Mandatory testing is a red herring

Chris Hipkins is very good at deflection. He has said that the reason the Government didn’t test all front line workers earlier is because mandatory testing is a heavy handed approach.

This is a total red herring. It implies that the problem has been front line workers don’t want to be tested. This is far from the case. They are upset they are not being tested.

The issue isn’t mandatory testing, but regular testing. What the Government should have done is schedule a weekly test for every front line worker. They didn’t do this. They didn’t even do a single test for two thirds of the front line workers.

If 0.5% of the front line workers don’t want to be tested, then that’s not a big problem. We’d have 99.5% being tested weekly vs 65% not being tested at all under the current Government.

There is a strong public policy rationale to make testing mandatory for front line workers, but that isn’t the core problem here. The core problem is the Government was refusing to test front line workers who wanted to be tested. It wasn’t scheduling regular testing at all.

So don’t let mandatory testing distract you from the Government’s failures. The issue isn’t mandatory testing – it is arranging regular testing.