lode Order member, the Editor, suggesting that if I wanted a future in ‘his’ court I better not return the next day wearing the same denim jacket/skinny leather tie/ultra-pointy leather Pixie Boot combination……
I can’t remember what I did wear the next day bar the fact that it must have passed muster with the flinty eye of Judge Anderson because of my sartorial style in his courtroom nothing more was said.
The reason in fact I decided I was not cut out for a career as a court reporter had something to do with why I was there in the first place.
Which brings me neatly back to the Old Mate Case M and his Mum.
Back in the day local newspapers loved court day….and the job of court reporter was highly sought after. Why I couldn’t quite fathom until a chance conversation with the Chief Sub.
“The reason old Anderson didn’t want you wearing that precious bloody denim jacket of yours in ‘his’ court is that he thinks of the reporters as agents of the court and what you write and the way you write it as part of the sentence.”
“But, but, but…I remember spluttering, what about……” but he cut me off by simply saying……” the word that you are looking for is Opprobrium, look it up if you don’t believe me!”
And sure enough when I did (look it up) there it was. To whit.
Opprobrium
Noun
“Public disgrace arising from shameful conduct; an occasion or cause of reproach or disgrace; harsh criticism or censure.”
So, if PM Ardern is not going to ‘name & shame’ ole Case M, his bloody mother and any and everyone else personally responsible through their actions and/or omissions for Auckland’s latest return to Level 3 Lockdown it is time for the media to do the job for them.
Anyone got a phone number for Paddy Gower?
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