The Buck Stops There

My friend Zane said it well, “[Health Minister David Clark] let the Team of 4,999,999 down.” Clearly Clark is not a team player; not only did he breach the rules of Level 4 no fewer than 3 times and was missing in action for much of lockdown, he now has the temerity to blame one of his lieutenants for the parlous state of our porous border—a lieutenant, incidentally,  who never went MIA when needed and as far as I know never breeched one of the lockdown conditions.

Clark said that Dr Bloomfield had accepted responsibility for the border situation and then implied that’s where the matter ends. It does not. It defies belief that Clark believes he has no responsibility in this matter. He may have no direct culpability (I’ll come back to that later) but is morally obligated to support his department and if that means uttering that famous saying “the buck stops here’ instead of his the buck stops there, so be it.

Clark’s actions and inactions make him in my view morally bankrupt and unacceptable as a minister or even as a member of parliament.

Now let’s turn to that other matter. Clark compounds his cowardly swipe at Dr Bloomfield and his own failure to shoulder any of the blame by then accusing our frontline people of not properly executing what he said were clear instructions from the Government.

Really, Clark?

Which instructions, Clark, about what you could or couldn’t do under Level Four were not clear to you when you went on your bike-riding jaunts? It seems to have been clear to the other 4,999,999 of us. Or was it simply that you did not properly execute them.

I don’t want to see anybody out of a job—there are enough of them already. But this minister has to step down. It’s overdue, we don’t need him, and we could do without his arrogance at this time—or at any time.

Oh, and one other message—for the Prime Minister—the buck doesn’t stop there (with Clark) either.