David Parker is one of Labour's senior ministers - a cautious, entirely competent soul, most of the time. He's not one to overstate issues, he rarely gets excited and is pretty careful with how he expresses himself - except for last week.
Damn near perfect is how Parker described the Government's managed isolation and quarantine facilities at the border.
Oh dear... ouch... is there somewhere David Parker can hide when he gets here this morning?
David Parker's damn near perfect system, as exposed by Michael Morrah on Newshub last night, has another border worker dodging and weaving the system.
No fortnightly tests, no employer demanding the tests be taken, no record of the tests going to a Ministry of Health official so they could keep a record of who is tested and when.
And no one in Government bothered to ask some tough questions about whether it worked.
Their last test - last November.
Did the Ministry of Health keep a record? No.
No good. No way good enough.
Why should we just accept their word from now on? It could be dozens of workers - who really knows.
But hundreds of companies employ thousands of workers at the border and they each are responsible for the testing.
It's an honesty box system in the midst of a global pandemic and it's about as weak as a person's ability to lie to get around the system.
Robust? No. It's wafer-thin
A system so easy to cheat that's called damn near perfect by a senior Labour cabinet minister.
God help us all.
Duncan Garner hosts The AM Show.
