A guide for MPs to avoid questions
Steven Price has an extremely informative and hilarious guide on how MPs duck awkward questions. It has to be read in context so I won’t summarise it here, but he describes the various techniques as:
- The Headbutt (Winston Peters)
- The Flip (Annette King, Nick Smith)
- The Dodge (Lianne Dalziel, Bill Birch, Murray McCully, Helen Clark, Jenny Shipley)
- The Smother Tackle (Jenny Shipley)
- The Block (Jenny Shipley, Steve Maharey)
- The Attack (Helen Clark, Tony Ryall, Winston Peters)
- The Amazing Shipley One-Size Fits All Multi-purpose response
It is a great piece of work by Steven – I wish I could hear the audio version. And it should really be taught to all new journalists!
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Tags: Media, Steven Price
May 9th, 2008 at 11:32 am
You missed the Key
Smile inanely and agree with whatever the questioner asks you.
May 9th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Hilarious! Watched Helen on TV3 news last night. She was asked about Oz voters getting massive tax cuts within 6 months of Rud taking office, and yet NZ voters have had nine years of effective tax increases. When challenged about ‘How do you respond to NZers on this?’ she said something like ‘It’s good that Rudd is keeping his election promise’. That’s a 2, 3 and 5 all in one.
May 9th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Brilliant.
and MPs wonder why they are treated with contempt?
May 9th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Quick threadjack
Bloggers drinks today at The Cavalier Tavern , College Hill, Auckland, starting at 5ish.
Regular commenters invited too
Cheers
PS Check http://www.nominister.blogspot.com for details.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Brilliant This yet again exposes that fact that we have the toxic combination of journalists who are incompetent or in the pockets of the politicans
Its aint that hard to just keep repeating the question back to them after saying “thats not an answer to my question” and then after several tries say”You are refusing to give an appropriate and adequate answer to my question”
And if the pollie throws the toys and refuses to be interviewed and if every journo stuck to this script then we would very quickly find our employees coming to heel.
The alternative would be no publicity for them.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Newsflash:
Bob Clarkson not standing in Tauranga
May 9th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
There’s a “Bob the Builder” caption contest on Keeping Stock……..
May 9th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Brilliant.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Bill Clinton, who used all of the above techniques suberbly amazingly used honesty when asked about NZs nuclear free legislation.
He said:
If I answer that Im going to get into a whole lot of trouble( said with a big smile)
It helped that the US press corp didnt know the answer either.
and for the threadjack
Compare with Brashs I dont recall saying that ( ..gone by lunchtime)
May 9th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
I wonder what tactic Taito Philip Field will employ
http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2008/05/tpf-to-stand-trial.html
May 9th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Or Mike Williams, “I didnt say that”
May 9th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
That reminds me of Ronald Reagan who had difficulty hearing awkward questions. Being old he could get away with faulty hearing.
May 10th, 2008 at 2:50 am
‘The Ship’ was indeed a master at ‘the block’. With such impressive girth, there was no getting around her!
Hehehehe… fat…. hehehehehehehe…
May 10th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
you left out the ‘slippery-john talking out of both sides of his mouth..at the same time’.!’…response..
(skills as likely honed in the friendly/collegiate world of financial ‘trading’..
eh..?..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)