Health Minister Chris Hipkins and acting director of public health Robyn Shearer revealed there are nine new Covid-19 cases in New Zealand with eleven people in hospital. Video / Pool
Opinion by Audrey Young
Audrey Young, Senior Political Correspondent at the New Zealand Herald based at Parliament, specialises in writing about politics and power.
Jacinda Ardern has had no shortage of things to be very angry, frustrated or disappointed about as New Zealand responds to Covid-19.
The Government has done its best to instil an expectation that mistakes are inevitable when there is no "playbook" for how to handle a pandemic.
But thelatest problem is among the big ones and Ardern, who was initially angry, has now properly apologised to the several thousand people who were alarmed or inconvenienced by it.
When the Government's official Covid website and the Ministry of Health website asks 700,000 people in South Auckland and West Auckland to get a Covid test, that's a problem.
The Government's aim last week was to conduct a testing blitz as Auckland was coming out of alert level 3 - 70,000 was the stated target of Health Minister Chris Hipkins and Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield in their joint press conference on August 25.
The way to do that was to test people even remotely linked to the Auckland August cluster, which began in South Auckland, and to the Mt Roskill church subset-cluster.
Hipkins said there would be aggressively targeted testing in South Auckland and contrary to the messaging of the past six months, they also talked about testing of asymptomatic people.
"My message to New Zealand is please play your part by getting a test," Hipkins said.
The Ministry of Health's health officials had worked out where they wanted to aggressively target within – namely in Manurewa, Glen Innes and Ranui, Hipkins said at the time.
Health Minister Chris Hipkins (left) and director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield talked last week about wanting a testing blitz. Photo / Mark Mitchell
But when the ministerial messaging came to be translated for the ministry's website the next day, the targeting elements had disappeared. The testing blitz and asymptomatic testing remained.
"If you're in South or West Auckland, or if you have greater risk of poor health outcomes if you were to get Covid-19, even if you don't have symptoms, please have test," the ministry's website said the next day.
It was not signed off by Bloomfield or the ministry's technical advisory group but by someone who thought they were conveying the essence of the messaging for the week.
They omitted the fact that the ministry was working out which asymptomatic people to target in its surveillance testing.
It was clear from that press conference that neither Hipkins nor Bloomfield was wanting everyone in South Auckland to be tested in the testing blitz or that would have made headlines a week ago.
But in one more step of refinement of the message by the all-of-Government group, that is what it became.
Cars queued on Sunday at the Massey community testing station. Photo / Alex Burton
The all-of-Government group is a unit within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet which runs the all-of-Government website. It provides advice on changes to alert levels, essential work, travel and testing.
It has used the services of the Kiwi digital whizzes at Topham Guerin to help with effective messages such as "stay home, save lives."
It is run by former Deputy State Services Commissioner John Ombler although he is on leave at present and the director of the Security Intelligence Service, Rebecca Kitteridge, is responsible for it at present.
Former Police Commissioner Mike Bush is part of it as is Air Commodore Darryn Webb who runs the managed isolation and quarantine facilities.
Its website has the logo "Unite against Covid-19."
SIS director Rebecca Kitteridge is currently the lead public sector chief executive overseeing the all-of-Government unit. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Like the Ministry of Health, it is staffed by public servants, not political advisers.
It is sensitive to accusations that it is in any way supporting the re-election of the Ardern Government.
The website picked up the Ministry of Health's messaging on the testing blitz and simplified it even further before pushing it out on its own.
"Important message: If you're in South or West Auckland, please have a test," is what it said and that was the message that angered Ardern when it was drawn to her attention on Sunday morning.
It led to several thousand people, including West Auckland-based National MPs Paula Bennett and Chris Penk, to queue for a test.
Neither of the messages on the two websites had been approved by their chief executives or respective ministers, each of whom may have recognised that the meaning of the message had been edited to distortion.
As Hipkins alluded to in his press conference today, the fact that the election is seven weeks away has led to a sensitivity about messages being approved by ministers.
It was not unusual for ministers to be consulted about whether the messaging matched with their messages from the Beehive podium.
The controversy last week over a clip of Ashley Bloomfield being used in a Jacinda Ardern video and promoted by the Labour Party may have heightened that sensitivity.
In the scheme of Covid mega-messes this year, it is among the least harmful because it was about more testing, not less.
The most dangerous failure was the lack of testing of high-risk staff working at the border.
That may not be proof that the current Auckland cluster was transmitted from someone working at border but it is the strongest likelihood.
But the message failure undermines trust and in that respect its damage may be the longest lasting.
