National leader Judith Collins is coming to the House this afternoon armed with, what she says is, evidence that the Prime Minister is "entirely wrong" about her managed isolation staff testing claims.
Speaking to media this morning, Collins said she had been contacted by a number of Covid-19 frontline staff with stories that disprove Jacinda Ardern's claims that staff were refusing to take Covid-19 tests.
This comes after both Ardern, and her Health Minister Chris Hipkins, said that one of the reasons why the testing of managed quarantine and isolation facility staff was so low, was because some staff were refusing to take the test.
But Collins claimed this morning that "they [staff] were, in fact, not offered tests".
Her claim was based on a conversation she had with "someone relatively senior" at the Jet Park hotel facility – the country's main Covid-19 positive quarantine zone.
"Even some people have contacted us to say that they asked for tests and were refused them because they were asymptomatic," Collins said.
"That is entirely different from what the Government have told us for the last two months."
The National leader plans to put this to Ardern in the House this afternoon, during question time.
If Ardern challenges the validity of her claims, Collins said the Prime Minister needed to then publicly release the "chain of communications" between the Ministry of Health officials and staff at Jet Park.
"I think when the Prime Minister has categorised it as a miscommunication, I would say that it's a complete failure," Collins said.
"I would have thought that a Government that takes health and safety even half-pie seriously would put the health and safety of their staff and their families at a very high level."
However, Collins might face an uphill battle credibility battle in trying to again challenge the Government on an issue using an anonymous source.
In June, Former National health spokesman Michael Woodhouse claimed that a well-placed source had told him that a homeless person was able to sneak into managed isolation at Auckland's Crown Plaza hotel.
He claimed that the man should not have been able to stay there because he had not returned from overseas.
That claim was investigated and denied by Ministry of Health officials – but Woodhouse stood by the claim.
But, through RNZ official information act (OIA) requests, it was revealed that the man in question had, in fact, come in from overseas.