Select Committee closed down

Stuff reports:

Parliament’s health select committee has rebuffed a request from National Party health spokesman Dr Shane Reti to summon Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield to answer questions about the latest Covid-19 incursion.

Reti wrote to the committee’s chairwoman, Labour MP Louisa Wall, asking the group to reconvene to question Bloomfield about the response to the most recent outbreak.

But Wall rebuffed the request, saying she had consulted with other MPs from the coalition parties who decided against it.

“Following your request, I consulted with government colleagues on the committee and have established that there is not a majority in favour of requesting Dr Bloomfield to appear before the committee,” Wall said.

There’s been a major failure between the Government and Ministry of Health with regards to testing frontline staff, and the Government won’t allow the DG of Health to be questioned at a select committee about this.