08/11/2021
Coronavirus and conspiratorial dog-whistles return to New Zealand:
Amid a new outbreak, New Zealand’s opposition is once again trying to leverage misinformation for political gain.
Yet, months-long efforts to discredit lockdown measures have almost certainly contributed to a partial fraying of public patience with the approach.
Prominent commentators and special interests are at it again, claiming it is time to abandon the country’s elimination strategy, instead “managing” the spread of COVID-19 into communities – just lock away the elderly and the infirm, the commentariat suggests.
Of course, those demanding such an approach belong to a particular class of people, one that can insulate itself from the viral rampage as it overwhelms a fragile health sector and devastates vulnerable communities.
In the same vein, conspiracy theories and misinformation have proliferated. Fringe groups claim that COVID-19 is a 5G-linked bioweapon and promise to oppose lockdown measures with demonstrations. To date, protests have drawn only a scattering of people, in contrast to the online noise such groups generate.
More alarming are the manoeuvrings of the centre-right, main opposition National Party, which recently attempted to leverage conspiracy and misinformation for political gain.
‘An interesting series of facts’:
The government and health officials have long warned that COVID-19 would return to the country; New Zealanders did not have to look far to see why. In the Australian state of Victoria, rule-breaking by workers from private security firms overseeing quarantines at two Melbourne hotels led to multiple outbreaks.
With a massive drop-off in testing – on July 19, merely eight tests in the community were processed – New Zealand’s health authorities were looking to boost surveillance testing to around 4,000 per day.
On August 11, the director-general of health, Ashley Bloomfield, received a much-publicised COVID-19 test, an attempt to offset any complacency or stigma surrounding the procedure. In the meantime, Ardern visited a mask-making factory, abandoning the government’s reticence towards encouraging the use of masks.
Later that day, testing discovered that COVID-19 had returned to the country.
The National Party called a press conference the following day, headed by party leader Judith Collins and her deputy, Gerry Brownlee.
Citing the Bloomfield test and Ardern’s visit to the mask factory, Brownlee stood smirking. “It’s interesting,” he said. “An interesting series of facts.”
The implication seemed to be that the government knew for some time that there was a COVID-19 outbreak and withheld this from the public.
In an environment of heightened fear and misinformation, Brownlee was dog-whistling to the emergent conspirational fringe – those who vow civil disobedience – while more generally attempting to undermine faith in the public health response.
The party quickly walked back the claims.
Brownlee told the broadcaster Newstalk ZB on August 14 that he had ended up in a “bad spot” and “didn’t intend to create any fear”.
“The way it has been presented has been unfortunate.”
That explanation is, of course, nonsense: on Tuesday, Brownlee reiterated his claims, again engaging in scaremongering and conspiracy-baiting in the hope of drawing a tiny number of fringe voters to his party.
There is something deeply unappealing about a grasping politician who puts the personal pursuit of power above public wellbeing.
