My fellow New Zealanders. Thank you for coming to the Government's announcement on whether or not to move out of lockdown. Let me be perfectly clear about this. We are and we aren't.
I am extending alert level 4 lockdown until next Monday. That's only two morebusiness days because you can't count Saturday, Sunday and Anzac Day, and when you think about it, Thursday's traditionally a bit of a blah day for work, and Friday's famously non-productive, so effectively we go into alert level 3 lockdown tomorrow.
The rules still apply. Stay home. Stay safe. Stay where you are or suffer the consequences. Wash your hands. Wash behind your ears. Wash out, there's someone behind you! Just jokes.
But let's move forward as a team of five million, and when we enter level three, I encourage everyone to buy local. Some people have pointed out it's going to be difficult to buy local if the extended lockdown forces many, many local businesses to close down but I'm not going to deal in hypotheticals.
SIMON BRIDGES
Aw yeah well so there you have it eh, the bloody old Government is extending the lockdown another week, and I'm here to immediately make my feelings known about that, but I'm struggling to find the words because I appear to have my foot stuck firmly in my mouth.
And that's why my first response to this important announcement is to say BLEEURGH.
No, hear me out. I'm trying to say that the medicine is worse than the doctor. Or is that the other way around? Not that I have anything against our health professionals. I wouldn't want to polarise them any more than I polarise everybody else.
Wait, I haven't finished. Let's look at the facts. The fact is that the Government is to blame for everything that's ever happened. And I'm hopping mad about that, and you'd hop too if you only had one foot on the ground.
DEBORAH RUSSELL
Oh dear, silly old Simon Bridges! How tone-deaf can you get? Goodness gracious! And, you know, it just goes to show, doesn't it, that anything a man does a woman can do twice as well, which is why I have both feet stuck in my big yapping mouth when I say that businesses which are having a hard time due to the lockdown only have themselves to blame.
Because, you know, I have to say it worries me that people went into small businesses without really understanding what it takes to run a business. If they can't cope with a small setback like a severe and catastrophic interruption to our daily lives then maybe they ought to be put-down by a tone-deaf government minister on the public purse.
I'm sure Willie Jackson agrees.
WILLIE JACKSON
I agree with my government colleague and furthermore BLEUURGH.
KRIS FAAFOI
I'm hearing whispers that the news media may have experienced a few problems due to the lockdown. Advertising is down a little bit, apparently. There might be some truth in that because no one has anything to advertise.
Well, that's a shame, but I'm sure the newspaper industry will find a way out. They always have such clever ideas! Apart from the NZME-Stuff merger. I just don't see the need.
In the meantime, I'd like to make things easier for state-owned enterprises TVNZ and RNZ.
PAULA BENNETT
Nah, there's no truth in the rumours that I'm staging a coup against Simon Bridges. No truth whatsoever. It's just crazy talk. But that's what happens in a lockdown. People say all sorts of crazy things. The stress gets to them, they say things they bitterly regret, and the time will come – later, not now – when they rue the day when they said them. But by then it'll be too late. Ya know? It won't make any difference when they finally take their foot out of their mouth.
