Not Guilty: Clayton Consgrove

Andrea Vance at Stuff reports:

Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove has been forced to defend himself after calling an MP “Old Sooty” during a parliamentary debate.

He says the insult was aimed at Health Minister Tony Ryall.

However, his fellow politicians assumed the remark was directed at Samoan-born, Auckland-raised National MP Sam Lotu-Iiga, who had just addressed the House. …

Last night Mr Cosgrove said the row was “PC gone mad”. The comment was made while Parliament was in urgency last Thursday to pass Budget legislation.

“I’ve called Tony Ryall Sooty for years … Sooty and Sweep are glove puppets.

I’ve always thought of Mr Ryall as a glove puppet, he does what the Government wants. In no way was it directed at Sam. End of story. I think people need to get a life.”

He agreed it was “unfortunate” his remark was misinterpreted: “I understand what the term means if used in the way suggested.

“It is a concern.”

Mr Lotu-Iiga, the MP for Maungakiekie, said Mr Cosgrove approached him the next day.

“He said it wasn’t directed at me. I didn’t hear it at the time. If it was directed me, it’s a reflection on him.”

Mr Borrows said he was watching the debate on TV.

“Clayton followed Sam Lotu-Iiga and he was referring to him quite a bit.

“The camera was flicking back to him and in the last 30 seconds of his speech, he referred to `old Sooty over there’.

“I put it together in my head that he making a racist comment which brassed me off.”

 So did Clayton call Sam “Sooty”, or was he referring to Tony Ryall? My first thought was to check Hansard, to see if they have a record of Clayton ever using that term before.

In May 2009, he also used the term. He said:

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Exactly. What all of them have done—and old “Sooty” in the front row in the pink shirt ought to remember, because he—

I think it is fair to conlude that it probably was Tony Ryall wearing a pink shirt that day (Tony is well known for his colourful shirts and ties), so this supports Clayton’s contention that the remark was aimed at Tony.

So I have to go with the facts here and say that Clayton is not guilty of calling a Pacific Island MP “Sooty”.

But considering the term “Sooty” has a number of slang meanings, some of which are equally objectionable, maybe Mr Cosgrove might want to stop using the name alltogether when referring to any MP at all.