The Health Minister David Clark broke the lockdown rules he helped set and definitely had to know, by first taking a 20km drive to a beach near Dunedin and then going on a mountain bike ride (the government guidelines tell people not to go swimming or engage in activities like mountain biking where people could get lost or hurt and so need help from the health system). https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/clarke-offers-resign-after-trip-beach This is infuriating and I'm disgusted that politicians like him act so arrogantly that they think the rules don't apply to them. He has been demoted, and Jacinda Ardern said she would have sacked him outright except that she thought it would do more harm than good to replace a health minister in the middle of a pandemic (which seems reasonable).
In a sense, staying on as health minister is like the worst punishment he could get. The PM is damning him to a continued career of complete & utter ridicule, for the sake of continuity in health governance through the crisis. One must assume he's actually playing a good role behind the scenes because he sure as hell hasn't done anything useful that's public-facing.
If he had any honor, he'd seppuku his political career on the spot. But I guess the PM has told him that he doesn't get that privilege. While I would much prefer he got the sack (for optics as much as anything), not getting the sack is hardly being saved. God, wouldn't you wanna just disappear from public life for good?
Anyway, what an utter f**king idiot. Does this guy legit thinks he's better than the citizens who've been following the lockdown? Because not only is this pretty dumb, even for a politician, but it's insulting to the public & the rest of cabinet.
