Ryan Bridge: What has Chris Hipkins got to hide over Covid?

Yesterday they wheeled out three excuses for not fronting up and answering questions about why they went so hard on lockdowns and mandates, which they then papered over with $66 billion in spending —second in the world only to the US— thereby helping fuel the inflation we're all now paying the price for taming.

First we heard they wouldn't attend the public hearing and give public evidence because they were worried about how the public might react - that some might use their videos to spread misinformation.

The Inquiry itself basically said this was nonsense because the public interest in them appearing outweighed the risk of some nutter altering their testimony video and sharing it on Facebook.

Then Hipkins fronted for a stand-up with another reason - I already answer these questions on a daily basis.

Which, again, makes no sense. If you were worried about videos being doctored of misinformation being spread, would it not apply as much to those comments in the media —which are of course videoed and published— as it would to video livestreamed from a public inquiry?

Then there's the excuses provided to Inquiry itself. They were worried about blowback from the public online, that it might turn into some sort of which hunt.

This is, perhaps, the most egregious and insulting one.

During the Covid years, they were more than happy to troll members of the public from the podium of truth.

They were more than happy to engage in a little witch-hunting of their own, be it Charlotte Bellis, the border crossers, the river of filth.

They used the media to hammer their opponents as conspiracy theorists, anointed many public enemy number ones while they were in control of the narrative.

And that's really what this is about.

Controlling the narrative. The wall-to-wall coverage and 1pm podium sermons cynically helped secure them an historic majority in 2020.

As the old saying goes, you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

These guys know they've been found out - most recently by that embarrassing Treasury report.

And now that they can't control the narrative, it looks like they're running for the hills.

Ryan Bridge is a New Zealand broadcaster who has worked on many current affairs television and radio shows. He currently hosts Newstalk ZB's Early Edition - where this article was sourced.