National MP Chris Bishop has called the outing in Parliament that he advocated for the early quarantine release of the two women who later tested positive for Covid-19 "a desperate smear from an incompetent Government"
"On June 12, I was contacted by two women at the Novotel Hotel in Auckland via email," The MP for Hutt South said.
"They asked for help in having the Ministry of Health urgently assess their application for compassionate consideration to visit their very sick mother," Mr Bishop said.
He forwarded the email to the elected officials' email address and the ministerial exemptions address at the Ministry of Health "and asked for the case to be looked at as soon as possible".
"Obviously I did this on the basis that testing would occur and the rules would be followed."
His comments came after Education Minister Chris Hipkins asked in Parliament today if the two women were released "following personal representations advocating their early release from quarantine by National MP Chris Bishop?"
Health Minister David Clark said he was aware of that.
"There have been representations made for compassionate leave from Members of Parliament, I think we have to be very careful because these are sensitive matters," he added.
National's health spokesperson Michael Woodhouse said that "Mr Bishop's advocacy for those people did not infer that an unsafe process should be followed".
Mr Bishop said the pair should have been tested three days after they arrived in the country from the UK via Australia.
"They weren’t. They should have been tested before being released. They weren’t.
"This is a desperate smear from an incompetent Government keen to hide its own failings at the border."
The issues around the two Covid-19 cases saw Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield apologise for the breakdown in New Zealand's isolation protocol after two women tested positive after being released early and travel by car to Wellington.
While it was initially believed the pair did not have contact with anyone, officials revealed last night that they had contact with friends.
Testing did not occur until the pair reached Wellington.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had said it is an "unacceptable failure" of the system and has brought in the military to oversee isolation and quarantine.
Asked if the public's trust in the Government's response had been damaged, Ms Ardern today said Dr Bloomfield had also acknowledged "what we have seen in the last two days absolutely has upset the public, and rightly so".
"Everyone acknowledges that."
When asked if she would apologise, Ms Ardern said that she felt "huge remorse that this has happened".
"But I am making sure that we are fixing the system. If I had any personal responsibility for what happened here, of course I’d take that. But my job is to lead, I wear that and I keep going."
She said Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters’ pledge to find who was response was not appropriate.
"This has been a failure of the system, I’m not interested in going down into individuals and finding out exactly who. We do need to know what happened so we can fix it, but that has to be our ultimate focus – not a witch hunt."
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