OPINION: Bad news folks, it is back. You know the epidemic we thought we eliminated? Well here we are in the midst of the fight of our lives, and this filthy little disease pops up again.
Yep, dirty politics, black ops, underhand tactics, idiotic, foolish, cowardly and indefensible.
Imagine this, you've got COVID-19 so life sucks anyway and National gets ahold of the very personal, very private details of 18 patients and flicks them to the media. That is dumb, really dumb.
Where there is smoke, there is a fire called Michelle Boag, former National party president and true blue loyalist.
Her actions are shameful. She first got ahold of the information as the boss of the Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust (ARHT), a decent person would keep it tight, keep it quiet.
She inexplicably passed it on to disgraced National MP Hamish Walker.
What for? Why would you do such a thing? Boag throws her arms in the air and says she has no idea Walker would pass this information on.
Michelle, you're not that naive and we're not that stupid.
You wrote the rules of this dirty political game so don't act all innocent now that you have resigned from your post.
It's clear she gave it to Walker to embarrass this Government and show its privacy settings are poor. And they are but suddenly, and perhaps sadly, that is not the point anymore.
She had a chance to raise the important issue but she chose to play fast and loose with victims because sadly some people are just so focused on the Wellington beltway of politics. I've been in the middle of this before and it is a dark and dangerous place to live, trust me.
Walker's actions in passing the information on are indefensible.
National's leader Todd Muller is right to demote him, he's been strong on this and stripped him of his portfolios.
Muller said this morning that he no longer has confidence in Walker. That is a huge, huge setback for Walker and he should now consider a new career.
Duncan Garner the host of The AM Show.
