Summarised by Centrist
Ryan Bridge of Newstalk ZB didn’t mince words about New Zealand’s Phase 1 COVID inquiry report, calling it “guilty, your honour.”
“Trust in our institutions is shot,” Bridge claims, pointing to a broken public discourse where opposing voices were drowned out. His critique paints a picture of a society polarised by lockdowns, mandates, and a “single podium of truth.”
He also condemned the government’s handling of Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ), describing it as “cruelty” for denying people the chance to say final goodbyes to loved ones.
However, he asks: “And is this all Labour’s fault? No. The bigger culprits, in my mind: media hype, social media pylons, and unwavering support for the party pushing that lockdown agenda. The problem was tunnel vision. It was arrogance, ignorance or both, and now we’re all paying a very hefty price tag for it.”
He goes on: “There was just one thing missing from yesterday. Any response from the four horsemen of the Apocalypse: Grant Robertson, Jacinda Ardern, Ashley Bloomfield, and Adrian Orr. Where were they? Grant’s on $800,000 at Otago University, Orr’s doing victory laps for cutting rates he hiked too high and then flooding the country with cash. And Adern, remember, she said her single biggest driver in politics was to fix child poverty, now living in New York…”
